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 CONTENTS
“ The film has topped the list in its own right and
in recognition of a supreme cinematic achievement…”
The votes are in. See what the critics rank
as the Greatest Film of All Time

27
COVER IMAGES: 2001/CITIZEN K ANE – BFI NATIONAL ARCHIVE; VERTIGO – ALLSTAR PICTURE LIBRARY LTD/ALAMY; JEANNE DIELMAN – EVERET T COLLECTION/ALAMY

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THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALLTIME THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALLTIME THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALLTIME THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALLTIME

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91 THE DIRECTORS’ POLL

Top ten lists from international filmmakers including
Martin Scorsese, Joanna Hogg, Barry Jenkins,
Mia Hansen-Løve, Bong Joon Ho and more
 WINTER 2022-23 152
MARTIN REVIEWS CONTRIBUTORS

SCORSESE
The king of the

6
five boroughs on
Gangs of New York 115 | FILMS
· Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
· Corsage
EDITORIAL · Utama

FROM THE ARCHIVE

Order, order. The Greatest · Nanny
Films verdict, finally, is in… · Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes
· My Father’s Dragon
· Alcarràs
· Nocebo

9
OPENING SCENES
·
·
·
·
Tori and Lokita
Empire of Light
The Silent Twins
Glass Onion: A Knives
LAURA MULVEY
is professor of film studies at Birkbeck
College, University of London. Her
Out Mystery latest book is Afterimages: On Cinema,
· Mark Jenkin on Enys Men Women and Changing Times (2019).
· Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical
· In Conversation: Vicky Krieps · Till
· Festivals: Cambridge · Goodbye, Don Glees!
and Brighton · Enys Men
· News: Birkbeck cuts · The Swimmers
· Dream Palaces: Charlotte Wells · Lynch/Oz
· Mean Sheets: Desi Moore · Last Flight Home
· She Said
· The Wonder

22
LETTERS
134 | TELEVISION
ROGER LUCKHURST
IN THIS ISSUE

· Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone

writes on horror fiction and
· The Kingdom: Exodus
film. His latest book is Gothic:
· American Gigolo

24
An Illustrated History (2021).
· Dahmer: Monster –
The Jeffrey Dahmer Story
· The Peripheral
· Copenhagen Cowboy
TALKIES
· The Long Take: Pamela
Hutchinson on how three
minutes of smiling faces 140 | DVD & BLU-RAY
illuminate Poland’s lost Jews · Ingmar Bergman: Volume 3
· Cine Wanderer: Phuong Le · Cinema’s First Nasty Women
takes a walk with Leonard · The Draughtsman’s Contract
Cohen through old Montreal · Desperately Seeking Susan
· Rediscovery: Son of
MAYA S. CADE
the White Mare

162
· Archive TV: The Billy Plays is the creator and curator of Black Film
· El Mar La Mar Archive and a scholar-in-residence at
· Casanova the Library of Congress. Residing in
Brooklyn, NY, Cade is also a freelance
· The Driver
ENDINGS · The Guilty / High Tide
film programmer with a forthcoming
programme at the Academy Museum
· By the close of John Hughes’s · The Trial of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles.
1985 high-school comedy The · Come Back Lucy
Breakfast Club, the young · Lost and Found: Mademoiselle Fifi
students have found liberation
from the stereotypical roles that
were suffocating them – but 148 | WIDER SCREEN
how long will the euphoria last?
· On a new generation of Swiss

159
filmmakers overhauling reductive ALSO IN THIS ISSUE
stereotypes about the country
Mark Harris, Nick Bradshaw, Michael
Atkinson, Leila Latif, Kim Newman,
Michael Leader, Will Webb, Michael
THIS MONTH
IN… 1960 150 | BOOKS Brooke, Geoff Andrew, Kambole
Campbell, Virginie Sélavy, Philip
· John David Rhodes with a volume Concannon, Hannah McGill, David
West Side Story on Pasolini’s centenary, Bryony Thompson, Simran Hans, Lou
on the cover, Dixon on music hall star Fred Thomas, Elena Lazic, and more
plus Karel Reisz Evans and Sophia Satchell Baeza
and Fellini on a surreal fable by Derek Jarman
 EDITORIAL
Order, order. The Greatest Films
verdict, finally, is in…
We made it. After all the planning, polling and com-
piling, the results of our Greatest Films of All Time
poll are here. It is, by some distance, the biggest poll
we have ever conducted, with more than 1,600 crit-
ics, programmers, archivists and academics voting
in our critics’ poll and almost 500 filmmakers voting
in our directors’ poll. We have given a platform to a
wider range of voices than ever before. Some things
have changed, some have stayed the same, proof
that there’s a world beyond the established canon
and that quality is timeless.
When I arrived at Sight and Sound in 2019, the
poll felt tantalisingly close and reassuringly distant.
Then came the time-warping chaos of Covid. We
entered our chrysalis as one Sight and Sound and
emerged as another with a new look and renewed
purpose, the poll blowing towards us like an
unstoppable force.
I had insisted to anyone listening that this would
be the biggest poll we had ever conducted. I under-
stood that to mean, primarily, the breadth of the
opinion we gathered, but also that our presentation
of the poll would be the biggest, too, that the con-
versation around the results, in particular online,
would be monumental. It was the natural evolution
of a list that had hit colossal levels of coverage and
attention in the 21st century and would be faced
By compiling lists with unprecedented social media scrutiny in 2022.
Replaying the list’s evolution is interesting. The
we’re not only scale multiplies each decade without a sense of
imposing order on righteousness ever really setting in. Ranking and list-
making can seem like the privilege of elite tastemak-
experiences and ers, but there’s no claim to be omniscient or any
artefacts, we are sense of absolutism here, which undercuts any accu-
imposing order sations of elitism that could be levelled at the poll.
The introduction to our 1952 results states that,
on ourselves. By upon being balloted, “Most critics were unanimous
categorising films in finding the question unfair. ‘What an awful idea,’
as greatest, we are ‘What a thing to ask,’ ‘I feel simply broken,’ ‘disturb-
ing,’ ‘impossible,’ ‘barbarous,’ ‘silly,’ and ‘lousy’ were
telling the world if
among the comments passed.” We ploughed on ten
not who we are as years later, because “One doesn’t arrive at an objec-
voters, then who tive review of the best films ever made (how could
one?) but at an indication of how opinion is moving
we hope to be and what the cinema looks like in the perspective of
1962.” On to 1972, where Peter Bogdanovich, voting
as a critic, tells us of his ballot, “This is, at best, a
rough list based on an attempt to guess which
mood I’m most often in.” Ten years later, the writ-
ing is on the wall: “In writing to ask critics for their
votes, we suggested that 1982 might well turn out
to be the final replay, on the eve of the onslaught by
Mike Williams
@itsmikelike
video, cable, satellite and laser disc.” The bell was
tolled prematurely, as 1992 sees the first elevation of
the poll to an actual cover splash.
As the poll arrives in the 21st century, Ian Chris-
tie writes: “Truffaut predicted, back in 1975, that the
advent of home video would irrevocably transform
our attitude to cinema. Once we could have the
works of Renoir (or indeed Truffaut) on our shelf
alongside Dickens and Fitzgerald, then our per-
ception of cinema’s ‘classics’ was bound to change.”
What 1982 thought would kill us made us stronger.
Why then, given that our role within the list-
making remains humble, has the importance of the
results erupted to such levels? Lists are a manifesta-
tion of our need to impose order on experience, to
give structure to chaos. By compiling lists we’re not
only imposing order on experiences and artefacts,
we are imposing order on ourselves. By categoris-
ing films as greatest, we are telling the world if not
who we are as voters, then who we hope to be.
When this is magnified through the lens of social
media, where every comment and every opin-
ion is not only a reflection of that single moment,
but a judgement on our moral fibre, our essence
as humans, a declaration on which side of an
imaginary line we are standing, we have created a
moment in time that will not only define the debates
in film studies’ classrooms for the next decade, but
that says something fundamental about who we are
and cinema’s role in defining us individually and col-
lectively. If you think of it like that, is it any wonder
it’s all got so big?
And with that, we present to you our results.
Interesting trends have emerged, new flowers have
bloomed and a few sacred cows have been packed
off to slaughter. We make no greater claim to autoc-
racy than our predecessors, and note with excite-
ment that it seems unlikely that the top 100 will ever
seem as stable as it did for those middle 50 years
again thanks to the democratisation of and access
ILLUSTRATION BY FERNANDO COBELO; BYLINE ILLUSTRATION PETER ARKLE
to information and art.
There is a world of under-seen and under-appre-
ciated gems out there to be discovered, and reper-
tory cinemas and home entertainment distributors
cannot be underestimated in their continued spot-
lighting of films that demand to be seen. What cur-
rently undervalued masterpieces might emerge in
ten years thanks to this tireless work?
Thanks to all the poll advisors and everyone else
who helped pull this together. It was a huge effort.
Thanks also to Col and Karen Needham for their
generous support of the poll.
OPENING SCENES
Island of lost souls
Mark Jenkin discusses the inspirations
behind Enys Men, his haunting Cornish-
set tale of a woman living alone on a
remote island – from the fractured editing
of Nicolas Roeg’s classic films to folk
horror and local pagan traditions
BY ROGER LUCKHURST
ABOVE
Mary Woodvine as The Volunteer,
in Mark Jenkin’s Enys Men
For one long term in junior school, Mark
Jenkin’s class worked their way labori-
ously through James Vance Marshall’s
1959 novel Walkabout. Then, for an end-
of-term treat, their teacher wheeled in
a giant telly and they watched Nicolas
Roeg’s fractured and hallucinatory 1971
adaptation of the book.
“It was the beginning of everything,”
Jenkin tells me.
The violence of the edit, slamming
image against image. Time chopped
up, reordered, reversed. Sex and death
and primal images. Narrative exploded.
The magic of montage, film sculpted in
the splices on the editing deck. “Film has
to be formally interesting,” Jenkin says. “I
love films that foreground the fact that
you are watching film.”
Walkabout imprinted itself on Jen-
kin’s brain. It led to his early work as
an editor in TV and music video, then
a return to his native Cornwall and a
long period of formal experimentation
with shorts and documentaries, usually
shot on celluloid and hand-developed
at home through some strange Heath
Robinson-type contraptions. This was
the technique he used for his breakout
first feature Bait (2019), a weird arte-
fact of a film that seemed to bob up to
the surface from the primordial deep,
images looming out of beat-up celluloid.
Bait proved a major success, a cross-
over from margin to mainstream. Jenkin
9
OPENING SCENES
remains unaffectedly delighted by this
turn of events.
Enys Men, his second feature, is
released in January. For the occasion,
Jenkin has programmed a season of
films for the BFI, called ‘The Cinematic
DNA of Enys Men’. First on his list, of
course, was Walkabout.
The title of the season is the perfect
metaphor for locating his extraordinary
new film. It is not just a set of direct influ-
ences, but a dive into the very source
code, the building blocks and film gram-
mars that underlie his distinct vision.
Enys Men (Cornish for ‘stone island’)
is shot in vibrant colour on 16mm,
developed this time in a lab but heavily
manipulated for the same grungy surface
in his home editing studio. It tells the
enigmatic, almost entirely wordless story
of The Volunteer (played by Mary Wood-
vine), left alone on an island off the shores
of Cornwall to monitor a particularly
rare flower. She has to eke out provisions
between visits of the supply boat, an isola-
tion that echoes the Covid restrictions in
force when the film was shot.
The exact rhythm of The Volunteer’s
days are first established, then sliced and
diced in a way that foregrounds the brute
power of the edit to contract or dilate
time. The viewer is trained into the strict
structure of her day. Yet the rigour of her
routine, documented in her notebook
of observations, soon begins to unravel.
 10

