A Cinema Canon for the Ages

[tabuno]

1902. Voyage to the Moon
1903. The Great Train Robbery
1915. The Birth of a Nation
1927. The Jazz Singer
1933. King Kong
1935. Frankenstein
1937. Snow White
1939. Wizard of Oz
------ Gone with the Wind
1948. Hamlet
1952. Singing in the Rain
1953. Roman Holiday
1954. On the Waterfront
------ Seven Samurai
1955. Rebel with a Cause
1956. The King and I
------ Forbidden Planet
1959. Ben-Hur
1960. Pyscho
1961. Breakfast at Tiffany's
------ West Side Story
1962. Lawrence of Arabia
------ Jules and Jim
------ Cape Fear
------ How the West was Won
------ To Kill a Mockingbird
------ Days of Wine and Roses
1963. The Birds
------ The Miracle Worker
------ The Lilies of the Field
------ Charade
1964. Mary Poppins
------ My Fair Lady
1965. The Ipcress File
------ The Sound of Music
------ Dr. Zhivago
------ Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines
1966. A Man and a Woman
------ Fahrenheit 451
------ The Endless Summer
1967. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
------ Barbarella
------ The Graduate
------ Bonnie and Clyde
------ To Sir With Love
1968. The Planet of the Apes
------ Rosemary's Baby
------ The Yellow Submarine
1969. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
------ Satyricon
1970. M*A*S*H
------ Love Story
------ Little Big Man
1971. Clockwork Orange
------ Summer of 42
------ The French Connection
------ Harold and Maude
1972. Cabaret
------ The Godfather
1973. la Planete sauvage
------ The Exorcist
------ Cries and Whispers
1974. Amarcord
------ Emmanuelle
1975. Picnic at Hanging Rock
------ The Rocky Horror Picture Show
------ Jaws
------ The Story of O
------ One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
1976. All The President's Men
------ Taxi Driver
------ The Man Who Fell to Earth
------ The Omen
1977. Annie Hall
------ Star Wars
------ Close Encounters of the Third Kind
1979. Alien
1981. The Elephant Man
------ Excalibur
1982. Chariots of Fire
------ Bladerunner
------ Gandhi
------ Tootsie
1983. Koyannisqatsi
1984. Ghostbusters
------ Amadeus
1985. The Purple Rose of Cairo
------ Ran
1986. Blue Velvet
------ The Name of the Rose
------ Manhunter
------ Platoon
1987. Fatal Attraction
1988. The Big Blue
------ Who Framed Roger Rabbit
1989. Dead Poet's Society
------ Born on the Fourth of July
------ Roger and Me
------ Sex, Lies, and Videotape
1990. Akira
------ Dances with Wolves
1991. Silence of the Lambs
------ Barton Fink
------ The Fisher King
------ Naked Lunch
------ Delicatessen
1992. A River Runs Through It
------ Dracula
------ Chaplin
1993. The Crying Game
------ The Piano
------ Like Water for Chocolate
------ The Joy Luck Club
------ Sleepless In Seattle
------ Three Colors Blue
------ Mrs. Doubtfire
1994. Pulp Fiction
------ The Shawshank Redemption
------ The Mask
1995. Interview with a Vampire
------ Legends of the Fall
------ Apollo 13
------ The Usual Suspects
1996. Twelve Monkeys
------ Fargo
------ Crash
------ Evita
------ Striptease
1997. The English Patient
------ The Full Monty
1998. LA Confidential
------ Sliding Doors
------ The Truman Show
------ Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels
------ Saving Private Ryan
1999. Shakespeare in Love
------ Run Lola Run
------ The Red Thin Line
------ The Matrix
------ Election
------ The Sixth Sense
------ The Blair Witch Project
------ The Insider
2000. American Beauty
------ Magnolia
------ Being John Malkovich
------ Snatch
------ Almost Famous
------ Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
------ The House of Mirth
------ Nurse Betty
2001. Traffic
------ Cast Away
------ Chocolat
------ Pollack
------ AI
------ Moulin Rouge
------ Vanilla Sky
------ The Others
2002. A Beautiful Mind
------ Black Hawk Down
------ Amelie
------ Gosford Park

[Chris Knipp]

We're on a new page. But what is "American Popular List" about these? Some were popular everywhere. Some you could hardly call popular. Many are not American, so I assume you mean popular in America, but if so, not with the general audience, which didn't see The Seven Samural or Amarcord, or many others here. Come on, tabuno, how did you make up this list, and what is it supposed to show?

