Sight and Sound 2022 Goes Pretentious

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CinemaInternational
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Sight and Sound 2022 Goes Pretentious

Post by CinemaInternational »

https://www.indiewire.com/2022/12/sight ... 234786615/

The overall effect of this list is absolutely numbing. Top movie lists made up of huge groups of people are always going to disappoint people, but if there is one thing to be noted about the critics' list, it is that it is concurrently pretentious and myopic in some ways. Far too much recency bias is involved here. I'm two months away from my 28th birthday; three of the top ten were made in my lifetime, and while I thought that Mulholland Drive and In the Mood for Love are exceptional films, I would hesitate before putting them on a list of the 10 best films of the last 125 years.

Jeanne Dielman as the top film of all-time is an eyerolling choice. There is a sort of weirdly hypnotic quality about it, but it is a nearly three and a half hour film that, although it ends with an act of violence, consists mostly of Delphine Seyrig doing menial household work by herself. In essence, the best film list of all time is being headed up by an anti-film. If they wanted to go with a choice by a female director, why not The Piano, which is much more lush and with much more of a storyline?

Plus, Chinatown was thrown off the top 100 entirely. There is no defending Roman Polanski's private life, but its an extraordinary film from Robert Towne 's script to Jerry Goldsmith's score to the performances of Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway, and it seems cruel to discount the whole film because of the man who helmed it.

I guess if I had to sum up the problem, it feels like the bigger problem with film criticism in the last few years. It used to be a film could be enjoyed simply for what was on screen; now the most favored films are heavy-handed message films, with endlessly smug thought pieces detailing how "important" such films are. It is a minor miracle that Vertigo, Citizen Kane, and Singin' in the Rain are still in the top 10 as they are more redolent of an older, healthier tradition: to hold up films that have an appeal far beyond intellectual circles.
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EP Millstone
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Re: Sight and Sound 2022 Goes Pretentious

Post by EP Millstone »

Personally, I don't give a flyin' flip about "Best" lists. I care even less about critics' opinions. Who besides critics and sheeple influenced by other people's opinions care what critics think? Even lower on my movie radar are feminist movies directed by women with (according to the Internet Movie Database) an "all female crew."

If I were forced to put a movie directed by a woman on a "Best Films" list (and I'd have to be forced!), I'd choose The Hitch-Hiker directed by Ida Lupino.

Critics -- FEH!



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Re: Sight and Sound 2022 Goes Pretentious

Post by LawrenceA »

There's been a trend with these sorts of lists over the past decade to become more and more contentious and outrageous with their selections in order to drive clicks/subscriptions/etc. It's glaringly apparent, and while something like Jeanne Dielman has been lauded for decades, placing it at number one was done for no other reason than to drive angry reaction on social media and therefore generate more clicks on the publication's site.

There's nothing wrong with making these lists in principal, or with reading them. They can be a good source of recommendations, which is the only way they should be regarded. No one is the ultimate arbiter of what is good, or "greatest", but getting pointed in the direction of something that you may find worthwhile is laudable.

There are 9 on the current list that I haven't seen:
Shoah (mammoth length documentary)
News from Home (another Akerman)
Daughters of the Dust (I think I once tried recording this on TCM but it failed)
My Neighbor Totoro (I'm not a big animation fan)
Satantango (another mammoth length effort which sounds especially dull and annoying)
A Brighter Summer Day
Celine & Julie Go Boating
Historie(s) du cinema (Godard - blech)
Tropical Malady (I don't think I'd even heard of this one)
Watching until the end.
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EP Millstone
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Re: Sight and Sound 2022 Goes Pretentious

Post by EP Millstone »

It’s fascinating to see how the list changes each decade and how those changes may reflect shifts in film culture.
IndieWire

. . . which conceivably could mean that by the time that CinemaInternational is my age, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Top Gun: Maverick and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever could make Sight & Sound's Best Films of All Time.

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Re: Sight and Sound 2022 Goes Pretentious

Post by LostHorizons »

A Birghter Summer Day is a must watch. It is the best of the unseen films on your list.
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Re: Sight and Sound 2022 Goes Pretentious

Post by CinemaInternational »

EP Millstone wrote: December 1st, 2022, 5:52 pm
It’s fascinating to see how the list changes each decade and how those changes may reflect shifts in film culture.
IndieWire

. . . which conceivably could mean that by the time that CinemaInternational is my age, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Top Gun: Maverick and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever could make Sight & Sound's Best Films of All Time.

They might pick the ADD-driven Everything Everywhere All At Once in the future, but I would not bet on the other two. What the critics who made this list are basically telling people is "look at how smart and so important we are. Our picks are so much better and so much more important than any film you might enjoy". It is honestly and truly condescending, and it is directed at us classic film fans as much as it is to the blockbuster crowd.
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Re: Sight and Sound 2022 Goes Pretentious

Post by EP Millstone »

Coincidentally (or perhaps not coincidentally), The Criterion Channel is presenting fifty-five of Sight and Sound's 100 Greatest Films of All Time. Included is S&S's numéro un choice Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles.

