Cahiers du Cinema 1963 -- Best American sound films
Paul Gallagher
to find out what Godard, Chabrol, Truffaut, etc., chose. 1963 was an
appropriate time to look back on the American cinema, since the studio
system was nearing its end. Most of the directors Cahiers admired were
retiring or finding it hard to find work, and little new talent seemed
to be appearing. Critics like Tavernier, Hoyveda, Comolli, and Moullet were
challenging or re-thinking the ideas of the earlier generation of critics,
such as Truffaut, Rohmer, and Rivette.
Here are the top choice by my count (the magazine didn't print this).
1. Vertigo (Hitchcock)
2. North By Northwest (Hitchcock)
The Searchers (Ford)
Singin' in the Rain (Kelly-Donen)
5. The Birds (Hitchcock)
Citizen Kane (Welles)
Moonfleet (Lang)
Scarface (Hawks)
Splendor in the Grass (Kazan)
While the City Sleeps (Lang)
Jean-Pierre Biesse
1. Only Angels Have Wings (Hawks)
2. Vertigo (Hitchcock)
3. The Devil Is a Woman (Sternberg)
4. Moonfleet (Lang)
5. Two Rode Together (Ford)
6. The Miracle Worker (Penn)
7. The Great Dictator (Chaplin)
8. Rally 'Round the Flag Boys (McCarey)
9. Splendor in the Grass (Kazan)
10. Touch of Evil (Welles)
Charles Bitsch
(chronological order)
Scarface (Hawks)
Design For Living (Lubitsch)
Duck Soup (McCarey)
Modern Times (Chaplin)
You Only Live Once (Lang)
Citizen Kane (Welles)
The River (Renoir)
The Quiet Man (Ford)
Singin' in the Rain (Kelly-Donen)
The Birds (Hitchcock)
Pierre-Richard Bre/
1. While the City Sleeps (Lang)
2. Battle Cry (Walsh)
3. Bonjour Tristesse (Preminger)
4. The Birds (Hitchcock)
5. Merrill's Marauders (Fuller)
6. Hatari (Hawks)
7. They Live By Night (Ray)
8. Suddenly Last Summer (Mankiewicz)
9. The Wings of Eagles (Ford)
10. The Courtship of Eddie's Father (Minnelli)
Patrick Brian
1. The Bad and the Beautiful (Minnelli)
2. Singin' in the Rain (Kelly-Donen)
3. The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (Mankiewicz)
4. Moonfleet (Lang)
5. North By Northwest (Hitchcock)
6. The Prisoner of Zenda (Thorpe)
7. Scaramouche (Sidney)
8. Deadline U.S.A. (Brooks)
9. The World, the Flesh and the Devil (MacDougall)
10. The Lawless Breed (Walsh)
Claude Chabrol
(chronological order)
The Grapes of Wrath (Ford)
Citizen Kane (Welles)
The Shanghai Gesture (Sternberg)
To Be Or Not to Be (Lubitsch)
The Big Sleep (Hawks)
Notorious (Hitchcock)
On Dangerous Ground (Ray)
Stalag 17 (Wilder)
Kiss Me Deadly (Aldrich)
Splendor in the Grass (Kazan)
Jean-Louis Comolli
1. Red River (Hawks)
2. The Wings of Eagles (Ford)
3. Anatomy of a Murder (Preminger)
4. Band of Angels (Walsh)
5. Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (Lang)
6. Monkey Business (Hawks)
7. North By Northwest (Hitchcock)
8. The Quiet American (Mankiewicz)
9. While the City Sleeps (Lang)
10. Wind Across the Everglades (Ray)
Michel Delahaye
(alphabetical order)
Band of Angels (Walsh)
The Birds (Hitchcock)
Elmer Gantry (Brooks)
Fury (Lang)
Hatari (Hawks)
Ruby Gentry (Vidor)
The Searchers (Ford)
