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| Kenji Mizoguchi: Sansho dayu (JP 1954). |
BFI news release
Sight & Sound magazine’s 2012 once-a decade international Critics’ film poll reveals first new winner for 50 years
London – 1 August 2012
The BFI’s Sight & Sound magazine today announced that the winner of its hugely anticipated and world-renowned Greatest Films of All Time poll is Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, ending the 50-year reign of Orson Welles’ mighty Citizen Kane, winner of the once-a-decade poll since 1962 and now in second place. 846 film experts participated in the poll, placing Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story 3rd and Jean Renoir’s La Règle du jeu 4th. Two new films to make the Top Ten are both silent – Dziga Vertov’s Man With a Movie Camera at no.8, the first documentary to make the Top Ten since 1952, and Carl Theodor Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc in 9th place. The most recent film in the Top Ten is Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) in 6th place. The poll is Sight & Sound’s seventh and most ambitious to date; the full results are published in the September issue, on sale from August 4th which also celebrates the magazine’s 80th birthday and a new re-launch, with a new look and new digital edition and archive. Visit www.bfi.org.uk/sightsoundpoll2012 for the results in full.
In a separate poll, 358 film directors from all over the world, including Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Francis Ford Coppola (who has three films in the Top 50), Woody Allen and Mike Leigh, voted Ozu’s Tokyo Story the Greatest Film of All Time, again knocking Citizen Kane off the top spot to share the no.2 position with Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey; Vertigo was voted 7th place.
Made in 1958, psychological suspense drama Vertigo first entered the Sight And Sound poll only in 1982 in 7th place - two years after the director died. Vertigo was largely ignored by the critics for most of his career; its rise in the poll is testament to how Hitchcock’s reputation has steadily increased over time. He is now generally regarded as a master filmmaker, innovator and genius of cinema. Starring Kim Novak and James Stewart, Vertigo trumped Citizen Kane by 34 votes this time around, compared to the 5 votes short of Kane that Vertigo achieved 10 years ago.
Kim Novak said in a recent interview with the BFI that ‘I remember when I played it I felt absolutely stripped naked. I felt so vulnerable. He knew exactly what he wanted. The façade was everything to him (Hitchcock)...He was obsessed with the look. It was as if he was Jimmy Stewart, making sure that she was dressed exactly the way Madeleine was. He was playing the part of Jimmy Stewart.’
The Critics’ Top Ten Greatest Films of All Time are:
1 Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958)
2 Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
3 Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953)
4 La Règle du jeu (Renoir, 1939)
5 Sunrise: a Song for Two Humans (Murnau, 1927)
6 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)
7 The Searchers (Ford, 1956)
8 Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929)
9 The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer, 1927)
10. 8 ½ (Fellini, 1963)
The Directors’ Top Ten Greatest Films of All Time are:
1 Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953)
=2 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)
=2 Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
4 8 ½ (Fellini, 1963)
5 Taxi Driver (Scorsese, 1976)
6 Apocalypse Now (Coppola, 1979)
=7 The Godfather (Coppola, 1972)
=7 Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958)
9 Mirror (Tarkovsky, 1974)
10 Bicycle Thieves (De Sica, 1948)
Since it was first conducted in 1952, Sight & Sound’s ten yearly Poll has become world-famous as the ultimate arbiter of the greatest films in cinema history. This year’s poll reached a wider and more democratic group than ever before and incorporates the top ten lists of 846 of the most influential film critics, academics, distributors, writers and programmers from all corners of the globe who voted for 2045 films overall. This compares to the 144 that were asked 10 years ago and reflects the impact of the internet and proliferation and increased influence of film commentators using this new medium. Respondents were asked to interpret ‘Greatest’ as they chose: whether the film was most important to film history, represented the aesthetic pinnacle of achievement or perhaps had a personal impact on their own view of cinema.
Perhaps the most surprising result for the poll is the three silent films in the Top Ten, Man with a Movie Camera is a new addition and with Sunrise (Murnau) improving from 7th to 5th and The Passion of Joan of Arc re-entering, together they have ousted perennial favourite Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein), a Top Ten film for all of the poll’s 60 years. This could be explained by both the availability of the films on DVD and also the resurgence in popularity in recent years for different kinds of live accompaniment to the films, from the The Alloy Orchestra and Michael Nyman to prog rock.
The most recent film to make an impact is Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love, made in 2000 and a new entry at no.24. David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr. (2001) comes in at no 28. Top British film was The Third Man (73rd) followed by Lawrence of Arabia (81st) and A Matter of Life and Death (90th). The top film made by a woman was Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles (35th) – the only other female director’s film in the Top 100 is Claire Denis’s Beau Travail (78th).
