I also found your list entertaining. Obviously it’s a reflection of your own experiences and judgement, maybe age as well. Excellent stuff.
Just trying to add a different angle with, thus far, unmentioned films…
Wondered – given the variable weight you attached to each criteria but mindful of the second in particular – how you viewed the impact (from a US perspective) of films like The Blackboard Jungle and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner ? Arguably average to good films but did they have a significantly disproportionate social impact ?
BTW, not including Pulp Fiction seems a little harsh, IMHO, but each to their own !
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner was an honorable mention, and in a list of one hundred would certainly be included. It did have some impact on racial tolerance (both ways), but in the end, people merely used it as confirmation of views they already held.
With respect to Pulp Fiction, it is a very good movie, and after a couple of decades, it might merit cult-classic status, but what to you makes it more “important” than the films listed here, using the three criteria specified in the Opening Post?
The film has merged film noir with the gangster tale and pulled them both into the '90s. As definitive as Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather saga was for the '70s, so is Pulp Fiction for today’s generation.
The original screenplay. The crisp dialogue. The unique interconnected stories, highlighted by the wonderful ending. Lacing humor with the macabre. The soundtrack. The directing. The acting. Face it, it’s a masterpiece and it needs to be on that list.
I feel your pain, Fingolfin. But “masterpiece” doesn’t necessarily qualify it. Can you point to something specifically important, like some change in political platforms or a controversial event, or something like that?
As far as merging noir with crime and gangsters, that’s been done for a long time all the way back to The Beast of the City (1932), and honestly seems like a pretty natural mix. It’s not even that unique in modern films: L.A. Confidential, Mulholland Falls, Devil in a Blue Dress, Get Shorty, etc.
So why is it on this list again? I think you’ve omitted the strongest point of the film-the immersion into a blue collar, working class environment. 25 years later, these scenes play much better than the Vietnam sequences. And how exactly is it “poorly filmed”? How can something be “choppy” and “loosely edited” at the same time? (both wholly arguable assertions) I’m no defender of the film in particular (that year’s Go Tell the Spartans is a far superior Vietnam film), but I’d argue it has more than just a “cult” following and, ultimately, is a more valuable timepiece than the truly pretentious and overblown Coppola film.
#46:
Except, of course, that the art of compromise-arguably the bedrock of any effective democracy-is seen as inherently evil. Smith is an idealist, but also a homespun tyrant whose rigid inability to see the greys of the world is never called into question by Capra. Important, yes, but not nearly as admirable a film (IMHO) as it makes itself out to be.
#43: I’d argue this isn’t a film of any particular distinction at all. Was it the first sword & sandal epic? No. Was it the best? No. Was it even the biggest? No (Cleopatra would eventually dwarf it). So why is it important? 11 Oscars? Feh-it didn’t deserve half of those either. Sure it’s got a great chariot race, but as a film, it’s not even as good as the Novarro version. My first definite ouster from your list.
#41: You describe the film but provide little argument for its inclusion. Certainly, The Man with the Golden Arm confronted an equally taboo subject with a much gutsier approach a year earlier. That deserves to be here more than the (admittedly fine) Kazan film.
#39:
Is that why it’s important? Because it beat much more deserving films? Rocky is a perfect example of how a film reflects the shifting temperament of a culture-but this is very different than a film that influences a culture. You’re right-it’s a film that benefits from serendipity, with its feel-good, trumped-up emotion being exactly what the country was looking for. But does that make an otherwise mediocre film important in any way? Uh-uh. Ouster #2.
#36: How was The Searchers screenplay “ground-breaking”? Borden Chase was writing one western after another for Anthony Mann (and others) with the same amount of psychological complexity and commentary on western values and traditions years before the Ford came out. The only real difference was the The Searchers touches on issues of miscegenation that makes it particularly striking, but you don’t even mention that important component.
#35: Again, SG2G is interesting as a time capsule piece and historical footnote, but did it have any lasting impact on the cultural, social, or artistic landscape at all? No. Marilyn could’ve been filming Hedda Gabler when she died and it wouldn’t have made any difference. Probably the worst selection of the 50 (especially since it’s the only Cukor-credited film on the list).
#34:
Only if you choose to ignore The Men, Streetcar, Zapata, Julius Caesar and on the other end Last Tango…
#32: Hailed in a variety of polls as the Greatest Film Ever for the last 40 years, and it’s still 12 spots below Reefer Madness? Please. Ridiculously low.
Gosh, ArchiveGuy. Had I an inkling five months ago that my list might piss you off to such an extent, I would have consulted you before compiling it!
I mean, you’re entitled, but Sheesh! In your first post, you listed errors but you didn’t show what was correct, so I fixed that. But in the latest one, you’re just venting Pit-style, and I think it’s pretty tacky.