The orderly time of experiment col-

lapses and multiple layers of the island’s
traumatic history start to leak into the
present. Without giving too much away,
this may involve the spectral return of
Cornish tin miners, drowned sailors,
trouble with lichen, dancing maidens
and some shenanigans involving an
ancient standing stone – all accompanied
by an astounding electronic soundtrack,
largely composed by Jenkin himself.
The film is set very precisely in 1973,
exactly 50 years before its release, and it
has the look and feel of a film from that
era, like a rarity lost and recovered from
the archive. I want to ask Jenkin about
the influences that might have been
coded into the film. The Volunteer’s red
coat is from Roeg’s Don’t Look Now, obvi-
ously – a key 1973 film. That was also the
year of The Wicker Man and The Exorcist.
The theme of different times collapsing
and leaking into each other is central to
several 1970s classics, from John Macken-
zie’s adaptation of Alan Garner’s Red Shift
(1978) to the Nigel Kneale-scripted The
Stone Tape (1972) and Alan Clarke’s Penda’s
Fen (1974). The last two of these feature
in the January season. So is folk horror
the key reference point?
Well, be careful not to move too fast. It
turns out that seven and three have a pri-
vate numerological significance for Jenkin.
OPENING SCENES

He describes himself as a typical Cornish

person who “suffers from crippling super-
stitions”. He even had a clear image of how
the number 73 would be shaped in The
Volunteer’s diary, and hired a hand double
to write the diary entries. The red coat
that burns like a Roeg cipher or a bloody
knife from a 70s Argento giallo was actually
a very late decision on set. The Volunteer
was originally dressed in a yellow coat,
until Jenkin had a crisis, worrying he had
dressed Woodvine too closely to Char-
lotte Gainsbourg’s character in Lars von
Trier’s Antichrist (2009). It was only when
he overheard one of the crew confidently
discussing the homage to Don’t Look Now
that he twigged what he’d done. One anxi-
ety of influence had been stopped, only for
him to back into another.
ABOVE This is a neat entrée into the relation
Mark Jenkin
of Enys Men to genre. We watch films
BELOW through other films. Jenkin has spoken
Nicolas Roeg’s Walkabout (1971),
a key influence on Jenkin’s cinema
about common reactions to Bait and his
earlier 2015 short Bronco’s House: many
viewers thought that both tipped into
the realm of horror, without ever quite
breaking out axe or chainsaw. Bait as an
avant-garde remake of Straw Dogs (1971),
perhaps. Enys Men was his embrace of this
suggestion, conceived as an exploration
of the horror film while staying true to
his principles of formal experimentation.
Jenkin is relaxed to have the film cat-
egorised as ‘folk horror’, even as the term
has become so inclusive and general
that it has lost its specificity. He defines
the genre as “scraping away the surface
of Merrie England and finding some-
thing darker underneath”. A folk horror
revival in British cinema has grown up
around Ben Wheatley’s films, from Kill
List (2011) and A Field in England (2013)
to In the Earth (2021). Wheatley’s success
came alongside a wholesale archaeologi-
cal recovery of lost 70s British genre
film, ably aided by the BFI Flipside
releases. Penda’s Fen, vanishingly rare
and with a near-mythical status among
fans – which include Jenkin – finally got
a Blu-ray and DVD release through the
BFI in 2016.
Enys Men’s use of particular legends of
the standing stones and stone circles that
dot the landscape also carry a lot of folk
horror baggage, from Derek Jarman’s lyr-
ical short Journey to Avebury (1971) to the
Doctor Who serial ‘Stones of Blood’ (1978)
or the freakish kid’s show Children of the
Stones (1977). Stone circles have been kept
in countercultural focus by obsessives
ranging from singer Julian Cope to the
comedian Stewart Lee.
Jenkin, though, insists on this being
a distinctly “Cornish folk horror. Where
we are, far out to the West, the surface
of things has already been scraped away.
It’s a different culture. We don’t have vil-
lage greens, we never had them. It didn’t
reach us there.” There is a long tradi-
tion of more precisely located Cornish
gothic – stretching all the way back to
horror stories such as Edgar Allan Poe’s

Jenkin is relaxed
to have the film
categorised as
‘folk horror’,
even as the term
has become so
inclusive and
general that it has
lost its specificity
BELOW
A standing stone on the island
off Cornwall, in Enys Men
‘Ligeia’ (filmed as The Tomb of Ligeia by
Roger Corman in 1964), the Dartmoor
settings of Arthur Conan Doyle’s The
Hound of the Baskervilles, or the weird
werewolf myths collected by the Devo-
nian folklorist Sabine Baring-Gould.
Cornish gothic has become a distinct
regional thing, with recent writers Wyl
Menmuir and Lucy Wood exploring the
landscape and shores of Cornwall to
spooky effect. There have been antholo-
gies of older tales, and academic studies
by Ruth Heholt and Joan Passey.
Jenkin is less saturated in this liter-
ary tradition than movie history, and he
has put some films set in Cornwall into
his season, in the process recognising
another probably unconscious influence.
He only belatedly realised that he had
used the same ruined mine in Enys Men
as the haunted one at the centre of the
1984 Children’s Film Foundation movie
Haunters of the Deep. Another bit of source
code folded into his DNA.
We might also point to the distinct
folk beliefs and practices of the south-
west of England. The unnerving parade
at the climax of The Wicker Man owed
much to ritual May Day celebrations
typical of places like Padstow in Corn-
wall. The amazing 1953 ethnographic
record of this event, Alan Lomax’s short
film Oss Oss Wee Oss, is part of the Jenkin
season too. There has been a lot of work
exploring these survivals and counter-
modern rituals – the artist Ben Edge,
for instance, has made short films and
paintings of these celebrations, travel-
ling the country for his recent exhibition
‘Ritual Britain’.
If some suspect interest in these cer-
emonies is a nostalgic investment in an
entirely fictitious Merrie England, it is
also possible to see these traditions as
acts of resistance to the gravitational
pull of the money and power located in
London. They rebel against the ongo-
ing immiseration of rural communities
that results from this structural inequal-
ity. There is a reason why Paul Wright’s
rich collage of the film records of these
mysterious, strangely unreadable rituals
and practices, Arcadia, appeared in 2017.
Some might read them on a continuum
with Brexit, but they seem much more
acts of resistance, a revival (or invention)
of ancient and antagonistic traditions.
These works seem less interested in
fabled ‘sunlit uplands’ and more con-
cerned with fiends in the furrow.
Enys Men can feel uncomfortably
timely even as it starts to leave behind
clock-time. The Volunteer anxiously rat-
tles her steadily emptying petrol can: it is
all that keeps the generator alive in her
lonely cottage. The spectres of Corn-
wall’s tin miners and lost sailors hovering
in the landscape speak to historical trau-
mas. Jenkin is adamant that Enys Men is
not a nostalgic rendition of 70s folk hor-
rors, and its formal challenges certainly
allow no backsliding.
For me, Jenkin’s work might be better
associated with films that insist less on
explicit horror than in using the edit-
ing deck as a formal device to menace
the viewer with uneasy, inexplicable
juxtapositions. “You make it in the
edit,” Jenkin confirms. “You’ve got to
foreground the device.” The horror of
the edit is there in the 70s not just in
Roeg’s audacious cuts or the sudden
time shifts of Red Shift, but in the qui-
eter, sinister associations generated by
11
cross-cutting in films like Jerzy Skoli-
mowski’s The Shout (1978). This is a cru-
cial reference point for Enys Men – both
are films in which the editing itself is the
sympathetic magic at the centre of the
tale told. The same goes for the unnerv-
ing, underexplained cross-cutting in
Lindsey Vickers’ The Appointment (1981),
another ‘lost’ film recently reissued by
the BFI Flipside label. There is nothing
horrific as such, only the dread induced
by the cinematic cut.
And this is why Jenkin has included
Agnès Varda’s Daguerréotypes (1975) and
Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23
quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) to
round out his season. To Jenkin, they
are simply masterclasses in how to build
story from the discipline of the edit.
I ask, with fingers crossed, about the
next project. A ghost ship that returns
to harbour after a mysterious disap-
pearance. Like John Carpenter’s The Fog
(1980)? “I’ve only recently seen it!” he
replies. “And yet here’s the weird thing:
some people have spotted a clear refer-
ence in Enys Men, when The Volunteer
picks up a piece of wood from the ship-
wreck. Just like The Fog. Except I hadn’t
seen it. Or maybe I have,” he ponders,
“and I’ve forgotten.” Disturbing echoes,
messages from outside memory. That’s
exactly the compelling, dream-like expe-
OPENING SCENES
rience of watching Enys Men.
Enys Men is released in UK cinemas on 13 January,
with a special screening that day at BFI Southbank,
London, featuring an introduction and Q&A
with Mark Jenkin. It is reviewed on page 130
The season ‘The Cinematic DNA of Enys
Men’ will run at BFI Southbank until the end
of January. Jenkin will also join Flux Gourmet
director Peter Strickland at BFI Southbank
on 17 January to discuss sound and film
 12