Singin' in the Rain (Kelly-Donen)
Splendor in the Grass (Kazan)
Sylvia Scarlett (Cukor)
Jacques Doniol-Valcroze
(in alphabetical order of directors)
Louisiana Story (Flaherty)
The Big Sky (Hawks)
Vertigo (Hitchcock)
Beat the Devil (Huston)
A Face in the Crowd (Kazan)
It's Always Fair Weather (Kelly-Donen)
The Man From Laramie (Mann)
Ruby Gentry (Vidor)
Citizen Kane (Welles)
Touch of Evil (Welles)
Jean Douchet
1. While the City Sleeps (Lang)
2. Exodus (Preminger)
3. The Naked and the Dead (Walsh)
4. North By Northwest (Hitchcock)
5. Rio Bravo (Hawks)
6. Bells Are Ringing (Minnelli)
Cluny Brown (Lubitsch)
Suddenly Last Summer (Mankiewicz)
9. Wind Across the Everglades (Ray)
10. Samson and Delilah (DeMille)
Bernard Eisenschitz
(alphabetical order)
An Affair to Remember (McCarey)
Detour (Ulmer)
Exodus (Preminger)
The Late George Apley (Mankiewicz)
The Lawless (Losey)
The Ministry of Fear (Lang)
Pearl of the South Pacific (Dwan)
Psycho (Hitchcock)
Pursued (Walsh)
Way of a Gaucho (Tourneur)
Jean-Claude Fieschi
1. Vertigo (Hitchcock)
2. Bringing Up Baby (Hawks)
3. Moonfleet (Lang)
4. The Searchers (Ford)
5. The Shanghai Gesture (Sternberg)
6. Duck Soup (McCarey)
The Miracle Worker (Penn)
Splendor in the Grass (Kazan)
9. Heaven Can Wait (Lubitsch)
10. The Quiet American (Mankewiecz)
Jean-Luc Godard
1. Scarface (Hawks)
2. The Great Dictator (Chaplin)
3. Vertigo (Hitchcock)
4. The Searchers (Ford)
5. Singin' in the Rain (Kelly-Donen)
6. The Lady From Shanghai (Welles)
7. Bigger Than Life (Ray)
8. Angel Face (Preminger)
9. To Be Or Not to Be (Lubitsch)
10. Dishonored (Sternberg)
Jacques Goirnard
1. Only Angels Have Wings (Hawks)
2. While the City Sleeps (Lang)
3. The Searchers (Ford)
4. Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys (McCarey)
5. Bonjour Tristesse (Preminger)
6. The Band Wagon (Minnelli)
7. The Quiet American (Mankiewicz)
8. Wind Across the Everglades (Ray)
9. The Asphalt jungle (Huston)
10. Give a Girl a Break (Donen)
Fiereydon Hoveyda
(no order)
The Prowler (Losey)
Party Girl (Ray)
Duck Soup (McCarey)
The Magnifiaent Ambersons (Welles)
Our Daily Bread (Vidor)
To Be Or Not to Be (Lubitsch)
Modern Times (Chaplin)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (Ford)
The Nutty Professor (Lewis)
Fury (Lang)
Pierre Kast
(in alphabetical order of directors)
Monsieur Verdoux (Chaplin)
Monkey Business (Hawks)
The Birds (Hitchcock)
Beat the Devil (Huston)
Wild River (Kazan)
It's Always Fair Weather (Kelly-Donen)
The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T. (Rowland)
The Great McGinty (Sturges)
Ruby Gentry (Vidor)
Citizen Kane (Welles)
Andre S. Labarthe
1. The Long Voyage Home (Ford)
Bringing Up Baby (Hawks)
The Searchers (Ford)
Under Capricorn (Hitchcock)
Heaven Can Wait (Lubitsch)
6. Othello (Welles)
The Shanghai Gesture (Sternberg)
Monsieur Verdoux (Chaplin)
North By Northwest (Hitchcock)
The Miracle Worker (Penn)
Michel Mardore
(alphabetical order)
Band of Angels (Walsh)
The Barefoot Contessa (Mankiewicz)
Confidential Report (Welles)
