Sight & Sound 2022

[dws1982]

I don't have strong feelings about Jeanne Dielman... one way or the other, but it's definitely an aggressive choice, for lack of better term. When you consider the basic film buffs who will use this as somewhat of an entry point into film, this list provides way more barriers to entry than, say, the 2002 list, which was something of an entry point for me. The director's list is easier to get in on the ground floor, although I will say that one comes with the big caveat of me really having cooled off on Kubrick in a major way, so 2001 as their enshrined greatest film is a bit silly to me.

I wonder if timelines were shifted a bit, if In the Mood for Love would fall off a bit. Five in my opinion, is an absurdly high placement (and I really like it, although I haven't watched it in quite awhile), but I wonder if Wong's recent behavior--changing the looks of his films substantially, changing aspect ratios in some cases, re-editing them in others--will hurt his reputation long term. (He's also not doing like Coppola, who has re-edited Apocalypse Now several times but not tried to hide the previous versions.) It's a recent development, coincided with the Criterion box set that came out last year, and it may be that it's only an issue with real purists, but I do kind of wonder if that, combined with his inability to commit to a project--he has bounced around from about five different things since The Grandmaster--might indicate that his reputation is in for a downturn in the years ahead.

The bigger conversation here is probably about how Criterion is absolutely the tastemaker in terms of the greatest of all time canon--they've released something like 60 of the top 100 on the critics list, and some, like Wanda were movies that no one would really know about or be talking about if Criterion hadn't put them out there. But there's also a downside: Sure, they can't release what they don't have rights to, and it's not financially viable to release some things (which is why most Polish cinema remains off limits in the US--the rights are very expensive for some reason), but they do make choices in which filmmakers they promote and which ones they don't.

[Mister Tee]

The placing of Chantal Akerman‘s 1975 film Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, which moved 36 places to the top of the list from 2012 has been roundly decried by Jordan Ruimy, Sasha Stone, Jeffrey Wells ...

Cause enough alone for jubilation.

As FDR said in a similar context, "I welcome their hatred".

[Eric]

The placing of Chantal Akerman‘s 1975 film Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, which moved 36 places to the top of the list from 2012 has been roundly decried by Jordan Ruimy, Sasha Stone, Jeffrey Wells ...

Cause enough alone for jubilation.

[Big Magilla]

(Please let me know if this is the right place for this post).

Moved from "other Oscar Discussions" to "Other Film Discussions".

The placing of Chantal Akerman‘s 1975 film Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, which moved 36 places to the top of the list from 2012 has been roundly decried by Jordan Ruimy, Sasha Stone, Jeffrey Wells and others. Wells' denunciation has 101 comments so far, most of them agreeing, whether they like the film or not, that its placement is pure tokenism to put a film by a female director at the top of the list.

Wells describes the film, after rewatching it in the wake of its listing, as "Three hours and 21 minutes of torpor, tedium and depression. Such a sad, suffocating and listless film. (Yes, that’s the point but c’mon.) It’s about a life of a prim and proper sex worker (Day of the Jackal’s Delphine Seyrig) that’s mainly about servitude and the renunciation of joy and the suppression of the spirit. A film about regimented motherhood and the raising of a dull, homely, tragically obedient son whose life is doomed to the same kind of repetition, the same dutiful stiflings and silences and submissions.

Seyrig is Spartacus in the kitchen — a sex-hating sex gladiator without a sword. A slave who endlessly prepares meals and adheres to regularity, regularity and more regularity. She never breaks out of Capua, so to speak, and we never see her having sex except at the very end, and in an odd, ugly and curious way at that. But we do see her prepare many dinners."

Its placement will likely get many others to watch it, but probably few, if any, to agree with its placement. Where will it be ten years from now on the next list?

[Sabin]

(Please let me know if this is the right place for this post)

New Sight & Sound poll came out. We have a new best film of all time: Jeanne Dielman

