Shooting Down Pictures

[...] Shooting Down Pictures placed an observative post today on The new 1000 Greatest Films: statistics and opinionsHere’s a quick excerpt [...]

[...] Shooting Down Pictures created an interesting post today on The new 1000 Greatest Films: statistics and opinionsHere’s a short outline [...]

I’ll have to disagree about The Party and Talk to Her – I think both belong on the list. I’m happy that Gunga Din was pulled; but why get rid of Leave Her to Heaven, Saving Private Ryan, Unfaithfully Yours, Text of Light?
On the plus side, the addition of Army of Shadows, El Sur, Veronika Voss and When a Woman Ascends the Stairs remedy what I think were great injustices.

I totally agree with your introduction, and I share your concern about opening up the demographic base who are asked to elect the best films of all time. The cinephile community needs more input from uncharted areas of the globe indeed, just like the blogosphere does. But the problem is not so much that voters only come from Europe and USA, as we could expect film experts to have a comprehensive knowledge of all cinemas, especially Cinematheque-friendly goers. The problem is with critics who only watch European and American movies, without seeking beyond their local territory.

Your sisiphus entry was interesting too. Sure we have to expect a top1000 canon to be unstable and ever changing, adapting to the evolution of the industry and the (hopefully) improving cinema culture of voters. But that many ins and outs, just show how arbitrary are the choices and how indecise are the voters. But I wonder how relevant is such a canon with 1000 entries (too many to be a solid reference) and so many diverse lists compiled (incompatibility of the purpose/scope of each ballot)…

Welcome INS : Army of Shadows; Oshima’s The Ceremony; Chloe in the Afternoon; La Collectionneuse; Le Feu follet; Flavour of Green Tea Over Rice; The General Line (!!!); Knife in the Water; Late Autumn (!!!); Miss Oyu; People on Sunday; La Roue; El Verdugo; Veronika Voss; The Virgin Spring;

undeserved OUTS : Abraham’s Valley; Mahanagar; Blind Chance; L’Enfance nue; Floating Weeds (!!!); The Mattei Affair; El Sol del Membrillo (!!!);

As for the exclusions, they forgot to take out Et Dieu… Créa la femme.

Hi Harry –

So are you saying that the poll surveys too many of those film critics from the US and Europe, and not enough of the cinephiles who watch a greater variety of films? I never thought to make such a distinction, plus I figured that with over 1600 ballots in question, there would be a healthy number of people with cosmopolitan tastes. Do you happen to know if you have a list that is included in the tally?

That’s an interesting argument you make, that the number of changes suggests that that the list, for whatever reason, is *too* susceptible to revision, and therefore it lacks real authority. At least that’s what I think you are saying. I am of two minds with that, in that I would probably get bored with a list that showed very little change over time — I can hardly be bothered with the top 100, for instance, as I’ve seen all those films and they don’t seem to change much with each revision. As for incompatibility of purpose/scope, I think that’s always going to be the case, and I don’t mind it. In fact it’s rather entertaining to see which kind of sensibility will prevail in each version, whether it’s hardcore art cinema, popular fare, or cult cinema, or whatever. Personally my allegiance is with international (and by international, I mean REALLY international) cinema, and that’s the campaign I’ve decided to wage for the next version of the list.

And God Created Woman — Bardot’s bare ass, what’s not to like?
I was rather shocked that Menilmontant, which had placed in the 400s in the previous list, is no longer in the top 1000.

Gunga Din and The Party are more or less in the same league where I’m concerned. I’ll concede that The Party has many great moments in it, but the primary conceit of Sellars in brownface I find very annoying.

Pretty mixed bag for Indian cinema in this update — another Ritwik Ghatak movie, which I can’t wait to get my hands on. But the epic Mughal E Azam got the boot.

I’m saying that critics with a wide and comprehensive taste, whereever they come from, would not elect only films from a certain area. They would pick the best from any country, even if these critics are all americans. The problem is that most of the (mainstream?) critics polled only watch a certain type of cinema and a safe territory of repertoire.
We could complain about the poor representation of experimental cinema too.

There is certainly not a list of mine in the tally, I’m not an official critic.

When you look at the individual ballots gathered, there are all sorts of list types. And what bother me is that every voter was not asked the same question, within comparable circumpstances. If every ballot was standard (i.e. What are the 10 top masterpieces of all time according to you?) then we could easily add up any and all ballots throughout ages and in any country. But sometimes the ballots are 100 items, or 20 or 15, sometimes they are “favorites”, best by decade, best by genre, best by country… obviously we don’t name the same films when the question changes, so its skews the end result. And some critics give a new list every year, so you could champion a different set of films each time just to give them more points.
The main cause of the problem you highlight here, is that voters didn’t see the same number of films (unlike a jury in Cannes, where the final vote is based on a common knowledge). And the people who saw the largtest number of underseen films, and from little known countries, are minoritary. The more voters, the largest proportion of “mainstream taste” is included in the database.