EDITORS’ CHOICE Gift recommendations from the Sight and Sound team

THE GHIBLIOTHEQUE CLIVE BARKER’S DARK WORLDS

ANIME MOVIE GUIDE
Welbeck
With the world of Studio Ghibli
thoroughly explored by Ghibliotheque
podcast hosts Michael Leader and
Jake Cunningham in their previous
book of the same name, the time
comes for a wider survey of Japan’s
animated offerings. Thirty titles, from
the country’s first feature-length colour
animation, 1958’s Disney-like The White
Snake Enchantress, through to Hosoda
Mamoru’s dazzling internet fable Belle
OPENING SCENES
Cernunnos
The latest offering from frequent Clive
Barker collaborators Phil and Sarah
Stokes (authors of several previous
books on the horror pioneer), Dark
Worlds is a voyage into hell, or rather
Barker’s personal archive, spotlighting JACQUES BECKER: THE ESSENTIAL COLLECTION
concept art, annotated notes and
Studio Canal
posters alongside biography and
comment. Like the puzzle box from Jacques Becker worked as assistant to Jean Renoir on his miraculous run of 1930s
Hellraiser (1987), more lies beneath features before going on to make 13 features of his own, many of which are equally
the surface here than your average extraordinary and by now legendary French classics. This set contains several of
coffee-table tome, with insight into the films his reputation is based on – Falbalas (1945), Edward and Caroline (1951), the

(2021), are used to sweep through the
history of anime in an accessible and
informative style. An ideal gift for a
budding anime enthusiast – or the
perfect excuse for a veteran to revisit
some of their favourites.
Thomas Flew, editorial assistant
his methods from fanboys past and
present, including J.G. Ballard, Wes
Craven, Neil Gaiman and Quentin
Tarantino. Recommended for newbies
and (pin)heads.
Mike Williams, editor-in-chief
incomparably atmospheric love story Casque d’or (1952), the massively influential
gangster film Touchez pas au grisbi (1954, pictured) and my own personal favourite, the
prison drama Le Trou (1954). A full review of the Blu-ray will appear in our March
2023 issue.
Kieron Corless, associate editor

REMEMBER THE NIGHT HOLLYWOOD: THE ORAL HISTORY

Powerhouse Films Blu-ray out 5 December
Mitchell Leisen’s romcom does what
a Christmas film should: radiates
warmth with no sign of slush. Preston
Sturges’s script (his last for hire before
he started directing) serves up sparkle,
MURDER, SHE COOKED: A CABOT COVE COOKBOOK jest and adds realism to a contrived
set-up of a prosecutor who takes pity
By Jenny Hammerton
on a light-fingered lady and takes her
Film historian and food writer Jenny Hammerton dines with the Hollywood home for Christmas. That this is all
elite almost every night. She cooks film stars’ favourite recipes, gleaned from fan jazzed up with Barbara Stanwyck and
magazines and celebrity cookbooks, and shares the results on her blog, Silver Screen Fred MacMurray (their first pairing
Suppers, or in her series of themed recipe anthologies. Her latest volume, published of many) and a delightful supporting
a month before we said farewell to Angela Lansbury (pictured), is Murder, She Cooked, cast, as well as costume designs by
a collection of recipes from the stars who made such delicious cameos in Murder, She Edith Head and art direction by Hans
Wrote (1984-96), trying in vain to baffle the razor-sharp mind of Jessica Fletcher. Who Dreier makes you wonder why it’s not
doesn’t want to sample Cyd Charisse’s casserole or Linda Blair’s trifle? as well-known a festive Hollywood treat
Pamela Hutchinson, Weekly Film Bulletin editor as It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), Meet Me in
St. Louis (1944) or The Shop Around the
Corner (1940)?
Isabel Stevens, managing editor
Faber & Faber
The definite article of the title is doing
some heavy lifting: this being an industry
insiders’ story, we hear little from anyone
who isn’t a powerful white male. But
it’s a worthy stocking-filler nonetheless,
with more than 700 pages of pure oral
testimony, structured like an epic series of
roundtables, drawing upon 10,000 hours
of hitherto archive-bound discussion with
Hollywood’s biggest movers and shakers
from the 1910s to the noughties. Though
compiled and edited by the eminent
Hollywood historians Jeanine Basinger
and Sam Wasson, there’s nary a glimmer
of contextualisation to be found – just
Billy Wilder, Katharine Hepburn, Jack
Nicholson, Sue Mengers and hundreds
of others holding forth on the triumphs,
transitions, tricks and treacheries of
Tinseltown through the ages.
Arjun Sajip, reviews editor
 14
IN CONVERSATION
OPENING SCENES
VICKY KRIEPS Actor
BY ISABEL STEVENS
In Corsage, a 19th-century
empress has been reimagined
by the Phantom Thread actor
Vicky Krieps is no stranger to playing embattled
women. The Luxembourgish actor’s memora-
ble breakout turn was as the steely muse in Paul
Thomas Anderson’s gothic power play Phantom
Thread (2017). Meanwhile, last year she played
a filmmaker trying to step out of her older boy-
friend’s shadow in Mia Hansen-Løve’s Bergman
Island. Now she takes the lead role in Austrian
director Marie Kreutzer’s alternative biopic of
the 19th-century royal Empress Elisabeth of
Austria, or Sisi as she was better known. In
Corsage,
g Krieps’
p s Sisi is turning 40 and starting
to chafe against her gilded
gil Hapsburg cage.
Her famous beauty
beau is perceived to be
waning while she sh despairs of court cer-
emonies in which
whi her only function is
as a statue. The film was initially Krieps’s
idea. “At 15, I read a biography about
her and I was left with a feeling
that there’
there s something behind the
screen of Sisi that was darker and
more sad and melancholic. The
mystery around
a this woman has
always stay
stayed with me,” she tells me.
When Kreutzer
Kre and Krieps finished
working together on their 2016
portrait of parenthood, We Used
to Be Cool,
C Krieps immediately
said “What
“ about Sisi?”
LEFT Vicky Krieps as
LEF
Empress Elisabeth of Austria
Em
ABOVE Vicky Krieps (centre) in Corsage
Q At first Marie Kreutzer
was sceptical about making
a film about Sisi. What
changed her mind?
A When I proposed the idea she
was very puzzled and surprised
because to her Sisi was a very
superficial, kitschy, souvenir
shop figurine, and she was
never really interested in that
or in making a biopic. But then
she started researching and
discovered that while her youth is
well known, and her death is [she
was assassinated] we don’t know
a lot about Sisi at 40. She found
these little acts of rebellion – that
she was smoking, which was not
really allowed for a woman at
her time, or that she would sit at
this huge banquet and wouldn’t
touch the food, or would leave
the house in the middle of the
night and go horse-riding.
This all shows the thing that
I found most interesting, which
is that when you are a queen or
an empress or anyone public,
where do you go? You can’t
go anywhere because you’re
trapped, always seen. So the only
place to go is inside, and that’s
something that always fascinates
me, how people can find a
way to escape on the inside.
Q Did your experience of
fame after Phantom Thread
inspire your performance?
A I got scared from the Phantom
Thread press tour. It was not for
me. I’m not this public person.
Now I’m getting used to it, but
I had trouble coming into touch
with this world where you are
suddenly seen from the outside.
It’s not like I had become very
famous but it was overwhelming
to go to Hollywood and to
be seen and to be recognised
and talked about or written
about, taken pictures of.
And so when I came back
and saw the script, I knew now
some of what Sisi was feeling.
I knew I wouldn’t have to do
anything to understand her
internally but that in order to
take her seriously, I would have
to go down the road of [learning]
the horse-riding, the fencing,
the corset, the gymnastics…
Q It sounds like a particularly
arduous shoot.
A I underestimated how it would
feel to wear a corset like that
for such long hours. Women at
that time, they would wear one
maybe for a couple of hours a
day. But when we make movies,
we start at 5am and the shoot
lasts for 12 hours and you never
get to sit down. That’s actually
too much. But once we started,
I had to go through with it.
For both Marie and I, it was
very hard. She even cried once
because we were trying to make
a movie about how a woman
was imprisoned and how we
wanted her to be free. And then
she was imprisoning me in a
way – although for a purpose. We
both underestimated the pain.
Q I was struck by the
similarities between Corsage
and Phantom Thread.
A I realise that it’s almost like a
sequel. Sisi’s almost the bolder
version of Alma. Alma still had to
stay in the realm of Reynolds.
And of course she was also
leading her own rebellion, but
it was a very silent one. But
Sisi is now going a step further
[by doing things that] Alma
would’ve wanted to do but she
was not strong enough. She
was younger and more afraid.
Q Would you ever want
to direct yourself?
A There’s something that makes
sense about it. I directed theatre
before I started acting, but I
would never chase it and I
don’t need it to prove myself.
I have two children and have
so much work so I wouldn’t
chase it. But if it comes my
way, I’m definitely going
to take the challenge.
Corsage is released in UK cinemas on 26 December
 16
FESTIVALS
CAMBRIDGE AND BRIGHTON, UK
BY HENRY K. MILLER
OPENING SCENES
Films about cinephilia
and amateur filmmakers
were a highlight of two
autumn festivals
Erika Gregor started going to her uni-
versity film club because it was warm
there and the student digs were cold.
It was the late 1950s in West Berlin, the
depths of the Cold War, and to show a
film might mean crossing sharp divid-
ing lines – ideological, generational and
soon physical: the Berlin Wall went up,
overnight, in 1961. The first films she saw
were German ones from the Weimar era,
separated from the present by the Nazi
generation – her parents’ generation –
and as she became involved in running
the society, with her husband-to-be
Ulrich, some of the films she wanted to
show came from the East, starting with
Sergei Bondarchuk’s Fate of a Man (1959).
Alice Agneskirchner’s new film Come
with Me to the Cinema: The Gregors tells of
how the university club’s success led to
the foundation of a 1,000-member film
society, Freunde der Deutschen Kine-
mathek, and how this begat a permanent
venue and archive, Arsenal – named after
another Soviet film, by the Ukrainian
Alexander Dovzhenko. It’s an engrossing
story and it ought to be an inspiring one.
But seen in the immediate context of the
UK’s film culture in 2022 – specifically,
at the Cambridge Film Festival, where
it made its British debut in October –
the feelings it provokes are bound to be
more mixed. Arsenal shared its heyday
with the Edinburgh International Film
Festival in the 1970s, when the Gregors
began to organise the Forum strand
within the Berlin Film Festival, which
still runs today, when these and other
festivals were opening up a new space
beyond the art cinema terrain monopo-
lised by Cannes and Venice.
Those were different times, and most
people reading this will know that EIFF
went into administration in October,
while two allied venues, Edinburgh Film-
house and the Belmont in Aberdeen,
have futures that are unclear; many will
know that these are not isolated cases.
Since then Wolverhampton Light House
has shut and Oswestry’s KinoKulture is
closing in March. Similar venues every-
where are feeling more than just a pinch
amid double-digit inflation, interest rate
rises and attendance rates that have still
not returned to pre-Covid levels. The
Cambridge Film Festival returned in
October with premieres, including two
new films from Ukraine and the fest’s
regular haul of Catalan cinema, includ-
ing the Golden Bear winner Alcarràs.
But the days when CFF could put on a
full programme of silents – including, in
2016, Arsenal (1929) – or introduce many
filmmakers in person feels longer than
three years ago.
A weakness of Agneskirchner’s film
is that it does not talk about money, or
what the Freunde der Deutschen Kin-
emathek, Arsenal and the many commu-
nity cinemas that blossomed across West
Germany in their wake had to do for it.
It does not give the impression that any
of these institutions were lavishly subsi-
dised, however; rather that lower rents
– still a feature of life in Berlin more
recently – enabled different patterns of
life, including a form of cinephilia that
involved cinema-going with a frequency
that would not be affordable in Brit-
ain now for anyone but the rich. What A Bunch of
it does insist on is the importance of Amateurs does
debate rather than ‘Q&A’ – at Arsenal, talk about money:
as Agneskirchner’s interviewees tell it,
filmmakers belonged to the same com- the Bradford
munity as their audiences. Movie Makers
Community is the theme of a more don’t have any,
widely seen film shown at Cambridge,
A Bunch of Amateurs, Kim Hopkins’s and director
fly-on-the-wall doc about the Bradford Kim Hopkins
Movie Makers, founded in 1932 and not celebrates their
getting any younger. Most of the club
appear to have stopped making movies unlikely survival
and the film takes on an allegorical qual- without making
ity, showing the community reconstitute big claims for
itself after Covid. A Bunch of Amateurs,
which is out in cinemas now, does talk the movies
about money: the Movie Makers don’t they do make
have any, and Hopkins celebrates their
unlikely survival without making big
claims for the movies they do make.
Possibly because we are all amateur
filmmakers now, this is not the only recent
doc about ‘actual’ amateur filmmakers.
Barney Snow’s short Frank Barnitt: the
Lost Film-maker, shown at Cinecity – The
Brighton Film Festival alongside two
other shorts on amateurs, takes a differ-
ent approach to the subject, concentrat-
ing on Barnitt’s films, held by Screen
Archive South East, in the absence (for
now) of much else. Barnitt was a young
amateur filmmaker in the 1930s whose
nature films, shot around Kent, clearly
show the influence of Soviet montage –
possibly including Dovzhenko – and they
were noticed at the time. If Hopkins’s
amateurs inhabit a world of their own,
comically distant from the Hollywood
filmmakers they seek to emulate, Snow’s
film, like Agneskirchner’s, is a vision of
what independent film culture ought to
be, not only a warm place to sit but one ABOVE
that brings forth more films. A Bunch of Amateurs
 FOZ PRESENTS

