Somewhat OT-"Greatest Films" lists of the past
Matt Barry
I was watching John Ford's THE INFORMER (1935) the other day, and I
remembered having read that there was a time when this film was
considered the "greatest" American film of all time (before CITIZEN
KANE took that title on most film lists). I was struck by the fact
that THE INFORMER is barely even mentioned anymore, and it showed what
a change in taste there has been in the last 50 years or so of film
history.
This prompted me to check out the old Sight and sound poll lists,
which are the only even semi-dignified "film" lists worth reading
because they are chosen by knowledgable critics, not to sell more
videos.
Anyways, I was amazed at the changes over the years about what are
generally considered the "great" films.
The 1952 Sight and sound poll places DeSica's BICYCLE THIEVES in the
number one spot. By 1962, it had been moved to number 7. And by 1972,
it had disappeared altogether from the list. There was certainly a
trend in the early lists towards silent films, and foreign sound
films. Not a single Hollywood talkie appears on the 1952 list.
Another interesting thing about the 1952 list is that Chaplin's THE
GOLD RUSH and CITY LIGHTS tie for the number 2 spot. Neither of these
films would appear on any of the Sight and Sound lists again. What
could cause the reputation of these films to change that drastically
over the period of 10 years? Similarly, how did CITIZEN KANE go from
not being on the list at all in 1952, and then topping the list in
1962 (and every decade since then)?
The trend seems to have been that more and more Hollywood talkies are
making the list, and the number of foreign and silent films is
decreasing. VERTIGO, SINGIN' IN THE RAIN, THE SEARCHERS, THE
MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS, and, somewhat surprisingly, 2001: A SPACE
ODYSSEY have started to pop up more often on these lists. However, it
seems that SUNRISE replaced THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC as the critics'
silent film of choice.
Aside from the Sight and sound poll, what other examples are there of
the changing trends in "great" movies? I am obviously not talking
about movies that are made purely for entertainment, and that might be
highly popular when they come out, but then are quickly and deservedly
forgotten. I'm talking about a film like THE INFORMER, which isn't
even on home video right now, but was considered one of the greatest
films ever made near the time it was released.
As always, I think "greatest film" lists are jokes, and I'm definitely
not trying to create any lists here. I'm just referring to the
changing trends of the films selected on these lists over time.
Matt
David Manning
<bfc02ffc.03033...@posting.google.com>...
>
> Aside from the Sight and sound poll, what other examples are there of
> the changing trends in "great" movies? I am obviously not talking
> about movies that are made purely for entertainment, and that might be
> highly popular when they come out, but then are quickly and deservedly
> forgotten. I'm talking about a film like THE INFORMER, which isn't
> even on home video right now, but was considered one of the greatest
> films ever made near the time it was released.
>
David Shipman's book The Story of Cinema has a brief piece entitled
"Intermission" in which he discusses the issue. He quotes a few
magazine and newspaper polls but also a 1958 poll of 117 film
historians at the Brussels Film Festival which came up with this list:
1. Battleship Potemkin
2. The Gold Rush and Ladri di Biciclette (tie)
4. La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc
5. La Grande Illusion
6. Greed
7. Intolerance
8. Mother
9. Citizen Kane
10. Earth
11. Der Letzte Mann
12. Das Kabinet des Dr. Caligari
Shipman comments: "This list is as relevant as if a list of the best
plays in English was found to consist of pre-Shakespearean drama ..."
He also cites a list of the world's nine "greatest films" that critic
Richard Winnington compiled with Gavin Lambert and Lindsay Anderson:
The Childhood of Maxim Gorki, The Grapes of Wrath, Earth, Road to
Life, Zero for Conduct, Le Jour se Leve, Ladri di Biciclette, An
Italian Straw Hat and City Lights. No date is given for the list but
Winnington was dead by '53.
One interesting book worth reading is _Favorite Movies: Critics'
Choice_, edited by Philip Nobile (New York, Macmillan, 1973), in which
top critics are asked to write about their favorite film. Some supply
a list of faves, for context or because they can't limit themselves to
just one film, etc. It gives a pretty groovy idea of where their heads
were at, man, in the early '70s ...
And then there's always "What the Picture Did for Me" ...
Max Nineteennineteen
(After the National Board of Review thread.)
I tried to find ten best of all time lists prior to the first Sight &
Sound poll and didn't really come up with anything. At most there
would occasionally be a Variety piece in which industry folks mused
about the greatest films of all time, a list which tended to
correspond pretty well with giant box office hits of a certain
historical seriousness-- Birth of a Nation, The Big Parade, Cavalcade,
Gone With the Wind, etc. But not a proper top ten. (The most
frustrating experience was an article in Photoplay, circa 1922, in
which they reported a reader poll in which The Miracle Man came in
first, followed by The Kid and Broken Blossoms-- and that's ALL they
reported!)