Let's go back to Oscar's list.

What is the point of lists anyway? Trophy lists? Notches in your cineaste’s belt? No, I know, expressions of love. Wearing your love on your sleeve, so to speak. BUt what is the value of publishing such a list? They can be tips to someone on what may be worth looking up, but they can also alienate by reminding us how many of our favorite movies don’t mean much to somebody else. Oscar’s list contains many wonderful items, beautiful classics. But why so few listed for some years I can’t imagine, some great years. I especially find it odd that he has so few movies that he loves going back to again and again from the most recent years. And he seems to slight the French New Wave, and American movies generally. Here is a rough list of some of the main ones I could come up with for each year that he did not list but I’d have to, among others. When I say “I’d have to,” I mean I just can’t imagine omitting these, and some of them are just so great that they’d be on my top-twenty list. And this just a quick list, and there are others I’ve forgotten to mention. But what is the point, exactly? I still don’t get it.

What was the point of your list, Oscar? What prompted you to make up the list, and what prompted you to post it here? I'm not challenging you; I'm just really curious about the thoughts and motives that lie behind list-making. I've only posted these movies listed below in self defense, so to speak, to save some pieces of my world that were seemingly being swept under the carpet by these other lists. Kinda makes you realize why Rosenbaum made a list of his thousand favorites.


1949 King Hearts and Coronets (Hamer)
1951 The Man in the White Suit (Mackendrick)
1953 The Wages of Fear (Clément)
1960 Tirez sur la pianiste (Truffaut)
1962 To Kill a Mockingbird (Mulligan)
-----The Elclipse (Antonioni)
1964 La Jetée (Marker)
1965 Alphaville (Godard)
-----Masculine Feminine (Godard)
1966 Sword of Doom (Kurosawa)
-----Blowup (Antonioni)
1967 Bonnie and Clyde (Penn)
-----Playtime (Tati)
-----Privilege (Watkins)
-----La prise de pouvoir de Louis XIV (Rossellini)
1969 The Wild Bunch (Peckinpah)
-----Ma Nuit chez Maud (Rohmer)
1970 Performance (Roeg)
-----The Spider’s Strategm (Bertolucci)
1971 THX-1138 (Lucas)
-----Tati’s Trafic
-----Two Lane Blacktop (Hellman)
1972 Solaris
1973 Last Tango in Paris should be 1972
-----Badlands (Malick)
-----The Long Goodbye (Altman)
1964 Kwaidan (Kobayashi)
-----The Conversation (Coppola)
1975 A Boy and His Dog (Jones)
1980 Atlantic City (Malle)
-----The Shining (Kubrick)
-----Melvin and Howard (Demme)
1981 Time Bandits
---Cutter’s Way (Passer)
1982 Blade Runner (Scott)
-----Diner (Levinson)
1984 Choose Me (Rudolph)
1984 Stranger Than Paradise (Jarmusch)
1986 Down by Law (Jarmusch)
-----Something Wild (Demme)
1987 Tin Men (Levinson)
1988 Hairspray (Waters)
-----Married to the Mob (Demme)
1989 Enemies, a Love Story (Mazursky)
-----Drugstore Cowboy (Van Sant)
1990 Days of Being Wild (Wong)
1991 My Own Private Idaho (Van Sant)
1992 Naked Lunch (Cronenberg)
1993 My Favorite Season {Téchiné)
1994 Wild Reeds (Téchiné)
-----Ashes of Time (Wong)
-----Red (Kieslowski)
1995 Before Sunrise (Linklater)
1996 Les Voleurs (Téchiné)
1998 West Beirut (Ziyad Duweyri)
-----The Thin Red Line (Malick)
1999 Magnolia (Anderson)
2000 Yi Yi (Yang)
-----Hamlet (Michael Almareyda)
2001 A.I. (Spielberg)
-----Waking Life (Linklater)
-----What Time Is It There? (Tsai)
2002 Spider (Cronenberg)
-----Y tu mama tambien (Alfonso Cuaron)
-----Sweet Sixteen (Loach)
-----The Believer (Bean)
-----Punch Drunk Love (Anderson)
-----Bowling for Columbine (Moore)

2003 Elephant (Van Sant)
-----Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (Tarantino)
-----City of God (Lund, Meirelles)

[oscar jubis]

Thanks for posting your list Tabuno. You've watched a lot of great movies! Impressed particularly with excellent films like House of Myrth, which few have seen. Curious about your listing Chaplin but no Chaplin films. Even if you don't like classic westerns, give The Searchers a chance. I wonder whether you've had the opportunity to watch the films listed below. I think you'd enjoy the majority of them, based on the titles you listed. Give them a chance if so inclined.