© PHOTO : CAROLE BETHUEL

DENIS ISABELLE
MENOCHET ADJANI
KHALIL HANNA
GHARBIA SCHYGULLA
STEFAN AMINTHE
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IN CINEMA 30 DECEMBER

NEWS
College cuts
The teaching of film and media studies
at Birkbeck, University of London, is
under threat of swingeing staff cuts due
to the university’s financial predicament.
Nearly a quarter of teaching posts in
a range of humanities departments
across the college are at risk. So far,
the highly rated English and Creative
Writing department has attracted most
support, but Birkbeck has a record of
innovation in teaching screen media
that dates back to before film was a
university subject anywhere in the UK.
From the 1960s onwards, London
University’s Extramural department
nurtured film study in evening
courses, before becoming part of
Birkbeck in 1988. A decade later,
the BFI’s pioneering MA course
transferred to Birkbeck, headed by
Laura Mulvey, who became – and
remains – its first professor in film.
In 2000, Birkbeck launched a
UK-wide research network, which
stimulated work on neglected areas
of film and television history. The
department also played a leading
role in creating a Screen Studies
Group and inspired the London’s
Screen Archives network.
In 2007, Birkbeck opened its
landmark cinema at Gordon Square on
the terrace that once housed members
of the Bloomsbury Group and now
runs an innovative film programming
and curating MA. Mulvey says, “The
special nature of Birkbeck’s support
for film over the years has, through
its cinema, Birkbeck Institute for the
Moving Image and the Essay Film
Festival, created a hub for film and
media culture in London – and way
beyond – extending the college’s special
commitment to the social side of
learning. Now threatened by financial
crisis, the importance of defending
Birkbeck, its history and its standing
becomes a matter of urgency – not
only for its academics but also for
the wider communities the college
has traditionally drawn together.”
Job cuts in a small department could
end Birkbeck’s distinctive record in
shaping the future of screen media
education and research. Partnerships,
both local and international, have
enabled the college to punch above its
weight, with many graduates occupying
important roles throughout film culture.
ABOVE B. Ruby Rich lecturing at Birkbeck in 2017
DREAM PALACES
THE FILMHOUSE LOCATION: 88 LOTHIAN
ROAD, EDINBURGH
OPENED: 1978
SCREENS: 3 SCREEN 1 AFTER A SCREENING
SEATS: 280, 97 AND 72
The Edinburgh Filmhouse, a linchpin of Scotland’s
cinema landscape, went into administration in October.
Aftersun director Charlotte Wells, who grew up in the
city, talks to us about the cinema’s importance
It’s hard to pinpoint specific memories from
the Filmhouse. It’s like trying to pinpoint
memories of being in your living room as a kid
– you just remember being there, the sense of
place and belonging. The Filmhouse was such
an essential part of my growing up in Edin-
burgh; it was a place of discovery. It was the
first place I ever saw a film. I think of browsing
through the DVDs, walking past the posters
outside, seeing films represented that I didn’t
see anywhere else.
When I was about 14, I took part in an Ideas
Factory competition where we had to pitch an
idea for a short documentary; I pitched one
about female footballers and got an opportu-
nity to meet Nick Broomfield, who did a mas-
terclass, and Mark Cousins. Through that, I
found a place on the Filmhouse’s Scottish Kids
Are Making Movies (SKAMM) initiative. Sud-
denly I was sitting with kids who were planning
Ozu retrospectives at the age of 11 or 12 – I had
no connection to those films at that point!
We were sent out with cameras to shoot
with. I remember walking around Princes
Street Gardens at Christmas when all the fes-
tivities were set up. Discovering what it felt
like to point the camera wherever you wanted
to shoot, and to work collaboratively, was a
very early introduction to filmmaking, which
was like any artform when I grew up – it was
not considered a viable career. SKAMM pro-
vided a vision of filmmaking as a possibility.
As did walking through the Filmhouse doors
every Saturday morning.
It’s hard to shake the last film I saw there:
The Souvenir Part II (2021). It had such a
close resemblance to Aftersun, which I was
then working on. Seeing it at the Filmhouse
19
TRIVIA: JIMMY CLIFF ONCE SANG
‘MANY RIVERS TO CROSS’ A
CAPPELLA, SOLO, ON STAGE IN
OF ‘THE HARDER THEY COME’.
OPENING SCENES
– especially since I now no longer have the
opportunity to present Aftersun there – seemed
like a culmination of all these experiences I
had there throughout childhood. It felt rep-
resentative of having made a film, and of the
impact that the city and the cinema had had. It
felt so close to home in such a painful way. I sat
there watching it with tortured agony and joy.
The Filmhouse just felt like a place of com-
munity. I’m sure that’s true of other places, but
it felt like a significant place in Edinburgh. In
some ways it was a victim of its own success
– its willingness to screen independent and
foreign-language films broadened the reach
of those films, thus making the Filmhouse
less unique.
At the cinemas I go to, audiences are being
drawn in by really specific programming. Cin-
emas being differentiated in what they offer,
whether that’s repertory screenings and retro-
spectives or a mix of old and new, is impor-
tant. The programming I’m most drawn to
connects the past with the present.
I feel a desire to see the Filmhouse exactly
as it was before, but clearly that’s not sustain-
able. More than seeing it revived in its Lothian
Road location, I’d like to see it reborn anywhere
in Edinburgh as long as it serves as a place of
community and discovery. Wherever the Film-
house is, it will be important that it draws in a
diverse audience – including younger people
– and provides access in a front-footed way,
being as relevant as possible while focusing on
the kinds of films it always has.
Charlotte Wells was talking to Arjun Sajip
Aftersun is in UK cinemas now and
was reviewed in our last issue
 20

BY THOMAS FLEW

MEAN SHEETS
Desi Moore has created dozens of film posters, for many
Los Angeles-based artist and designer
Desi Moore is known for her bold
genres, in many styles. Her latest hints at the hidden depths
posters for arthouse and independent of an obsessive musician played by Cate Blanchett
films including mother! (2017), C’mon
C’mon (2021) and Goran Stolevski’s
horror film You Won’t Be Alone. She
began her career working for advertising
agencies on “every kind of genre – big
superhero movies, romcoms, horror,
action”, with campaigns for Bridesmaids
(2011) and Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006)
among her most high-profile work.
In her design for Tár, Todd Field’s
portrait of a brilliant and intimidating
fictional composer- conductor, Lydia
Tár, Moore used the image of the film’s
star, Cate Blanchett, to imposing effect.
She describes her creative process: “I
didn’t want the image of Cate to be
photographic, nor did I want it to be
abstractly painted, so I illustrated it in
a realistic style, which gave it a unique
quality – spot on, but a little off. The
poster shows Lydia Tár as the stoic,
passionate, powerful woman she is.
The trail of duplicate images of her
represents all of the other versions
of her that are unseen, the sides of
her that are veiled by her public
persona, until it all starts to unravel.
I wanted it to feel a bit unsettling.”
Kajillionaire (2020), Miranda July’s
OPENING SCENES

story of a family of scammer oddballs,

is Tár’s tonal opposite, which is
immediately clear from Moore’s poster,
on which she worked closely with July:
“There are lots of little gems hidden
in the poster that represent parts of
the film. I love working with directors
who aren’t afraid to get a little weird.”
A simpler but equally powerful design
is for Never Rarely Sometimes Always, Eliza
Hittman’s poignant, sensitive abortion
drama. Moore says: “The final poster is
a close-up shot of Sidney Flanigan from
the film, coupled with clean typography
and negative space to really let the
image of her breathe. I wanted it to feel
very real and intimate, like the film.”
ABOVE Moore’s poster for Todd Field’s Tár