Before the poll Shipman reports, but very similar to it, in 1952 the
Cinematheque Belgique asked 100 filmmakers from around the world for
their list. (You can see some of the lists if you find an old copy of
a book called Reel Facts; the most memorable is Cecil B. DeMille
including four of his own films in his top ten.) The list was:
1 Potemkin
2 The Gold Rush
3 The Bicycle Thief (that's Ladri di Biciclette if you don't know)
4 City Lights
Grand Illusion
Le Million
7 Greed
8 Hallelujah!
9 Brief Encounter
Intolerance
Man of Aran
The Threepenny Opera
13 The Passion of Joan of Arc
14 Children of Paradise
Foolish Wives
Storm Over Asia
17 L'Age d'Or
Birth of a Nation
The Devil in the Flesh (Autant-Lara, 1949)
Shortly after Sight & Sound posed the same question to critics-- and
got very nearly the same answers, especially if you allow a few
substitutions by the same filmmaker (ie Flaherty):
1 The Bicycle Thief
2 City Lights
The Gold Rush
4 Battleship Potemkin
5 Louisiana Story
Intolerance
7 Greed
Le Jour se Leve
The Passion of Joan of Arc
10 Brief Encounter
Le Million
The Rules of the Game
13 Citizen Kane
Grand Illusion
The Grapes of Wrath
16 The Childhood of Maxim Gorky
Monsieur Verdoux
Que Viva Mexico
19 Earth
Zero For Conduct
Gee, what's missing? Could it be... Hollywood? To me these lists are
a remarkable demonstration of how completely critical thinking had
convinced the world that the rest of the world made art and Hollywood
made entertainment (ie junk). The only American films are those by
iconoclasts abused by the studios (Stroheim, Griffith, Welles, the
recently-deported Chaplin) or outside it entirely (Flaherty). A
delightful French bit of froth (Le Million) can make the list, but its
American musical equivalent, Top Hat, would never-- only a
pseudo-ethnographic work like Hallelujah! Likewise, a French noir, Le
Jour se Leve, but never a Maltese Falcon or Double Indemnity. Soviet,
French and Italian realism-- that's what cinema art is, by definition.
I won't type in the subsequent Sight & Sound polls, because they're
findable online, but clearly one of the major stories that they
reflect is the rise (thanks to the French more than anybody) in esteem
of American cinema-- "commercial" American cinema. Not that many of
1952's films don't still show up-- Potemkin, Joan of Arc, Bicycle
Thief, Greed and others are still familiar sights on the lists. But
the Searchers, Vertigo, Singin' in the Rain, 2001, and The Godfather
have all popped into at least the top 20 in different years; it seems
safe to say that predicting a John Wayne western eventually on the
list back in 1952 would have gotten you laughed out of the film
society.
There are other interesting things to observe-- a slow slide by
Griffith and a precipitous fall off the list for Flaherty (surely the
filmmaker whose reputation has suffered the biggest fall of film's
first 100 years); the surprise ascendance of Keaton, and the
appearance of Japanese (and one Indian, Pather Panchali) films. But
Hollywood's rehabilitation is surely the most notable event chronicled
from decade to decade.
* * *
Now then: The Informer. Without a doubt The Informer had an exalted
place in American critical memory until perhaps 20 years ago. Part of
the reason is that The New York Film Critics Circle used it to send a
strong statement about their priorities in its very first awards
ceremony in 1935. Remember that at the end of the silent era, German
cinema had the kind of artistic prestige that British filmmaking does
now-- look at the first Oscars, with its top awards dominated by
Sunrise and Emil Jannings. Then sound came and to many critics,
Germanic art cinema vanished from Hollywood (they wouldn't have
lowered themselves to see it in the horror genre, which is really
where it went).
The Informer, with its Expressionist look, Jannings-like performance
by McLaglen, and obvious symbolism was exactly the throwback for a new
critics' group to hang their hat on, and the effusive critical
reaction even made enough of an impression on the Oscars for McLaglen
to win an Oscar (which, you must admit, is a pretty unlikely concept).
And so The Informer was certified by critics as one of the great
American films.
