The Longest Post On Filmwurld

[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.