Miranda July’s Kajillionaire (2020) Darren Aronofsky’s mother! (2017) Eliza Hittman’s Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020)
 F O R Y O U R C O N S I D E R AT I O N
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Principal Scientist Mission Manager Lead Systems Engineer Rover Driver Mechanical Engineer
 22
READERS’ LETTERS
TOO SOON?
I appreciate your Directors’ poll,
because it shows what people who
make films value. I hope there is at
least one animated film in it this year.
It seems rather strange to me that
animation as a whole is completely
ignored.
I do wonder, though, whether it is
too early to create a film canon. Other
media, such as literature, are thou-
sands of years old. How many people
living in 400BC thought there were
other plays just as good as Oedipus Rex
– plays that no one cares about today?
OPENING SCENES
JAKE’S PROGRESS Robert De Niro as Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull
RELOAD THE CANON
When I first looked at the Sight and
Sound Greatest Films poll, it was like
a map of a world I barely knew – an
invaluable introduction to cinema.
Once that terrain became familiar
ground, I became a little cynical
about polls, especially when polling
became more and more fashionable
in arts criticism. They seemed to eval-
uate artforms the way statistics are
measured for athletic competitions,
ranking and scoring them as if that
told you anything meaningful. It felt
demoralising that such polls attracted
far more attention than any other
form of written criticism.
But now I’ve come around to read-
ing these polls as I did the first time,
especially when they actively involve
new perspectives. Considering how
films respond to the way we live, how
they mean different things to differ-
ent people, and how engaging with
them means engaging with some-
thing that isn’t my own, it becomes
clear that there’s much more to learn.
It feels especially important now
when the reactionary elements of
our culture have grown, fuelled by a
determination not to engage with the
unfamiliar. Long live the canon, and
may it continue to grow.
Mitchell Wu, via email
Because of the maturity of the art-
form, we know the classics are superb;
the same cannot be said for film.
If I had to guess what people would
still be watching for aesthetic enjoy-
ment (not just because they are influ-
ential, but because they are still engag-
ing) centuries from now, I would
not give a list of 100 or more films. I
don’t think I could confidently men-
tion more than a handful. If I had to,
I would select 8½ (1963), Raging Bull
(1980), Tokyo Story (1953) and some of
Cassavetes’ films.
Giovanni Lammirato, via email
GUIDE LINES
I was 14 when I first discovered the
2002 edition of the Greatest Films
poll. I was amazed by the movies but
living in a cultural desert of a city,
having no immediate access to films,
made my life harder. I was reading
books about movies and screenplays
of movies I had never seen, and
dreaming of watching those ‘great-
est movies’ that I kept seeing in the
books. Reading the Greatest Films
of All Time list, I was taken aback
by the vastness and diversity of the
movies – together with my vast igno-
rance about them.
KEY LIME Orson Welles in The Third Man
MAGNETIC POLL
Every film in the Sight and Sound
Greatest Films of All Time poll will
be the greatest film of all time to
somebody. There are countless rank-
ings of the greatest films, and none
of them can be labelled definitive or
correct. Yet it is to polls such as these
that people who want to expand and
develop their passion for the cin-
ematic artform tend to turn to.
What makes the poll so interest-
ing is its influence on the current
generation of filmmakers, film stu-
dents, film critics or anyone passion-
ate about cinema. When we aim to
expand our personal film registry,
most of us start with the general
idea “Well, let me just watch the best
movies of all time then.” That’s often
when we end up turning to the Sight
and Sound poll.
It is somewhat unfair to be
simply handed a list of the films that
changed the lives of those in the
industry we admire. Yet the changes
to the list throughout the years show
how we grow alongside our favourite
films. Great films get greater, and we
keep managing to find even greater
films. Isn’t it wonderful?
Samuel Stein, filmmaker and student
at Pace University, New York NY
To my surprise, a festival decided
to visit my city and they were screen-
ing one of the movies on the list: The
Third Man (1949). I made an elaborate
plan to skip school and go see it. After
its beautiful finale, I left the theatre
having decided to do my utmost to
watch everything on the list. In the fol-
lowing years, the list gave me direction
in my journey through cinema and, as
a cinephile in my mid-thirties, I still
follow its guidance and wait for the
next edition with an excitement and
joy comparable to my discovery of it
20 years ago.
Ekin Can Göksoy, Istanbul
Get in touch
Email: sightandsound@bfi.org.uk
Twitter: @sightsoundmag
By post: Sight and Sound, BFI, 21
Stephen Street, London, W1T 1LN
TOP DRAW Elizabeth Hobbs’s The Debutante
CARTOONS OF GLORY
I’m writing to express my disap-
pointment in the lack of coverage in
Sight and Sound of recent short ani-
mated films.
Multiple BFI-backed animated
films are currently storming film
festivals, directed by leading auteurs
of short-form UK animation: Eliza-
beth Hobbs (The Debutante), Emma
Calder (Beware of Trains) and Joseph
Pierce (Scale).
It would be fantastic to see these
filmmakers given coverage similar
to live-action UK directors such as
Mark Jenkin or Andrea Arnold.
Chris Childs, via email
After each Godard
film I see, the next
movie – by whatever
director – feels
intellectually inferior
JLG: UNIQUE
Many thanks for the excellent Jean-
Luc Godard tribute (S&S, Novem-
ber). It would have been interesting
and good to hear some dissenting
voices, but as the great man had just
died we’ll let that pass.
Godard is, for sure, one of the
major directors in cinema history but
– for me – he’s also the most challeng-
ing of major directors. Artistically
speaking, his work is very variable,
the pictures after 1968 often being
incomprehensible and unwatchable.
But after each film of his I see, the
next movie – by whatever director, at
whichever time in cinema history –
feels intellectually inferior and politi-
cally dull in comparison.
Is that a good thing? As some-
one who loves cinema for its artis-
tic achievements, I’m not sure. I’m
happy that there was only one of him.
Perhaps that first burst of creativ-
IMAGES: BFI NATIONAL ARCHIVE
ity, inventiveness and joy he found
in filmmaking (and we found in his
films) from 1960 to ’68 is the best
claim he has to cinematic greatness.
Alan Maughan, County Durham
 +++++
“A GRAND LO VE LE T TE R T O C I N E M A”
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24 TALKIES

The Long Take Pamela Hutchinson

@PamHutch

How haunting footage from a holiday in 1938

became a private memorial to the Holocaust

In 1938, David and Lisa Kurtz, a well-to-do Glenn Kurtz

couple living in Brooklyn, took a holiday
to Europe. They made the ‘grand tour’
equipped with a brand-new 16mm movie
camera to record their adventures. Eighty-
one years later their grandson, Glenn
Kurtz, discovered the silent Kodachrome
colour film that his grandfather made of
the trip, decomposing in a cupboard. In
between the tourist hotspots of Paris,
London, Geneva, the Kurtzes had visited
a small town in Poland, which is uniden-
tified in the home movie. And it is the
footage of this visit, just three minutes of
crowd scenes, that captivated Glenn.
We’ve all seen pictures of the Eiffel
Tower. But how many people now living
have had the privilege to see the faces of
these people, chasing the tourists’ shiny
camera as it pans around the market
square? To be charmed by the faces of
children and smiling men and woman, as
fascinated by the camera as we are now by
these faces from history? David Kurtz, his
grandson thinks, was trying to take pic-
tures of the buildings, but the local chil-
dren bounced into the frame, so he gave in
to their demands to play a game of movie
stars, and lowered his lens to their level.
Anyone who has watched a few archive
films, especially amateur travelogues or
actualities, will have encountered one or
two of those particularly indelible faces
that distract from the main event – a face
in the crowd far more compelling than
the procession passing by. It is all too
easy to become first engrossed, and then
obsessed. Because of its historical context,
this footage is made up entirely of such
faces. In these pages, in 1955, Carl Theo-
dor Dreyer wrote: “Nothing in the world
can be compared to the human face. It is
a land one can never tire of exploring.” We
can apply his words to his exquisite close-
ups, to the tears falling down Renée Maria
Falconetti’s face in The Passion of Joan of Arc
(1928). Such artistry is not essential, how-
ever. The unrehearsed faces here, filmed
discovered
the silent
Kodachrome
colour film that
his grandfather
made of the trip,
decomposing
in a cupboard,
81 years later
was occupied by the Nazis. Terrible things
happened on that market square, and ter-
rible things were done to the children and
adults in the film. As the narration to a new
documentary about the footage puts it:
“These three minutes of life were taken out
of the flow of time.” This film accidentally
became a private memorial to a dreadful
atrocity – a portal through time that reveals
the life that was destroyed by the brutality
of the Holocaust. The smiles and giggles,
the brightly printed dresses, the little girl
with braids who cases the camera around
the square, hoping to be photographed as
often as possible. The desire of the people
of Nasielsk to be immortalised on film in
1938 is far beyond poignant.
Most memorials have names, dates and
places. At first, this had none. So Glenn
decided to uncover the stories of the
people in this film. He conducted archae-
ology via the cinema screen and published
the results in a 2014 book, Three Minutes
in Poland: Discovering a Lost World in a 1938
Family Film. Now his investigation has also
been made into a film, directed by Bianca
Stigter and narrated by Helena Bonham
Carter, called Three Minutes: A Lengthening.
In the film we watch the footage, newly
before, weighed down with knowledge,
but lifted up by the care that has been
taken over the footage, and the people who
were filmed in the sunshine that day.
What can you learn from three minutes
of smiling faces? Glenn examined every-
thing from the shadows on the walls to the
buttons on the women’s dresses (which
alone tell a tale that will make you catch
your breath). After patient detective work,
even indistinct lettering on a shop sign
yielded its secrets. The crowd is diverse
to some degree: the novelty of the cam-
era’s appearance collapsed the special
order. But there are very few Orthodox
Jews in the footage – they wouldn’t agree
to be photographed. One of the boys in
the film escaped Poland with false papers,
and he was able to identify many of the
other people in the film, who weren’t so
lucky. His memories are precious, not
least because they bring a tangible sense
of history to these fleeting images – just as
in return, these scenes give a human, and
a poetic, dimension to the documentary
record of what the Nazis did in Nasielsk.
David Kurtz wanted only to make a
souvenir of his hometown, but he created
a monument of huge significance. This
BYLINE ILLUSTRATIONS: PETER ARKLE

by an amateur, demand our attention.
The people in David Kurtz’s holiday film
are all Jews, and Glenn was to discover
that the town was Nasielsk, his grandfa-
ther’s birthplace, 30 miles north of Warsaw.
A year after the film was made, the town
ABOVE
The brief footage is the basis
for Bianca Stigter’s Three
Minutes: A Lengthening
Three Minutes:
A Lengthening is out
now in UK cinemas
restored, as we listen to the stories that
Glenn drew out of it. It plays in silence, is
rewound, or dissected and stitched into a
panorama of the town, or assembled into
a collage of portraits: “Faces as traces.” The
clip is now not just longer but richer than
new film allows us to see the footage both
ways – a memorial to the dead, bursting
with life.
Pamela Hutchinson is a freelance
critic and film historian
 25

Phuong Le
@phuonghhle Ci ne Wand er er
Leonard Cohen’s wanderings through
Montreal make perfect winter viewing

