The American Film Institute has came out with its most recent top 100 American movies list. Here is their top ten:
1. Citizen Kane (1941)
2. The Godfather (1972)
3. Casablanca (1942)
4. Raging Bull (1980)
5. Singin’ In The Rain (1952)
6. Gone With The Wind (1939)
7. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
8. Schindler’s List (1993)
9. Vertigo (1958)
10. Wizard of Oz (1939)
While The Godfather, Casablanca, and Gone with the Wind are good choices, the rest do not belong here. Citizen Kane is not even a good movie, let alone a great one. Raging Bull and Lawrence of Arabia are good, but are too self-absorbed to be considered great. Vertigo and Singin’ in the Rain are good on the first few viewings, but do not hold up well after that. I will save my criticisms of Oz for a future post. The last movie, Schindler’s List, is even worse than Citizen Kane. It is worse because where Kane is merely bad, Schindler’s List is evil.
For what its worth, here are my top ten American movies. For my criterion see here.
1. The Godfather (1972)
2. Patton (1970)
3. The Godfather, Part II (1974)
4. The Sound of Music (1965)
5. Gone with the Wind (1939)
6. Casablanca (1942)
7. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
8. The African Queen (1951)
9. Trip to Bountiful (1985)
10. Chinatown (1974)
It strikes me that “Top N” lists, even when made by an individual, have a normative theme to them. That is, they are not merely “my favorites” in a purely idiosyncratic way, but “mine” as the ideal ego: dealing with publicly accessible media, with criteria that can also be attacked or defended with something more objective than simply “but I like it.” No one is going to list “Uncle Joe’s family reunion video” even if he privately preferred it to every other movie ever made.
With that in mind, it strikes me that though most would quibble with the AFI’s entry of Vertigo in the top 10, yet many might agree that some movie or other by Hitchcock needs to be there, such was his versatility and genius. So, instead of Vertigo, there might should be an entry of the form
one of {Vertigo, Rear Window, Psycho, Lifeboat, Sabotage, …}
Hitchcock is great. Sobran had a great article about his movies recently.
Eliza — yes, here and here are a couple examples.
However, I’m not sure why in the second article he says, “It’s no accident that Hitchcock never made a war movie, not even during World War II. ”
Foreign Correspondent (1940) and Lifeboat (1944) both seem to me to be heavily propagandistic movies made during WW2. Perhaps he means merely, he didn’t make a movie about actual combat?
Singin’ in the Rain is my favorite movie, but that’s mainly because I love tap dancing and its just a movie I’ve grown up with. I’ve watched it probably 25 times. Yet I don’t see why at large people like it. Two of the scenes are incredibly slow. Overall, though, its incredibly entertaining.
Why is Schindler’s List evil? I think most would agree that it is a very powerful movie.
Although not worthy of the top ten list the classic film noir picture entitled The Third Man is worthy of a view – here is a clip of the famous cuckoo-clock speech – you have to see it through to the end of the clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZg8a0nqjTE . Wittgenstien’s response to Russell “When, in the ‘twenties, Russell wanted to establish, or join, a ‘World Organization for Peace and Freedom’ or something similar, Wittgenstein rebuked him so severely, that Russell said to him: ‘Well, I suppose you would rather establish a World Organization for War and Slavery’, to which Wittgenstein passionately assented: ‘Yes, rather that, rather that!’”] has somewhat of an interesting relationship to the climax of this clip
My Fair Lady should be on the list!!
Wait Until Dark is another good one, though not tops.
And what of Birth of a Nation? It tells a story that most people do not know.
Josh I hate to demur twice, but I can’t agree at all. I daresay there is nothing further from Wittgenstein’s sentiment than Orson Welles’ evil character.
nothing whatsoever? i’m refering to the statement not his character i agree there is quite a difference it’s more or less the irony and tone of it although i’m sure there is a better way of phrasing it and i may be taking wittgenstein out of context i’m merely going off of what was written on your site
please enlighten me
Am I wrong in understanding both the cuckoo-clock speech and Wittgenstein’s statement to be, in one sense, advocating war etc. over against brotherly love etc.?
And Am I wrong in understanding both to have a certain irony that is similar in nature?
Granted that whereas Wittgenstein isn’t suggesting one do evil things for the purpose of influencing art and culture as Orson is there is still a similar irony to both of the statements. One would expect that establishing a peace organization would prove more beneficial than an organization advocating war and slavery and one would expect that brotherly love would produce finer art than would war and terrorism and so forth.
Josh — granted both use irony, but Welles uses it to embrace nihilism, while Witti uses it to unmask it.
Eliza (#6)-
I am firm on the first six, but can be talked out of the rest. I considered My Fair Lady and Birth of a Nation. Both are top 25, but I do not think either as good as the rest on the list. As for Wait Until Dark, I have not seen it. I will put it in my queue.
If I’m not mistaken it was Chinatown, the film, that brought Roman Polanski back to the states. Roman Polanski, now there is a Hollywood occult elitist. I enjoyed Chinatown and would be interested in hearing your reasons for placing it in the top ten.
007-
Yes, Polanski is a a vile man. But the movie is great — the style, the music, the story, the story within the story. Jack Nicholson is in top form: quirky, cynical and yet naive. He has now become over-the-top and gets old quickly.
All the bit players are good, but John Huston is exceptional. He steals the show every time he is on screen. The scene between Nicholson and Huston at Huston’s (Noah Cross’s) ranch on Catalina Island is one of the best ever.
The story parallels the city it is set in (LA in the late 30’s); all appears good, but the reality is quite different.
I have seen this movie about a dozen times, but each view is as fresh as the first.
Chinatown was novel in that prior to it detective films generally were about stolen objects and the like. The labyrinth of conspiracy portrayed in Chinatown, the tycoon government water power corruption, and the seeming impossibility of correcting it was without question a nuance which wouldn’t have been told better than by an occult Hollywood elitist such as Roman Polanski. I don’t know how far involved in the occult he was at that time in his life, Sharon Tate and his child already had been ritually sacrificed, nevertheless his involvement in the picture certainly was appropriate. Did you know that he was the one who sliced Mr. Gittis’ nose in the movie?
I’ll confess I just don’t get Chinatown, even after seeing it 4 or 5 times, twice with MB (with plenty of “oh, so he’s the one that…Ahh… so the butler had the gun the whole time, but the maid stole his wallet, so… now I get it.) Except I still don’t get it. Looking forward to the full review.
Be patient.