Heaven Can Wait (Lubitsch)
Northwest Passage (Vidor)
Rancho Notorious (Lang)
Sergeant York (Hawks)
Some Came Running (Minnelli)
Vertigo (Hitchcock)
Wild River (Kazan)
Luc Moullet
1. The River (Renoir)
2. Rebel Without a Cause (Ray)
3. Scarface (Hawks)
4. Rear Window (Hitchcock)
5. You Only Live Once (Lang)
6. Rio Bravo (Hawks)
7. Vertigo (Hitchcock)
8. The Fountainhead (Vidor)
9. While the City Sleeps (Lang)
10. The Diary of a Chambermaid (Renoir)
Jean Narboni
1. The Diary of a Chambermaid (Renoir)
2. The Birds (Hitchcock)
3. To Have and Have Not (Hawks)
4. Bitter Victory (Ray)
5. Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (Lang)
6. Bonjour Tristesse (Preminger)
7. The Quiet American (Mankiewicz)
8. To Be Or Not to Be (Lubitsch)
9. A Time to Love and a Time to Die (Sirk)
10. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (Ford)
Dominique Rabourdin
1. Band of Angels (Walsh)
Moonfleet (Lang)
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (Mankiewicz)
Forever Amber (Preminger)
5. The Band Wagon (Minnelli)
Tennessee's Partner (Dwan)
Wichita (Tourneur)
Run of the Arrow (Fuller)
An Affair to Remember (McCarey)
Rio Bravo (Hawks)
Jacques Rivette
(chronological order)
Scarface (Hawks)
You Only Live Once (Lang)
The Grapes of Wrath (Ford)
Citizen Kane (Welles)
Monsieur Verdoux (Chaplin)
They Live By Night (Ray)
On the Town (Kelly-Donen)
North By Northwest (Hitchcock)
Splendor in the Grass (Kazan)
The Cool World (Clarke)
Bertrand Tavernier
1. The Hanging Tree (Daves)
2. Pursued (Walsh)
3. Moonfleet (Lang)
4. Angel Face (Preminger)
5. An Affair to Remember (McCarey)
6. To Have and Have Not (Hawks)
7. Silver Lode (Dwan)
8. Singin' in the Rain (Kelly-Donen)
9. The Band Wagon (Minnelli)
10. The Searchers (Ford)
Francois Truffaut
(chronological order)
Scarface (Hawks)
You Only Live Once (Lang)
The Magnificent Ambersons (Welles)
Notorious (Hitchcock)
The Woman On the Beach (Renoir)
The Saga of Anatahan (Sternberg)
Johnny Guitar (Ray)
Rear Window (Hitchcock)
A King in New York (Chaplin)
North By Northwest (Hitchcock)
Francois Weyergans
(alphabetical order)
The Barefoot Contessa (Mankiewicz)
Bitter Victory (Ray)
Bonjour Tristesse (Preminger)
Hatari (Hawks)
Rally 'Round the Flag Boys! (McCarey)
Rancho Notorious (Lang)
Singin' in the Rain (Kelly-Donen)
Touch of Evil (Welles)
Vertigo (Hitchcock)
monterone
> This poll from the Dec. 1963 Cahiers du Cinema is interesting, if only
> to find out what Godard, Chabrol, Truffaut, etc., chose. 1963 was an
> appropriate time to look back on the American cinema, since the studio
> system was nearing its end. Most of the directors Cahiers admired were
> retiring or finding it hard to find work, and little new talent seemed
> to be appearing. Critics like Tavernier, Hoyveda, Comolli, and Moullet were
> challenging or re-thinking the ideas of the earlier generation of critics,
> such as Truffaut, Rohmer, and Rivette.
>
>
> Here are the top choice by my count (the magazine didn't print this).