My favourite Leonard Cohen lyrics come
at the end of ‘Stories of the Street’, which
appears on his 1967 debut album, Songs of
Leonard Cohen. “We are so small between
the stars, so large against the sky,” wails the
singer-poet, “And lost among the subway
crowds I try to catch your eye.” So ends the
song, almost abruptly, leaving us in a state
of pensive yearning. Those lines perfectly
encapsulate the experience of moving
through a city, of feeling oh-so-significant
and anonymous all at once. It evokes the
intensity and the fragility of those urban
entanglements that are not meant to last.
Leonard Cohen was a man for all
seasons but, for me, his songs are best
enjoyed when the first chill of the cold
season arrives. His gravelly timbre, which
lends a half-sung, half-spoken quality to his
melodies, has the luxury of the finest wool;
it’s a voice to be savoured like a hot cup
of mulled wine. Just as delectable as his
albums, though perhaps less well-known,
is a film that I revisit often in wintertime.
Ladies and Gentlemen… Mr. Leonard Cohen
(1965), co-directed by Don Owen and
Donald Brittain for the National Film
Board of Canada, adheres to the unvar-
nished style of Direct Cinema seen in con-
temporaneous works by D.A. Pennebaker
or the Maysles brothers. In seeking to cap-
ture the man behind the enigma, the inti-
mate documentary portrait is also aston-
ishingly attuned to the spirit of Montreal,
Cohen’s hometown, whose wintry beauty
bears a beguiling melancholy.
Partly intended as a publicity move by
McClelland & Stewart, Cohen’s publisher,
the film was shot during the holiday season,
which accentuates the kind of spiritual soli-
tude that always emerges on the cusp of
collective festivities. Though Cohen had
yet to embark on his music career, he was
already a celebrity among the literary intel-
ligentsia. With three collections of poems
and an acclaimed novel under his belt, he
routinely went on talk shows and gave
readings to an enraptured audience in col-
lege halls. Against the formal atmosphere
IMAGE: BFI NATIONAL ARCHIVE
under the dim fluorescent lights. The
peculiar fashion statement struck him as
an act of resistance. Cohen’s uniform of a
black leather jacket worn over his shirt and
tie carries that edge of rebellion as well.
Delivering lines that speak of love, death,
and war with the self-deprecation of a
stand-up comedian, Cohen was a cerebral
outsider who, despite being one of the ‘in-
crowd’, played by his own rules.
Echoing the observational nature
of Cohen’s work, the most fascinating
sequences are those that follow his solitary
wanderings. At this point, he was living on
the Greek island of Hydra and only making
odd visits back to his home town. Thus, to
see Montreal through his eyes is to experi-
ence the city with both familiarity and curi-
osity. It is hard
rd to imagine Cohen as a child.
Even at the age of 30, his face was edged
with a blessed ed world-weariness. Yet here he
was, in familyy home movies shot in a Mon-
treal park, a mischievous boy skating on the
snowy ground nd and tumbling over adorably.
The scene then hen cuts to present-day Cohen,
who wanders rs through his old playground
with a wistful ul reverence. Much of his writ- t
ing centres on this verdant space. “It was
the green heart,”
eart,” Cohen recalls in his con-
templative narration,
arration, “it gave the children
dangerous bushes and heroic landscapes
so they could d imagine bravery.” In other
words, his attachment to such public
spaces was born out of an apprecia- a the grind of capitalism which
tion for theirr accessibility. Here,
people from all walks of life can
rest and dream. am. They can even
fall in love.
Strolling g through Mon-
treal in his dark winter coat,
Cohen had the bearing of
a film noir character; his
searching gaze drank in
the mystique ue of the city,
which emanates anates most
captivatingly gly during
nighttime. In n one scene,
the sleepless ess flâneur
stepped inside side Bens
‘I refuse to Famous for its smoked meat sandwiches,
the restaurant was a haven for insomni-
sleep,’ Cohen acs, with whom Cohen shared a special
said. ‘I’m going camaraderie. Even in the wee hours of the
to protest the morning, the place was filled with chat-
ter, the tables stacked with steaming, deli-
idea of sleep cious hot plates. For Cohen, the refusal to
by turning comply with the regenerative process of
night into day’ sleeping is possibly the first rebellious act
that a man can perform. “I refuse to sleep,”
the would-be singer said. “I’m going to
protest the idea of sleep by turning night
into day.”
The Montreal so treasured by Cohen
no longer exists. Bens De Luxe shut down
in 2006 and, despite attempts to preserve
the location as a historic site, was demol-
ished. The Sainte-Catherine street where
Cohen spent hours perusing co colourful
posters at cinemas like the Crystal
Crysta Palace
is now a wholly commercial district
distri where
n dream palaces are torn down an and chain
stores are erected.
When asked about his purpose in writ-
ing poetry, Cohen spoke of searching
searc for
“a state of grace”. Watching him iimmerse
himself in the rhythm of a bygonbygone Mon-
treal, always with a black note notebook in
hand, the answer does not seem s so
oblique. As a ritual that can awaken
past memories and ignite new inspira-
tions, the act of walking is akin to writ-
ing. So it is bittersweet that,
tha under
continues to rapid
rapidly trans-
form cityscapes, th the possi-
bility of attaining this
th “state
of grace” has beco
become ever
more elusive. In Ladies
L and
Gentlemen… Mr. Leonard
Cohen, however, there is
a Montreal thattha never
sleeps, and B Bens De
Luxe never closes
cl its
doors. Come in, put
your feet up an
and make
yourself at hom
home.
Phuong Le is a

of these academic settings, Cohen’s casual De Luxe, Montreal’s Vietnamese film critic
charm was at once disarming and mys- oldest deli, which living in Paris
terious. In the documentary, he recalled opened in 1908 908
LEFT
an amusing encounter with a clerk in the and ran for 22 Ladies and Gentlemen…
Ge
Bank of Greece who wore dark sunglasses hours a day. ay. Mr. Leonard Cohen
C (1965)
 THE
GREATEST
FILMS
OF
ALL
TIME
THE CRITICS’ POLL
A major bellwether of critical opinion on cinema, the Sight and Sound
poll’s eighth edition is the largest ever – and the canon is starting to shift
Introduction by Thomas Flew
28

Through the decades 1952

1
=2
Bicycle Thieves (De Sica, 1948)
City Lights (Chaplin, 1931)
1982
2
1 Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
La Règle du jeu (Renoir, 1939)

=2 The Gold Rush (Chaplin, 1925) =3 Seven Samurai (Kurosawa, 1954)

4 Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein, 1925) =3 Singin’ in the Rain (Donen and Kelly, 1952)

=5 Louisiana Story (Flaherty, 1948) 5 8½ (Fellini, 1963)

=5 Intolerance (Griffith, 1916) 6 Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein, 1925)

=7 Greed (von Stroheim, 1923) =7 L’Avventura (Antonioni, 1960)

=7 Le Jour se lève (Carné, 1939) =7 The Magnificent Ambersons (Welles, 1942)

=7 The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer, 1928) =7 Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958)

=10 Brief Encounter (Lean, 1946) =10 The General (Keaton, 1926)

=10 Le Million (Clair, 1931) =10 The Searchers (Ford, 1956)

=10 La Règle du Jeu (Renoir, 1939)

1962
1 Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
2 L’Avventura (Antonioni, 1960)
3 La Règle du jeu (Renoir, 1939)
=4 Greed (von Stroheim, 1923)
=4 Ugetsu Monogatari (Mizoguchi, 1953)
=6 Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein, 1925)
=6 Bicycle Thieves (De Sica, 1948)
=6 Ivan the Terrible (Eisenstein, 1945)
9 La Terra trema (Visconti, 1948)
10 L’Atalante (Vigo, 1934)
1992
1 Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
2 La Règle du jeu (Renoir, 1939)
3 Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953)
4 Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958)
5 The Searchers (Ford, 1956)
=6 L’Atalante (Vigo, 1934)
=6 Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein, 1925)
=6 The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer, 1928)
=6 Pather Panchali (Ray, 1955)
10 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)

1972
1 Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
2 La Règle du jeu (Renoir, 1939)
3 Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein, 1925)
4 8½ (Fellini, 1963)
=5 L’Avventura (Antonioni, 1960)
=5 Persona (Bergman, 1966)
7 The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer, 1928)
=8 The General (Keaton, 1926)
=8 The Magnificent Ambersons (Welles, 1942)
=10 Ugetsu Monogatari (Mizoguchi, 1953)
=10 Wild Strawberries (Bergman, 1957)
2002
1 Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
2 Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958)
3 La Règle du jeu (Renoir, 1939)
4 The Godfather/The Godfather Part II (Coppola, 1972, 1974)
5 Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953)
6 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)
=7 Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein, 1925)
=7 Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (Murnau, 1927)
9 8½ (Fellini, 1963)
10 Singin’ in the Rain (Kelly & Donen, 1952)

2012
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 of Two Humans (Murnau, 1927)
6 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)
7 The Searchers (Ford, 1956)
8 Man with a Movie Camera (Vertov, 1929)
9 The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer, 1928)
10 8½ (Fellini, 1963)