Now I'm going to quote something I posted a couple of years ago on how
another critical favorite enters this picture:
Throughout the 1930s there was a certain critical faction, especially
in New York, that felt that the art of the cinema died with the
arrival of
talkies-- that movies got visually dull, politically timid in dealing
with
the important issues of the time (remember that the whole debate about
whether Hollywood should make social problem/message movies like The
Grapes of Wrath would have just happened), that Hollywood had sold out
for
the buck, turned its back on geniuses like Griffith and Stroheim and
the
kind of cinematic art represented by German Expressionist classics
like
The Last Laugh and Sunrise. The capper on the whole decade would have
been the enormous hype for Gone With the Wind, a masterpiece of
middlebrow
sentiment that even the New York critics were cowed into tiptoeing
around. (Read the NY Times review, in which even their critic, future
Searchers screenwriter Frank Nugent, feels compelled to argue, rather
tentatively, why it might not be taken for granted that GWTW is
automatically the greatest movie ever made.) Once in a while these
critics had managed to make a certain noise about a movie they felt
met
their criteria, such as John Ford's The Informer, which was about as
good
an imitation of a German Expressionist silent picture as Hollywood
ever
made.
Along comes a New York theater figure, Welles, who makes a movie which
looks like The Informer (even using a cinematographer who had worked
with
Ford and apprenticed under the cinematographer of The Last Laugh), but
unlike the somewhat ponderously arty Informer has a much livelier
American-feeling pace that links it to the tradition of American
newspaper
comedy-dramas. Where cameras had been mostly parked at a two-shot
distance for ten years, Welles uses his like a silent filmmaker,
diving
through skylights and burrowing in for mammoth closeups. He plays
with
the medium by starting his movie with another movie, a newsreel, which
he
mocks brilliantly (and there were plenty of people in New York then
who
delighted in the mocking of the Time-Life empire). And he dares to
poke
its nose into the personal life of a still-feared and influential
figure,
Hearst, at a time when, say, Hollywood could make a movie about the
Dreyfus case 40 years before and still be too timid to say the word
"Jew."
So not surprisingly, the critics, thinking that most of humanity
thinks
Gone With the Wind is the best movie ever made, jump all over a movie
that
seems to have been made just for them and say, no, here's the greatest
movie ever made. As it happened, not that many people agreed with
them at
first, but starting some time in the 50s, when the film started to be
seen
again at 16mm film societies, its reputation spread and as a result,
where
it wasn't even mentioned on the first Sight & Sound International
Critics
Poll in 1952, it has placed #1 every ten years since (and probably
will
next year too).
Jim Beaver
"Max Nineteennineteen" <max...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:aa2a3f47.03033...@posting.google.com...
>
> The Informer, with its Expressionist look, Jannings-like performance
> by McLaglen, and obvious symbolism was exactly the throwback for a new
> critics' group to hang their hat on, and the effusive critical
> reaction even made enough of an impression on the Oscars for McLaglen
> to win an Oscar (which, you must admit, is a pretty unlikely concept).
It didn't hurt McLaglen's Oscar chances that ALL of his Best Actor fellow
nominees were from one film, MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY, which most certainly
delivered a split vote. That said, I think McLaglen's perfect in THE
INFORMER, given his woeful ability to be terrible in lots of things.
Great stuff you wrote here, btw.
Jim Beaver
Robert Miller
re-visited in this recent Boston Globe article:
http://www.boston.com/globe/magazine/2003/0323/coverstory_entire.htm
--Robert Miller
Matt Barry
Interesting article. Definitely a good point. It is ashame that the
idea of a "great" film has become so narrow. I am currently in college
and I can tell you there are alot of film students who have never seen
"Citizen Kane", "Bicycle Thieves", "The Grapes of Wrath", "The Gold
Rush" or "Grand Illusion". I'm not saying that one has to favor either
the "old" or the "new", obviously, but there has to be room on such a
list for both a "Pulp Fiction" or "Fight Club" *and* "The Informer" or
"Louisiana Story".
Matt
Matt Barry
> Man, this is Recycle Award-Related Stuff From My Book week at a.m.s.
> (After the National Board of Review thread.)
>
> I tried to find ten best of all time lists prior to the first Sight &
> Sound poll and didn't really come up with anything. At most there
> would occasionally be a Variety piece in which industry folks mused
> about the greatest films of all time, a list which tended to
> correspond pretty well with giant box office hits of a certain
> historical seriousness-- Birth of a Nation, The Big Parade, Cavalcade,
> Gone With the Wind, etc. But not a proper top ten. (The most
> frustrating experience was an article in Photoplay, circa 1922, in
> which they reported a reader poll in which The Miracle Man came in
> first, followed by The Kid and Broken Blossoms-- and that's ALL they
> reported!)
>
"popular" movies, at least at the time (they have come to be regarded
as masterpieces since then, certainly).