I already said that I’m no expert, and it’s a labor of love. If you hate what I’ve done so much, go open a Pit thread and vent. This isn’t a 50 Greatest list. People have offered not just errors but corrections, and I’ve thanked them for it. But I don’t understand your hostility.
I think I explained in some detail what I meant by important, and then with each film why I thought it was that way. I’m sorry it ruined your life.
I think it’s simply an issue of clarity. Since you do mention “The first Hollywood…” sometimes, there’s a natural assumption that for the ones you don’t qualify as such, that you’re talking about cinema history in general. More critically, if it was the first Hollywood film to achiveve something, that’s going to gauge its importance differently than if it was the first film in general.
My source. Horsemen is the only silent film to crack the top 100 for Adjusted All-Time domestic grosses.
The Elvis & Beatles films had corresponding albums as well.
Sundown was released 6 months earlier, though B&C was obviously the one to put her on the map.
TV Guide, eh? I’m more inclined to believe thesesiteshere, which share the credit between the two films (along with the other 1933 success Little Women).
Hand color engraving is just that–a post-production technique to add color to a b&w film (like tinting, toning, or stenciling). It is not a chemical process and therefore is not considered a color system. Griffith took over production of The Clansman, which was an inhouse production by Kinemacolor, but he did not use the process himself.
For the record, allow me to say that I do appreciate your inclusion of a great number of silent films, which are too often forgotten in many of these types of lists. What you did obviously took a lot of work, so I apologize if it appears I’m doing nothing but “playing spoiler”.
Film history is my job and my life (which, ftr, you haven’t yet ruined ), so applying a little scrutiny to any such efforts is part of who I am (if you proposed a plane or building design, would you blame the structural engineers for pointing out what they perceived as gaps or problems?). I’m also very open to discourse about films, and enjoy the conversations most where people take stands on what they do/don’t like. But that also means sometimes being asked to further defend their positions. I never said “You’re wrong” but I do apologize if I appeared too confrontational. However, I didn’t have any comments on half your list up to 32, so you must be doing something right.
I don’t have to go on, but there are still some interesting issues to explore in a generally provocative and debate-inducing post such as yours…
Oh, I agree with you both, the end of Rocky is incredibly triumphant. I just thought Libertarian’s original description missed the point about why it was triumphant.
All sports movies end with the Big Game. I’ve had a theory for a while now that in great sports movies the hero has to lose the Big Game. It’s not quite true. In a great sports movie the outcome of the Big Game is either a counterpoint to the real climax, or doesn’t even matter. There are triumphant movies where the hero loses (Rocky, The Bad News Bears); movies where winning and losing are irrelevant (Slap Shot, Grand Prix, Bull Durham); and, perhaps most interesting, at least one tragedy where the hero wins (The Hustler).
:o I am deeply embarrassed, and I apologize. I did not realize that you are a professional. Naturally, I will defer to your citations of fact (although I reserve to myself the right to hold opinions on matters of interpretation). Let me, then, re-enjoin the discussion as I could not be more delighted than to hear your criticisms. Your willingness to address the list is a great honor for me.
Well, as I explained, it promulgated a stereotype of Vietnamese people as savage barbarians who torture prisoners for personal amusement. Although I’m no cinema expert, I did live through the time in question, and the Russian Roulette scene was discussed in the commentary pages of newspapers and on television talk shows. It greatly impacted the psyche of people, and that’s one of the criteria that I used for importance.
And thus the controversy that I mentioned, that of politicians being antsy about the film showing at a time when they wanted a citizenry that was unified behind them and that did not question their motives. They feared that people were too dull-minded to interpret the film properly.
Maybe not. But please try to keep in mind that, as I said in the Opening Post, this list, unlike many others, is not about the first, the best, or the biggest. Yes, those qualities might bear upon the three criteria, but are not criteria themselves. Studios, like any business enterprise, were loathe to take risks, and this film, which required so many years of resources and so much money that could have been spent on something else, stands as an example of risk-taking paying off — not just monetarily, but in marketing and exposure as well beyond anyone’s wildest imagination. That many Oscars, deserved or not, is the reason that Ben Hur is shown once a week on S-Max and Cleopatra isn’t. It might not be liked by critics, but it resonates with the unwashed masses.
I’m really not sure whether drug addiction is (or was) as taboo as pedophilia, but nevertheless, when Time magazine goes out of its way to say that a movie is “[j]ust possibly the dirtiest American-made motion picture that has ever been legally exhibited”, it has bearing on the criteria for importance. And of course, I’d like to thank the Catholic League of Decency for making much of this list possible!
