Articles
Classics 101: Classics 101 vs. Sight & Sound
Every ten years, British Film Institute magazine Sight & Sound polls filmmakers and critics and compiles a list of “greatest films ever made”; it was this poll that installed Citizen Kane as the so-called greatest a few decades ago and then de-throned it in 2012, when it was replaced by Vertigo. Sight & Sound, asked what “greatest” means, responded, “We leave that open to your interpretation. You might choose the ten films you feel are most important to film history, or the ten that represent the aesthetic pinnacles of achievement, or indeed the ten films that have had the biggest impact on your own view of cinema.”
I don’t get a vote in these things (what’s up with THAT?!?) but if I did, these are the films I would vote for as the Ten Greatest Movies I‘ve Ever Seen. Naturally, limiting myself to only ten choices, I picked eleven, but one will always rate an asterisk and besides, I don’t like rules very much. Note that these are not necessarily my favorite films, although some of them are. I’m sure I’ll get to my eleven “Top Ten Favorite Films” list one of these months.
If a film was in the Sight & Sound 2012 top fifty list, I noted where it fell.
11. The Birth of a Nation (USA 1915, dir. D.W. Griffith) Everything cinematic that had gone before it was a prelude to this Civil War and Reconstruction film; it’s history written with lighting, as Woodrow Wilson reportedly said. As technically and artistically advanced as any film made before since, and the screen’s first epic. It also has rarely been topped for sheer action staging; during the battle sequences, everywhere you look you’ll find something interesting, left and right, foreground and background. Films today could take a great lesson from this. Unfortunately, this is my “asterisk” choice; it’s notorious for its racism, with the newly freed Blacks the despicable villains and the KKK the heroes. Watching the film, then, is a great lesson in a great many things.
10. The Last Laugh (Germany 1924, dir. F.W. Murnau) A haughty doorman (Emil Jannings) at a stately Berlin hotel is demoted to washroom attendant because he’s gotten too old for his job; his friends and family (and pride) react badly to his fall. A simple story simply told (there’s only one title card in the whole film; it introduces the epilog) but earnest and features phenomenal cinematography (by Karl Freund) including some of the earliest use of a moving camera tracking the characters and indeed almost becoming one of the characters itself.
9. Battleship Potemkin (Soviet Union 1925, dir. Sergei Eisenstein, S&S #10) I promise not ALL of these are going to be silent pictures. At least, I don’t THINK they will be. But like rock & roll musicians, the early pioneer filmmakers were the best, blazing trails for others to follow as best they could. Returning to the Black Sea after defeat in the war with Japan in 1905, the men of the Russian ship Potemkin mutiny when the captain threatens to have them shot over their grumbling about being fed rancid meat. Cruising into the port of Odessa, they're met with common people who are happy someone is standing up to the brutal Tsarist regime. In marches the brutal Tsarist regime, opening fire on the Odessa steps and killing scores of civilians. Battleships sail into port, guns trained on the Potemkin. Who will prevail, military discipline or the brotherhood of man?
The editing is still impressive to this day, and the film absolutely should be studied by anyone who wants to make a movie. It's also interesting, enjoyable, and at less than 70 minutes just zips by, not least of all because of the speed in which everything occurs. There are no individuals here, there are symbols and a movement and feelings. Even the sailor Vakulinchuk, who sets the mutiny in motion and whose death provokes the outrage of the citizens, is unknown to us beyond his name. Propaganda, yes, but a brilliant film.
8. Modern Times (USA 1936, dir. Charles Chaplin) Well, I wrote all about this one last month, one of the screen’s greatest feature comedies, from cinema’s all-time greatest filmmaker. Many people select The Gold Rush or City Lights as Chaplin’s best, but c’mon…this was made a decade after The Jazz Singer and has the audacity to be (mostly) silent, as well as comment on what technology was doing to the individual, PLUS it has a song, a dance, some roller skating, and lots and lots of belly laughs. A perfect film.
7. Tokyo Story (Japan, 1953, dir. Yasujiro Ozu, S&S #3) See, HERE’s a talkie. Of course, unless you understand, Japanese, you still have to read it, I suppose. Ah, well, watching famous films is supposed to be educational.
Ozu was one of the most interesting of all filmmakers; every shot is a work of art, and the depth and brilliance of his films come from small moments and throw-away touches and the characters themselves. In this film, an aged couple visit their children, who try to respect and love them but are more bothered by their presence and anxious to get rid of them. Alas, life is short, in an ending that is simple but rich and heartbreaking.
