Via LookingCloser.org, here’s a response to the AFI list pointing out the lamentable lack of women directors (as in, none on the Top 100 list, and only 4 among the list of 400 nominated films). How many of the films have you seen on the counter-list of the Top 100 American Films Directed by Women? I got some catchin’ up to do, I admit.
I’m guessing there’s also a notable absence of films directed by African Americans, Asian Americans, or Latinos.
In looking over the two AFI lists again, I realized that one of the differences between the old one and the new one was the removal of The Birth of a Nation. Interesting. I’m not sure I’d be comfortable voting for The Birth of a Nation myself, as it was a piece of racist propaganda. But it sure was influential and culturally significant, which are two of the AFI’s criteria. There seems to be a greater shift towards taking a film’s message into account–which makes it all the more ironic that there are so few female directors or directors of color on the list.
June 21st, 2007
It’s been a decade since the American Film Institute’s first 100 Greatest [American, Award-Winning, Influential] Films of All Time came out, and the new one doesn’t really seem that different. Titanic made it on at #83, so blech to that. The biggest difficulty with either list is that it pretty much limits you to big Oscar-winners (one of the selection criteria is that the film should be a “major award winner”). Thus, I’m surprised to see that The Fellowship of the Ring made it on the list, instead of Oscar-decorated The Return of the King (all three Lord of the Rings movies were on the list of 400 nominees, from which these 100 were elected). Here’s the 2008 list (you can also view the 1998 list for comparison):
1 CITIZEN KANE (Welles, 1941)
2 THE GODFATHER (Coppola, 1972)
3 CASABLANCA (Curtiz, 1942)
4 RAGING BULL (Scorsese, 1980)
5 SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN (Donen & Kelly, 1952)
6 GONE WITH THE WIND (Fleming, 1939)
7 LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (Lean, 1962)
8 SCHINDLER’S LIST (Spielberg, 19930
9 VERTIGO (Hitchcock, 1958)
10 THE WIZARD OF OZ (Fleming, 1939)
11 CITY LIGHTS (Chaplin, 1931)
12 THE SEARCHERS (Ford, 1956)
13 STAR WARS (Lucas, 1977)
14 PSYCHO (Hitchcock, 1960)
15 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (Kubrick, 1968)
16 SUNSET BLVD. (Wilder, 1950)
17 THE GRADUATE (Nichols, 1967)
18 THE GENERAL (Keaton & Bruckman, 1927)
19 ON THE WATERFRONT (Kazan, 1954)
20 IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (Capra, 1946)
21 CHINATOWN (Polanski, 1974)
22 SOME LIKE IT HOT (Wilder, 1959)
23 THE GRAPES OF WRATH (Ford, 1940)
24 E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (Spielberg, 1982)
25 TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (Mulligan, 1962)
26 MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (Capra, 1939)
27 HIGH NOON (Zinnemann, 1952)
28 ALL ABOUT EVE (Mankiewicz, 1950)
29 DOUBLE INDEMNITY (Wilder, 1944)
30 APOCALYPSE NOW (Coppola, 1979)
31 THE MALTESE FALCON (Huston, 1941)
32 THE GODFATHER: PART II (Coppola, 1974)
33 ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST (Forman, 1975)
34 SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS (various, 1937)
35 ANNIE HALL (Allen, 1977)
36 THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI (Lean, 1957)
37 THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (Wyler, 1946)
38 THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (Huston, 1948)
39 DR. STRANGELOVE OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB (Kubrick, 1964)
40 THE SOUND OF MUSIC (Wise, 1965)
41 KING KONG (Cooper & Schoedsack, 1933)
42 BONNIE AND CLYDE (Penn, 1967)
43 MIDNIGHT COWBOY (Schlesinger, 1969)
44 THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (Cukor, 1940)
45 SHANE (Stevens, 1953)
46 IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (Capra, 1934)
47 A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (Kazan, 1951)