2001
Chinatown
Dr. Strangelove
Nashville
Kundun
Guys and Dolls
The Best Years of our Lives
The Last Emperor
Ikiru
Belle Epoque
City of Lost Children

I'll reply to C.K.'s post a bit later.

[tabuno]

Anyone who complains about a list of movies and then makes up and posts a list of movies himsedlf must really have a fascinating convoluted deductive logic.

Anyway, I'd like to thank you for pointing out that out of thousands of films I've come across, I can't keep track of them all, some even brilliant. I would like especially acknowledge with another list those movies that have been mentioned but that I somehow overlooked that are very worthy of yet another list (why is it that director's get the only credit in these lists - don't actors and actresses have some measure of worth in why some movies are very good?):

1962 To Kill a Mockingbird (Mulligan)
1966 Blowup (Antonioni)
1971 THX-1138 (Lucas)
1972 Solaris
1975 A Boy and His Dog (Jones)
1981 Time Bandits
1992 Naked Lunch (Cronenberg)
2002 Punch Drunk Love (Anderson)

I've seen:

2001
Chinatown
Dr. Strangelove
The Last Emperor
City of Lost Children

As for "Guys and Dolls," my half brother actually played in a high school production where he actually out performed Frank Sinatra.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by tabuno
why is it that director's get the only credit in these lists - don't actors and actresses have some measure of worth in why some movies are very good?

I do believe most of the best films are primarily so because of a director imparting his/her unique vision and overseeing the project as a whole. Cinema is a collaborative medium but generally, and particularly since the 60s, it is the director who chooses the collaborators. But you are making an excellent point tabuno. The director is not necessarily the most important individual involved in a given film. Producers, writers, cinematographers and actors often deserve the most praise. I'll give you two examples that come to mind. Others may disagree, but I think the Oscar winner The Best Years Of Our Lives is so good because of cinematographer Gregg Toland and a couple of its actors. I also think the essential element responsible for the greatness of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is Charlie Kaufman's script. (Not that anybody else involved was slumming).

I've seen:
2001
Chinatown
Dr. Strangelove
The Last Emperor
City of Lost Children

Well, what do you think?

As for "Guys and Dolls," my half brother actually played in a high school production where he actually out performed Frank Sinatra.

That must've been some performance.

[arsaib4]

Originally posted by oscar jubis
the greatness of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is Charlie Kaufman's script. (Not that anybody else involved was slumming).

... and the same can be said about ADAPTATION and BEING JOHN MALKOVICH. Michel Gondry redeemed himself with ETERNAL SUNSHINE after HUMAN NATURE, a film and a script which required a more capable director.

[tabuno]

What about if instead of just listing directors always after a movie, that the most influential person's name be used after a movie whether that be the director, the producer, the scriptwriter, cinematographer, one of the actors or actresses as a reference.

[Chris Knipp]

Call my logic convoluted if you like, but I had to make a list to show the inadequacy of lists, particularly short ones, no matter how wide a time period they span. Hence Oscar's polite suggestions to tabuno of additions and the point of Rosenbaum's making an "essential" list that's a thousand movies long. But you could as well make one two thousand movies long, or five thousand movies long, and the question still remains: what list is ever long enough, and hence, Why lists?

By another logic it makes sense to make a very short list, to say, or imply, "Lists are useless, because never long enough, so I'll make a tiny one to show just my own very favorite films." Another alternative to comprehensive lists, which broadcast their inadequecy, is the specialized list, for example let's say The Best Neo-Noirs of the Seventies (which would no doubt be headed by Chinatown) or The Best Non-Costume Japanese Films of the Fifies (which no doubt would be headed by Ikiru).

tabuno's new list includes some of my additions to Oscar's, all of which I mentioned except Time Bandits. Please note that my long list a few posts back was a comment on Oscar's list, not on tabuno's. My apologies to tabuno for only questioning the logic of his list, without diplomatically noting as Oscar did that his list contains lots of fine movies.

arsaib4 is right about Kaufman: he's a writer who overshadows his directors. After initial reluctance, I'm a big Kaufman convert now. I'd like to add Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (which fewer people saw) to the list, in fact I'm not sure it isn't my favorite Kaufman script, maybe because its focus on a real person and his real (if also unreal) autobiography draws attention away from Kaufman's personal head trips a little.