> Before the poll Shipman reports, but very similar to it, in 1952 the
> Cinematheque Belgique asked 100 filmmakers from around the world for
> their list. (You can see some of the lists if you find an old copy of
> a book called Reel Facts; the most memorable is Cecil B. DeMille
> including four of his own films in his top ten.) The list was:
>
> 1 Potemkin
> 2 The Gold Rush
> 3 The Bicycle Thief (that's Ladri di Biciclette if you don't know)
> 4 City Lights
> Grand Illusion
> Le Million
> 7 Greed
> 8 Hallelujah!
> 9 Brief Encounter
> Intolerance
> Man of Aran
> The Threepenny Opera
> 13 The Passion of Joan of Arc
> 14 Children of Paradise
> Foolish Wives
> Storm Over Asia
> 17 L'Age d'Or
> Birth of a Nation
> The Devil in the Flesh (Autant-Lara, 1949)
What surprises me is the number of films on this list I have to
confess never having seen. I am interested in the inclusion of Vidor's
HALLELUJAH over such other Vidor films as THE BIG PARADE, and most
importantly, THE CROWD.
Interesting that on both lists, Chaplin's THE GOLD RUSH comes in at
number 2. What specifically about this film impressed critics so much
at that time (the early 1950s)? I mean, yes it's a very funny comedy,
one of the greatest. But so is THE GENERAL. And MODERN TIMES for that
matter. Was there a certain element to the story that just really
struck a nerve with critics?
> I won't type in the subsequent Sight & Sound polls, because they're
> findable online, but clearly one of the major stories that they
> reflect is the rise (thanks to the French more than anybody) in esteem
> of American cinema-- "commercial" American cinema. Not that many of
> 1952's films don't still show up-- Potemkin, Joan of Arc, Bicycle
> Thief, Greed and others are still familiar sights on the lists. But
> the Searchers, Vertigo, Singin' in the Rain, 2001, and The Godfather
> have all popped into at least the top 20 in different years; it seems
> safe to say that predicting a John Wayne western eventually on the
> list back in 1952 would have gotten you laughed out of the film
> society.
Notice the shift from more personal, emotional films (BICYCLE THIEVES,
the Chaplin films) to big technically innovative films like 2001.
While I am glad to see certain Hollywood films (SINGIN' IN THE RAIN)
getting the critical recognition they deserve, I think it is
unfortunate that the Sight and Sound poll (the only such list I can
approach with credibility) is leaning *so* hard towards Hollywood
talkies. I mean, there are certain foreign films that were left off
the list in 2002 that really makes me wonder.
>
> There are other interesting things to observe-- a slow slide by
> Griffith and a precipitous fall off the list for Flaherty (surely the
> filmmaker whose reputation has suffered the biggest fall of film's
> first 100 years); the surprise ascendance of Keaton, and the
> appearance of Japanese (and one Indian, Pather Panchali) films. But
> Hollywood's rehabilitation is surely the most notable event chronicled
> from decade to decade.
I believe THE GENERAL first appeared on the 1982 list, and I think
that was the only time that film ever appeared on the Sight and Sound
top 10. I was surprised not to see it in 2002, as the reputation of
Keaton's filmmaking ability has really been appreciated very widely,
especially since more audiences have been able to familiarize
themselves with Keaton's work through the video and DVD market.
>
> * * *
>
> Now then: The Informer. Without a doubt The Informer had an exalted
> place in American critical memory until perhaps 20 years ago. Part of
> the reason is that The New York Film Critics Circle used it to send a
> strong statement about their priorities in its very first awards
> ceremony in 1935. Remember that at the end of the silent era, German
> cinema had the kind of artistic prestige that British filmmaking does
> now-- look at the first Oscars, with its top awards dominated by
> Sunrise and Emil Jannings. Then sound came and to many critics,
> Germanic art cinema vanished from Hollywood (they wouldn't have
> lowered themselves to see it in the horror genre, which is really
> where it went).
>
> The Informer, with its Expressionist look, Jannings-like performance
> by McLaglen, and obvious symbolism was exactly the throwback for a new
> critics' group to hang their hat on, and the effusive critical
> reaction even made enough of an impression on the Oscars for McLaglen
> to win an Oscar (which, you must admit, is a pretty unlikely concept).
> And so The Informer was certified by critics as one of the great
> American films.
>
I watched this film just the other day (which is what inspired this
whole thread anyways) and I found it to be a more realistic film that
you typically expect to see from Hollywood in 1935. The fact that it
was produced at RKO may lend to this. It seems that since RKO was a
smaller studio, they could afford to take artistic "risks", unlike an
MGM which used the same cookie-cutter format (with *very* few
exceptions-THE CROWD, HALLELUJAH..) There was a joke during WWII, "In
case of an air raid, go over to RKO. They haven't had a hit in years."