6. The Rules of the Game (France 1939, dir. Jean Renoir, S&S #4) Oh, hang on, we’ll get to some more American films sooner or later. This is a French comedy of manners about the differences and similarities of the French upper-crustians and the servant-kitchen types, and naturally today there isn’t much interest or appreciation in European class warfare of the Pre-War era, and for many years the film could only be seen in a highly truncated, garbled version (it was banned by both the Vichy government and the Free French for being “anti-French”). Still, it’s both a great realism film and a great satire and it’s also very funny, with a wealth of interesting, richly drawn characters.
5. Vertigo (USA 1958, dir. Alfred Hitchcock, S&S #1) Here it is, folks, the recently crowned Sight & Sound “Greatest Film of All Time”. Jimmy Stewart gets dizzy from heights, which leads to the death of his lady love. S’okay, he’s met a woman (Kim Novak) who looks so much like her that with a little makeup, some change of hair color and style, and some new clothes, she could be the dead woman’s double. That’s the plot, but this is actually a film about obsessive love and control. As with a few other films on this list, its greatness is probably only apparent with additional viewings to soak it all in.
4. Notorious (USA 1946, dir. Alfred Hitchcock) What can I do? Vertigo deserves its spot on this list, but I don’t think it’s Hitchcock’s best picture: I think THIS one is. A twisted love story with Cary Grant as an American agent who recruits Ingrid Bergman, daughter of a notorious war criminal, to sleep with the leader of a Nazi group in South America to find out what they’re up to. Problem is, Grant loves Bergman, but is disgusted at the job she’s doing, although he forced her to do it. See? I told you it was twisted!
3. The Passion of Joan of Arc (France 1928, dir. Carl Dreyer, S&S #9) I have rarely been so moved or touched by a film as I was viewing Dreyer's unforgettable masterpiece, as beautiful, powerful, and spiritual a film as I've ever seen. Based on the actual transcripts from 1431, the film shows us the bewildered country girl at 19, standing trial for heresy (much of France was occupied, and she was in the hands of British sympathizers). She is treated brutally, threatened, condemned to death, and burned at the stake. The story of her last days has many lessons for us today, about torture, misogyny, the false piousness of hypocrites, and the power of simple faith. Nearly the entire film is shot in extreme closeup, and Renee Falconetti's performance as Joan truly is, as Pauline Kael stated, maybe the greatest performance in screen history. Her expressiveness is amazing and uncannily realistic (and she wears no makeup); this was the stage actress' one and only film! Few films changed my life, but this is one of them.
2. Seven Samurai (Japan 1954, dir. Akira Kurosawa, S&S #17) In 16th century Japan, a small farming village at the mercy of a gang of bandits decides to hire ronin (masterless samurai) to protect them. Over the film's 3 1/2 hour running time, we meet the villagers, join their search for samurai who will take the job (for food but no pay or honor), see the defenses being built around the village, and then witness the battles between evil and what passes for good. The film's leisurely running time is a strength, not a weakness; you WILL be so engrossed in the characters and their stories that the film will seem too short.
If you haven't seen it, do NOT think that a 207 min. Japanese film has got to be dull or hard to sit through. This film has action and drama, put it also has some very funny scenes (The 'Let's test the samurai by hitting them on the head when they come through the door' bit is worthy of Laurel & Hardy) and by turns philosophical and profound and profane and...well, it's colossal entertainment. I am often asked what my all-time favorite film is, and this is what I often answer.
(RKO Palace Theater in Manhattan)
1. Citizen Kane (USA 1941, dir. Orson Welles, S&S #2) Yes, I still have it #1, mainly because I watch part of any other film and tell you whether it was made before or after Kane. It’s astonishing that Welles had carte blanche to make the film and made a masterpiece he never topped, and the narrative is simply dazzling - so many twists and turns and flashbacks and flash-forwards that Welles and co-writer Herman Mankiewicz begin it with a faux newsreel (created by RKO's actual newsreel department) to tell us how the story is going to go, so's we don't get lost. I also love the reporter on the track of 'Rosebud', who's shown off to the right, back to the audience, in nearly all his scenes... he IS us, the audience, piecing this thing together.
It is one of the miracles of cinema that in 1941 a first-time director; a cynical, hard-drinking writer; an innovative cinematographer, and a group of New York stage and radio actors were given the keys to a studio and total control, and made a masterpiece. Citizen Kane is more than a great movie; it is a gathering of all the lessons of the emerging era of sound, just as Birth of a Nation assembled everything learned at the summit of the silent era, and 2001 pointed the way beyond narrative. These peaks stand above all the others.- Roger Ebert
So here you are, a bucket list of great films to enjoy. I wasn’t sure where I‘d end up when I started this, but with five American and six foreign films, six talkies and five silents, it all seems fair to me (of course, there IS only one non-B&W film on the list, but that seems right to me, too).