>
> 1. Vertigo (Hitchcock)
> 2. North By Northwest (Hitchcock)
> The Searchers (Ford)
> Singin' in the Rain (Kelly-Donen)
> 5. The Birds (Hitchcock)
> Citizen Kane (Welles)
> Moonfleet (Lang)
> Scarface (Hawks)
> Splendor in the Grass (Kazan)
> While the City Sleeps (Lang)
It's interesting to see the various late McCarey (_Rally Round the
Flag, Boys_, at least) and Walsh films, for example, arrayed here --
it's heart-breaking, really, since most of these are films I never got
around to seeing when one still occasionally could. (Walsh's great
_The Revolt of Mamie Stover_, with Jane Russell, isn't represented
here, for some reason -- maybe it didn't play in France?) I don't
know how many of these films are still part of any canons, but I'd
like to think they're still shown in Paris, at least. (Is there
anything that isn't?) I think it's interesting that the Lang films
principally represented here are _Moonfleet_ and _While the City
Sleeps_, and the only Tourneurs, for example, seem to be the probably
even more obscure _Wichita_ and _Way of a Gaucho_. None of these
titles are exactly household names, at least in your typical
household, although the great _Moonfleet_ did make a recent appearance
at BAM (any reports from the field?) and a Tourneur retro has been
rumored for Lincoln Center. In any case, these lists would make a
hell of a series...
Paul Gallagher
>It's interesting to see the various late McCarey (_Rally Round the
>Flag, Boys_, at least) and Walsh films, for example, arrayed here --
>it's heart-breaking, really, since most of these are films I never got
>around to seeing when one still occasionally could. (Walsh's great
>_The Revolt of Mamie Stover_, with Jane Russell, isn't represented
>here, for some reason -- maybe it didn't play in France?)
In the same Dec. 1963 issue there's a list of American films that hadn't
yet been released in France. Walsh's _The Man I Love,_ _One Sunday
Afternoon,_ and _ A Lion Is in the Streets _ had not been released. Since
_Mamie Stover_ wasn't mentioned, I assume it was released in France.
There are a lot of Walsh, Vidor, and Dwan films on these lists from the
1950's, whereas most of the their films that are available on video are
from the 1940's or earlier.
> I don't
>know how many of these films are still part of any canons, but I'd
>like to think they're still shown in Paris, at least. (Is there
>anything that isn't?) I think it's interesting that the Lang films
>principally represented here are _Moonfleet_ and _While the City
>Sleeps_, and the only Tourneurs, for example, seem to be the probably
>even more obscure _Wichita_ and _Way of a Gaucho_.
Jacques Tourneur wasn't well represented in France. The Val Lewton
films (_ Cat People,_ _I Walked with a Zombie,_ _The Leopard Man,_),
_The Fearmakers,_ _Easy Living,_ _Days of Glory,_ _Nightfall,_
and _ Night of the Demon _ had not yet been released.
Several well known American films had not been released in France as of 1963:
Donen's _ The Pajama Game _ and _ Damn Yankees _, Polonsky's _ Force of
Evil _, Don Siegel's _ Invasion of the Body Snatchers _, Ulmer's _ Detour _,
Cukor's _ The Actress _, Boetticher's _ The Tall T _, _ Ride Lonesome _,
_ Decision at Sundown _, and _ Comanche Station _; Sam Fuller's _ Crimson
Kimono _, _ Forty Guns _, and _ Park Row _; Minnelli's _ The Clock _,
Wellman's _ The Track of the Cat _, Karlson's _ The Phenix City Story _,
Anthony Mann's _ The Tall Target _. Fuller's _ China Gate _ and Ford's
_ What Price Glory _ were not distributed in France because they depicted
the French military in an unfavorable manner. Kubrick's _ Paths of Glory _
was banned outright. I noticed the coincidence that many of these films
are on Jonathan Rosenbaum's top 100 American films list.