I truly agonized over this one. I read and re-read Jimmy Carter’s malaise speech (I even watched it on RealPlayer.) I researched biographies of Sylvester Stallone. I tried my best just to remember the times. In the end, I decided that it was the other way around from what you say — the movie influence America’s mood. That period was a Dark Ages of American morale, and I’m convinced, as I said, that it wasn’t the movie per se, but rather the success of the movie that makes it remarkable. Had I deleted it, there would have been a hole in the list about a time when Americans went from lowering their heads in shame to raising their fists in defiance. You can even see here in this thread that people are discussing the movie and its meaning. I respectfully disagree with your learned opinion. I think it belongs here.
I felt that I had to include a John Wayne movie, and I thought that I explained in some detail why this one was selected. It contains his most famous line. It is a thoroughly different character than that which he is caricatured as playing. According to my sources, the likes of Spielberg and Scorcese (to whose professionalism I defer as I do to yours) have cited it as the greatest American film ever made, and it directly influenced their work, which itself influenced society. This film represents a link in a chain of influence from Weber to Ford to Scorcese. And I did say that Wayne’s character was bigoted, though you’re right that I didn’t discuss his racism at length.
Well, yeah, and if my grandmother had balls, she’d be my grandfather. There simply had to be a Marilyn Monroe movie, and the facts remain that this was her last picture, it was her first nude scene, and it was the first set from which she was released (fired). You’re likely too young to remember her, but there was much contemporary discussion and controversy about this film, and about whether Cukor and others had helped to drive her to suicide. It was used by those who adored her as testament to charges that she was used and abused by the system, similar to the controversy that surrounded the Paparazzi when Princess Diana died. “Hollywood created a superstar, and pain was the price you paid. And even when you died, the press still hounded you. All the papers had to say was that Marilyn was found in the nude.” — Elton John and Bernie Taupin
I meant it as a loose metaphor. He morphed from a hard-bodied hunk in the 50s who exuded sexuality to a fat old geezer in the 70s who exuded persperation and toe-jam.
You know what? In all honesty, I really had to fish on this one (note that there are sources and credits given for this film as a solo) in order to get it on the list at all. :eek: Please calm down. Yes, I know that it is the consensus High Holy Pinnacle of filmmaking, but without the controversy sorrounding Hearst’s interest in it, it is truly merely an example of what you said about Rocky — a film that happened to hit at the right time. Yes, it was innovative, and that also helped it get into the top 35. But Casablance was not shown in junior high schools all across the country as part of a government campaign to scare kids straight. Reefer Madness was. It’s a better film than any on the list, but as I said, an awful lot of my favorites didn’t make it. And some that I really can’t stand (like Star Wars — I fell asleep in the theater) did.
I’ll address your next post separately, and again I hope you’ll forgive my reaction to what I perceived as your hostility.
Well, as something of a rhetorician, I was conscious of the flow of the writing, and in the Opening Post, I tried to emphasize with an entire paragraph of examples, that this thread dealt only with Hollywood films. (Had it not been for MGM’s ties to the UK production, 2001 wouldn’t have made it in either.)
But I couldn’t insert “for Hollywood” or “speaking of Hollywood only” too much without making the blurbs hard to read. In fact, I fretted considerably over how to construct them as single paragraphs when they often covered many different topics. The occasional references that you mention were intended to remind the reader from time to time.
And then, of course, there’s the deliberately worded thread title.
Hmm. Well, okay. I guess it’s a battle of the sources, but I’ll defer to your expertise on the matter of the facts.
Point taken. Nevertheless, the soundtrack issue with respect to The Graduate is minor. It still was profoundly important.
Right, thanks, and that was rather the point really.
I defer to you again with respect to the facts. But once again, it is a trifling issue with respect to the importance of King King, for the reasons stated in the original blurb.
My understanding was that true “color systems” involved the use of multiple negatives in the cameras in order to combine the colors of light. I agree certainly that Birth didn’t use Technicolor or anything like it. But it just looks like (admittedly primitive) color near the end. It doesn’t look like sepia toning or anything. I believe that my source was speaking about the end result and not the process, since the very generic term “color” was used.
Please do go on. I think that it’s just as interesting to see what films are important to experts in the field as it is to see what films are important to we ordinary folk. Now that I know that you’re an expert (and now that your tone is… friendlier ;)), I’m delighted to hear from you on technical matters. One suggestion though, for the benefit of us all. Don’t just say that it wasn’t so-and-so, say that was in fact this-other-thing. Thanks for your contributions. Again, I’m honored.
Honey
Good points. Where would you insert it, and what would you take out and why?
I feel your pain, Fingolfin. But “masterpiece” doesn’t necessarily qualify it. Can you point to something specifically important, like some change in political platforms or a controversial event, or something like that?