WorldFarAway
Glastonbury Grove
- Apr 12, 2022
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70. Tempted to try watching the final 30 before 2023…
2022 Sight and Sound Greatest Films of All Time
- Thread starter Stavrogyn
- Start date
Stavrogyn
White Lodge
- Apr 12, 2022
- 677
- 550
- Thread starter
- #22
Oh, come on! La Jetée is only 28 minutes long, that's basically cheatingI'd like to report that my status has bumped up, having seen 2 more films from the list.Sorry Stavrogyn!
For some unfathomable reason, I've never seen it. I love 12 Monkeys, have seen it many times, and we even watched excerpts from and discussed La Jetée at the university, but I still haven't seen it in full. I guess Chris Marker should be placed higher on my list of priorities.
As for the list itself, I think it could be used as a really good guideline for which directors are worth exploring. And I never said this, but I really admire your taste. At some point, you listed INLAND EMPIRE, Nymphomaniac, and Synecdoche, New York as your favorite films and I thought yes, that's just great cinema, perfect films for the top three spots. So I trust you regarding your newly-discovered enthusiasm apropos Chris Marker. (By the way, a year ago, I finally watched the Nymphomaniac director's cut, in two consecutive nights, and it was so much better, just as you said it would be. Lars von Trier is truly a master.)
AXX°N N.
Waiting Room
- Apr 14, 2022
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The admiration is mutual! I only ever saw 12 Monkeys once, and with the Marker influence in mind it might be due for a re-appreciation. I could detect how La Jetée was a blueprint for another director I love, Mamoru Oshii, and it's always such a communal, revelatory feeling to see the groundworks and seeds of what other directors found to love.
Speaking of Trier, he's not represented on the list at all. I don't want to speculate on the role of personal reputation driving that fact, so I'll just say it's interesting.
Now that you mention these three, I remember an exchange on how the throughline seems to be that they all happen to be about memory, and Marker is very unambiguously obsessed with the theme. He articulates so well what I find so vexing about it that, for Sans Soleil in particular, I almost felt like I could have written it, or more like deeply wished I was capable. It should be no surprise I took a shine because actually, I'm now remembering the reason I watched it is I was browsing what of these films Criterion has available, and the blurb for Sans Soleil was something to do with being an essay about memory. In my recollection the movie magically flew in from nowhere and was perfect. D'oh!
Speaking of Trier, he's not represented on the list at all. I don't want to speculate on the role of personal reputation driving that fact, so I'll just say it's interesting.
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Hey, that was me! I recall that you also had Mirror near the top of your list, and beyond memory I evoked Major Briggs to say that your top choices are akin to the mind revealing itself to itself.
Re: Trier, I think that beyond or in addition to any way that people may feel about him, his brand of cinema is currently out of style. Unfortunately, neither spirituality nor provocation nor a more cerebral, probing tone seems to have much sway over critics nowadays, and some of his best films engage in all three.
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AXX°N N.
Waiting Room
- Apr 14, 2022
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There's that memory again, and to think it's only worse from here! I've since added to my shortlist of great memory-films Hiroshima, Mon Amour, which felt in some horrifying way like it was actually about my inner child.
Agent Earle
Great Northern Hotel
- Apr 12, 2022
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I can't say I'm particularly impressed with this list - decidedly too little horror/extreme cinema for my taste and too anachronistic (the share of B&W movies is - what? - about 50%?). No Night of the Living Dead?! No Texas Chain Saw Massacre?! No Suspiria?! No Halloween?! No The Fly?! No Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer?! Screw this S***! I know, I know, I sound like a clueless primitive, but can't help giving my initial impressions. I guess I've seen less than 20 movies off of it, and I don't see myself delving into the rest any time soon...
AXX°N N.
Waiting Room
- Apr 14, 2022
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I saw this recently and was blown away by it. Of course the grisly stuff was great, but the deranged tone pervading everything and those amazing close-up shots of the eyes at the end were outstanding. I agree 100% that it's doing yourself a disservice to avoid certain films because of some perceived pulpiness or popcorn reputation ... on the other hand, I think it's just as much of a disservice to not give a film a fair shake because of its perceived arthouse quality and whatever negative adjectives (snobbiness, elitism, etc.) that that might connote.
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It is what it is, and we have to remember that it’s not an absolute poll, it’s a Critics’ Poll (with a related Directors’ Poll). These things, naturally, are going to reflect the opinions of critics (and directors), with all of their attendant biases. On the other hand, if we had a real peoples’ poll, where we polled literally every living person who’s seen at least 100 movies, you might get some great things in there, but it would probably also be quite off-putting in its own way.