Though I just notice now they ranked the voters in 3 hierarchical categories (Highly respected, respected, low profile). So it could help to balance ballots if they are weighted. It’s funny to see the percentage of supporters of the films in the 900’s (lots of 100% and 0%, which suggests very little voters)

I admire their project, but I doubt the relevance of this desired “universality” for a global consensus.

It’s normal that the list would update, especially when new voters are added, and to eventually include the newest films. But should we see that much swing in only one year time for THE universal all time canon?
If the last 100 entires keep changing, maybe 1000 masterpieces is too large a number yet. We’ll have to wait for the catalog of film history to grow larger before 1000 of them become solid references.

Since you’ve seen almost all of these films, I’d like to know how you appreciate the representativity of this canon. And I’d like to see what is your personal top1000, did you make one?

“But should we see that much swing in only one year time for THE universal all time canon?”
Well, to be fair, most of the newly included lists are older than one year; it’s just that TSPDT discovered them recently. So, the previous list was less “accurate”.

“If the last 100 entires keep changing, maybe 1000 masterpieces is too large a number yet. We’ll have to wait for the catalog of film history to grow larger before 1000 of them become solid references.”
I thought that with the number of sources increasing so much, they might also increase the length of the list. It has always been the top 1000 films, even back when it was based on fewer than 1000 individual top 10s (3s, 5s, 25s, …).
Now, since the new top 1000 is more “accurate” (i.e. based on more sources) than the old one, I predict it will be more stable. And, indeed, previous updates were not as big as this latest one.
Also, many of the new entries are actually re-entries from previous versions of the list.

Finally, even though 1000 is a large number, and I’m not even close to having seen all of them, the list still excludes many, many masterpieces (did anybody here participate in that rags-to-riches game TSPDT organized a while ago?).

That’s a valid point that these lists are taken from different sources, often with different parameters or criteria involved. But surely it is impossible to have a “Cannes jury” watching all the same movies as you suggested.

The main cause of the problem you highlight here, is that voters didn’t see the same number of films (unlike a jury in Cannes, where the final vote is based on a common knowledge). And the people who saw the largtest number of underseen films, and from little known countries, are minoritary. The more voters, the largest proportion of “mainstream taste” is included in the database.

“It’s normal that the list would update, especially when new voters are added, and to eventually include the newest films. But should we see that much swing in only one year time for THE universal all time canon?
If the last 100 entires keep changing, maybe 1000 masterpieces is too large a number yet. We’ll have to wait for the catalog of film history to grow larger before 1000 of them become solid references.”

Yeah but at the same time those swings make the list interesting. The moment a list becomes solid is the moment a list dies.

“Since you’ve seen almost all of these films, I’d like to know how you appreciate the representativity of this canon. And I’d like to see what is your personal top1000, did you make one?”

I don’t think this list necessarily represents anything other than the opinions of about 1600 people, many of whom probably have an informed and respectable opinion about films. For me it has been and continues to be a very stimulating viewing guide. But I don’t take for granted the objectivity (or lack thereof) of the list. For me this is very much an issue of the politics of aesthetics. I’ve stated my primary objection with this list, which is the gross underrepresentation of films outside of the US and Europe. Equally disconcerting is the fact that there are only 12 films directed by women on the list of 1000, and fewer than 20 experimental films. So my efforts this year will be to effect changes in those areas by seeking experts around the world in those cinemas to offer their own lists for the website.

I have a spreadsheet of all the films I’ve seen, though I haven’t updated it in nearly a year as this blog has kept me quite busy. Perhaps once I’m done with this project I think I would feel qualified to issue a top 1000.

z – common sense would support the idea of a more stable list. But one thing that perplexes me is the sudden omission of MENILMONTANT, a masterpiece of a film (Pauline Kael’s favorite, I believe) which ranked relatively highly on the previous list, somewhere in the 400s. How could it suddenly fall over 600 places while hundreds of lower ranked films stayed on? Did some of the lists that supported it suddenly no longer count? It’s very perplexing.

Anyway I did participate in the rags to riches exercise, and I was rather disappointed in the lack of participation. I was hoping it would be an opportunity for fans of the list to have some direct influence on the results, in that some of the most popular choices from Rags to Riches be added at the expense of the most unpopular choices.