>None of these
>titles are exactly household names, at least in your typical
>household, although the great _Moonfleet_ did make a recent appearance
>at BAM (any reports from the field?) and a Tourneur retro has been
>rumored for Lincoln Center. In any case, these lists would make a
>hell of a series...
I saw _ Moonfleet _ at BAM. It was a wonderful experience, like seeing
a great adventure through a child's eyes. The wide screen is used
superbly, but I suspect a lot would be lost seeing this on a small TV
screen. Since I was caught up in the thrilling adventure, I think I
missed a lot of the film's pessimism: everybody except the child
is corrupt; when Stewart Granger's character attempts to redeem himself,
he is doomed to fail.
I noticed that Ophuls' _Letter from an Unknown Woman_ isn't mentioned,
and Cukor, Fuller, Anthony Mann, and Douglas Sirk aren't as well represented
as I would have expected. Allan Dwan did better than I expected (but I've
seen hardly any of his films). Sturges is mentioned once, and Borzage,
Capra, and La Cava aren't mentioned -- which maybe reveals a slight bias
against comedies and "women's pictures." Their absence and the praise for
Mankiewicz, Kazan, Arthur Penn, and Wilder show some differences from
Andrew Sarris' perspective in "The American Cinema."
Paul
Paul Gallagher
>Jean-Pierre Biesse, Charles Bitsch, Pierre-Richard Bre/,
>Patrick Brian, Claude Chabrol, Jean-Louis Comolli,
>Michel Delahaye, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Jean Douchet,
>Bernard Eisenschitz, Jean-Andre Fieschi, Jean-Luc Godard,
>Jacques Goirnard, Fiereydon Hoveyda, Pierre Kast,
>Andre S. Labarthe, Michel Mardore, Luc Moullet,
>Jean Narboni, Dominique Rabourdin, Jacques Rivette,
>Bertrand Tavernier, Francois Truffaut, Francois Weyergans
It's an interesting bit of trivia that many of the lesser-known names above
appear in bit parts in New Wave movies, and a few have had long acting
careers. For example, I recently saw Godard's _ Made in U.S.A. _, and
I wondered who was the rather distinctive looking person who played the
henchman, Richard Nixon. It turned out to be Jean-Pierre Biesse.
There are many more examples: Comolli and Fieschi play Professors
Heckel and Jeckell and Delahye plays Professor von Braun's assistant
in _ Alphaville _. Delahye, Doniol-Valcroze, Eisenschitz, and Rohmer
appear in Rivette's _ Out 1 _.
Paul
P Sena
them made it as directors, too!
Cold day in hell that any of us here will go see a movie made by a Time
Magazine reviewer ... right?
Paul Gallagher
>One has to admit that the list of reviewers is pretty cool. Quite a few of
>them made it as directors, too!
Another interesting article from the Dec. 1958 Cahiers analyzes the
results of a referendum at the Cinematheque de Belgique in Brussels,
which asked 150 film historians each to list the thirty most important
films made before 1955. A total of 609 different titles were cited. It's
interesting to look at the Brussels list, since it shows the prevailing view
of film history back in 1958, and it gives a perspective on how much the
evaluations of particular films and directors have changed.
Here is what the Brussels referendum designated "the best films of all
time":
Battleship Potemkin (Sergei M. Eisenstein, USSR, 1925)
Gold Rush (Charles Chaplin, U.S.A., 1925)
The Bicycle Thief (Vittorio De Sica, Italy, 1948)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl T. Dreyer, France, 1928)
Grand Illusion (Jean Renoir, France, 1937)
Greed (Erich von Stroheim, USA, 1923)
Intolerance (D. W. Griffith, USA, 1916)
Mother (V. I. Pudovkin, USSR, 1926)
Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, USA, 1941)
Earth (Alexander Dovzhenko, USSR, 1930)
The Last Laugh (F. W. Murnau, Germany 1924)
The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (Robert Weine, Germany, 1919)
Louis Marcorelles and Claude Gauteur provided detailed commentary in
Cahiers. Marcorelles discussed the top twelve films, and Gauteur commented
on what was missing among the titles mentioned by the historians.