This statement seems inaccurate, to say the least. If you look at
RKO's output, they seem to have produced quite a sizable amount of
"classics" during the 1930s and early 40s.
Thanks for the comments! Very interesting. Now, this might be a
question that can be answered just by looking at the Sight and Sound
polls, but what is the general opinion as to roughly when
international critics began to favor Hollywood talkies (SINGIN' IN THE
RAIN, VERTIGO, THE SEARCHERS) to either silents (GREED, THE GOLD
RUSH), or foreign films (BICYCLE THIEVES). The trend seemed even more
noticeable in this past 2002 poll.
Matt
Max Nineteennineteen
> What surprises me is the number of films on this list I have to
> confess never having seen.
Well, some are certainly more urgent than others! That said, you
really never know. I made an offhand reference here to The Childhood
of Maxim Gorky being the sort of movie that was thought important once
but must be deadly now. David Shepard said, oh no, it's great-- and
released it a couple of years later on DVD (now THAT'S service!) He's
right, it is great, though perhaps not top 10 great.
> Interesting that on both lists, Chaplin's THE GOLD RUSH comes in at
> number 2. What specifically about this film impressed critics so much
> at that time (the early 1950s)? I mean, yes it's a very funny comedy,
> one of the greatest. But so is THE GENERAL. And MODERN TIMES for that
> matter. Was there a certain element to the story that just really
> struck a nerve with critics?
The easy answer is: it was reissued, to enormous success, in 1942. So
it was fresher in the mind, and had the cachet of being the one that
Chaplin himself had selected for reissue (therefore it must be the
greatest of all, no?) Availability has more to do with it than you
think-- for many years the great Keatons were The General and The
Navigator, because that's what MOMA distributed and everyone saw.
> Notice the shift from more personal, emotional films (BICYCLE THIEVES,
> the Chaplin films) to big technically innovative films like 2001.
I don't think that's a trend necessarily, since some of the other
films that joined the list over time included Pather Panchali and
Ozu's Tokyo Story, which are personal and emotional. Then there are
the European art classics of the 50s and 60s which appeared on the
list (at least in 1962 and/or 1972), like L'Avventura, Hiroshima Mon
Amour, and 8-1/2, which are sort of personal and technically
innovative at the same time.
> While I am glad to see certain Hollywood films (SINGIN' IN THE RAIN)
> getting the critical recognition they deserve, I think it is
> unfortunate that the Sight and Sound poll (the only such list I can
> approach with credibility) is leaning *so* hard towards Hollywood
> talkies. I mean, there are certain foreign films that were left off
> the list in 2002 that really makes me wonder.
I may have misrepresented that by listing those films together,
because not all of those films were all on the list at the same time
(some have never gotten out of the second 10-- I don't think The
Godfather has yet made the top 10, but I don't have the full 2002 list
handy).
> I believe THE GENERAL first appeared on the 1982 list, and I think
> that was the only time that film ever appeared on the Sight and Sound
> top 10. I was surprised not to see it in 2002, as the reputation of
> Keaton's filmmaking ability has really been appreciated very widely,
> especially since more audiences have been able to familiarize
> themselves with Keaton's work through the video and DVD market.
The General is #8 in 1972, #9 in 82, #16 in '92--I believe I actually
had to calculate those by hand from the individual ballots, they
weren't published!
> I watched this film just the other day (which is what inspired this
> whole thread anyways) and I found it to be a more realistic film that
> you typically expect to see from Hollywood in 1935.
Again, this brings us back to German Expressionism, in which the
realism consists of gritty urban settings and unpretty people and
situations, yet also includes a fairly stylized visual style with
exaggerated shadows and gloom. A couple of years later it would get
the name "poetic realism," which is what French films like Le Jour Se
Leve were said to have, and a couple of years after that, of course,
it would be "film noir." But while both are a move in the same
direction away from, say, MGM gloss, there's a lot of difference
between the documentary realism of a 40s crime film like Call
Northside 777 or Naked City, and the Expressionist realism of a Double
Indemnity (let alone a Lady From Shanghai).
> Thanks for the comments! Very interesting. Now, this might be a
> question that can be answered just by looking at the Sight and Sound
> polls, but what is the general opinion as to roughly when
> international critics began to favor Hollywood talkies (SINGIN' IN THE
> RAIN, VERTIGO, THE SEARCHERS) to either silents (GREED, THE GOLD
> RUSH), or foreign films (BICYCLE THIEVES). The trend seemed even more
> noticeable in this past 2002 poll.
