As a matter of principle I’m against these lists, for many reasons, first among them being: it’s impossible to choose the greatest movies of all time, much less the single 'greatest movie' of all time. How do we define ‘great,’ and do we all agree on the definition? More on this below. Moreover, where does ‘greatest’ end and ‘favorites’ begin? And as much as I look askance at the BFI/S&S poll, I like their definition of greatness in a movie and indeed will apply their yardstick to my own very subjective choices. Their voters are asked to interpret ‘greatest’ as they chose: to reflect the film’s importance in cinematic history, its aesthetic achievement, or perhaps its personal impact in their own life and their view of cinema.
Anyhow since BFI and Sight & Sound will never ask my opinion, and considering I’ve already made a precedent with posts on somewhat related topics (little known movies, greatest cinematic geniuses, and best art movies), here are my thoughts and my ‘Top 10’.
The biggest frustration is choosing only ten titles. And yes, it pains me to leave out certain films, directors, too: you won’t find anything by Kurosawa, Godard, Fassbinder, Antonioni, or Bergman. So be it. A list of 10 is a list of 10 (even if I fudge the matter and have two ties, so this is, strictly speaking, a list of twelve). I demur from including an honorable mention section. On the other hand, some big names do make the cut, ergo there’s one title each by Hitchcock and Welles, though the choice of Touch of Evil instead of Kane or Ambersons may raise eyebrows [1]. But the truth is, at this level, individual films are pretty much interchangeable: to wit, why Kiss Me Deadly and not Out of the Past; why Carnival of Souls and not The Seventh Victim or Night of the Living Dead; why Dementia and not Meshes of the Afternoon? In any event, here goes, more or less in chronological order:
Trouble in Paradise
tie: Kiss Me Deadly
Sunset Boulevard
Dementia /Daughter of Horror
Touch of Evil
Vertigo
Deux Hommes dans Manhattan
La Dolce Vita
Last Year at Marienbad
Carnival of Souls
tie: Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
Comments: it’s pretty obvious that I favor black and white films released in, or around, the 1950s, also that I tend to go with B movies, quirky oddities, and genre films over big-budget Hollywood blockbusters. Guilty on all counts. Of course I could just as easily replace these ten with another ten, and another, and they would be just as representative of ‘greatness’, as well as honest choices in representing my opinion. Echoing what I’ve written above, at this level – the top 100 or so, give or take a few dozen – the ‘greatest’ movies are more or less interchangeable. Not to belabor the point, but for example, I could choose all color movies and all-Euro directors and be just as valid in my combination of the subjective with the canonically great. The films might be the likes of The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, Death in Venice, Juliet of the Spirits, Lola Montes, The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Cries and Whispers, The Red Shoes, and, well, you get the idea.
[1] Perhaps my selecting Touch of Evil is my modest protest that the film was bumped from BFI’s Top 250 this time around, though Kane and Ambersons still made the grade, placing 3 and tied 169 respectively. Speaking of Orson Welles, it occurs to me that for the greatest movies of all time I could choose ten Orson Welles movies and not be that far off the mark. Oh well, plus ça change ...
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