so the 1001 films to see before you die publication actually has balls!

I don’t know about past editions, but the most recent one, which I think has Black Swan on the cover, managed to include The Red and the White, Red Psalm, Before the Revolution, Marketa Lazarova, Celine and Julie Go Boating, Two or Three Things I Know About Her, and perhaps some other films one wouldn’t expect to see in a publication like that.

Yeah, but I"d have to say that BLACK SWAN is one of those films that can very comfortably be missed before one dies.

No matter what kind of balls it has, if Black Swan is in it, it looses whatever credibility it was striving for.

Are you sure it wasn’t 1001 films that Natalie Portman wants to watch before she dies?

Fair enough Tommy

Also, Angelopoulos Ruiz and Tsai. Yet they’re side by side with Star Wars, Raiders and LOTR (not to mention Kane type classics). This is my kind of canon list! Great arthouse and great entertainments providing a less limited view of film than either the mainstream or the MUBI elite.

Well even the Mubi elite doesn’t seem to have a problem with ‘Old Hollywood’-type classics like Citizen Kane, Sunset Blvd, The Searchers, etc.

“Angelopoulos Ruiz and Tsai. Yet, they’re side by side with Star Wars, Raiders and LOTR”

Uh oh! Cognative dissonance building . . . danger! danger! :)

Right, but the more contemporary popcorn movies since Jaws changed the game tend to be dismissed by many around here. Also, Oscar favorites like Ghandi and American Beauty, who also make this list, but are controversial because (I guess) they were Oscar favorites. Somehow entertainment was an acceptable standard years ago, but a problematic one in our lifetimes.

Each time they release a new edition, they must switch a couple movies around to include recent critically respected work, which Black Swan is. I do not know the staying power of these choices because a lot of them have to do with how the mood is at the time of the new edition, and so I would imagine some of the newer selections fade away. I doubt Black Swan has staying power, and I’m stating that even as an Aronofsky fan.

I think it is a very balanced publication. It has classic Hollywood, respected canon international, cult movies, pop movies, experimental films, and exploitation flicks. I think as it gets closer and closer to movies released in the last few years, it uses that space for the appropriate audience grab of well-known commercial movies. It may or may not have balls but it’s canny.

—PolarisDiB

“Somehow entertainment was an acceptable standard years ago, but a problematic one in our lifetimes.”

Not that old canard again. My idea of fun ≠ Your idea of fun ≠ His idea of fun ≠ Her idea of fun

Not sure the old art v. entertainment thing is really at the heart of this as much as it is, to steal a phrase from that Robert Hughes program, the shock of the new. New stuff is always more problematic than the old stuff. Film had to establish itself as a “real” art (as did photography before it), Hitchcock, Ford, and Hawks were entertainment before they were art . . .

My cannon also has balls.

I haven’t looked at a canon in a while, but this sounds interesting just because of the ones mentioned here. Wonder what else there is that I’ve never heard of. And I’m not crazy about descriptionless MUBI lists.

creepy

I really like these books. I agree they have the best of both worlds. They have the movies that would make the list of the most predictable, boring film critic’, as well as the movies that would make up the entire list of the most douchey, insufferably smug cinephile. They recognize film as a huge thing that can accomplish more than one type of goal.

Yeah, even if you have a very specific idea of cinema, I really don’t think that you can fault books like this for not sharing it, as they’re clearly intended for a general interest audience that’s maybe just looking to pull at a few of the threads that are woven into the tapestry.

And you certainly can’t dismiss an entire work of film criticism because it includes a few films you don’t like.

Art is just entertainment for your brain. And I find a lot of art films less intelligent than a lot of entertainment films, that get credit for being smarter because they use more intellectual language.

I have the 5th Anniversary Edition and am wondering why Independence Day is in it.

^ Exactly – a film that was very much of its moment but is barely remembered at all. That’s the problem with choosing big blockbusters of the moment. I wonder which big 70s disaster films are left on the list, if any?

I agree with everything Brad said, but I also think Matt has a point here: Not sure the old art v. entertainment thing is really at the heart of this as much as it is, to steal a phrase from that Robert Hughes program, the shock of the new. New stuff is always more problematic than the old stuff. Film had to establish itself as a “real” art (as did photography before it), Hitchcock, Ford, and Hawks were entertainment before they were art . . .

Perhaps, not enough “serious” intellectuals have gotten behind the likes of Spielberg, and other more recent Hollywood filmmakers—making a case for these filmmakers and their films as art—and that’s the bigger problem then art vs. entertainment.

On the other hand, if cinephiles now accept and embrace old Hollywood directors like Hitchcock, Ford, et al. because they are seen as real artists, doesn’t this signify that the art vs. entertainment framework is still in effect? In other words, these filmmakers had to be transformed into artists before they could be more widely accepted by critics and cinephiles.