I can't help being influenced enough by "auteur" theory to think that a film whose most important force is somebody other than the director is a lesser film. Which is not to denegrate actors and all the other wonderful and talented people who get a nod on Oscar night.

[tabuno]

I am humbled by your astute observation.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
Let's go back to Oscar's list. BUt what is the value of publishing such a list? They can be tips to someone on what may be worth looking up, but they can also alienate by reminding us how many of our favorite movies don’t mean much to somebody else.

I'll explain. Rosenbaum's list of 1000 favorites contains close to 400 films I have not seen. I was so happy to know there are so many potentially pleasurable and edifying films I have yet to discover. You don't specify how you personally felt looking at my list but you raise the possibility that posting such a list "can also alienate". I find it hard to envision such reaction. This is certainly not the way Johann, Howard, Cinemabon and JustFied reacted to my personal film canon. My reaction to yours is: I need to find a way to catch Kihachi Okamoto's Sword of Doom and Watkins's Privilege (and other films by this British director I've neglected). I also think these type of list is a reflection of one's personality and film-viewing history. I happen to have an interest in you. It's possible your list may shed some light into who you are and what you care about.

why so few listed for some years I can’t imagine, some great years. I especially find it odd that he has so few movies that he loves going back to again and again from the most recent years.

To read a post in which I've attempted to disclose what wpqx called "the method behind the madness", go to:
http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/show...=6731#post6731

And he seems to slight American movies generally.

I've responded to this criticism before. The last time was on the "Your 10 Best of the 90's" thread.

What prompted you to make up the list, and what prompted you to post it here?

I started my personal canon in the early 70s (when I started a "Cine-Club" with another kid and adult assistance). My film canon has grown to over 200 films that have had to prove their worth to me over the years. It's by no means a list of "all the masterpieces ever made" or "the great films". It's a list of personal favorites, movies that continue to provide pleasure and edification to me. The link above should provide evidence of what I value most in cinema. It's possible those who value my opinion would seek out some of the titles they have missed. It's a lot of work to post. But I was inspired by Howard Schumann posting his under the title "My Top 125".

[Chris Knipp]

I may overdramatize our differences at times to spur discussion and debate. I was also trying to get some kind of manifesto out of you, in which effort I have so far failed.

You are forever more positive and upbeat than I. You're positively Californian! We should trade places. I thought I did explain how somebody's list can potentially alienate. That is because you assume the person making the list is aware of the other films you love that he/she has confidently omitted. A list if well and elaborately constructed may constitute a fairly precise portrait of the author or at least of his/her filmgoing experience. But then it makes one realize how different everyone is from oneself and one feels more alone!

Can't anyone see this?

I know: "Vive le différence!!" But we live in "windowless monads" and these lists underline that. The "Rules of the Game" and "Rashomon" that you see are worlds away from the ones I see.

Watkins's Privilege is kind of obscure and I saw it a long, long time ago. However it is peculiar and interesting....I guess. I'm not sure it would have to be in my canon.

I had a feeling Rosenbaum would have reared his head somewhere. When you find (as I do or would also) that there are 2/5 of his "essential" but "personal" list (he fence-sits awfully cleverly there) that you haven't seen, isn't that daunting, or discouraging? don't you ever think that you'll never "catch up"?

So many movies, so little time!

I'm sorry you don't answer my question about slighting American films and giving so few favorites for recent years here, even briefly, so I have to go hunting for the answers. And I feel: how can there be any answers?

I would be much more moved to see a film I don't know by a well written review, than by its being included in some list. This at least is an argument for annotating one's list.

It has come up in discussing Rosenbaum, that he denigrates lists. And then he makes a list of 1,000 films.