I would separate the two phenomenon. The rise in esteem of Hollywood
cinema plainly occurs between 1962's poll (when the only Hollywood
talkies on the whole top 20 are Citizen Kane at the top and Monsieur
Verdoux at the bottom), and 1972's, when Vertigo, The Searchers and
2001 all make their debuts in the second ten. So that's when that
happened-- the whole era of the auteur theory, the rise of film
studies, etc. As for silents falling out of favor, well, if you think
about it in 1952 the silent era still represented more than half the
history of film; by 2002 it's barely over a quarter. So it's only
natural that more recent films will take a more prominent spot, and
the endurance of a smaller handful is testament to the era's
continuing prestige.
James L. Neibaur
>and I can tell you there are alot of film students who have never seen
>"Citizen Kane", "Bicycle Thieves", "The Grapes of Wrath", "The Gold
>Rush" or "Grand Illusion"
Then they can't fully appreciate the later films.
Sorry
JN
Visit my recently redesigned web pages!!
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James Russell
wrote:
>> I am currently in college
>>and I can tell you there are alot of film students who have never seen
>>"Citizen Kane", "Bicycle Thieves", "The Grapes of Wrath", "The Gold
>>Rush" or "Grand Illusion"
>
>Then they can't fully appreciate the later films.
>
>Sorry
So without a working knowledge of Shakespeare I can't fully appreciate, for
example, "Rent"?
I agree that some sort of historical awareness is ideally necessary for film
appreciation, but having seen all of those films mentioned there doesn't
really do a lot to enhance my appreciation of, for example, "Dog
Soldiers"...
James R.
--
Hot Buttered Death http://hotbuttereddeath.blogspot.com/
Celluloid Dreams: Wednesday, 8pm AEST, 2SER 107.3 FM http://www.2ser.com/
Archie Waugh
James Russell wrote:
> So without a working knowledge of Shakespeare I can't fully appreciate, for
> example, "Rent"?
No, without a working knowledge of "La Boheme" you can't fully appreciate
"Rent".
Archie Waugh
Matt Barry
> > I am currently in college
> >and I can tell you there are alot of film students who have never seen
> >"Citizen Kane", "Bicycle Thieves", "The Grapes of Wrath", "The Gold
> >Rush" or "Grand Illusion"
>
> Then they can't fully appreciate the later films.
>
> Sorry
>
> JN
CITIZEN KANE is a virtual encyclopedia of film techniques, and the
fact that there are film students in their last year of college who
can honestly say they've never even *heard* of the film is amazing.
Almost like being a classical music major and never having even heard
of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, perhaps. (I'm not entirely sure if that
would be an accurate comparison).
I tend to be of the mindset that says Hollywood has produced very
little films of any substance in the last 20 years. I know some people
can call "Pulp Fiction" and "The Matrix" innovative masterpieces, but
I have to admit I totally fail to see them that way. Jean-Luc
Godards's A BOUT DE SOUFFLE is more my idea of "innovative" (as least
for its time).
Matt
Your Pal Brian
> I am interested in the inclusion of Vidor's
> HALLELUJAH over such other Vidor films as THE BIG PARADE, and most
> importantly, THE CROWD.
Probably because he conquered sound in Hallelujah in a very unusual way for 1929. These were the days of the static
camera remember - see Singing in the Rain or any film with Lionel Barrymore in the director's chair - and Vidor's out
trooping through swamps and sawmills and cotton gins. Rouben Mamoulian used to have quite a reputation for doing the
same thing in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and I think the Rene Clair film is included on the S&S list for the same
reason. (In addition to it's foreign cache, of course.)
"The Liveliest Art" is an interesting little book to read to find earlier critic's take things; I think it devotes a
whole chapter to these three. You can find it used anywhere.
> Interesting that on both lists, Chaplin's THE GOLD RUSH comes in at
> number 2. What specifically about this film impressed critics so much
> at that time (the early 1950s)? I mean, yes it's a very funny comedy,
> one of the greatest. But so is THE GENERAL. And MODERN TIMES for that
> matter. Was there a certain element to the story that just really
> struck a nerve with critics?
Buster Keaton's revival happened around 1964. He was declared a genius and made a bunch of beach movies, so The
General obligingly pops up in 72. Like you, I'm surprised that it's gone today, but there's only so many silents one
can expect on a ten film list.
Ford and Kurosawa appear in 82 because the seventies film school generation worshipped them both. Ray appears in 92
because world cinema grew in popularity all through the eighties.
Kane had it's big re-release in 1956 I think, so it appears on the next list. And Welles wasn't in as much need of
critical praise in 1952 as were the outcasts Stroheim, Griffith, Flaherty, Eisenstein, and Chaplin. He made up for
lost time though. (I wonder if Touch of Evil will split the Welles vote in the near future?)
