The cover of the December issue of Sight & Sound – the publishing arm of the British Film Institute (BFI)- proudly announces a listing of the 50 best films of 2024 and an accompanying e-mail to subscribers (of whom I am one) asks conversationally “How many have you seen?”
This question is, as it turns out, a disengenious one. Unless you have attended all the major film festivals of the year or live in the USA with ready access to an arts cinema there is no hope in hell that even the most avid movie buff will have watched all fifty.
In this way, critics maintain their fragile status as arbitors of good taste in all things cinematic.
“You don’t have to do what your mother has done / This is your life, this new life has begun/It’s your day, Woman’s Day” – Lyrics to ‘Shaking The Tree’ by Youssou N’Dour & Peter Gabriel from Youssou N’Dour’s album ‘The Lion’ (1989)
The greatest movie ever made?
My viewing habits continue to be influenced by Mark Cousins’ exhaustive (and exhausting) Women Make Film which illustrates how ignored, or underrated, women directors have been in recent years.
Among those belatedly recognizing the need for a gender rethink are the Sight and Sound film critics who went full woke and voted Chantal Akerman’s epic ‘Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles’ as the greatest film of all time.. This was a controversial and, frankly, contrary choice but at least makes the case that the late Belgian director is worthy of being regarded alongside auteurs like Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock.
That said, the list itself has many notable omissions. No place for any of the Godfather movies plus nothing by Luis Bunuel or The Coen Brothers while ‘Daisies’, a silly, surreal and horribly dated Czech movie from the 1960s merits inclusion as a bogus ‘Feminist’ classic.
The female gaze in ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’
The most recent film in the Sight & Sound list is 2019’s seductive ”Portrait of a Lady on Fire’ directed by Céline Sciamma. I saw this after being hugely impressed by Sciamma’s earlier movies ‘Girlhood’ (2014) and ‘Tomboy’ (2011). Her latest movie ‘Petite Maman’ (2021) is also excellent. If you want to understand the difference between the male and female gaze, any of these movies are essential viewing.
One of my better decisions of the year was to take out a subscription to MUBI, the online streaming site that takes global and independent movies seriously.
I signed up initially to see Andrea Arnold’s ‘Cow’ which, despite all the praise, proved to be a bit of a let down. Perhaps, as a Vegan, I didn’t need to be persuaded that farm animals have feelings too! In compensation Mubi currently hosts three excellent shorts by the English director of which her Oscar winning ‘Wasp’ (2003) is the most powerful (and depressing!)
Sadly , and ironically, it can also be likened to Jacque Tati’s equally ambitious Play Time in that audiences at the time were mostly left bemused and unimpressed.
The fact that both these movies were commercial flops meant that the subsequent careers of both stars took a serious nosedive.
Being ahead of your time is no joke.
The General features daring stunts and elaborately constructed set pieces, notably the crashing of The Texas train off a burning bridge. Instead of using a model in the latter scene, a real train was used for what proved to be the most expensive scene in the silent movie era.
As a 21st century viewer, I can marvel at the film while understanding why it alienated his fans when it was first released. Audiences at that time were used to seeing the stone-faced comic as a loveable failure and probably would have prefered to see him in more of a slapstick role. As Johnny Gray in The General he cuts quite a heroic figure. Only when he switches role from engineer to soldier does he become more of an accident-prone buffoon with more predictable sight gags.
The General includes the improbable plot device of Johnny’s sweetheart Annabelle Lee being taken hostage by Union rebels and held prisoner in a well-appointed bedroom rather than being beaten or sexually abused. Her rescue and the chase that ensues features choreography that is all the more remarkable when you consider that Buster Keaton refused to use stuntmen.
Unfortunately risking life and limb wasn’t enough rescue the film financially but Buster Keaton’s unwillingness to compromise guaranteed his place in movie history.
The movie is now in the public domain so you can watch it for free online, this You Tube version features an elegant score by Carl Davis:
A common thread running through most of these movies is that glib and preconceived notions of good and evil need to be constantly challenged.
I wrote short pieces about all of these films on this blog – hit the search button to find out more about why they made such an impression on me.
1. JEANNE DIELMAN, 23 QUAI DU COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXELLES directed by Chantal Akerman (1975)
2. A SEPARATION directed by Asghar Farhadl (2011)
3. WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN directed by Lynne Ramsey (2011)
4. COME AND SEE directed by Elem Klimov (1985)
5. SHAME directed by Steve McQueen (2011)
6. AMELIE directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet (2001)
7. L’UOMO CHE VERRA’ directed by Giorgio Diritti (2009)
8. RASHOMAN directed by Akira Kurosawa (1950)
9. CESERE DEVE MORIRE directed by Taviani Brothers (2012)
10. UGETSU MONOGATARI directed by Kenji Mizoguchi (1953)
UGETSU MONOGATARI directed by Kenji Mizoguchi (Japan, 1953)
This is not so much a ghost story as a story with ghosts and a far cry from mainstream horror flicks such as Paranormal Activity.
The depth and lyricism of classic Japanese movies like this make most contemporary films look shallow and superficial. It is justifiably included in the BFI/Sight & Sound list of the top 50 greatest ever films.
Mizoguchi began making films in the silent era, then with a burst of creativity in the last decade of his life, he made six celebrated films before his death in 1956 aged 58.
This masterpiece works on so many different levels that to focus on just one risks reducing the overall impact.
The plot centres on two couples whose simple lives are disrupted by civil war. It is based on two short novels by Akinari Ueda (from his collection Tales of Moonlight and Rain) and a story titled Décoré by Guy de Maupassant. Continue reading →
Buster Keaton’s movie is now hailed as a classic. It was voted by BFI/Sight & Sound magazine as one of the 
