Odds & ends #9
The real name for a #hashtag is an octothorpe.
The Sight & Sound poll was published, to absolutely no controver–you know what, I can’t even finish that sentence. We have reached a point in our culture where even a list ranking the most innocuous things – say, the best jellies to put on a peanut butter sandwich – is met with outraged debate. Don’t be pretentious, nobody actually likes orange marmalade, they just say they do so they’ll look more cultured. But also, grape jam? Could you be any more mainstream? It brings out the worst kind of “I don’t understand the difference between ‘subjective’ and ‘objective,’ and I will not learn” people, who come at these things like whatever didn’t make a specific list was launched into the sun and turned to ash, never to be seen again.
It’s entirely possible that if you don’t spend a lot of time in certain corners of the internet, you might not even be familiar with the Sight & Sound poll. Sponsored by the UK-based film magazine of the same name, it’s a once-a-decade poll of the 100 best movies of all time, as determined by a select handful of critics. The critics chosen to participate are considered the elite in their field, so elite that they probably aren’t spending a lot of time on Twitter arguing about whether or not Chinatown should have been kicked off the list. There’s no way in hell I’ll ever be asked, which is why I can look at all this from an amused, anthropological distance.
Because of its exclusive air, and the perception that it’s the final word on which movies are actually “art,” and which are merely entertainment, cineastes take it far more seriously than, say, TV Guide ranking every episode of Seinfeld1. Instead of the usual way a person should treat a list that contains no information that meaningfully impacts their life, which is skimming it and then moving on with their day, there’s been a rare three-prong attack of hot takes over the S&S list, all from people very comfortably assured that their opinion is worth more than someone else’s2. Let’s break them down one by one:
1. “The list has gotten too woke.” Longtime mainstays in the S&S poll, including the aforementioned Chinatown and Nashville, were removed, and added were Get Out, Moonlight, and Portrait of a Lady on Fire, all of which were released in the past decade. Ignoring the fact that the final list is narrowed down from submissions received by the S&S panel (meaning that multiple people selected the movies mentioned), a great many hackles have been raised by so-called “recency bias,” meaning none of them have had to prove that they can stand up against the test of time, even though it’s safe to say that their themes of racism, forbidden love and what it means to be a man are unlikely ever to become “dated.”
But also, in what has become a weak argument made by worthless people who should be disregarded entirely, the inclusion of more films by Black, women and/or LGBTQ filmmakers is a clear sign that Sight & Sound, a magazine that’s read by less than 20,000 people in the entire world3, is pandering to the PC left. This wet-brained “I don’t like when I have to look at people who aren’t like me” mindset is what also leads people to claim that the inclusion of female superheroes is why Marvel is now struggling to find an audience, even though (a) it’s not, and (2) female-led movies only comprise not even a quarter of the MCU.
Imagine the conspiracy theory-addled thought process that drives “The only reason Get Out is there is because they needed to add a Black guy to the list.” Imagine being so infuriated by it that you describe Get Out as a “third-tier Blumhouse movie,” which is a real thing I saw a real person on Twitter say. Imagine taking such a thing so personally, like you’re the caretaker for Robert Altman’s ghost, and it’s been wailing in anguish every night since this grievous slight was committed. It’s up to you to right this wrong.
2. “Nobody watches these movies.” Now, this is an argument I can get behind, to a certain point. I have not seen Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, the new number-one film on the S&S list. I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never seen it, and I’d hazard a guess that only the most devoted film buffs have. We don’t even get beyond the top 20 before there’s a movie I haven’t heard of, Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid’s Meshes of the Afternoon. The list does lean into older, foreign films which often fall under the radar of the casual film fan (and the merely nominated films skew even more obscure than that), and I always feel a little more dumb and uncultured when I read it.
But here’s the thing: I am dumb and uncultured, at least when it comes to movies. Do you want to know how long it took me to watch Citizen Kane? Well, I won’t tell you, because it’s fucking embarrassing. It’s why I’m careful to refer to myself as a movie writer, not a film critic, because I lack the education and experience that goes into being an actual critic. There’s something astonishingly arrogant about equating “I’ve never seen these” with “no one’s seen these,” especially when you’re talking about a list created by, and for, people who watch movies for a living, and probably aren’t going to back up your argument that a movie’s value should be weighed solely on how well-known it is.
The obvious solution to being mad about a list that includes movies you’ve never seen (or even heard of) is to seek them out and watch the goddamn things. You don’t need a secret password4 to find out where all these so-called obscure movies exist, there’s a handy app called Just Watch that will tell you where they’re streaming. Minimal effort!
