Pretend you have a ballot for the 2012 edition of Sight & Sound's top 10 movies of all time list

Altman's not in the Top 50. Disappointed that Nashville couldn't generate 29 votes.

David Edelstein has never been invited to participate? How weird.

http://www.vulture.com/2012/08/david-edelstein-on-the-sight-sound-poll.html

That's bizarre. Naturally, I like his list a lot.

McCabe & Mrs. Miller probably.

Oh, and a lot of Ford's stuff from the '40s.

yeah, I don't think The Searchers is the best western any more than Singin' in the Rain is the best musical.

Would replace respectively with The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and Meet Me in St Louis.

Ambersons is all the way down at #81, as per introduction on the top 50 page. Not sure if that's above or below Touch of Evil, but maybe Kane backlash also turned into an overall Welles backlash?

My Darling Clementine & Xanadu

those are both pretty good showings for mangled movies.

I'm guessing that Touch of Evil greatly benefited in 2002 from the 1998 restored edition.

Can you explain what you actually find all that interesting about Lady from Shanghai?

mirrors iirc

Hilarious brogues. More movies should have them.

Seconding mirrors.

Can't wait for him to watch more Argento, then.

I find tLfS hilariously baroque, his most fun showoffy movie, even more than Kane. also "a bright guilty world"

and Gus Schilling

Well, maybe I'll watch it again in the spirit of rejoicing over irresponsibility.

But even on those terms, I doubt it wins over the others I listed above.

oh, I'd put it third at best among OW's, maybe 5th.

Chimes at Midnight remains my "if you don't like this, you don't like Welles" pick.

No Bunuel or Huston in top 50 kinda surprises me (tho I can imagine vote-splitting on both of them).

Damnit, didn't notice that. Bunuel and his dozen masterpieces will never catch a break in S&S.

No Third Man, which made a number of lists on this thread. I might be wrong, but I thought it used to be one of those perennial Top 25 finishers. Happy to see The 400 Blows still hanging around.

Bunuel perceived as too contemptuous of humanity (poss similar to Altman).

what's the highest Jerry Lewis?

Third Man all the way down in the 80s, sounds like. (Also apparently the highest-ranking British movie?)

Bunuel perceived as too contemptuous of humanity (poss similar to Altman).

Crix prefer ignorant of (i.e. Kubrick, Coppola)?

No Polanski, which is probably not all that surprising...guessing maybe 20 votes for Chinatown?

well 2001 is arguably Kubrick's most optimistic film. o i c what you did there

Kubrick and Coppola at their best have a good handle on humanity at its worst

I'm guessing that Chinatown doesn't resonate as much outside of America?

OK, for the top 50:

IN
14. Apocalypse Now
15. Late Spring
17. Persona
24. In the Mood for Love
28. Mulholland Dr.
29. Stalker
35. Jeanne Dielman...
35. Satantango
41. Journey to Italy
42. Gertrud
42. Play Time
42. Close Up
48. The Battle of Algiers
48. Histoire(s) du Cinema
50. La Jetee

OUT

15. Touch of Evil
19. Jules et Jim
24. M
24. The Story of the Late Chrysanthemums
27. Barry Lyndon
27. Les Enfants du Paradis
27. Ivan the Terrible
27. Wild Strawberries
35. Fanny and Alexander
35. Le Grande Illusion
35. The Magnificent Ambersons
35. Modern Times
35. The Seventh Seal
35. The Third Man
45. Blade Runner
45. Greed
45. Intolerance
45. Lawrence of Arabia
45. Letter from an Unknown Woman
45. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
45. Rio Bravo
45. Sansho Dayu
45. The Travelling Players
45. Two or Three Things I Know About Her

Discrepancy in number in/out because, due to ties, the 2002 list is really a top 60 and the 2012 list is really a top 52. Also there's an extra Godfather in the 2012 list.

Interesting that Persona came back so strongly when three other Bergmans dropped off.

i'd be delighted to see 'chimes' in the top 5 even but it'll never happen, thanks to whatever welles estate nonsense has kept it from ever being released in the states.

i'm always kind of surprised that british films get completely shafted in this list, apart from 'third man.'

xpost to self
No complaints here, since I prefer it to Strawberries and Seventh Seal anyway. (Haven't seen Fanny & Alexander.)

24. M
27. Barry Lyndon
27. Ivan the Terrible

You monsters!

Those filmmakers continue to hang onto Bicycle Thieves like a hungry child clinging to a cheesy piece of pizza.

nobody has use for griffith anymore, huh

Add Fassbinder to the list of directors not represented in the top 50.

I almost mentioned Griffith's absence much earlier--Intolerance was Top 10 on the first list--but I figured his fall from favor was easier to figure out than that of others (and probably happened two or three lists ago).

Yeah, I'm surprised Berlin Alexanderplatz wouldn't break through--can't blame length, with Shoah on there. Vote-splitting, I guess.

i guess some critics consider it to be TV

Was Godard's Histoire TV (or at last parts of it)?

On that note, how DID Shoah land so high?

All the Kael haters made a pact. (Just kidding--the video store I go to has it for a cheap weekly rental, so I've made a vow to watch it before I go back to work.)

I wonder if Sarris was able to submit a ballot--I think he'd been in poor health for a while.

i wonder how many ppl watch griffith films just for pleasure these days -- i admire his films but they're not something i want to revisit that often, whereas chaplin and keaton and eisenstein and murnau all seem endlessly fresh.

Anyway, given current conditions and the weight of history, the top 30 placings of In the Mood for Love and Mulholland Dr. are basically the 2012 equivalent of L'aaventura placing #2 in 1962 imo.

What happened to the big Malick surge, specifically Tree of Life?