Tuesday, May 24, 2005

What The Time 100 Films List Forgot

img_120975_lrg

(image via terminalvideo)

Above: Aquarian sick genius/Mad Scientist Frederico Fellini imagined Nero's Pagan Rome via an interdimensional science fiction. So fucking brilliant it hurts. Didn't make Time's 100 Films List (Averted Gaze)

The Time Magazine 100 Film List was disappointing. Stale, even. Ulysses' Gaze was a pleasant surprise, though. All the usual suspects were included that one would expect any film professor to name. But there are some glaring omissions.

101_box_348x490

Above: Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers: Quite possibly the greatest film ever. (via reel.com)

Here are some films The Corsair would have included: Fellini's Satyricon, Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander (Corliss and Schickel include the good Smiles of a Summer Night but fails to include the excellent Fanny and Alexander, Bergman's Magnum Opus to film) as Bergman's superior Cries and Whispers and Autumn Sonata (Ingrid Bergman's stunning final performance in a role Ingmar -- no relation -- wrote for her), Hannah and Her Sisters (Corliss and Schickel put Woody Allen's fine but far from perfect Purple Rose of Cairo on the list and excluded the far better Hannah, or even the magisterial Crimes and Misdemeanors), Tarkovsky's Mirror, Cinema Paradiso, Rashomon, Renoir's A Day in the Country, Liv Ullman's Kristen Lavransdatter, Hitchcock's North by Northwest, Nykvist's The Ox, Memories of Underdevelopment and -- IMHO -- Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner.

And while The Corsair loves Pulp Fiction, it is not one of the 100 best films. It is certainly one of the 100 most influential and important American films, just not the best. There is a difference between "importance" and "excellence." Again, Psycho is "important," but it is not a better film than Garden of the Finzi Contini's or Last year in Marienbad.

satyric1

(image of Felliniesque-"pagansickness" via Damstede.net)

Including The Lord of the Rings Trilogy? A Hard Days Night?! WTF?!

What would you "add on"/ "subtract from" Time's list?

8 comments:

(S)wine said...

I'm with you on the removal of Pulp. Also...The Fly (1986 version w/Jeff Goldblum). Re-watch it. It doesn't hold up. It's cheesy horror and bad writing and acting.

Anonymous said...

Kind of weird that Color Purple didn't make this list but "Finding Nemo" did? If there was an all-time favorite animation that went on this list it should be Lion King.

(S)wine said...

...or Fantasia.

The Corsair said...

Ah, now we're talking cinema!

Anonymous said...

Bande a parte, instead of Pierrot le fou or Breathless, is not really justifiable either

The Corsair said...

Total agreement.

Anonymous said...

Add: Cloud-Capped Star; Wild Bunch; Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid; Maborosi; Goto, Isle of Love; Close-Up; Blue Velvet.

Not even best film by the director: Kings of the Road for Wings of the Desire (sappy!); Dead Ringers for The Fly; Jaws for Schindler's List.

And finally:

IKIRU? AND NO SEVEN SAMURAI (or Ran, come to that)? EH?

The Corsair said...

Awesome pics. I totally forgot Seven Samaurai. Corliss and Schickle just plain fucked up.