Who is the GOAT?

The British magazine Sight & Sound has published its 9^th decennary list for the “Best Films of All Time”. https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/sight-and-sound-100-best-films-all-time-2022. This decade’s list was derived from a poll of over 1,600 film critics around the world, almost doubling the participants from the 2012 poll. The result is a more diverse array of movies than in prior years, and far different from most such lists you will see.

This being 2022, that diversity has sparked significant backlash. Director Paul Schrader (Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, American Gigolo, Cat People), has branded the poll “a politically correct rejiggering”. He was outraged by the leap of “Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles” from 36^th to 1^st in this year’s poll, calling the leap “a landmark of distorted woke reappraisal”.

By their very nature “all-time” lists are questionable at best. However, as Shrader recognized, with its poll starting in 1952 S&S had managed to carve itself a niche as a “reliable if somewhat incremental measure of critical consensus and priorities”. Shrader believes that in 2022 S&S abrogated that role because voters selected films for their political content rather than their cinematic worth.

Schrader and his ilk ignore the fact that the content of the poll has always been a function of the evaluating panel. The 1952 poll, which only picked a top 10, had 85 critics, all from 9 European countries and the United States. Not surprisingly, there were no films on the list outside of Europe and the United States. I could not find the breakdown of the 1952 critics by gender or ethnicity, though I could pretty much guess.

In 2022, S&S specifically sought to be more inclusive, making clear that it was reaching out for more international input. I have no doubt that they also sought more gender and racial diversity as well. In other words, the 2022 poll reflects who was asked, just as the 1952 poll did.

Much of the criticism focused on the rise of Jeanne Dielman. As I considered the poll, I was embarrassed by the fact that I had not seen this film. So, on a rainy Tuesday, I sat down to absorb all of its three hours and 21 minutes.

Jeanne Dielman is, in many ways, anti-cinema. Director Chantelle Ackerman lingers on long static shots depicting the main character going through daily household tasks, making the bed, preparing supper, eating a sandwich. The camera does not zoom in or provide context. It just observes, and thereby forces the viewer to do the same. There is little dialogue, and what dialogue exists is mostly banal. This film lacks everything I have been brought up to expect in a movie.

Yet, it is gripping in its audacity. Ackerman establishes the unaltering daily routine of Jeanne to such an extent that any deviation from that routine – a dropped brush, a light left on, unkempt hair, a vigorous potato peeling session – seems to carry great significance. As these anomalies, small as they are, mount an explosion seems inevitable. Even though Ackerman flaunts every tenet of exciting movie-watching, the three hours goes fast.

And yet, I cannot generally recommend Jeanne Dielman. You must have extraordinary patience, willing to sit through hours of nothing happening. If you do, it is rewarding, but most viewers will probably never make it that far. I know why this movie is held in such high esteem by critics and filmmakers alike. However, it is not a film that will satisfy most movie-goers.

This reflects my problem with the list generally. Audience satisfaction is apparently not a criterion. Not that there are not some taut thrillers on this list – North by Northwest, The Battle of Algiers, The Night of the Hunter, Get Out – but they are few and far between. There is only one true musical, Singing in the Rain, no grand spectacles (ala Lawrence of Arabia) and no film noir.

It also seems that movie critics lack a sense of humor. I count 11 films that could be classified as comedies, though even that is generous. (Are Daises and The Apartment there because they are laugh riots?). Other than Do the Right Thing and two Miyzaki animated films, there are no comedies (if those films can be classified as comedies) on the list that were made after 1967. No Spinal Tap or Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Nothing by Mel Brooks (The Producers), Woody Allen (Annie Hall), the Coen Brothers (Raising Arizona) or Wes Anderson (Grand Budapest Hotel). These are huge omissions.

And yet, I sympathize with the critics. They do not compile a list of the 100 greatest films, but only submit their top 10. Try it. If you are any kind of moviegoer, it is incredibly hard to winnow the great films down to that level. Anyone conscientiously compiling such a list must feel incredible angst at leaving out masterworks that you know belong in the top 100, but you don’t have room to include.

With that limitation it is inevitable that voters are going to do everything they can to make sure their favorites are recognized. Those favorites may reflect films from a country, or continent (Africa) that has been overlooked. They may reflect topics (racism, feminism) that have been neglected. They may reflect categories of directors (women, people of color) that have not been as celebrated as they should be. I have no problem with that.

The prior S&S polls may have been a “reliable if somewhat incremental measure of critical consensus and priorities”, but that was only possible by keeping those defining that consensus and setting those priorities as narrow as possible. Opening the doors to other views may make accord impossible, but it also shines light on films that deserve to be seen. And at the end of the day shouldn’t that be what these lists are all about?

P.S. It would be duplicitous of me to carp on a poll without providing my own best ever list. As you will see, this reflects my own biases as much as any other voter. These are films that I can watch over and over, which is one of my criteria. I was going to include an honorable mention list (it kills me not to have a Hitchcock, or Truffaut, or screwball comedy, or film noir, etc., etc.), but it got way too long. Let the second guessing begin.

1. Seven Samurai – Kurosawa

2. In the Mood for Love – Wong Kar-wei

3. Seventh Seal – Bergman

4. Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb – Kubrick (not on the S&S list???????)

5. Apocalypse Now – Coppola

6. Stalker – Tarkovsky

7. Modern Times – Chaplin

8. Cabaret – Fosse

9. The Third Man – Reed

10. La Strada – Fellini