Opinions on BFI 2022 Sight and Sound Poll

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Victim of The Night
Varda and Akerman have been well known and discussed forever and would especially have been among the "programmers, curators, archivists and academics" that create these lists. It seems like there is a conscious decision to push more diverse demographics up to be more inclusive (or is it to not seem exclusive?) and that's fine. It's good really. In most cases at least, some picks are a bit odd. But Jeanne Dielman's jump to #1 now that's gotta be some collusion am I right? And I like the film and all of what I've seen from the director. Conspiracy.
Maybe so.
It surprises me to hear you say that about Varda and Akerman. I've been on movie forums for 16 years and I never heard anyone talk about them til recently. I didn't even know Jeanne Dielman existed until fairly recently (last few years) because no one ever mentioned it and it wasn't anywhere to be found unless you already knew about it. I mean, It wasn't in Roger Ebert's first THREE HUNDRED Great Movies, as an example. And Cleo sat in my queue for almost 15 years because no one ever, ever mentioned it on any of the forums I was on even when we were specifically talking about French films of the 1960s. It was all about Godard and Truffaut and Bresson and Demy and even Rivette, but I basically never heard Varda's name.
Now maybe there is a "push" but if there is I lean more toward feeling that that push is to correct long-existing oversights rather than to over-promote less-deserving films because of social climates.
And I just don't know about this conspiracy. I have spent almost as much time scouring streaming services over the last 15 years for great movies as I have watching them and Dielman only turned up in the last few years, certainly since the last poll. They didn't have a copy at my video store either. And it wasn't showing at the multiplex. It wasn't even showing at the Art House. I think it's become widely available and widely discussed recently so a lot of people have seen it and seen it recently and been floored by it, and that's how it got there.
Like I said, I think these things point more to a Recency Bias than some social conspiracy.



Victim of The Night
Yeah, it's the best one. It has some middling films, too. But at least most of them are far away from the top.
Nobody gives a hoot. If the film is good, it will find its place there. Unless it's obscure. Cleo isn't. It's Film 101. I really don't know how you could have never heard about it before. I presume you never heard of Chabrol, Gilles, Marker, or Rivette either? It's not like before our times somebody watched a film like Cleo and thought "Wow, this film is a masterpiece but it was directed by a woman and women are stupid and I won't include it on my list". No. The thing is, nowadays "directed by a woman" became a freakin' catchphrase. So of course people are bound to look for movies using this catchphrase and then overrate films based on that catchphrase. It's a process similar to overhyping films like Parasite (incidentally, also featured on the list) or Everything Everywhere All at Once. It's marketing or a form of mass hallucination.

You're now behaving as if Cleo was some film considered lost until 2020, or something. While it's a pretty basic introductory French cinema movie. Sure, maybe a lot of the "critics" indeed watched it for the first time. And I think it was one of the few things they watched.

But yeah, you are kind of right. It's true that many people decided that some of these films directed by women should have always been in the canon. And so they are now pushing them there. Cleo is a great film but so are many other French films from the 60s.

African Cinema 101. Also very overrated because, you know, bad Frenchies and colonialism and stuff. But hey, at least it's KINDA good.

Happens. But I'm surprised you've never even heard about it. It's really one of the most well-regarded films from Africa. The question is how many films from Africa have you seen mentioned anywhere? Maybe that's where the problem lies. Besides, it's completely alright to leave off the entire continent of Africa on a list like that. I mean, African cinema was never as good as Asian or European cinema.

I can say the same about countless films. 99% of them are made by men. So, why has nobody been talking about them?
I guess I'm just a plebe who's only seen a few thousand films from the dawn of cinema to the present across dozens of cultures and been in active discussion about same for decades but is just a woebegone normie compared to your cinematic greatness, Minio.



Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
There's a difference between haven't seen vs. haven't heard about.
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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.



I gotta say that my take on the female directors is a lot different from what I'm seeing here.
My take is that now that we are actually considering films by female directors seriously for the first time, and I feel that that is true, we are finding that many of them should always have been in the canon.
I mean, not to beat a dead horse, but when I saw Cleo I just thought, "Oh, this is one of the best movies I've ever seen and if this is the only film this Agnes Varda person ever made (because I knew nothing about her since we don't talk about female directors) she should at least be considered one of the greatest one-hit wonders of all time."
I mean, it is not lost on me that I never, ever saw or heard anyone talking about this film for years and years and now that it has seen the light of day and gotten a little shine, people all over are acknowledging its greatness.
As for Black filmmakers, I think some of the same is true. Where was Black Girl all my life? After years of reading books about film and being on numerous film forums, I had never even heard anyone mention it when it popped up out of nowhere streaming (I had never seen it streaming anywhere before until 3 years ago either). I took a flier on it and thought, "Oh, this is like some kind of masterpiece, why has no one been talking about this film?" It's a matter of exposure more than anything else.