I agree with you about Floating Weeds. All of Ozu s movies are masterpieces. But why do you think Party and Talk To Her dont deserve to be there?

Hi, Kevin!
Your shooting blog is a thing of beauty. Regarding a better, world-representative, top 1000 list, you’re blog entry got me thinking about this. I really hope you have the time & effort available to follow through on your desire to collect top films lists from underrepresented areas. For my own fun, I think I’ll create an imaginary top 1000 list which gives due regard to each country and decade (year?) for which the IMDB has entries. It’s a bit of data gathering but many power searches I can build a list which reflects each countries’ contribution to the body of films populating the IMDB. Where I fall short is having the savvy to know which films ought to populate those spots. In other words, I can apportion 12 spots in the 1990s for Iranian films but knowing which films to put there is a whole different pickle. This is just rumination on my part and who knows if I’ll have time. The mind is willing but the body is busy doing other things. Keep plugging and don’t let a little thing like TSP list revision set you back. Your viewing last year will put you some degree much closer on the next revision. As for numbering, I would assign multiple numbers. If you’ve dropped back to 901 seen but have already watched 40 during your project, I’d number the next one “902 (41)” thereby giving due respect to the work you’ve done so far and the distance you have to go.

Arian — Not to sound too much like a “Party” pooper, but I found the implicit offensiveness of that film to outweigh whatever comic brilliance it had to offer. Imagine a black character in that role – do you think such a movie could be made today? On second thought maybe I should take that back, with Martin Lawrence and Ice Cube playing 21st century minstrels.

As for Talk to Her, I found it to be incredibly misogynistic despite its ostensible glorification of the female as an object of desire (as opposed to a human being).

Hi Dan — thanks for the kind words – and your suggestion for numbering makes sense — I’ll try to implement it as I resume my viewings. Please do stay in touch, how are things with you?

All is well. FYI – I posted on the IMDB Classic Film board some totals from the IMDB database of films by country and decade.

This is a joke! Breathless at 29??? Breathless was a terrible film. The acting was horrific and there was no plot. The worst part were the jump cuts.

Yeah those awful jump cuts, that for better or worse revolutionized cinema.

I´m really happy for you to including three films of the unknown filmmaker abroad Spain, Luís García Berlanga, who is 86 I think and that is ill at this moment. He is a genious of seventh art and I think that he really deserves it.
I´m a spanish fan of your page/spot and I recommend you another spanish film of the 60´s: El Extraño viaje, whose filmaker,actor and writer (Fernando Fernán Gómez) has recently died .
Thank you and congratulations!.

Talk to Her (Almodóvar) is a great film. Glad to see it included.

This list blows. You have a bunch of old black and white movies that suck and none of the newer greater films featured on imdb.com’s top 250.

go get a life old timers, casablanca and citizen kane just didnt cut it, so stop jacking off to it.

You would like “Talk to Her” old timers

This is the description:

Female Full Frontal Nudity / Coma Rape / Tragic Love / Bare Butt / Undressing Scene

Pervies, go figure.

The method used to calculate the top-1000 list is highly flawed. It rewards bad films that are thought great by a small percentage of critics. Consider Gummo, for example: Apparantly, a small percentage of critics consider it great, so it gets points on a few top-10 lists. But the average critics dislikes it a lot (just look how it fared on Rotten Tomatoes, for God’s sake: 29%! and an average 4.5/10 rating. The problem is that allowing only top-10 lists means that films that almost everyone would choose for their top-1000 list (but which make nobody’s top-10 list) get fewer points that films that most people wouldn’t put in the top-1000, but which get on a few Top-10 lists.

The only solution, really, is to do two things: (1) Solicit larger lists (top-20, top-50, or top-100). And (2), each year initially publish a “tentative” top-1000 list and request that within a month all list-providers submit a follow-up list of films they think are VERY undeserving of being on the final list. The “negative votes” would be used to downgrade extreme cases, and a “final” yearly list would then be published.

I don’t really have a problem with that. There are controversial films that are rated poorly by a certain number of critics but are loved passionately by others, and they would be punished somewhat unfairly under a rating system based on averages.

Without eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind this list is trash. The rest of it may be fine, but to leave out what may be the best film of the last ten years is ridiculous.

Slighting Menilmontant is a terrible shame. I can’t believe it actually. The texture of this film is breathtaking and the scene were she contemplates suicide is a masterpiece portrayal of despair. Kael called it one of the unknown greats. You are turning your back on masterpiece silent film by slighting Menilmontant.

if mcvicar is not in the top 1000 films then this list requires a serious rethink

This is surely one of the best film sites out there, and I commend all the effort that has gone into making it so. My only problem with the ongoing list, as with all film canons, is the obvious bias against films made in the last 25 years.