Like dignity, grace, and empathy, nuance is dead on social media. The belief that lists like Sight & Sound’s are inherently snobbish and pretentious leads to people making easily disproved statements like “No one actually likes In the Mood for Love, they just pretend to,” another thing I actually saw someone say, without immediately deleting it in shame. Now, let’s take a moment and ponder that. Out of 100 movies, Wong Kar-Wai’s subtle romance is the one you zero in on as the clinker, the one that doesn’t belong, that people are lying about enjoying because, what, it’s dense and challenging to understand, like claiming you’ve read the entire Dune series?
If anything, other than Singin’ in the Rain, In the Mood for Love, beyond not being in English, is probably the most accessible film in the S&S top ten. The top ten also includes 2001: A Space Odyssey, a movie I’ve seen exactly once, completely sober, and I have no idea what happened in it. But that’s because I am, again, dumb and uncultured, and the internet would be a happier place if more of us could admit that without defensiveness or projection.
3. On the opposite side of the spectrum, I encountered criticism over Ti West’s contribution to S&S’s director’s poll, which was a perfectly serviceable list of familiar, universally agreed upon to be great films, including the now thrice-mentioned Chinatown, Apocalypse Now and Jaws, almost all of which made it onto the final list (or had been on it at some point). No one who’s normal and touched grass recently would find fault with such picks, and yet West’s list has been described as “boring” and “like something he came up with while sitting on the toilet.”
So dig on that a minute: somehow, a list of movies to be both pretentious and inaccessible, and safe and boring simultaneously. If West had swapped out, say, Psycho for a 1974 drama about a Turkish fig grower that was only screened once against the side of a building in Zonguldak, he would be accused of trying too hard to look cultured. Aren’t movies fun? We sure do love them, don’t we, folks?
And now to answer the question you’re undoubtedly dying to ask: Gena, if you were asked to participate in the Sight & Sound poll (ha ha ha, aren’t you adorable), what would your picks be? Well, I don’t have an answer. For one thing, my “best movies” list is constantly changing from one day to the next: right now, I’d tell you that Nope is one of the greatest movies I’ve ever seen, even though it only came out barely five months ago (there’s recency bias for you). There’s also the previously mentioned bourgeois taste – at best, my list probably wouldn’t look all that different from Ti West’s in general tone and theme.
Also, I’m not quite sure what the criteria are: do I pick my personal favorites, or those that I feel made the most significant impact in film overall? And then there’s the question of “favorite” vs. “good”: I genuinely love The Lost Boys, for instance, but know perfectly well it doesn’t belong on any “best” list5.
The first two that immediately come to mind are The Night of the Hunter and All That Jazz. Mean Streets would be there, The Exorcist, and In the Mood for Love, which is not boring, and only a boring person would say that. For documentaries, Barbara Kopple’s Harlan County, USA and Kirsten Johnson’s Dick Johnson is Dead (there’s that recency bias again). Pan’s Labyrinth. Young Frankenstein. How do people do this, anyway, and they don’t even get paid for it? You know what, forget it, let’s just list All That Jazz ten times.
What about you folks, what would be on your lists? This is a mock-free zone (out loud, at least).
P.S. Goddammit, I forgot Cabaret. Cabaret would be on my list.
P.P.S. And Alien too. FUCK. This is impossible.
Although undoubtedly violent arguments have broken out over this as well.
The fact that they were not asked to participate in the S&S poll, suggesting that perhaps their opinion in this matter is not actually valuable, seems to be of little consequence.
As a comparison, failed Senatorial candidate Dr. Oz’s magazine has a readership of nearly 900,000 just in the U.S. alone.
I lied, it’s “New England clam chowder.”
With the possible exception of “best hair.”
as a fellow lost boys lover, my argument is that alongside a ‘best’ list, we should also rank media by ‘most fun’. now that’s a ranking it could top
I've avoided this debate but really enjoyed reading your observations, Gena. I related to the line " I am dumb and uncultured". But *whose* culture? Because you are cultured. And I'm cultured. But there seems to be an unspoken idea that some cultures are better than others. People like us feel outclassed. (Not to tell you how you feel!) I admire that you get so much out of the movies you watch, you engage with the arts and find meaning in it. (And you write about it eloquently.) Anyway, I am just trying to be mindful of the classist trappings around art appreciation.