It's interesting that the only two films to appear on every list are Potemkin and Rules of the Game. What does that
imply? I don't know.
And The Informer? I love it; my favorite Ford flick even. Did you know the whole trial scene at the end was
improvised?
Brian
Arlene K. Witt
Almanac._ There are a surprising number of silents on the list (I
thought). There is no sign of how these were chosen, but it IS a trade
publication and the editor was Terry Ramsaye (known for his
embroidery, I've heard). Also included was producer, director and
major stars... I'm including only title, year. Note they are
alphabetical which solved the question of order.
THE GREAT HUNDRED
This is a list of the outstanding one hundred motion pictures down
through the years. It includes notable money-making attractions of
their day as well as those films which found a permanent place in
motion picture tradition for creative reasons. This presentation,
however, is to be appraised in historical retrospect with an
appreciation of progress in commercial and artistic standards. --RED
KANN
Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938)
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
Anchors Aweigh (1945)
Bells of St. Mary's, The (1945)
Ben Hur (1927)
Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
Big Parade, The (1927)
Birth of a Nation, The (1915)
Boys Town (1938)
Broadway Melody, The (1929)
Cabiria (1913)
Cavalcade (1933)
Champ, The (1931)
Cimmaron (1931)
Citizen Kane (1941)
City Lights (1931)
Covered Wagon, The (1924)
Damaged Goods (1915)
Fool There Was, A (1922) [sic] lists Theda in cast
For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)
42nd Street (1933)
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The (1921)
Glorious Adventure, The (1921)
Going My Way (1944)
Gone with the Wind (1939)
Goodbye Mr. Chips (1939)
Grand Hotel (1932)
Grapes of Wrath, The (1940)
Grass (1925)
Great Dictator, The (1940)
Great Train Robbery, The (1903)
Great Ziegfeld, The (1936)
Greed (1925)
Henry V (1945)
Humoresque (1920)
Hunchback of Notre Dame, The (1924)
I'm No Angel (1933)
Informer, The (1935)
Intolerance (1916)
It Happened One Night (1934)
Jazz Singer, The (1927)
Jolson Story, The (1946)
Kid, The (1920)
King of Kings, The (1927)
Last Laugh, The (1925)
Life of Emile Zola, The (1937)
Lights of New York, The (1928)
Little Women (1933)
Lost Horizon (1937)
Lost Weekend, The (1945)
Mayerling (1937)
Merry Widow, The (1925)
Million Dollar Mystery, The (1914)
Miracle Man, The (1919)
Mrs. Miniver (1942)
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
Nanook of the North (1922)
Naughty Marietta (1935)
One Night of Love (1934)
Open City (1946)
Over the Hill to the Poor House (1920)
Passion (1920)
Phantom of the Opera, The (1925)
Private Life of Henry VIII, The (1933)
Queen Elizabeth (1912)
Quo Vadis? (1912)
Rebecca (1940)
Rio Rita (1929)
Road to Utopia, The (1945)
Scarface (1932)
San Francisco (1936)
Sergeant York (1941)
Sheik, The (1921)
Shoulder Arms (1918)
Since You Went Away (1944)
Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs (1937)
Song of Bernadette, The (1943)
Spellbound (1945)
Spoilers, The (1914)
Stagecoach (1939)
Stella Dallas (1925)
Story of Louis Pasteur, The (1935)
Sunrise (1927)
Ten Commandments, The (1925)
This Is the Army (1943)
Three Smart Girls (1937)
Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914)
Tol'able David (1921)
Top Hat (1935)
Tugboat Annie (1933)
Variety (1926)
Way Down East (1920)
What Price Glory? (1926)
White Sister, The (1924)
Whoopee (1930)
Wilson (1944)
Wuthering Heights (1939)
Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
- Arlene
On 31 Mar 2003 05:53:27 -0800, mattb...@hotmail.com (Matt Barry)
wrote:
Precode
>
> I tend to be of the mindset that says Hollywood has produced very
> little films of any substance in the last 20 years. I know some people
> can call "Pulp Fiction" and "The Matrix" innovative masterpieces, but
> I have to admit I totally fail to see them that way.
For the better part of 15 years, I had to endure the endless taunts of
friends (some of them on this NG) for wasting my time on that "kung fu
crap." These are, of course, the very same people who blew their
brains out over "innovative" and "ground-breaking" films like THE
MATRIX and CROUCHING TIGER, both of which were merely rehashes of
techniques that had been around since the 1940s, and were old news to
those of us who'd been watching that "kung fu crap" for years.