https://www.indiewire.com/2022/12/sight ... 234786615/

1. “Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles” (Chantal Akerman, 1975)
2. “Vertigo” (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
3. “Citizen Kane” (Orson Welles, 1941)
4. “Tokyo Story” (Ozu Yasujiro, 1953)
5. “In the Mood for Love, Wong Kar-wai, 2001)
6. “2001: A Space Odyssey” (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
7. “Beau travail” (Claire Denis, 1998)
8. “Mulholland Dr.” (David Lynch, 2001)
9. “Man with a Movie Camera” (Dziga Vertov, 1929)
10. “Singin’ in the Rain” (Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, 1951)
11. “Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans” (F.W. Murnau, 1927)
12. “The Godfather” (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
13. “La Règle du Jeu” (Jean Renoir, 1939)
14. “Cléo from 5 to 7” (Agnès Varda, 1962)
15. “The Searchers” (John Ford, 1956)
16. “Meshes of the Afternoon” (Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid, 1943)
17. “Close-Up” (Abbas Kiarostami, 1989)
18. “Persona” (Ingmar Bergman, 1966)
19. “Apocalypse Now” (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
20. “Seven Samurai” (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
21. (TIE) “The Passion of Joan of Arc” (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1927)
21. (TIE) “Late Spring” (Ozu Yasujiro, 1949)
23. “Playtime” (Jacques Tati, 1967)
24. “Do the Right Thing” (Spike Lee, 1989)
25. (TIE) “Au Hasard Balthazar” (Robert Bresson, 1966)
25. (TIE) The Night of the Hunter” (Charles Laughton, 1955)
27. “Shoah” (Claude Lanzmann, 1985)
28. “Daisies” (Věra Chytilová, 1966)
29. “Taxi Driver” (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
30. “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” (Céline Sciamma, 2019)
31. (TIE) “Mirror” (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1975)
31. (TIE) “8½” (Federico Fellini, 1963)
31. (TIE) “Psycho” (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
34. “L’Atalante” (Jean Vigo, 1934)
35. “Pather Panchali” (Satyajit Ray, 1955)
36. (TIE) “City Lights” (Charlie Chaplin, 1931)
36. (TIE) “M” (Fritz Lang, 1931)
38. (TIE) “À bout de souffle” (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960)
38. (TIE) “Some Like It Hot” (Billy Wilder, 1959)
38. (TIE) “Rear Window” (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)
41. (TIE) “Bicycle Thieves” (Vittorio De Sica, 1948)
41. (TIE) “Rashomon” (Akira Kurosawa, 1950)
43. (TIE) “Stalker” (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
43. (TIE) “Killer of Sheep” (Charles Burnett, 1977)
45. (TIE) “North by Northwest” (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959)
45. (TIE) “The Battle of Algiers” (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966)
45. (TIE) “Barry Lyndon” (Stanley Kubrick, 1975)
48. (TIE) “Wanda” (Barbara Loden, 1970)
48. (TIE) “Ordet” (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1955)
50. (TIE) “The 400 Blows” (François Truffaut, 1959)
50. (TIE) “The Piano” (Jane Campion, 1992)
52. (TIE) “News from Home” (Chantal Akerman, 1976)
52. (TIE) “Fear Eats the Soul” (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1974)
54. (TIE) “The Apartment” (Billy Wilder, 1960)
54. (TIE) “Battleship Potemkin” (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925)
54. (TIE) “Sherlock Jr.” (Buster Keaton, 1924)
54. (TIE) “Le Mépris” (Jean-Luc Godard 1963)
54. (TIE) “Blade Runner” (Ridley Scott 1982)
59. “Sans soleil” (Chris Marker 1982)
60. (TIE) “Daughters of the Dust” (Julie Dash 1991)
60. (TIE) “La dolce vita” (Federico Fellini 1960)
60. (TIE) “Moonlight” (Barry Jenkins 2016)
63. (TIE) “Casablanca” (Michael Curtiz 1942)
63. (TIE) “GoodFellas” (Martin Scorsese 1990)
63. (TIE) “The Third Man” (Carol Reed 1949)
66. “Touki Bouki (Djibril Diop Mambéty 1973)
67. (TIE) “The Gleaners and I” (Agnès Varda 2000)
67. (TIE) “Metropolis” (Fritz Lang 1927)
67. (TIE) “Andrei Rublev” (Andrei Tarkovsky 1966)
67. (TIE) “The Red Shoes” (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger 1948)
67. (TIE) “La Jetée” (Chris Marker 1962)
72. (TIE) “My Neighbour Totoro” (Miyazaki Hayao 1988)
72. (TIE) “Journey to Italy” (Roberto Rossellini 1954)
72. (TIE) “L’avventura” (Michelangelo Antonioni 1960)
75. (TIE) “Imitation of Life” (Douglas Sirk 1959)
75. (TIE) “Sansho the Bailiff” (Mizoguchi Kenji 1954)
75. (TIE) “Spirited Away” (Miyazaki Hayao 2001)
78. (TIE) “A Brighter Summer Day” (Edward Yang 1991)
78. (TIE) “Sátántangó” (Béla Tarr 1994)
78. (TIE) “Céline and Julie Go Boating” (Jacques Rivette 1974)
78. (TIE) “Modern Times “(Charlie Chaplin 1936)
78. (TIE) “Sunset Blvd.” (Billy Wilder 1950)
78. (TIE) “A Matter of Life and Death” (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger 1946)
84. (TIE) “Blue Velvet” (David Lynch 1986)
84. (TIE) “Pierrot le fou” (Jean-Luc Godard 1965)
84. (TIE) “Histoire(s) du cinéma” (Jean-Luc Godard 1988-1998)
84. (TIE) “The Spirit of the Beehive” (Victor Erice, 1973)
88. (TIE) “The Shining” (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
88. (TIE) “Chungking Express” (Wong Kar Wai, 1994)
90. (TIE) “Madame de…” (Max Ophüls, 1953)
90. (TIE) “The Leopard” (Luchino Visconti, 1962)
90. (TIE) “Ugetsu” (Mizoguchi Kenji, 1953)
90. (TIE) “Parasite” (Bong Joon Ho, 2019)
90. (TIE) “Yi Yi” (Edward Yang, 1999)
95. (TIE) “A Man Escaped” (Robert Bresson, 1956)
95. (TIE) “The General” (Buster Keaton, 1926)
95. (TIE) “Once upon a Time in the West” (Sergio Leone, 1968)
95. (TIE) “Get Out” (Jordan Peele, 2017)
95. (TIE) “Black Girl” (Ousmane Sembène, 1965)
95. (TIE) “Tropical Malady” (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2004)


Director's List below:
https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/ ... s-all-time