There are more quality, groundbreaking films being made now (and in more places of the world) than ever before, and yet the film community refuses to acknowledge the best of them when it comes time to come up with a list of the “greats.”

Probably the biggest reason for this is that not enough time has passed for the great films of the modern era to be recognized or “rediscovered” as emblematic or outstanding. The last 25 years is still, perhaps, to close at hand for film critics to have enough perspective on what is being created in their own life times.

Perhaps, as well, there is a bias towards ancient history- in honor of a craft whose early pioneers made such great strides forward in developing the art form and establishing a formula for success in the medium. Perhaps, there is even some nostalghia for the old standards that were achieved.

I am ok with this. But I think every era should be represented by its best in fair numbers. Are there fewer, or lower quality films being made today in the world? Did the art form peak in the 50’s and 60’s? I don’t think so. The medium has continued to evolve, and not only become more sophisticated in many ways, but more innovative at the same time.

In the last 15-20 years film has truly become a medium of expression that is world wide, and the films being made throughout the world not only reflect these different cultural sensibilities, but inform the medium with unique approaches to film narrative, all of which deserve recognition among the film canons.

How many John Ford films do we need to recognize before we understand his valuable contribution to cinema? Certainly not more than what make up the entire list of films recognized from the new millenium…. just a thought….

Fellow film enthusiasts,

While I understand the argument that “the classics” are
determined in time, it reaks of a stodgy parochialism that
traditonalists have used throughout time against all new
great ideas, whether they be scientific or artistic. We
have only to consider how the church and establishment
treated scientists in recent centuries, or how the
impressionist painters were viewed by the established
artworld in their time to understand my point.

In the film world, the same is true today. There is no
respect for filmmakers working with the medium outside the
established credos or entertainment industry (hollywood).
To poke a further hole in the argument that film canons
must be made up of films that “stand the test of time,” we
need only consider Sight And Sound’s 1972 List, where 8
1/2, L’aventura, and Persona (all made in the 60’s)
made the top 5 of all time. Sight And Sound’s top ten
lists, over the years, have probably been the most
respected film lists out there, and yet, in the past, they
never let “time” stand in the way of recognizing greatness
in the medium.

In my previous letters, I spoke about the ignorance of
great films made after 1985, but many of those included for
10-15 years prior seem to have been chosen because they
were made by “great filmmakers” who established themselves
in an earlier era (the 50’s and 60’s).

The gist of my complaint about the list is two-fold: A lack
of respect given to filmmakers who began making films after
the mid-70’s, and lack of recognition for contemporary
filmmakers from other places in the world (beyond the U.S.
and Western Europe) who are part of the global film
explosion that began in the mid-1980’s, and continues to a
greater extent, today

16 post-1975 filmmakers who should be represented in the top 250:

Terrence Malick- for Days Of Heaven, Thin Red Line, or Badlands
Kieslowski- for the Tri-color trilogy (Blue), Double Life of Veronique
Kustarica- for Time Of The Gypsies or Underground
Coen Brothers- for Fargo
PT Anderson- for Magnolia, Boogie Nights, or There Will Be Blood
Mike Leigh- for Secrets And Lies, or Naked
Soukorov- Mother And Son
Wan Kar Wai- In the Mood For Love or Chung King Express
Von Trier- Breaking The Waves, Zentropa, or Dancer In The Dark
Juenet- Amelie, City Of Lost Children, or A Very Long Engagement
Ahn Trung- Cyclo or Scent Of Green Papaya
Almodovar- Woman on the Verge… , or All About Mother
Kiarostami- Close Up, Taste Of Cherry, or The Wind Will Carry Us
Makmahlbaf- Moment of Innocence
Zhang Yimou- Raise The Red Lantern
Haneke- Code Unknown

Other contemporary favorites include Before The Rain, Sex And Lucia, The Return, Cabeza De Vaca, Amores Perros, L’America, Maborosi, Brothers, The Holy Girl, City Of God, and Behind The Sun

The Tingler? Huh?

The Big Lebowski? Is that a joke?

Americola…

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[...] seeing last December’s updated list, I made an open complaint about how little representation of experimental and third world cinema there was, as well as films [...]

[...] the U.S. and Europe, as well as experimental cinema, films directed by women, and documentaries. I addressed this concern following last year’s update; one year later, it seems the situation has only gotten worse. [...]

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I was looking through your past posts. Great job there….

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