Silent films predominated among the top 12 films, but sound films
made up the majority of all films mentioned. 7 of the top 10 films
were silent, 10 of the top 20 were silent, but the overall distribution
per year was as follows:
1895-1910 10 titles
1911-1919 42
1920-1929 123
1930-1939 171
1940 10
1941-1945 54
1946-1950 91
1951-1955 100
The USA had the national cinema best represented on the list, with 222
films chosen. France was represented by 119 films, Germany by 62, the USSR
by 46, Great Britain by 31, Italy by 30, Sweden by 21, Japan by 17, Mexico
by 10, and Czechoslovakia by 9. It's interesting that even though so
much of Hollywood film went unacknowledged, the American cinema still
held first place with regard to number of titles selected.
Several directors received a large part of their votes from only one or
two of their films. Wiene, Ekk, Dupont, the Vasilyev brothers, Pastrone,
and Jakubowska received all their votes from _The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari_
(42), _The Road to Life_ (25), _Variety_ (24), _Chapajev_ (22),
_Cabiria_ (18), and _The Last Stage_ (13).
Other directors represented mainly by one film:
Dovzhenko, _Earth_, 47 votes out of Dovzhenko's total of 57
Welles, _Citizen Kane_, 51 out of 56
Fellini, _La Strada_, 29/37
Kurosawa, _Rashomon_, 37/50
Milestone, _All Quiet on the Western Front_, 19/22
Sternberg, _The Blue Angel_, 35/38
Lean, _Brief Encounter_, 35/42
Olivier, _Henry V_, 25/32
Others represented by primarily one or two films were:
De Sica and Zavattini: _The Bicycle Thief_, 85/125
Eisenstein: _Potemkin_, 100/168
Renoir: _The Grand Illusion_, 72/105
Stroheim: _Greed_, 71/93
Murnau: _The Last Laugh_, 45/91
Pudovkin: _Mother_, 54/91
Griffith: _Intolerance_, 42, and _Birth of a Nation_, 61/122
Ford: _Grapes of Wrath_, 40, and _Stagecoach_, 31/107
Vidor: _Hallelujah_, 21, and _The Crowd_, 16/44
Gauteur thought often the directors' best work went unhonored. In
particular he did not think _Grand Illusion_ was Renoir's masterpiece.
In contrast Chaplin, Clair, Flaherty, Pabst, Carne, Lang, Lubitsch,
Capra, Sjoestrom, Stiller, Bresson, and Mizoguchi were each represented by
several titles.
Marcorelles had little regard for Pudovkin, _The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari_,
or _The Bicycle Thief_. He thought the humanitarian subject matter of
_Grand Illusion_ and _The Bicycle Thief_ and the "para-Proustian"
construction of _Citizen Kane_ were major reasons for their high estimation
by the Brussels poll. He did not think it was based on a deep understanding
of Renoir or Welles.
Gauteur objected to how De Sica was rated above Rossellini, Fellini
above Visconti, Sjoeberg above Bergman, Wyler above Hawks, Kurosawa
above Mizoguchi.
The most often cited French directors were Clair (135 votes), Renoir (105),
Carne (74), Vigo (43), Feyder (37), Gance (27), Melies (26), Clement (20),
Cocteau (19), Autant-Lara (18), Bresson (18). Of these, only Clair and
Carne received votes distributed among a large number of their films.
The rest received most of their votes for 1 or 2 films. Marcorelles
thought Clair vastly inferior to Renoir and Vigo, and indeed Clair's
reputation has fallen greatly in the past few decades.
