My (Imaginary) Sight & Sound Ballot

The big story in the cinephile world is obviously Sight & Sound magazine's once-a-decade poll on the greatest films of all time.  Since everybody's critiquing it and making their own suggestions, I figured I'd share my own list, if I was ever so lucky as to be asked for it.

I am an inveterate list-maker, so what follows does reflect some serious thought and many changes and revisions.  (I actually have a big list of greatest movies that I'm constantly updating--which is probably a weird thing to have, but if blogging has taught me anything, it's that I'm not alone in this practice.)  However, I freely admit that the extent of my knowledge and experience in the world of cinema is limited, probably (hopefully!) more limited than anyone who actually participated in the poll, so I make no claim that my list is better than the poll's results, nor anyone else's personal list.  There is, of course, no such thing as the "Greatest Movie Ever Made," so all lists such as this are merely games which help us discover/decide what aesthetic ideals we value.  

My list has no overarching ideals to it except my own response to the movies themselves.  I wouldn't describe the list as my "favorite" movies, because that word suggests to me those movies which I most enjoy watching again and again, but I have not tried to list those movies which are most "historically important" either.  These films are those which have impressed me most strongly with their aesthetic brilliance and emotional power; they have left me in awe and altered the way I see the world.  I present them here with no further detail or explanation; each film deserves volumes devoted to it, and I would need to write at least a post for every one or nothing at all, so I have opted for nothing at all.

So, as of September 2012, this is my list of the 10 Greatest Films of All Time:

1. Andrei Rublev (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966)
2. Sunrise (F.W. Murnau, 1927)
3. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
4. M (Fritz Lang, 1931)
5. The Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir, 1939)
6. It's a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946)
7. On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954)
8. The Godfather: Part II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
9. The Seventh Seal (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)
10. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, 2011)

OK, just two lines of explanation:  If I had to justify with one film the ability of cinema to present beauty and humanity in the face of the vast wasteland of vulgar, obscene, and commercial junk that we are so often swamped with, I would choose Sunrise.  If I had to justify film as an art form which can express the beauties and terrors of human existence on a level comparable to the other great arts--a film to mention in the same breath with Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, Hamlet, or the Sistine Chapel--I would choose Andrei Rublev.

And just because ten is too small a number, here are ten more films, in alphabetical order, which could on another day have made it into my Top 10:

2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
The General (Clyde Bruckman, Buster Keaton, 1926)
High Noon (Fred Zinneman, 1952)
Magnolia (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1999)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford, 1962)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928)
The Red Shoes (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, 1948)
The Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
Singin' in the Rain (Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly, 1952)
The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949)



(actually posted April 2015)

An Introduction to the Blog

"A film is a petrified fountain of thought."--Jean Cocteau

Starting a blog has the potential to seem narcissistic, or at least a waste of time. What could I say that is actually worth reading that a dozen other bloggers and professional writers don't already say ten times better than I can? The truth is, maybe nothing. But, hey, no one else has to read it. This blog is mostly for my own benefit, a place where I can practice writing and clear thinking, and if I'm lucky, share thoughts and ideas with others.

My inspiration for starting this blog, and the hope that it might be successful, comes largely from these two blog posts by Roger Ebert: The Golden Age of Movie Critics and The Blogs of My Blog. Ebert is, of course, a legend of film criticism, having been at it for over 40 years, and with his bestselling books and long-running TV show, At the Movies, probably the most recognizable movie critic in the world. Since his recent, debilitating battle with cancer, he has spent more and more time online, turning his site into one of the genuine must-read blogs of the web. I generally don't agree with his political views, but I find all his thoughts on film and pop culture fascinating, and he is definitely one of my heroes. In these two posts, Ebert gives an example of how democratic and supportive the blogosphere can be, singling out dozens of other blogs written by his readers and giving shout-outs to all the movie blogs that he reads. If all these people can start their own little websites just because they want to, and somehow end up attracting readers and generating real thought and conversation, why can't I?

So this blog will mostly be about movies, because that's what I want to write about at the moment. I love film as both entertainment and an art form, the greatest synthesis of technology, skill, and creative vision yet produced by modern man. If the mood strikes me, though, I may write something about books, comics, religion, or even politics. I'm making it up as I go along, so posts may seem kind of random, at least at first. I hope you enjoy.

In the interest of giving my qualifications, though--as well as providing myself with a record to see where I started from--I have provided below a rough list of the films I've seen and the films I haven't. This obviously isn't an attempt to name every movie I've ever seen, but rather a checklist for what I've seen in the Film Canon, arranged in an auteurist manner by country and director. Looking over this list, I feel I'm fairly well-(seen? read? watched?) in terms of breadth--at least considering my age and how long I've been at this--but my experience is pretty limited when it comes to depth. There are a multitude of movies I have yet to see--indeed, an endless number--and dozens of artists I have yet to experience. This limits me in what I may understand in terms of cinematic history and style, but it's also kind of wonderful. There is so much more to explore.