- Apr 11, 2022
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I haven’t seen that one.
Ickles
White Lodge
- Apr 12, 2022
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One of John Waters' best.
Dustoff
RR Diner
- Apr 12, 2022
- 23
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48 here too. Though I have to admit there are two or three which I really can't remember if I've seen or not. (I didn't count them.)
Stavrogyn
White Lodge
- Apr 12, 2022
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- Thread starter
- #34
As brought up by @Mikethetwoarmedman, Sight and Sound has updated its list so that now all 250 films are visible.
Most interesting - and delightful - is that Fire Walk with Me was voted 211th and The Return 152nd best film of all time!
Most interesting - and delightful - is that Fire Walk with Me was voted 211th and The Return 152nd best film of all time!
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Mikethetwoarmedman
Sparkwood & 21
- Apr 12, 2022
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Hi everyone. Long time lurker, both here and at dugpa before it, first time poster. Don’t know how aware everyone is of the Sight and Sound poll of the greatest films of all time which has been conducted every ten years since the 50s. I don’t normally set much store by these kind of lists, but the sheer amount of time this one has been running for gives quite an insight into the way tastes and critical approval shifts over time. They issued the most recent list of the top 100 a while back, with Lynch appearing a couple of times. Predictably enough ‘Mulholland Drive’ towards the top and ‘Blue Velvet’ somewhere in the lower half. They’ve just released the full list of the top 250 and I was delighted to see ‘Fire Walk With Me’ sitting at 211 ( level with Pink Flamingos and Raiders of the Lost Ark!). Still far too low for what is for me Lynch’s best film, but it’s a nice concrete sign of how far that much-vaunted re-evaluation has come since 1992 and Vincent Canby who famously said ‘FWWM is not the worst film ever made. It just seems to be.’ Even more interestingly though, ‘Twin Peaks: The Return’ is on the list too, and higher, at 152. Not sure what criteria Sight and Sound apply for what qualifies as a film, but apparently ‘a film in 18 parts’ counts. It’s further evidence, if any were needed, of just how positive the critical response has been, even if it didn’t find a massive audience and proved so divisive for TwinPeaks fans. Thought I’d share. Nice to step out of the shadows once in a while.
P.S Originally posted this in the random thread because I’d missed this one somehow. My bad. Now it’s (Dougie voice) “Home.”
P.S Originally posted this in the random thread because I’d missed this one somehow. My bad. Now it’s (Dougie voice) “Home.”
- Apr 12, 2022
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It strikes me that this is a significant vindication of Sheryl Lee’s tremendous performance in FWWM.
Mikethetwoarmedman
Sparkwood & 21
- Apr 12, 2022
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I couldn’t agree more. She took a lot of hits from critics when FWWM was released, but I always felt as if they must have been watching a different film from me. It’s a stunning performance. So truthful, courageous and sincere. It may well be the best single performance I’ve ever seen in a film. Certainly one of the most powerful. And Ray Wise isn’t bad in it either! I think it’s sometimes a little overlooked in all the focus on mood and visuals and sound design what a great director of actors Lynch is.
lonelysoul
Sparkwood & 21
- Jan 30, 2023
- 4
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im so glad someone brought it up...do y'all consider the return a film or a TV show? the twitter discourse caused by the poll was so interesting
Mikethetwoarmedman
Sparkwood & 21
- Apr 12, 2022
- 5
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Yes, I think of it as a TV show too primarily, but was also very pleased to see it on the list. It’s a debate with a long history. When Dennis Potter’s six part TV drama ‘The Singing Detective’ first aired in America Vincent Canby (the same critic who was so memorably snarky about FWWM) wrote a glowing review under a headline asking something like ‘Is the year’s best film on TV?’ I think there’s still a touch of critical snobbery about TV as a medium which sometimes means if a show is clearly a work of art it’s automatically in many critic’s minds too good to be a TV show; it must be ‘really’ a film somehow. A bit like the way in the horror genre if a clearly ambitious movie like ‘Get Out’ appears a lot of critics feel inclined to think it’s too good to be just a horror film and are compelled to invent a slightly ludicrous term like’Post-Horror.’ It’s changed a bit with the undeniable quality of stuff like Mad Men or Breaking Bad, where the sheer length means it can’t be ‘really a film’ but I still feel there’s an entrenched assumption in places that film must be fundamentally more highbrow than TV. It kind of begs the question if ‘The Return’ is a film, then why isn’t ‘Twin Peaks’ itself? It can’t just be because The Return is more clearly an auteurist product with Lynch directing all of it and Lynch/Frost writing it all. After all, I can think of lots of examples of great films that had a cinematic release where the writing and/or directing were much more collaborative.