Nick James, Editor, Sight and Sound magazine said ‘This result reflects changes in the culture of film criticism. The new cinephilia seems to be not so much about films that strive to be great art, such as Citizen Kane, and that use cinema’s entire arsenal of effects to make a grand statement, but more about works that have personal meaning to the critic. Vertigo is the ultimate critics’ film because it is a dreamlike film about people who are not sure who they are but who are busy reconstructing themselves and each other to fit a kind of cinema ideal of the ideal soul mate. In that sense it’s a makeover film full of spellbinding moments of awful poignancy that show how foolish, tender and cruel we can be when we're in love.’
Sight & Sound is read by anyone with an interest in film all over the world, from critics and academics to film fans and students. The September re-launch issue goes on sale from 4th August and will be bigger and better than ever, with 32 more pages including more film industry news, new sections including ‘Wide Angle’ (covering transmedia, Artists’ film and video, television drama, documentary and production and costume design) and ‘Forum’ (dedicated to cinema debates, rethinks and controversies) and a fresh new design. Also appearing from August 7th is a new digital edition of Sight & Sound available on desktop and iPad, plus the unveiling of the complete digital archive of both Sight & Sound and long-running sister-title The Monthly Film Bulletin, containing all issues published since 1932. (Access to the archive is limited to subscribers to the magazine).
Throughout September BFI Southbank will celebrate Sight & Sound magazine’s Ten Greatest Films of All Time with a season of screenings from the Top Ten. The BFI launches its Genius Of Hitchcock project this Summer with all 58 of the director’s films showing at BFI Southbank from August 1st until October. Vertigo will screen at BFI Southbank in an Extended Run throughout September and goes on theatrical release in cinemas nationwide from 7th September.
As part of the BFI Southbank season, the question of what makes a film a ‘classic’ will be examined by a panel of industry experts including filmmaker Ben Walters and former Head of Publishing at the BFI, Edward Buscombe, in Call It a Classic? on Monday 3rd September.
ANTTI ALANEN
MY LETTER OF CONTRIBUTION, 23 April 2012
Dear Nick James,
Here we go:
1. City Lights (US 1931, Charles Chaplin)
2. La Règle du jeu / The Rules of the Game (FR 1939, Jean Renoir)
3. Citizen Kane (US 1941, Orson Welles)
4. My Darling Clementine (US 1946, John Ford)
5. Sansho dayu / Sansho the Bailiff (JP 1954, Kenji Mizoguchi)
6. Smultronstället / Wild Strawberries (SE 1957, Ingmar Bergman)
7. Jules et Jim (FR 1962, François Truffaut)
8. Kahdeksan surmanluotia / Eight Deadly Shots (FI 1972, Mikko Niskanen)
9. Zerkalo / The Mirror (SU 1975, Andrei Tarkovsky)
10. Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi / Spirited Away (JP 2001, Hayao Miyazaki)
Mission: impossible. Ten best Biograph shorts by D. W. Griffith... ten best Hollywood animations from the 1940s... ten best experimental films from the 1960s... ten best Finnish films... ten best films of 1914 or 2012: justice would be possible in lists like them. I think there are on the average ten masterpieces per year in the history of the cinema. I wrote a book on the 1000 best feature films for the centenary of the cinema and a new edition of 1100 best films for the 110th anniversary. I could include any of them in your top ten list. And of short films many times more.
1. City Lights. Still maturing after the passing of the golden age of comedy Chaplin moves towards heartbreaking self-reflection.
2. La Règle du jeu. Mozartian depths beneath a superficial frivolity.
3. Citizen Kane. There are a dozen reasons to like this. One is an enormous joy of the cinema.
4. My Darling Clementine. A new gravity and dignity appears in Ford's Westerns after WWII.
5. Sansho dayu. Like Ford, Mizoguchi was a master of both the epic and the lyrical. In this story of injustice he is at his most ardent.
6. Smultronstället. A purely cinematic journey of self-discovery, worthy of Chekhov and Strindberg. Also the most beautiful hommage in the history of the cinema, in this case to Victor Sjöström and The Phantom Carriage, Bergman's personal favourite film.
7. Jules et Jim. Like Design for Living (Noël Coward / Ernst Lubit an anti-triangle-drama: the saga of a friendship between two men and a woman. The title notwithstanding the central character is Catherine, immortalized by Jeanne Moreau. Also a rich period movie starting from la belle époque and reaching to the eve of WWII. Full of life and an irresistible love for the means of the cinema.
8. Kahdeksan surmanluotia / Eight Deadly Shots. Together with Loviisa (1946, Valentin Vaala) and Tuntematon sotilas / The Unknown Soldier (1955, Edvin Laine) one of the best Finnish films by the classical directors, but only in its full version of 5 hours and 16 minutes.
9. Zerkalo / The Mirror. A space odyssey into the interior of the psyche, Tarkovsky's "In search of lost time". Epic dimensions of history emerge during this personal journey through the memories of childhood.
10. Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi / Spirited Away. There is an affinity between animation and animism. Miyazaki, a master on the level of Lewis Carroll and Tove Jansson, creates a unique vision in which old spirits coexist with the modern world.
Antti Alanen
Film programmer
Helsinki
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