The Sights! The Sounds! by Scott Nye
There is no “greatest” film of all time. No single film can sum up everything that has been accomplished in and through cinema. But if you were going to pick such a film, you could do a hell of a lot worse than Citizen Kane, which topped Sight & Sound’s decennial ten-best poll from 1962 through 2002, and was understandably assumed to continue to carry the torch with their 2012 edition. That Vertigo, which has steadily risen in critical esteem over the past fifty years, topped the list this time out is, in retrospect, not nearly so surprising. Nor is it terribly offensive even to those of us who still, yes, really like Citizen Kane, because, once again, if you’re going to pick one film to rule them all, you could also do a hell of a lot worse than Vertigo.
In fact, you could just as easily place any of the remaining ten films that account for Sight & Sound’s 2012 list in their number one spot and still make a compelling case. Selected by critics, programmers, academics, and anyone else the editorial staff thinks might have a thing or two to say about the movies, the list continues to prove itself to be THE list. This year, they polled more people than ever before, truly confronting the reputation they built for themselves (and giving them the chance to expand their regular top ten to a top fifty), resulting in one of their best lists to date. These are not just great pieces of cinema; they ARE cinema.
1. Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
2. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
3. Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)
4. The Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir, 1939)
5. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (F.W. Murnau, 1927)
6. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
7. The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)
8. Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929)
9. The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1927)
10. 8½ (Federico Fellini, 1963)
And I could go on about how truly great each of these films are (oh, how I do go on), but if their titanic placement on such a list does not convince you of their worth, well, talk to me. I’d love nothing more. For the rest, one can pick nits all day about the order of things, but a list is a declaration of principles (to borrow a phrase from one of the films), and it doesn’t matter in what order they are listed. I love each and every one of these films (and their filmmakers even more so); the excuse to sit around and talk about them today, and for the next ten years to come, is a blessing.
This is the strongest showing by silent cinema since the initial list in 1952 – a whopping three films made it, most notably the unprecedented inclusion of Man with a Movie Camera. I suspect this will be the least-seen of the films listed here, but really, honestly, do yourself a favor and seek it out. It’s an experiment from top to bottom, but one of cinema’s most successful (and if you thought Tony Scott was jerking you around with his crazy techniques, you ain’t seen nothing yet).
The others have come and gone, rising and falling as the years pass, with only one film consistently ranking higher and higher each time out. It was thus inevitable that Vertigo should top the list, and it just goes to show how quickly institutions can topple. Who’d have thought Citizen Kane would turn into a scrappy underdog? One shouldn’t view this as a weakening of Kane’s stature, however (nowhere else to go and all that), but the growth of Vertigo. When I first saw Hitchcock’s masterpiece (and it is unquestionably that), I knew nothing of its reputation, and frankly the one thing I did know about it – the camera technique Hitchcock developed to cinematically convey Scottie’s fear of heights – seemed a bit gimmicky. So to go from that to this…unholy beast was jarring to say the least, but right away my esteem for Hitchcock just exploded. A journey straight down the inner void that sometimes nags at you, it’s perhaps cinema’s most devastating experience. It’s not about the system or society or any of the tedium that consumes so much of life and art – it’s about something truly horrible that we bury deep down, and what happens when that’s accessed. It’s utterly terrifying, and the final shot, simple as it is, is truly one of the most awesomely (in the traditional sense of the word) horrible things I’ve ever seen.
Kane is hardly settling, however, coming in right at number two, and Twitter instantly made good use of the “FRAUD AT POLLS!” headline from Charle’s Foster Kane’s bid for governor. In fact, there’s a lot in the film that is inherently a second-place film, dealing as it does with the dark side of ambition – Kane was a man who got everything he ever wanted, and then lost it, after all – but all that is sort of fun, extra-cinematic musing. Kane will always be one of the greatest films ever made, that much is certain; what’s become heartening in recent years is the willingness among younger cinephiles to upset the natural order of things. Even if some are a little too insistent on it (it’s still a great freaking movie, people), these superficial changes keep the canon alive and versatile, and demonstrate to budding cinephiles that there are whole worlds to still be uncovered. Even Vertigo and Kane didn’t receive their proper due upon release, after all, and the latter didn’t even make the first list for which is was eligible. Could a film like Margaret enter the discussion in 2022? What about another recent re-discovery like Make Way for Tomorrow? Anything goes.
Film critic Scott Weinberg took some pot shots at the importance this list is accorded, and I understand where he’s coming from (his most potent observation expressed gratitude to Sight & Sound for “reminding us that Vertigo is a good film”), but I respectfully disagree. Lists like these are important, for many reasons. There’s the old bit, certainly, about the teenger who’s really into movies and sees this list on the evening news (or whatever that is these days) and says, “Vertigo, huh? I guess I’ll check that out.” And I know what you’re saying, that in the age of the Internet every kid has access to information on great classic films, and sure, there’s that, but I grew up in the Internet age and I wasn’t particularly “into” classic films as a teen, either. A kick in the ass never hurt anybody, and if even one person of ANY age watches any one of these films for the first time because they saw it on this list, the whole operation is instantly justified. To see Tokyo Story, which is just…it’s the best! It’s so good. The Passion of Joan of Arc? These things will blow your mind. They’re everything, the whole world.
Beyond that, though, these lists tell us where the culture of cinema is at, and since the Sight & Sound crew polled a wider range, and greater number, than ever before, you’re really getting a look at what we’re all about in 2012. And in spite of people like me rambling on and on about how appreciation of classic cinema is in the toilet, the truth couldn’t be any more distinct. This is, by a considerable margin, the oldest list insofar as it’s the first time no film from the thirty years (hell, even forty years) prior to its assemblage has made the top ten. Home video and, more recently, streaming platforms have made older films easier to access than ever before, and it seems like people are really taking advantage of this, exploring terrains that would have barely registered even in the 2002 edition.
Some may see this as a gradual walling-off of the past, the insistence that no recent film, no matter how great, warrants inclusion, and I guess if you really want to make the case that newer films don’t get enough attention in this culture, that’s on you, buddy. But honestly, the more movies I watch from the past, the more I discover that they did everything. Hell, on the night I’m writing this, I just came from a 1928 film that used an expository device that a) I’d never seen, and b) was immediate and visceral in a way exposition never is. And if one wants to insist that the list will only become boring the more committed to the past it is, well, all I’m saying is that silent, Russian film with no intertitles, characters, or plot made the list for the first time, and that’s pretty freaking cool.
Still, could’ve used some more Bergman.
Postscript: Sight & Sound has also commissioned, since 1992, a second list of directors’ picks, but since those are not considered THE Sight & Sound list, we’re focusing on the main one here. The directors’ top ten is reprinted below for your consideration. Repeated numbers are not a typo; they’re ties.
1. Tokyo Story
2. 2001: A Space Odyssey
2. Citizen Kane
4. 8 1/2
5. Taxi Driver
6. Apocalypse Now
7. The Godfather
7. Vertigo
9. The Mirror
10. Bicycle Thieves