Clifford Weimer is a writer and film historian in Sacramento, CA. He can usually be found lurking about the dark corners of a movie theatre at inthebalcony.com.
I don’t get a vote in these things (what’s up with THAT?!?) but if I did, these are the films I would vote for as the Ten Greatest Movies I‘ve Ever Seen. Naturally, limiting myself to only ten choices, I picked eleven, but one will always rate an asterisk and besides, I don’t like rules very much. Note that these are not necessarily my favorite films, although some of them are. I’m sure I’ll get to my eleven “Top Ten Favorite Films” list one of these months.
If a film was in the Sight & Sound 2012 top fifty list, I noted where it fell.
11. The Birth of a Nation (USA 1915, dir. D.W. Griffith) Everything cinematic that had gone before it was a prelude to this Civil War and Reconstruction film; it’s history written with lighting, as Woodrow Wilson reportedly said. As technically and artistically advanced as any film made before since, and the screen’s first epic. It also has rarely been topped for sheer action staging; during the battle sequences, everywhere you look you’ll find something interesting, left and right, foreground and background. Films today could take a great lesson from this. Unfortunately, this is my “asterisk” choice; it’s notorious for its racism, with the newly freed Blacks the despicable villains and the KKK the heroes. Watching the film, then, is a great lesson in a great many things.
10. The Last Laugh (Germany 1924, dir. F.W. Murnau) A haughty doorman (Emil Jannings) at a stately Berlin hotel is demoted to washroom attendant because he’s gotten too old for his job; his friends and family (and pride) react badly to his fall. A simple story simply told (there’s only one title card in the whole film; it introduces the epilog) but earnest and features phenomenal cinematography (by Karl Freund) including some of the earliest use of a moving camera tracking the characters and indeed almost becoming one of the characters itself.
9. Battleship Potemkin (Soviet Union 1925, dir. Sergei Eisenstein, S&S #10) I promise not ALL of these are going to be silent pictures. At least, I don’t THINK they will be. But like rock & roll musicians, the early pioneer filmmakers were the best, blazing trails for others to follow as best they could. Returning to the Black Sea after defeat in the war with Japan in 1905, the men of the Russian ship Potemkin mutiny when the captain threatens to have them shot over their grumbling about being fed rancid meat. Cruising into the port of Odessa, they're met with common people who are happy someone is standing up to the brutal Tsarist regime. In marches the brutal Tsarist regime, opening fire on the Odessa steps and killing scores of civilians. Battleships sail into port, guns trained on the Potemkin. Who will prevail, military discipline or the brotherhood of man?
The editing is still impressive to this day, and the film absolutely should be studied by anyone who wants to make a movie. It's also interesting, enjoyable, and at less than 70 minutes just zips by, not least of all because of the speed in which everything occurs. There are no individuals here, there are symbols and a movement and feelings. Even the sailor Vakulinchuk, who sets the mutiny in motion and whose death provokes the outrage of the citizens, is unknown to us beyond his name. Propaganda, yes, but a brilliant film.
8. Modern Times (USA 1936, dir. Charles Chaplin) Well, I wrote all about this one last month, one of the screen’s greatest feature comedies, from cinema’s all-time greatest filmmaker. Many people select The Gold Rush or City Lights as Chaplin’s best, but c’mon…this was made a decade after The Jazz Singer and has the audacity to be (mostly) silent, as well as comment on what technology was doing to the individual, PLUS it has a song, a dance, some roller skating, and lots and lots of belly laughs. A perfect film.
7. Tokyo Story (Japan, 1953, dir. Yasujiro Ozu, S&S #3) See, HERE’s a talkie. Of course, unless you understand, Japanese, you still have to read it, I suppose. Ah, well, watching famous films is supposed to be educational.
Ozu was one of the most interesting of all filmmakers; every shot is a work of art, and the depth and brilliance of his films come from small moments and throw-away touches and the characters themselves. In this film, an aged couple visit their children, who try to respect and love them but are more bothered by their presence and anxious to get rid of them. Alas, life is short, in an ending that is simple but rich and heartbreaking.
6. The Rules of the Game (France 1939, dir. Jean Renoir, S&S #4) Oh, hang on, we’ll get to some more American films sooner or later. This is a French comedy of manners about the differences and similarities of the French upper-crustians and the servant-kitchen types, and naturally today there isn’t much interest or appreciation in European class warfare of the Pre-War era, and for many years the film could only be seen in a highly truncated, garbled version (it was banned by both the Vichy government and the Free French for being “anti-French”). Still, it’s both a great realism film and a great satire and it’s also very funny, with a wealth of interesting, richly drawn characters.