@Fish

I don’t know about past editions,…

The past editions did have these films and others of its kind. I’m not sure why this makes the editors more gutsy, though.

>>I have the 5th Anniversary Edition and am wondering why Independence Day is in it.<<

The editors are using a lot of different criteria here, one of which is popular success. It would be a dull list if that were their main criteria, but the fact that they occasionally drop a few for the box office in only allows a greater variety of choices. Would I have included Independence Day? No. But I may have have included Gone with the Wind for the exact same reason.

I also agree with Matt about why older entertainments are more easily accepted as “art.” That’s no reason to go along with it though. Because Rock and Bull’s got it right: “They recognize film as a huge thing that can accomplish more than one type of goal.”

>>On the other hand, if cinephiles now accept and embrace old Hollywood directors like Hitchcock, Ford, et al. because they are seen as real artists, doesn’t this signify that the art vs. entertainment framework is still in effect?<<

Ari may feel this is played out, but as long a there are cinephiles who think Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay do the same thing, it’s an important issue in how we value different styles of film.

@Ari

That’s the problem with choosing big blockbusters of the moment. I wonder which big 70s disaster films are left on the list, if any?

I don’t think any make the list, but Jaws is on there, which might be the pre-cursor to blockbuster films.

Btw, what blockbuster/“entertainment” films since the 70s deserve to make the list, if any? Off the top of my head— Raiders, Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, Close Encounters, E.T., Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, Aliens, Alien, Terminator, Die Hard, Matrix, LOTR…this is a pretty good list, imo.

None of the ’70’s disaster cycle is in my edition, but happily Airplane is.

“Perhaps, not enough “serious” intellectuals have gotten behind the likes of Spielberg, and other more recent Hollywood filmmakers—making a case for these filmmakers and their films as art—and that’s the bigger problem then art vs. entertainment.”

Would you also apply this to James Cameron, Quentin Tarantino, David Fincher, et al?

Then again, that’s the thing, will Spielberg one day be seen as the present day equivalent of Hitchcock or will he follow in the footsteps of someone like Cecile B. Demille? Demille isn’t exactly seen as a great artist. And Hitchcock was commercially successful in his day, but he never had an ET, Jaws, or Star Wars, financially speaking. Maybe a Gladiator, but…

In any case, just because a film has survived for over fifty years doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a great work of art. Sometimes a film simply manages to maintain its popularity in spite of dubious artistic merits (i.e. Ben Hur and Gone With the Wind) Perhaps Spielberg’s films will be well known 40-50 years from now but more in the fashion that Ben-Hur is well known today rather than in that of films like Vertigo and Sunset Blvd.

One thing I wonder though is did people like Jancso, Vlacil, Angelopoulos, and the pre-70s Bertolucci like to think of themselves as ivory tower filmmakers, or did they humbly see themselves as normal filmmakers, who wound up being embraced by self-consciously highbrow intellectuals after the fact? So it begs to question, which non-Anglophone “arthouse” filmmakers are/were self-consciously ivory tower practitioners, and which are/were not? Are films like Celine and Julie Go Boating, Before the Revolution, and Red Psalm deliberately aimed at an exclusive high brow audience any more so than say Rio Bravo or Psycho, or did their respective filmmakers make them thinking, “If it’s a mainstream commercial success, then great, if not, then oh well.”

Well…the young Bertolucci was probably self-consciously high brow, and that was probably what ultimately contributed to his downfall, in spite of his artistic talents. He was way too naive to successfully continue in that fashion, unlike his self-consciously highbrow but more discerning spiritual godfathers Pasolini and Godard.

“On the other hand, if cinephiles now accept and embrace old Hollywood directors like Hitchcock, Ford, et al. because they are seen as real artists, doesn’t this signify that the art vs. entertainment framework is still in effect?”

No, not really, because their films were popular with average moviegoers before they were widely recognized as great artists.

I don’t really care one way or the other about the list, but given the Spielberg talk, I’ll drop a link to the newest “issue” of Reverse Shot here since they are devoting their time to revisiting Speilberg’s career, which might be of even more interest given their involvement with the Project Cinephilia thing.

No, not really, because their films were popular with average moviegoers before they were widely recognized as great artists.

But didn’t their acceptance only come after critics argued that they were great artists? Had they simply remained good “entertainment” filmmakers in the eyes of prominent critics, would they have been viewed as great artists by cinephiles and the larger critical establishment?

Would you also apply this to James Cameron, Quentin Tarantino, David Fincher, et al?

Yeah. My feeling is that if enough well-respected critics get behind a filmmakers—any filmmaker—a significant number of cinephiles can see that filmmaker as an artist.

The critics and cinephiles praised Hitchcock as an artist. Everybody else followed but they think it’s because he was a horror master, not because of his direction.