48 REAR WINDOW (Hitchcock, 1954)
49 INTOLERANCE (Griffith, 1916)
50 THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING (Jackson, 2001)
51 WEST SIDE STORY (Robbins & Wise, 1961)
52 TAXI DRIVER (Scorsese, 1976)
53 THE DEER HUNTER (Cimino, 1978)
54 MASH (Altman, 1970)
55 NORTH BY NORTHWEST (Hitchcock, 1959)
56 JAWS (Spielberg, 1975)
57 ROCKY (Avildsen, 1976)
58 THE GOLD RUSH (Chaplin, 1925)
59 NASHVILLE (Altman, 1975)
60 DUCK SOUP (McCarey, 1933)
61 SULLIVAN’S TRAVELS (Sturges, 1941)
62 AMERICAN GRAFFITI (Lucas, 1973)
63 CABARET (Fosse, 1972)
64 NETWORK (Lumet, 1976)
65 THE AFRICAN QUEEN (Huston, 1951)
66 RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (Spielberg, 1981)
67 WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (Nichols, 1966)
68 UNFORGIVEN (Eastwood, 1992)
69 TOOTSIE (Pollack, 1982)
70 A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (Kubrick, 1971)
71 SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (Spielberg, 1997)
72 THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION (Darabont, 1994)
73 BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID (Hill, 1969)
74 THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (Demme, 1991)
75 IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT (Jewison, 1967)
76 FORREST GUMP (Zemeckis, 1994)
77 ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN (Pakula, 1977)
78 MODERN TIMES (Chaplin, 1936)
79 THE WILD BUNCH (Peckinpah, 1969)
80 THE APARTMENT (Wilder, 1960)
81 SPARTACUS (Kubrick, 1960)
82 SUNRISE: A SONG OF TWO HUMANS (Murnau, 1927)
83 TITANIC (Cameron, 1997)
84 EASY RIDER (Hopper, 1969)
85 A NIGHT AT THE OPERA (Wood, 1935)
86 PLATOON (Stone, 1986)
87 12 ANGRY MEN (Lumet, 1957)
88 BRINGING UP BABY (Hawks, 1938)
89 THE SIXTH SENSE (Shyamalan, 1999)
90 SWING TIME (Stevens, 1936)
91 SOPHIE’S CHOICE (Pakula, 1982)
92 GOODFELLAS (Scorsese, 1990)
93 THE FRENCH CONNECTION (Friedkin, 1971)
94 PULP FICTION (Tarantino, 1994)
95 THE LAST PICTURE SHOW (Bogdanovich, 1971)
96 DO THE RIGHT THING (Lee, 1989)
97 BLADE RUNNER (Scott, 1982)
98 YANKEE DOODLE DANDY (Curtiz, 1942)
99 TOY STORY (Lasseter, 1995)
100 BEN-HUR (Wyler, 1959)
Upset about the list? Then fill out your own ballot. I’m pasting below my list of the top 50 out of the 400 nominated films (well, out of the ones I’ve seen), including the 5 write-ins allowed to all voters. My list is kind of a combination of my favorites and movies I may not like so much but recognize as artistically good. Alas, my extreme dislike of Gone with the Wind or anything by George Lucas doesn’t allow me to even begin to consider their potential artistic merit. Apologies beforehand for my inordinate love of musicals, Alfonso Cuarón, and Gregory Peck.
The Otter’s Top 50 AFI-Nominated Films (in rough order)
Beauty and the Beast (1991)
Chariots of Fire
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Mission (write-in, if it counts as American)
Singin’ in the Rain
Fantasia
A Man for All Seasons
Gandhi
In the Heat of the Night
Casablanca
Mary Poppins
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (write-in)
The Princess Bride (write-in)
My Fair Lady
Rebecca
A Little Princess (1995, write-in)
Sense and Sensibility
Schindler’s List
The Shawshank Redemption
Young Frankenstein
Bringing Up Baby
Children of Men (write-in, again not sure whether it counts as American)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Driving Miss Daisy
12 Angry Men
West Side Story
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Frankenstein
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
The Producers (1967)
Tootsie
The Grapes of Wrath
Hotel Rwanda
The Lion King
Roman Holiday
It Happened One Night
On the Waterfront
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
The Sound of Music
The Maltese Falcon
Vertigo
The Philadelphia Story
Rear Window
Gentleman’s Agreement
A Streetcar Named Desire
Amadeus
Moulin Rouge!
Ben-Hur (1959)
Field of Dreams
June 21st, 2007