n 1952, the Sight and Sound editorial
team had the novel idea of asking
some critics to name the greatest
films of all time. Little did they know
that their concept would become the
bedrock of future canon-building.
Invitations were sent by post to
85 critics from ten countries; 63
responded, and a winner emerged:
Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves,
then only four years old. The tradition
became decennial, increasing in size
and prestige as the decades passed.
Citizen Kane (1941) seized the throne
in 1962 and held on through the next four
polls, until in 2012 plucky upstart Vertigo
(1958) committed a famous act of regicide
to become the poll’s third winner. The
number of voters invited had grown slowly
but surely from 1952 to 2002, but 2012 saw a
significant leap, from 145 to 846, beginning
a new era of polling with a broader, more
international scope to its contributors.
Film critics were joined by programmers,
curators, archivists, film historians and
other academics for the first time. With a
new weight of numbers behind it, and a new
winner, the poll became big news. The light-
hearted game of 1952 had become important.
And now we arrive in 2022, for the eighth
iteration of what is now the most respected
poll of its kind. The number of voters has
risen yet again, this time almost doubling
to a grand total of 1,639, reaching more
critics from around the world, more critics
of varying ages, genders, sexual orientations
and ethnic backgrounds, more critics with
disabilities. The typewritten invitations of
1952 have become mass mail-outs feeding into
a bespoke database. Perhaps an even more
significant change since 2012 has been the rise
of social media. Lurking behind the question
“What do I think are the greatest films of all
time?” has always been another: “What will
other people think of my choices?” Now that
question is louder and more urgent than ever.
When you turn through the next 60 pages,
you’ll see for yourself what impacts these
changes have had, in what is perhaps the
biggest shake-up in the poll’s history. But
allow us to give you a spoiler-free overview
of some of this edition’s biggest trends.
Twenty-first-century cinema has arrived with
a bang, with nine titles from 2000 onwards in
our top 100 – up from two in 2012 (Mulholland
Dr. and In the Mood for Love). Time has, of
29
course, allowed some of these newer titles to
consolidate their status as modern classics, WHERE
but it is also the case that four titles here
were released in the past ten years, and have TO WATCH
immediately imprinted themselves on to the THE
collective consciousness of our critics. With
seven films from the silent era also present, the
TOP 100
list has never been more representative of the BFI SOUTHBANK
A special BFI Southbank
span of cinema history, with films from 1924 to season running from
2019 – our apologies to the first 30-odd years. January to March 2023
will showcase every film
Animated film appears for the first time in the S&S top 100. For
in the top 100, with two Studio Ghibli titles more tickets and details
visit whatson.bfi.org.uk
nestled near to one another in the rankings.
Ghibli was already popular with voters, with BFI PLAYER
Dozens of the S&S top
two titles sat between #150 and #250 in 100 films are available to
2012; this further push towards canonisation stream in a BFI Player
special collection, with
suggests a new open-mindedness towards a further titles being added
medium historically dismissed as children’s throughout December
and January. For more
entertainment. The fact that Ghibli’s films details visit player.bfi.
are now available on Netflix may have org.uk
helped them reach a wider audience, too. FIND OUT MORE
But most significant of all has been In January 2023, all critic
and director ballots will
the increased diversity of the filmmakers be published in full at
represented in the list. Films by women did bfi.org.uk/sight-and-
sound, alongside a full
not rank in the poll until 2012, when Chantal top 250 list.
Akerman and Claire Denis appeared in the
top 100; ten years on, the top 100 has 11 films
directed by women, including two in the top
ten. Two of th0se films (one from the 1970s, one
the 1990s), having received no votes in 2012,
have now received dozens. Another welcome
change is the increased representation of Black
filmmakers. Djibril Diop Mambéty, present
in the 2012 top 100 with Touki Bouki, has been
joined by one other African filmmaker and five
African Americans. We hope that, with these
changes, the list our contributors have formed
gives a better picture of the whole world of
film. Cinephiles may regret the decline of some
established classics, which have dropped down
the rankings to make way for new entrants
(though other classics have moved up). We
like to think of it as new friends joining the
party, rather than old ones being booted out.
So, it’s all change in the top 100; but that is
the tip of the iceberg. In January, further lists
and analysis, as well as all 1,639 individual
ballots, will be published online at bfi.org.
uk/sight-and-sound: explore, and you’ll find
more than 16,000 votes, for nearly 4,000
films. We’ll give you ten years to work through
your new watchlist, and then let’s meet back
here in 2032 to see what’s changed again.
Sight and Sound’s Greatest Films of All Time 2022
is generously supported by Col and Karen Needham
30

=95
Once upon a time in the west
SERGIO LEONE / 1968 / ITALY, USA
POSITION IN 2012: =78

Leone’s operatic widescreen elegy to the old American West, with the
forces of corporate capitalism coming down the railroad.

ALAN MAT TLI It may not be the definitive western, but

it might just be the most western: part parody,
part eulogy, part apotheosis, Once upon a Time
in the West is every narrative and formal cliché,
every grandiose gesture, every ambiguous,
every subversive, every troubling commentary
on American history that its parent genre deals
in condensed into a sumptuously operatic
melodrama that stands tall as one of the most
purely cinematic spectacles ever put to film.

=95 Get out

JORDAN PEELE / 2017 / USA
NEW ENTRY

A poster film for Black Lives Matter, Jordan Peele’s horror-satire of white
vampirism gleefully needles America’s racial malaise.

Turning the creeping hypocrisy of modern

ARIKE OKE
racism into the scenario of a horror classic was
a genius move by Jordan Peele. A parable about
never assuming that the other shoe won’t drop
when you’re Black in a majority-white society.
Rebecca Harrison Peele upends the anticipated rhythms of horror by
elongating suspense and throwing in jump scares at will, like a jazz drummer
who’s so confident of the beat he’s simply decided to work around it.

Mike Muncer A film so rich, smart and instantly iconic that it already feels as
recognisable as Jaws, The Exorcist or The Shining.

=95 Black girl

OUSMANE SEMBÈNE / 1965 / SENEGAL, FRANCE
POSITION IN 2012: =323

Sembène lifts the mask on France’s racist post-colonial relationship with

Senegal in his small yet commanding feature debut.

KIVA REARDON In only 59 minutes, Ousmane Sembène eviscerates the myth

of ‘liberté, égalité, fraternité ’. Blistering in its examination of so-called post-
colonialism, the film’s rigour also speaks to Sembène’s brilliant craft.

Jenny Chamarette Its pared-back narrative, featuring an outstandingly

underplayed performance by Mbissine Thérèse Diop, is a searing example of
Black feminine refusal.

It’s rebellious and

BINA PAUL VENUGOPAL
completely relevant today.
IMAGES: BFI NATIONAL ARCHIVE (1)

Leila Latif Astonishingly beautiful, with a gauzy lyrical magic to the images
that would go on to become Sembène’s signature.

Tropical malady
APICHATPONG WEERASETHAKUL / 2004 / THAILAND
POSITION IN 2012: =127
Tropical Malady was the title under which
the artist and filmmaker Apichatpong
Weerasethakul’s 2004 feature was distrib-
uted in the UK and elsewhere. Its original
Thai title, Sud Pralad, in fact means some-
thing like ‘strange beast’. This is perhaps
a more apt characterisation of a film that
compels through fierce natural strange-
ness rather than intimations of illness
per se. More is going on here in terms of
story, sense perception, sexuality, identity
and spirituality than is easily accessible to
mainstream sensibilities. But if that speaks
to malady, it seems less a matter of infec-
tion or disease than the disordered expec-
tation that the world will constrain itself
to conventionally limited and contingent
ways of thinking, feeling and understand-
ing. Strange beasts are best met on their
own ground, on their own terms.
The film is a diptych of sorts. The first
part introduces us to soldier Keng (Banlop
Lomnoi), part of a group assigned to a
rural area where unsettling killings of ani-
mals have been noted, perhaps the work
of an unquiet spirit – the strange beast.
There, Keng meets Tong (Sakda Kaew-
buadee), a placid-seeming young man
with whom he strikes up a flirtatious rap-
port. They spend time together in town
and country, at the movies, taking a dog
to the vet, exploring nearby shrines. In the
second part, Keng is in the forest, alone,
tracking and being tracked by the strange
spirit, who seems to be at once Tong and
a tiger. There are stalkings, struggles and
submissions, encounters with ghost cows
and clever monkeys. In both parts, trans-
portive sound design and locked-off com-
positions frame interpersonal dynamics
THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 31
=95
that tilt in unexpected ways. Queerness
here is not only a matter of same-sex desire
but of radical uncertainty, shifts between
persons and worlds.
It’s a work that defies straightforward
It’s a work understanding and suggests that under-
that defies standability may be overrated. (Benedict
straightforward Anderson has argued that aspects of nar-
rative, setting and character unfamiliar to
understanding the film’s cosmopolitan audiences are quite
and suggests accessible to viewers from the region where
understandability the film was shot – yet even they were per-
plexed by other elements.) Apichatpong’s
may be overrated earlier features had won festival recogni-
tion but this was a breakthrough. In the
years since, its calm indifference to staid
forms of logic, hierarchy and desire have
helped affirm it as a marvel of imaginative
engagement with posthuman possibilities.
BEN WALTERS
32

=95 A man escaped

ROBERT BRESSON / 1956 / FRANCE
POSITION IN 2012: =69

This prison-break study is Bresson at his most starkly essential: a man,

four walls, his ingenuity and the mysterious inflections of fate.

Bresson’s purest distillation of the art

Clyde Jeavons
of realism through simple storytelling, memorably
making use of non-professional actors.
Kim Haerim A sublime example of economic filmmaking.

Robert Beeson The film that got me hooked on cinema decades ago, and
still the most perfect achievement of my favourite director.

Eduardo Stupía Reason and perception, condemnation and salvation,

sin and sanctity, ethics and aesthetics compose the mathematical system of
interrogation and revelation that Bresson eventually develops in all his works,
but particularly here.

=95 The general

BUSTER KEATON / 1926 / USA
POSITION IN 2012: =34

Keaton’s most lavish production and his warmest, bringing together a boy,
a girl and a train amid the maelstrom of the US Civil War.

Robert Mitchell It has the best script of any Keaton film. Each visual
concept is unique and ingenious. Artistry of the highest level, and it’s hilarious!

Andrei Liimets The high-water mark for action movies

for close to a hundred years. Keaton’s innovation
and fearlessness were second to none and his
screen persona still electrifies today.
Noël Carroll Breathtaking comic episodes elegantly composed and edited
by an auteur with the mind of a civil engineer.

ROBERT CASHILL: Laughter is universal, and no one was funnier than Keaton
in his prime.

=90 The Leopard

LUCHINO VISCONTI / 1963 / ITALY, FRANCE
POSITION IN 2012: =57

Visconti’s sumptuous epic portrays the fall of 19th-century Sicilian

nobility, its decadent displays of wealth tinged with melancholy.

Visconti’s magnum opus is

Eternality Tan
one of the most elegantly constructed
and opulent films of all time.
Anna Möttölä For the regal, melancholic charm of Burt Lancaster as
the Prince of Salina. For the youthful beauty of Alain Delon and Claudia
Cardinale set against the crumbling splendour of Sicily. For the image of the
aristocratic family sitting in their pews covered in dust and sand. And for that
breathtaking ballroom scene, never topped.
IMAGES: BFI NATIONAL ARCHIVE (5)

John Baxter A Hollywood producer of the 1920s said the essential difference
between American and European cinema was “Europe has EYES”. The Leopard
has American production values and an American star but it lives on the way
it looks.
 THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 33

Ugetsu Monogatari
MIZOGUCHI KENJI / 1953 / JAPAN
POSITION IN 2012: =50 =90
Mizoguchi’s bewitching, insinuating Edo-period ghost story renders civil
war as a parable of heedless male greed.

Donald Clarke Taking a journey through a watery, misty netherworld, the

film is comfortable with the uncanny, but there are real-world lessons here
about the toxicity of the male ego.

Graham Fuller In Mizoguchi’s use of the moving camera – detached yet

empathetic – to express the conflict between male and female drives, his
ineffably beautiful anti-war ghost fable is unparalleled.

Ramsey Campbell Mizoguchi’s contemplative style

at its most expressively Bruegelesque.
Tom Gunning Mizoguchi’s greatest film bridges the realms of reality and
fantasy so effortlessly, as if both realms exist in a single construct.

Parasite
BONG JOON HO / 2019 / SOUTH KOREA
NEW ENTRY =90
Like Get Out, Bong’s endlessly twisty, blackly sincere class-war thriller is a
pop provocation for our unequal times.

