Wednesday, December 3, 2008

by Ari

We all know Cahiers du Cinema is a respectable publication with a storied history, but their recent 100 Best Films list (from French critics and filmmakers) sure has some interesting and confounding choices. I'll put some notes next to a few of the films. If the title is HIGHLIGHTED, it's because I think the choice (or placement) is especially ludicrous. I haven't seen These. It's also fascinating to see what American films have had the largest impact in their country.

1 Citizen Kane - Orson Welles (No one can really argue against this. )
2 The Night of the Hunter - Charles Laughton (Wonderful movie. Not even close to the second best film of all time)
3 The Rules of the Game (La Règle du jeu) - Jean Renoir (I understand and respect the reputation of it, but I prefer other Renoir)
4 Sunrise - Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau
5 L’Atalante - Jean Vigo
6 M - Fritz Lang
7 Singin’ in the Rain - Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly (It's a classic, but Donen's made better films (Two For the Road) So has Kelly)
8 Vertigo - Alfred Hitchcock
9 Children of Paradise (Les Enfants du Paradis) - Marcel Carné
10 The Searchers - John Ford
11 Greed - Erich von Stroheim
12 Rio Bravo - Howard Hawkes
13 To Be or Not to Be - Ernst Lubitsch
14 Tokyo Story - Yasujiro Ozu
15 Contempt (Le Mépris) - Jean-Luc Godard
16 Tales of Ugetsu (Ugetsu monogatari) - Kenji Mizoguchi
17 City Lights - Charlie Chaplin (I'd put this over Rio Bravo, To Be or Not to Be and Contempt, and certainly Singin' in the Rain)
18 The General - Buster Keaton
19 Nosferatu the Vampire - Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau
20 The Music Room - Satyajit Ray
21 Freaks - Tod Browning
22 Johnny Guitar - Nicholas Ray (In a Lonely Place is Ray's masterwork)
23 The Mother and the Whore (La Maman et la Putain) - Jean Eustache
24 The Great Dictator - Charlie Chaplin
25 The Leopard (Le Guépard) - Luchino Visconti (I love this choice)
26 Hiroshima, My Love - Alain Resnais
27 The Box of Pandora (Loulou) - Georg Wilhelm Pabst
28 North by Northwest - Alfred Hitchcock
29 Pickpocket - Robert Bresson
30 Golden Helmet (Casque d’or) - Jacques Becker (One of my favorite French films)
31 The Barefoot Contessa - Joseph Mankiewitz (The most shocking choice on the list. Had no idea anyone actually liked this film)
32 Moonfleet - Fritz Lang
33 Diamond Earrings (Madame de…) - Max Ophüls (Could be higher)
34 Pleasure - Max Ophüls
35 The Deer Hunter - Michael Cimino
36 The Adventure - Michelangelo Antonioni
37 Battleship Potemkin - Sergei M. Eisenstein (Top 10)
38 Notorious - Alfred Hitchcock
39 Ivan the Terrible - Sergei M. Eisenstein
40 The Godfather - Francis Ford Coppola (Top 10 as well)
41 Touch of Evil - Orson Welles
42 The Wind - Victor Sjöström
43 2001: A Space Odyssey - Stanley Kubrick
44 Fanny and Alexander - Ingmar Bergman
45 The Crowd - King Vidor
46 8 1/2 - Federico Fellini
47 La Jetée - Chris Marker (I think even Chris Marker would think it's amusing that they placed him above Kurosawa)
48 Pierrot le Fou - Jean-Luc Godard (I love a lot of Godard, but Pierrot le Fou in the top 50 is absurd)
49 Confessions of a Cheat (Le Roman d’un tricheur) - Sacha Guitry
50 Amarcord - Federico Fellini
51 Beauty and the Beast (La Belle et la Bête) - Jean Cocteau
52 Some Like It Hot - Billy Wilder
53 Some Came Running - Vincente Minnelli
54 Gertrud - Carl Theodor Dreyer
55 King Kong - Ernst Shoedsack & Merian J. Cooper
56 Laura - Otto Preminger
57 The Seven Samurai - Akira Kurosawa (This, High and Low, Ran or The Bad Sleep Well should be much higher on the list)
58 The 400 Blows - François Truffaut
59 La Dolce Vita - Federico Fellini
60 The Dead - John Huston (This is the John Huston they chose? No Treasure of Sierre Madre?)
61 Trouble in Paradise - Ernst Lubitsch
62 It’s a Wonderful Life - Frank Capra
63 Monsieur Verdoux - Charlie Chaplin
64 The Passion of Joan of Arc - Carl Theodor Dreyer
65 À bout de souffle - Jean-Luc Godard
66 Apocalypse Now - Francis Ford Coppola
67 Barry Lyndon - Stanley Kubrick (Nice to see this get some love)
68 La Grande Illusion - Jean Renoir
69 Intolerance - David Wark Griffith
70 A Day in the Country (Partie de campagne) - Jean Renoir
71 Playtime - Jacques Tati
72 Rome, Open City - Roberto Rossellini
73 Livia (Senso) - Luchino Visconti
74 Modern Times - Charlie Chaplin
75 Van Gogh - Maurice Pialat
76 An Affair to Remember - Leo McCarey (really good film, but top 100?)
77 Andrei Rublev - Andrei Tarkovsky (It's a masterwork, but I personally prefer Stalker and Solaris)
78 The Scarlet Empress - Joseph von Sternberg
79 Sansho the Bailiff - Kenji Mizoguchi
80 Talk to Her - Pedro Almodóvar
81 The Party - Blake Edwards (definitely one of the great comedies)
82 Tabu - Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau
83 The Bandwagon - Vincente Minnelli (yes!)
84 A Star Is Born - George Cukor
85 Mr. Hulot’s Holiday - Jacques Tati
86 America, America - Elia Kazan (No! On the Waterfront? Streetcar? The Arrangement? Even Panic in the Streets. Come on!)
87 El - Luis Buñuel
88 Kiss Me Deadly - Robert Aldrich
89 Once Upon a Time in America - Sergio Leone (Should say "the West" at the end of that title. Not "in America")
90 Daybreak (Le Jour se lève) - Marcel Carné
91 Letter from an Unknown Woman - Max Ophüls
92 Lola - Jacques Demy
93 Manhattan - Woody Allen
94 Mulholland Dr. - David Lynch (Very nice to see)
95 My Night at Maud’s (Ma nuit chez Maud) - Eric Rohmer
96 Night and Fog (Nuit et Brouillard) - Alain Resnais
97 The Gold Rush - Charlie Chaplin
98 Scarface - Howard Hawks
99 Bicycle Thieves - Vittorio de Sica (should be way higher)
100 Napoléon - Abel Gance

So, no Scorsese? No Lean? No Melville? No Polanski? Hmmm. What do you guys think?