Cleo was talked about all of the time at Rotten Tomatoes. I think there was even one thread completely devoted to it, and was a number of long time posters who had it as their top or one of their top films of all time




As for the addition of all these women directors, while I think maybe some segment of the voters felt obligated to include one, I don't think it matters much here since there really isn't anything embarrassing that doesn't belong. Sure, maybe a better Campion film. Or it is possibly a little off that Meshes of the Afternoon is seemingly the sole experimental film on the list. And with Wanda, as happy as I am that it is getting acknowledged, it being there as (I assume) an ambassador for American independent films just makes the exclusion of Cassavetes' more baffling. With such a strong american presence on the list, to not list anything by the guy who almost single handedly brought the idea of independent feature length films into the discussion is egregious.


There are obviously a lot of unfortunate omissions, but when isn't there? The one that I definitely find most annoying though is Lawrence of Arabia which, I'm just going to guess, is because T.E. is a colonialist or white savior or whatever, which would just be stupid beyond belief.



Touki Bouki or Yelen are more African cinema 101 aren't they? Or even Cairo Station. Black Girl is a really good film though.

Most of these films are in the Criterion collection. None of them are really obscure at all.

Although many on the list are great, I feel they are not the director's best work. Le Bonheur is Varda's best that I've seen. Fanny and Alexander is not even top 5 Bergman in my humble opinion. And La Notte is not Antonioni's best. It seems critics have their favourite.

Agree Parasite should be nowhere near this list. It's probably not in the top 20 Korean films of all time.

And I'll repeat: No Kieslowski, is an absolute sham.



Like with our yearly Countdown Lists, there are some people here making the mistake of assuming that every film fan got in at the same floor. It's OK to not have seen everything here. It's OK to not have heard of all of them. It's OK to not like any of them. These lists will never please everybody and will never be an accurate depiction of the taste of every single cinephile. So chill and don't be dismissive of where others stand, but rather be humble in sharing your thoughts about the list, or the films you consider more worthy.
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Like any industry they must have events or meetings where you get together with peers, hear presentations, have panels, and talk shop. I did use "conspiracy" lightly but just based on my experience in my totally unrelated industry, knowing how it goes, it's difficult for me to imagine they weren't discussing their upcoming votes, with context of the the current climate, and rallied around certain films. And even rallied against others. Who knows. I demand an investigation into the Sight & Sound 2022 list!
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"Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."



Maybe I should be more positive. It's a delight to see Close Up so high up the list, and meshes of the afternoon finally seems to be getting the recognition it deserves.



Yeah +1 on Close-Up. Kiarostami had three on the director's list. I'm also a fan of Beau Travail and Claire Denis, although it's been a long time since I last watched it. Haven't heard any comments on it being in the top 10/20 of both lists.



Yeah +1 on Close-Up. Kiarostami had three on the director's list. I'm also a fan of Beau Travail and Claire Denis, although it's been a long time since I last watched it. Haven't heard any comments on it being in the top 10/20 of both lists.
I love Beau Travail, the Criterion Blu Ray is stunning.



There are obviously a lot of unfortunate omissions, but when isn't there? The one that I definitely find most annoying though is Lawrence of Arabia which, I'm just going to guess, is because T.E. is a colonialist or white savior or whatever, which would just be stupid beyond belief.
Gone With the Wind not being on the list was ridiculous as well. Sadly it seems like people judge it nowadays based on how it portrayed slaves rather than how the other characters were. Or maybe critics wanted to represent all of these foreign films to the point of GWTW's exclusion.

I wonder if there is anyone angry over no Spielberg movies for critics. No Shawshank, no Pulp Fiction, no Dark Knight. I am pretty sure the audiences were angered that "their" favorites were not on the list. I am impressed with this list because it did not state the obvious.



Victim of The Night
Gone With the Wind not being on the list was ridiculous as well. Sadly it seems like people judge it nowadays based on how it portrayed slaves rather than how the other characters were. Or maybe critics wanted to represent all of these foreign films to the point of GWTW's exclusion.
Honestly, I'm from the South and I've never liked Gone With The Wind, not in any way because of portrayals but because it's just not a film that appeals to me in any way and never has. I'm thrilled to not see it.



Gone With the Wind not being on the list was ridiculous as well. Sadly it seems like people judge it nowadays based on how it portrayed slaves rather than how the other characters were. Or maybe critics wanted to represent all of these foreign films to the point of GWTW's exclusion.

I wonder if there is anyone angry over no Spielberg movies for critics. No Shawshank, no Pulp Fiction, no Dark Knight. I am pretty sure the audiences were angered that "their" favorites were not on the list. I am impressed with this list because it did not state the obvious.

I'm not particularly big on discounting an older film because it might fall short of our current standards, but at least with GWTW, it does have a legitimately hoary legacy. At least people aren't wrong if they are angry at the film having racist under and even overtones. But as far as I'm concerned, a reading of Lawrence that concludes the film is racist is....dumb. or at the very least, a deeply one dimensional reading of what the film is.




But also, like Wooley, I'm fine with it not bejng there because I don't think it is that good. It is one of the rare out and out classics I sorta think stinks