One can only conclude that list-making is a compulsion. But I have to say, as others have, that I don't care about the list, what I care about is how you justify your choices. Hence I'd really rather you just took a few of them, and explained in detail why they are important to you. LIsts themselves are so mechanical. They have a personal use. For instance I keep a list, like a log, of all the movies I have seen this year, and the past few years. This is just so I don't forget, and can review how the whole year in movies looks to me. It helps keep me from forgetting anything when I come to make up my list of the ten or twenty best.

But when lists are made to recommend a canon, or to espouse a cause, that's okay too. There's really nothing wrong with lists. Lists are here to stay. It's just that I think they are of a lot more use when people have a good clear explanation for why they made their list and why it's he way it is. Which as it turns out, isn't easy to do.

In conclusion I would like to say (as my Egyptian students used to write at the end of their compositions) that of course your choices have a special significance to me and to others because of your exceptional dedication to the movies and the considerble knowledge of them you've acquired. In particular your lists show what you know about that I don't, and also what you either don't know about or are woefully unresponsive to, that I know and love.

[Chris Knipp]

There are people who are good at surveying and describing, and there are people who are good at analyzing more discrete units. I think I belong more to the second group. That's why I'm not very comfortable with lists.

There is also always the sense that somebody who makes a long or comprehensive list like you or Rosenbaum that it will look like a trophy list -- I mentioned this before -- an inventory of game "bagged." A brag.

[arsaib4]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp

I would be much more moved to see a film I don't know by a well written review, than by its being included in some list.

I am in total agreement here although I do realize that there are people other than me (and apparently many) who live and die by lists and a certain list makes it easier for them to set their agendas.

[wpqx]

As for lists vs. reviews I would go with a list, and there are two reasons. The first is that lists are a great place to start. I got into film by watching all 100 films on the AFI list (even the Jazz Singer). When you know absolutely nothing about film, then a list can do you wonders. The other reason is that I do not read reviews of films I have not seen. Most reviews give out way too much detail, and I believe should only be read to get more information, whether it be a different interpretation or an explanation of technical developments. Most reviews I write tend to give away way too much, because I tend to write with the attitude that someone reading it is under the same impression that I am.

[Chris Knipp]

I can't exactly see why film buffs of any stripe would be against review reading, at any stage of viewing. This is a form of anti-intellectualism.

I know many people think this, but to avoid reviews of movies you haven't seen strikes me as at best somewhat senseless -- and, moreover, it's acting against the purpose of popular review-writing, which is to tip off the public as to whether something is worth seeing or not. This is why popular reviewers avoid "spoilers." But if all that a movie has to offer is a surprise about how it turns out, then it's just ephemera.

So I don't agree with you, wpqx, but you can save review-reading for after watching a movie if you like -- when you can watch it. BUt what about the times when you can't? As today's reigning American film guru Jonathan Rosenbaum says right off in introducing his own "Personal Canon," "No one who claims to have seen all the possible contenders for the greatest films ever made can possibly be telling the truth." The only way to learn about those we haven't seen and probably can't see is to read about them -- and just to read their name in a list will hardly do it for you. Rosenbaum's new book, ESSENTIAL CINEMA: On the Necessity of Film Canons, is 400 pages of movie reviews, and a 45-page list. It hardly looks like Rosenbaum is setting lists above reviews, or wants us to skip the first 400 pages and just study the list.

Sure, a list is a good place to start if you're trying to fill in gaps in your knowledge, and that's one of their major values besides providing a profile of the list-maker's taste. A list is also a good way to end up when you've seen a lot of movies and want to record your experiences and organize them.

But let's not see this as an either/or. Rosenbaum's book gives us reviews plus a list, and we welcome and need both. It's just that I'm uncomfortable with the view that somehow under certain circumstances reviews need to be avoided and lists should take precedence. arsaib4 and I both feel that we're more likely to go out and find a movie we haven't seen on the basis of a fascinating review of it than its simply being on somebody's list, for the obvious reason that a review has much more to say.

You can do it however you like, the point is that reviews are an essential part of the process of appreciating film and even more so in the case of films we can't see. As a long-time in depth literature student myself who read a lot about books before, during and after the process of reading the books themselves and found that enormously enhanced my appreciation and understanding, I came to understand that you cannot "know too much" about a work before you actually read, watch, or listen to it. Forgive me, wpqx, but that's a naive view, though it's held by many. Besides, your statement is illogical, because you say you would choose a list over a review and then you say a list is a "great place to start." If it's just the beginning, then it's not the whole process of appreciation, and discussion and reading are other parts of that process.