Ladies and gentlemen, and especially ladies, a makeover! after 70 years The survey of the greatest films of all time published every decade by “Sight and Sound”, the journal of the British Film Institute, for the first time a film by a female director was in first place. Not only that, in the big survey published last night there are 11 films by female directors (as opposed to two a decade ago), seven films by black filmmakers (as opposed to one in the previous survey), and nine films from this century (only two in the previous survey). There are also shifts in the position of the films within the list of the century, which indicate a certain devaluation of the status of the French New Wave in general, and of some giants of the past specifically (mainly Bergman and Antonioni, only one film of each of them is included in the new list). However, it should be noted that Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” and Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane” are still at the top of the list, as they were a decade ago, only that Chantal Ackerman’s “Jean Dillman” has overtaken them.
How did this happen after many years of stagnation (in 2002, when “Vertigo” for the first time overtook “Citizen Kane” which had been in first place since 1962, the headlines roared)? Cultural and especially mental changes that have recently occurred in our world have led to the expansion of the circle of participants in the vote – from 846 film critics in 2012 to 1,639 critics, program curators, and film professors from all over the world in the current survey. This year I also received an invitation to participate in the survey, and I was asked to send an unranked list of ten films of my choice. It was a very difficult task, which forced me to give up quite a few great films that I love very much. In the end, five of the films on my list made the list of the century, and five were left out (details below).
The ranking of “Jean Dillman” in the first place was received with great surprise, but on second thought it was also expected. This is one of two films by female directors that were also on the 2012 list – when it was ranked 35th (the other, “Good Job” by Claire Dany, climbed from 78th to 7th). As one of the few films by female directors that dealt with female existence and was accepted into the cinematic canon even before the me too era (even the late Uri Klein, who was known for his reluctance towards films by female directors, included it in his list of must-see films), this is destined to be the film that will be included in the most tens sent by the new voters – Assuming that many decided to include at least one film by a female director in their list.
“Jean Dillman, 23 rue du Commerce, Brussels 1080″ (his full name), follows for three hours and twenty minutes three routine days in the life of a widow who makes a living from prostitution. Long, static shots depict Jean cleaning the house, cooking, raising She builds and sleeps with clients, until this compulsive routine drives her crazy. It can be argued that this is a defiantly anti-cinematic text. On the other hand, if we accept the claim of Cesare Zavitini – the leading ideologist and screenwriter of Italian neorealism – that “there is no other medium endowed with the ability of the cinema to show things as they happen every day, the daily, long and real time of their occurrence”, then this is cinema incarnate.
Being a groundbreaking and influential film, there is no doubt that “Jean Dillman” should be on the list. And yet, one gets the feeling that the sweeping choice that catapulted him to first place is more of a statement than comes from love. It should be noted that the wonderful “Bicycle Thief” from 1948, whose screenplay was written by Cesare Zavitini, is ranked 41st this year (33rd in the previous survey). In 1952, when the poll was conducted for the first time, “The Bicycle Thief”, who was only four years old at the time, was voted number one. That is, at the beginning of its journey, the survey was innovative, and included a lot of young films. Only over the years has it settled on a canon of old films, and this year the canon finally gets a kick.
Most of the great films that made the list a decade ago are still there, and Hitchcock is still in front of you with four films, but a few films have been dropped from it to make room. I’m especially sorry for Robert Altman’s “Nashville” from 1975. I’m happy about the other seventies movies that remained on the list – “The Godfather” and “Apocalypse Now” by Coppola, “Taxi Driver” by Scorsese, “Barry Lyndon” by Kubrick, “Celine and Julie Go for a Ride” by Jacques Rivette, and more . I also wonder if Bertolucci’s The Conformist and Polanski’s Chinatown, two great films, were pushed off the list because of the directors’ sins against women in the 1970s, which have only begun to change public attitudes towards them in the current era.
The newest films on the list are mainly from the representatives of the social sectors that for many years had difficulty entering the front door – that is, women and blacks – Jordan Peele’s “Escape” from 2017 (95th place), Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasites” from 2019 (90th place), “The Pickers and I” by Ennis Varda from 2000 (67th place), “Moonlight” by Barry Jenkins from 2016 (60th place), and the highest was “Portrait of a Girl on Fire” by Celine Siama from 2019 (30th place). I must state that I am in favor of the principle, but these are not the films I would choose (I liked Jenkins’ second film “The Story of Beale Street” and “American Honey” by Andrea Arnold much more).
Two films whose entry into the new list makes me happier are Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” from 1989 (24th place) and “Killer of Sheep”, Charles Burnett’s lyrical and observant film from 1977 (43rd place) about family life Black in the Watts neighborhood in Los Angeles. The film, which was filmed in 16 mm and in real time, was almost never distributed, gained an ever-increasing reputation over the years, and here it is on the list 55 years after it was created (You can watch it here). Burnett, 78, is still active and able to celebrate the late honor. And I am also happy with the pair of films by Hayao Miyazaki, “My Neighbor Totoro” and “The Wonderful Journey”, which finally give representation to the art of animation. And perhaps the biggest surprise is to find “Meshes of the Afternoon”, the silent and short avant-garde film (14 minutes) by Mia Dern and Alexander Hamid from 1943, in the 16th place. It’s a beautiful surreal dream revealing a woman’s pent-up passions, and seems to have succeeded Louis Buñuel’s “Andalusian Dog” which was on the previous list.
One can argue about each and every film on the list, and ask why there are so many successful and respected Hollywood directors who have not yet managed to fit into it. In the end such lists are an average of tastes, most of the films on the list are really wonderful, and at least this year there are real shifts. At the same time as the list I dealt with here, there is also a list compiled by 480 film directors, and it is interesting to note that despite some differences (the directors chose Spielberg’s “Jaws”, David Lynch’s “Eraser Head” and Michel Gondry’s “Eternal Sun in a Clear Head”), Overall the lists are pretty similar. The directors placed “Jean Dillman” in fourth place, moving Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” to first place.
And here are the ten films that I sent to the Sight and Sound survey – all of them are films that move me on several levels:
There was a time in the West – Sergio Leone 1968 (95th place)
Sunset Boulevard – Billy Wilder 1950 (78th place)
The Piano – Jane Campion 1992 (50th place)
81/2 – Federico Fellini 1963 (31st place)
Apocalypse Now – Francis Ford Coppola 1979 (19th place)
Ikiro – Akira Kurosawa (72nd place in the list of directors)
The Life After – Hirokazu Kora-Ada 1998
Cherbourg umbrellas – Jacques Demy 1964
The Spirit – Victor Schiostrom 1928
Mouse catcher – Lynn Ramsey 1999