The top French films were:
The Grand Illusion (Renoir) 72 votes
Under the Roofs of Paris (Clair) 33
Le Million (Clair) 32
The Children of Paradise (Carne) 30
Carnival in Flanders (Feyder) 27
An Italian Straw Hat (Clair) 26
A nous la liberte (Clair) 25
L'Atalante (Vigo) 22
Le jour se leve (Carne) 22
Voyage to the Moon (Melies) 22
The most honored American directors were Chaplin (250 votes), Griffith
(122), Ford (107), Stroheim (93), Flaherty (82), Welles (56), Vidor
(44), Murnau (30), Wyler (30), and Milestone (22). Cukor received
only 4 votes, Sternberg and Hitchcock only 3, Preston Sturges, Dwan, and
De Mille only 1 each. Aldrich, Anthony Mann, Mankiewicz, Preminger,
Nicholas Ray, and Walsh were not mentioned at all.
The top American films were:
The Gold Rush (Chaplin) 85 votes
Greed (Stroheim) 71
Intolerance (Griffith) 61
Citizen Kane (Welles) 51
Birth of a Nation (Griffith) 42
Grapes of Wrath (Ford) 40
Modern Times (Chaplin) 34
City Lights (Chaplin) 32
Stagecoach (Ford) 31
Nanook of the North (Flaherty) 26
Gauteur noted that fantasy and horror films and film noir were almost
absent. The Western was represented mainly by Stagecoach (31 votes),
The Ox-bow Incident (7), Shane (4), Cruze's Covered Wagon (4), High
Noon (3), and The Mark of Zorro (3).
Musical comedy was almost absent. Two films received more than one
vote:_On the Town_ received 4 votes, _The Band Wagon_ just 2. Gauteur
remarked, "It's not for today to make people admit that Fred Astaire is
worth all the Pudovkins in the world, and that a single scene of _Singing
in the Rain_ (which did not receive a single vote) contains more beauty,
both aesthetic and ethical, than _The Bicycle Thief_."
Gauteur objected especially to the absence of comedies, apart from
those of Chaplin and Clair. He thought it was astonishing that Buster
Keaton received only 11 votes. The Marx Brothers were also mentioned
only 11 times. Jacques Tati received 7 votes, Max Linder and Harry Langdon
3, Harold Lloyd and Mae West 2, W.C. Fields 1.
Cahiers du Cinema did its own poll among its editors: Andre Bazin, Charles
Beylie, Charles Bitsch, Claude Chabrol, Philippe Demonsablon, Jean
Domarchi, Jacques Doniol-Volcroze, Jean Douchet, Claude Gauteur,
Jean-Luc Godard, Fereydoun Hoveyda, Louis Marcorelles, Andre Martin,
Luc Moullet, Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer, and Francois Truffaut.
The first round selected the best directors by order of the importance
of their body of work.
1. Murnau
2. Renoir
3. Rossellini
4. Eisenstein
5. Griffith
6. Welles
7. Dreyer
8. Vigo
9. Mizoguchi
10. Stroheim
11. Hitchcock
12. Chaplin
13. Ophuls
14. Lang
15. (tie) Hawks, Keaton
17. Bergman
18. Nicholas Ray
19. (tie) Norman McLaren, Flaherty
21. (tie) Bunuel, Clair
23. (tie) Visconti, Dovzhenko
The second round asked for the best films by the 12 top "auteurs."
1. Sunrise (Murnau, 1927)
2. The Rules of the Game (Renoir, 1939)
3. Journey to Italy (Viaggio in Italia) (Rossellini, 1953)
4. Ivan the Terrible (Eisenstein, 1945/1958)
5. Birth of a Nation (Griffith, 1915)
6. Confidential Report/ Mr. Arkadin (Orson Welles, 1956)
7. Ordet (Dreyer, 1955)
8. Ugetsu monogatari (Mizoguchi, 1953)
9. L'Atalante (Vigo, 1934)
10. The Wedding March (Stroheim, 1927)
11. Under Capricorn (Hitchcock, 1949)
12. Monsieur Verdoux (Chaplin, 1947)
--
Paul