And a moment of silence for Leslie Cheung, who inexplicably leapt out
of a Hong Kong hotel window and died at the age of 46. He left a
suicide note, contents yet to be revealed. His performances in such
films as A BETTER TOMORROW and A CHINESE GHOST STORY were a key
component of the HK New Wave.
Mike S.
Stephen Cooke
On 2 Apr 2003, Precode wrote:
> And a moment of silence for Leslie Cheung, who inexplicably leapt out
> of a Hong Kong hotel window and died at the age of 46. He left a
> suicide note, contents yet to be revealed. His performances in such
> films as A BETTER TOMORROW and A CHINESE GHOST STORY were a key
> component of the HK New Wave.
Not to mention his work with Wong Kar Wai...truly a sad loss, I've enjoyed
many of his performances, he was a gifted actor in my books. The story
I've heard is that his lover had just broken up with him (and in fact
showed up at a dinner date with his new lover in tow), which led to Cheung
ending his life so suddenly. I don't know that this is gospel, but that's
what's making the rounds.
swac
Also, RIP Michael Jeter, who was so brilliant in The Fisher King and was a
fine character actor (and overdue to star in The Chester Conklin Story).
Max Nineteennineteen
> mattb...@hotmail.com (Matt Barry) wrote in message news:<bfc02ffc.0304...@posting.google.com>...
> >
> > I tend to be of the mindset that says Hollywood has produced very
> > little films of any substance in the last 20 years. I know some people
> > can call "Pulp Fiction" and "The Matrix" innovative masterpieces, but
> > I have to admit I totally fail to see them that way.
>
> For the better part of 15 years, I had to endure the endless taunts of
> friends (some of them on this NG) for wasting my time on that "kung fu
> crap." These are, of course, the very same people who blew their
> brains out over "innovative" and "ground-breaking" films like THE
> MATRIX and CROUCHING TIGER, both of which were merely rehashes of
> techniques that had been around since the 1940s, and were old news to
> those of us who'd been watching that "kung fu crap" for years.
Dude, you need better friends. My friends and I all rented The
Protector when it came out because it was the only way to see Jackie
Chan in Wichita in 1986. Imagine, reasonably intelligent people
seeing a James Glickenhaus film on purpose!
Eric Stott
Stephen Cooke wrote:
> Also, RIP Michael Jeter, who was so brilliant in The Fisher King and was a
> fine character actor (and overdue to star in The Chester Conklin Story).
"I'm going to throw myself into the bridal path and let some debutante ride
over me!"
(A suicidal Jeeter in The Fisher King)
Dr. Giraud
would occasionally be a Variety piece in which industry folks mused
about the greatest films of all time, a list which tended to
correspond pretty well with giant box office hits of a certain
historical seriousness-- Birth of a Nation, The Big Parade, Cavalcade,
Gone With the Wind, etc. But not a proper top ten. >>
In the Bing Crosby bio "Pocketful of Dreams," his list for Photoplay is
reproduced. I don't have it handy, but Bing's list was THE CROWD number one,
BOAN somewhere in the middle, and the other 8 either specified as Chaplin or
generalized as "for silent comedies." Part of it was no doubt diplomatic--he
probably didn't want to rate one of his contemporaries above any other--but
picking THE CROWD as #1 couldn't have been common. Neither could have been the
implicit favoritism towards silent slapstick. Could it?
Shawn Stone
Philip
Philip
"Max Nineteennineteen" <max...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:aa2a3f47.03040...@posting.google.com...
> Protector when it came out because it was the only way to see Jackie
> Chan in Wichita in 1986. Imagine, reasonably intelligent people
> seeing a James Glickenhaus film on purpose!
I used to consider myself reasonably intelligent, but I have seen this film
*twice* - my excuse being that the second time it was the Cantonese language
version.
Apparently Jackie was going to appear in FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE with Leslie
Cheung, but his studio vetoed it because of the film's "homosexual
overtones". Cheung was also memorable in THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR, amongst
others. A sad way to go.
Joe Gillis
I've been informed that proper netiquette requires I get your permission first.
Ah hell, why don't you just post it over there. I've never been able to
understand this NG apartheid anyway. To hell with segregation...
max...@yahoo.com (Max Nineteennineteen) wrote:
=================================================
"I don't mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy." -- Samuel Butler
Max Nineteennineteen
cinema...@aol.comedy (Joe Gillis) wrote in message news:<20030411010316...@mb-cc.aol.com>...
Tim Dunleavy
>Rio Rita (1929)
Rio Rita? Not even the best Wheeler and Woolsey movie...
>Road to Utopia, The (1945)
OK, this is one of my favorites, so I forgive them for Rio Rita....
-Tim
"We adopted him."