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Re: Sight and Sound 2022 Goes Pretentious

Post by umop apisdn »

Fixing a double post.

I saw the list and just shook my head. I watched Jeanne Dielman once and that was enough. I'd have put Tokyo Story at the top. The list on the whole was disappointing.

There's only one film from India, Pather Panchali, where I would have included The Cloud-Capped Star and maybe Charulata.

They picked the super obvious Fellini (8 1/2 and La Dolce Vita) over Nights of Cabiria or La Strada, both films I enjoy the most in his filmography.

Then again they picked an average Douglas Sirk film, Imitation of Life, when other superior efforts exist.

Get Out even making the list at 98 is just plain silly. Moonlight at 62 is just too high above The Third Man and Sansho the Bailiff. Same with Portrait of a Lady on Fire at 30.

I was interested in the list they would put out and knew there would be some changes, but I agree the newer films being so high makes this more like the IMDB top 250.
Last edited by umop apisdn on December 1st, 2022, 9:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Sight and Sound 2022 Goes Pretentious

Post by umop apisdn »

EP Millstone wrote: December 1st, 2022, 3:42 pm If I were forced to put a movie directed by a woman on a "Best Films" list (and I'd have to be forced!), I'd choose The Hitch-Hiker directed by Ida Lupino.
I saw that for the first time when it aired earlier in the month. I could not get it out of my mind. I've resolved to watch as much Ida Lupino as possible since Criterion Channel did a featured theme on her. I wish she had gotten a lot more chances to direct, what a talent!
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Re: Sight and Sound 2022 Goes Pretentious

Post by CinemaInternational »

LawrenceA wrote: December 1st, 2022, 3:55 pm
There are 9 on the current list that I haven't seen:
Shoah (mammoth length documentary)
News from Home (another Akerman)
Daughters of the Dust (I think I once tried recording this on TCM but it failed)
My Neighbor Totoro (I'm not a big animation fan)
Satantango (another mammoth length effort which sounds especially dull and annoying)
A Brighter Summer Day
Celine & Julie Go Boating
Historie(s) du cinema (Godard - blech)
Tropical Malady (I don't think I'd even heard of this one)
I saw three of those.

A Brighter Summer Day (1991) is another super-length foreign-language film (about 4 hours) that, just like in Jeanne Dielmann, ultimately builds to a shocking act. It's set in the 1960s and details a relationship between two teenagers that gradually grows dysfunctional. The film is obviously well-made, but at the length that it is at, feels decidedly overextended.

Daughters of the Dust (also 1991) is more of a mood piece than an actual narrative story. It details a day (maybe two, it's been a little while since I saw it) in the life of several different generations of Gullah women living on one of the islands off the shore of South Carolina at the turn of the century. There is a distinctly poetic feel about it, and despite the film's low budget, it always feels crisp and elegant.

And then there is My Neighbor Totoro (1988), which I grew up watching. It's a very innocent animated family film, with the only eyebrow-raising sequence being a brief reminder of Japanese families all taking their baths together to conserve water.Otherwise, its very gentle, appropriate for anyone from toddlers up. It's the tale of two sisters, who move to the countryside with their father, as their mother attempts to recover from an illness in the hospital. The girls then are shown either adjusting to their new life, or spending time with the mythical creature known as a Totoro, a very large but utterly benign creature that only children can see. It too is more of a mood piece than an actual narrative and it might be one of the gentlest and quietest animated films made anywhere. There are some truly beautiful and inspired scenes, accompanied by a lovely musical score.
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Re: Sight and Sound 2022 Goes Pretentious

Post by Swithin »

LawrenceA wrote: December 1st, 2022, 3:55 pm There's been a trend with these sorts of lists over the past decade to become more and more contentious and outrageous with their selections in order to drive clicks/subscriptions/etc. It's glaringly apparent, and while something like Jeanne Dielman has been lauded for decades, placing it at number one was done for no other reason than to drive angry reaction on social media and therefore generate more clicks on the publication's site.

There's nothing wrong with making these lists in principal, or with reading them. They can be a good source of recommendations, which is the only way they should be regarded. No one is the ultimate arbiter of what is good, or "greatest", but getting pointed in the direction of something that you may find worthwhile is laudable.

There are 9 on the current list that I haven't seen:
Shoah (mammoth length documentary)
News from Home (another Akerman)
Daughters of the Dust (I think I once tried recording this on TCM but it failed)
My Neighbor Totoro (I'm not a big animation fan)
Satantango (another mammoth length effort which sounds especially dull and annoying)
A Brighter Summer Day
Celine & Julie Go Boating
Historie(s) du cinema (Godard - blech)
Tropical Malady (I don't think I'd even heard of this one)
I'm shocked that you haven't seen the divine Celine and Julie Go Boating!

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LawrenceA
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Re: Sight and Sound 2022 Goes Pretentious

Post by LawrenceA »

skimpole wrote: December 2nd, 2022, 11:42 am What about the Director's Poll?
I hadn't seen that one yet. Looks like more of the usual suspects. On this list, I haven't seen

La Cienaga
Taste of Cherry

as well as the ones mentioned from the other list.
Watching until the end.
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