5. Vertigo (USA 1958, dir. Alfred Hitchcock, S&S #1) Here it is, folks, the recently crowned Sight & Sound “Greatest Film of All Time”. Jimmy Stewart gets dizzy from heights, which leads to the death of his lady love. S’okay, he’s met a woman (Kim Novak) who looks so much like her that with a little makeup, some change of hair color and style, and some new clothes, she could be the dead woman’s double. That’s the plot, but this is actually a film about obsessive love and control. As with a few other films on this list, its greatness is probably only apparent with additional viewings to soak it all in.
4. Notorious (USA 1946, dir. Alfred Hitchcock) What can I do? Vertigo deserves its spot on this list, but I don’t think it’s Hitchcock’s best picture: I think THIS one is. A twisted love story with Cary Grant as an American agent who recruits Ingrid Bergman, daughter of a notorious war criminal, to sleep with the leader of a Nazi group in South America to find out what they’re up to. Problem is, Grant loves Bergman, but is disgusted at the job she’s doing, although he forced her to do it. See? I told you it was twisted!
3. The Passion of Joan of Arc (France 1928, dir. Carl Dreyer, S&S #9) I have rarely been so moved or touched by a film as I was viewing Dreyer's unforgettable masterpiece, as beautiful, powerful, and spiritual a film as I've ever seen. Based on the actual transcripts from 1431, the film shows us the bewildered country girl at 19, standing trial for heresy (much of France was occupied, and she was in the hands of British sympathizers). She is treated brutally, threatened, condemned to death, and burned at the stake. The story of her last days has many lessons for us today, about torture, misogyny, the false piousness of hypocrites, and the power of simple faith. Nearly the entire film is shot in extreme closeup, and Renee Falconetti's performance as Joan truly is, as Pauline Kael stated, maybe the greatest performance in screen history. Her expressiveness is amazing and uncannily realistic (and she wears no makeup); this was the stage actress' one and only film! Few films changed my life, but this is one of them.
2. Seven Samurai (Japan 1954, dir. Akira Kurosawa, S&S #17) In 16th century Japan, a small farming village at the mercy of a gang of bandits decides to hire ronin (masterless samurai) to protect them. Over the film's 3 1/2 hour running time, we meet the villagers, join their search for samurai who will take the job (for food but no pay or honor), see the defenses being built around the village, and then witness the battles between evil and what passes for good. The film's leisurely running time is a strength, not a weakness; you WILL be so engrossed in the characters and their stories that the film will seem too short.
If you haven't seen it, do NOT think that a 207 min. Japanese film has got to be dull or hard to sit through. This film has action and drama, put it also has some very funny scenes (The 'Let's test the samurai by hitting them on the head when they come through the door' bit is worthy of Laurel & Hardy) and by turns philosophical and profound and profane and...well, it's colossal entertainment. I am often asked what my all-time favorite film is, and this is what I often answer.
(RKO Palace Theater in Manhattan)
1. Citizen Kane (USA 1941, dir. Orson Welles, S&S #2) Yes, I still have it #1, mainly because I watch part of any other film and tell you whether it was made before or after Kane. It’s astonishing that Welles had carte blanche to make the film and made a masterpiece he never topped, and the narrative is simply dazzling - so many twists and turns and flashbacks and flash-forwards that Welles and co-writer Herman Mankiewicz begin it with a faux newsreel (created by RKO's actual newsreel department) to tell us how the story is going to go, so's we don't get lost. I also love the reporter on the track of 'Rosebud', who's shown off to the right, back to the audience, in nearly all his scenes... he IS us, the audience, piecing this thing together.
It is one of the miracles of cinema that in 1941 a first-time director; a cynical, hard-drinking writer; an innovative cinematographer, and a group of New York stage and radio actors were given the keys to a studio and total control, and made a masterpiece. Citizen Kane is more than a great movie; it is a gathering of all the lessons of the emerging era of sound, just as Birth of a Nation assembled everything learned at the summit of the silent era, and 2001 pointed the way beyond narrative. These peaks stand above all the others.- Roger Ebert
So here you are, a bucket list of great films to enjoy. I wasn’t sure where I‘d end up when I started this, but with five American and six foreign films, six talkies and five silents, it all seems fair to me (of course, there IS only one non-B&W film on the list, but that seems right to me, too).
Clifford Weimer is a writer and film historian in Sacramento, CA. He can usually be found lurking about the dark corners of a movie theatre at inthebalcony.com.