Miriam BalanescuChameleonic in its genres,

shapeshifting from social realism to comedy,
thriller to dystopia, Bong Joon Ho’s multilayered
masterpiece at once pithily sums up the
stark evils of class division (which speaks so
universally) while also, prism-like, rewarding
endless rewatches and reinterpretations.
Esther Leslie Parasite has a Shakespearean sense of fate with humour, irony,
horror and tragedy.

Yi Yi
EDWARD YANG / 2000 / TAIWAN, JAPAN
POSITION IN 2012: =93 =90
Urban anomie and multi-generational growing pains are given rich,
relaxed expression in Yang’s heartfelt Taipei family tapestry.

RYAN SWEN This stands in for all the films Yang was unable to make. That
it transcends those expectations to become its own delicate, devastating
evocation of family, using the city and its modernity to harmonise all of its
auteur’s most incisive and moving abilities, is testament to his total mastery.

Few films speak so profoundly to life at

Tom Charity
the onset of the 21st century as this intimate epic.
Tom Ryan Elegant, eloquent and alive with the music of its making.

Kim Haerim The irreplaceable director’s swan song at his peak. This is the
kind of film which assures you that cinema is one of the necessities of life.

Xavier Pillai A tender family tale that transmits and opens a space for deep
empathy with the characters and cultures you experience.
 THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 35

Madame de...
MAX OPHULS / 1953 / FRANCE, ITALY
POSITION IN 2012: =93 =90
Ophuls’ woozy whirligig tracks a pair of unwanted earrings around high-
society Paris – until they bear the weight of lost time and passion.

Alain Masson The most subtle, elegant and cruel romantic film.

Love has never been better depicted

Christian Viviani
on the screen. It is like Mozart: light and tragic.
Michael Phillips Cinema’s most dazzling flow of imagery, with the chill of
death in every transition.

Tom Ryan Ophuls’ sublime testament to romantic yearnings.

Robert Cashill The glove is velvet; the punch, hard.

Chungking Express
WONG KAR WAI / 1994 / HONG KONG
POSITION IN 2012: 144 =88
A sense of wistful, romantic longing joins the two stories in Wong’s
freewheeling portmanteau portrait of Hong Kong.

Lelya Smolina It is a play-pretend, a highly stylised exercise in heartache that

is still profound and heartbreaking.

Ryan Swen Entirely made of odd little moments

of redemption and reconnection amid a city
full of danger and light. Blurred colours and
rapid bodies together and apart, perversity
and compassion alongside each other,
pop songs echoing through mindscapes;
this is Wong’s most singular film.
Anna Bogutskaya Tony Leung’s face is cinema.

The Shining
STANLEY KUBRICK / 1980 / USA, UK
POSITION IN 2012: =154 =88
Kubrick ’s much analysed and often spoofed psychological horror spends a
chilling and claustrophobic winter at the empty Overlook Hotel.

Jane Crowther Majestic, febrile, foreboding –

truly haunting, literally and figuratively.
Roger Luckhurst Reviled on release for hokey misreading of horror, an
indelible influence on the genre ever since. Few films introduce a new way of
seeing: the Steadicam glides here introduce a whole new cinematic emotion.

Sophie Brown With The Shining, Stanley Kubrick created a slow-burning

beast of atmosphere and menace. It is a chilling and beautiful maze of a film; a
IMAGES: BFI NATIONAL ARCHIVE (3)

stone-cold classic horror.

James Kleinmann Technically innovative with heightened, but finely

calibrated performances, it always gets my mind racing with questions, some
deliberately unanswerable.
36

=84 The Spirit of the Beehive

VICTOR ERICE / 1973 / SPAIN
POSITION IN 2012: =81

Erice’s exquisite impressionistic distillation of childhood fear and wonder

in the ruins of the recently ended Spanish Civil War.

Maria Delgado A film about loss, about gaps and silences, about the
scars left by conflict. Erice’s film offers a devastating portrait of a country
grieving, without ever mentioning the Civil War directly. A film about the
cinema, about the monsters we create and the power of cinema to animate
and challenge.

Unfolds like a waking dream,

Guy Lodge
hushed and febrile and haunted by personal
memory and national historical baggage.
Rielle Navitski One of the finest meditations there is on the strange and
wondrous nature of both childhood and cinema.

=84 Histoire(s) du cinéma

JEAN-LUC GODARD / 1988-98 / FRANCE, SWITZERLAND
POSITION IN 2012: =48

The apotheosis of Godard’s experimental era, this sprawling essay film

indicts the 20th century through its most popular medium.

Eight sumptuous episodes: cinema’s

Olivier Joyard
tombstone according to JLG, in the most vivid
and poetic way. I can’t wait for the zombies
that will arise from that tombstone one day.
Raymond Phathanavirangoon An intense, cumulative exploration of
cinema, as well as the 20th century itself, by one of cinema’s greatest masters.

Santos Zunzunegui “Cogito ergo video.”

Kaushik Bhaumik Godard’s magnum opus, made just as digital cinema

arrived, is an astonishing ‘hyperlink’ film that takes in ‘everything’, a cinema
that our digital present can only dream of.

=84 Pierrot le fou

JEAN-LUC GODARD / 1965 / FRANCE
POSITION IN 2012: =43

Godard’s most effervescent escapade, a primary-coloured lovers-on-the-

run blow-out heading south with Anna Karina and Jean-Paul Belmondo.

Helen DeWit t Possibly an end and a beginning

for Godard. A frolicking escapist romantic
road-trip adventure, but also a blistering
critique of bourgeois culture, a political satire
and a collage of anti-consumerist capitalism.
Anna Karina’s star shines for herself.
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Dario Llinares The gangster noir template is chopped and broken, then
reassembled as a bricolage of signifiers, to forge a mesmerising generic satire
that also seems to reinvent colour.
 THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 37

Blue Velvet
DAVID LYNCH / 1986 / USA
POSITION IN 2012: =69 =84
Lynch’s adult fairytale follows teen sleuth Kyle MacLachlan’s murder
inquiry into the surreal, perverse corners of small-town America.

Michael Atkinson The perfect shaken-not-stirred Lynchtini. Simultaneously

a Freudian Mother of All Bombs, a satire on the Hardy Boys, a psychosexual
audience crucifixion, an elegy for lost innocence and a genuine mystery.

Justin Johnson Suburban America, freshly mown lawns and the tweeting of
an artificial robin sitting alongside a dark underbelly represented by a severed
human ear and a run-in with a psychopath... Taking the form of a surreal noir
and as entertaining as it is horrifying, this is a film that is impossible to forget.

Blue Velvet is the logic of dreams

Nemanja becanovic
and nightmares translated into film language.
Phil Hoad Lynch was leftfield even in the 80s, but the mainstream has caught
up to his ordinary-uncanny sensibility.

A Matter of Life and Death

MICHAEL POWELL & EMERIC PRESSBURGER / 1946 / UK
POSITION IN 2012: =90 =78
Love is rescued from the jaws of the afterlife in the Archers’ delirious
World War II air-pilot fantasia.

Nick JamesThere are more stunning ideas in

this one film, concerning a mistake made
in heaven about a WWII pilot who should
be dead but isn’t, than the whole of British
cinema can usually muster in a decade.
James Healy A most peculiar and potent cocktail of romance, theology,
global bridge-building and national tub-thumping, this thoughtful drama
about one pilot’s deferred mortality remains, if nothing else, a definitive
monument to the power of Technicolor. The vivid imagery and the cine-
literate style(s) deployed by a creative team at the top of their game express
the film’s intricate worldview. It searingly conveys a world grappling with
uncharted new places, trying to pick up the pieces after unimaginable calamity.

Sunset Blvd.
BILLY WILDER / 1950 / USA
POSITION IN 2012: =63 =78
Tinseltown’s greatest self-satire, a gothic requiem for big-screen bygones
and the highs of screen stardom.

Odie Henderson Lists, which can be strangely

merciful, have taken pity on Norma Desmond.
Alan Mattli A perfect marriage of film noir, metafiction, and the darkly
comedic genius of Billy Wilder, Sunset Blvd. is both the most loving and the
most scathing look Hollywood ever took at itself. To die is a terrible thing –
but to be forgotten, that is the true tragedy.

Giulio Casadei Noir, horror, melodrama. Homage to cinema and reflection

on the decadence of the body and the image. The ghosts of silent cinema meet
a dead body that tells its own story: a dance of celluloid spectres officiated by
the great Erich von Stroheim and Gloria Swanson. “I am big. It’s the pictures
that got small.”
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 THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 39

Modern Times
CHARLIE CHAPLIN / 1936 / USA
POSITION IN 2012: =63 =78
Industrial modernity proves mercilessly madcap in Chaplin’s final (mostly)
silent feature, one of the most inspired and ingenious of all his comedies.

David West Chaplin’s final screen outing in the Little Tramp persona sees
him taking on the impact of industrialisation on the working class. Modern
Times marked Chaplin’s first use of dialogue on screen, albeit in Chaplin’s
typically adventurous, unconventional way: when the audience finally hears the
Tramp’s voice, he’s singing gibberish as the character improvises the lyrics to a
song. While the Tramp rotates between prison and employment and life seems
a constant struggle, Modern Times remains stubbornly hopeful and hilarious.

For releasing the human body into

Nick Davis
such kinetic chaos and comic élan, defying so
many forces that would browbeat our bodies,
our dreams, our movies into conformity.
Paolo Mereghetti The 20th century in 87 minutes.

=78
Céline and Julie Go Boating
JACQUES RIVETTE / 1974 / FRANCE
POSITION IN 2012: 127

Rivette’s most playful, innovative frolic, in which his irreverent Parisian

heroines dissolve worlds, genres, social codes and boundaries.

David Heslin No film has brought me more joy than Céline and Julie
Go Boating. It’s funny, playful, full of tiny details that you only notice on
subsequent viewings. It’s rather like a bedtime story invented on the spot; the
teller doesn’t have the faintest clue where it will end up at the beginning, but
disparate elements gradually build up and intersect until, finally, the whole
thing comes alive.

Leo Robson The memory is where films spend most of their time, and I
always love thinking about Rivette and the actresses and the house – the
pinnacle for many traditions and genres of cinema.

The most exuberant, haunting

Mary Wiles
expression of female friendship in
the history of the cinema.

Sátántangó
BÉLA TARR / 1994 / HUNGARY, GERMANY, SWITZERLAND
POSITION IN 2012: =36 =78
As timely as ever in its grim poeticisation of demagogues and doom,
helplessness and hope. If music be the food of death, play on.

Saibal Chatterjee A monumental cinematic achievement, Sátántangó bears

testimony to the purity of the director’s artistic vision and the perfection of
his craft. On a canvas that is both dark and deep, Béla Tarr paints with light,
movement and the palpable passage of time to create a portrait of Hungary
at a crucial historical inflection point. Sátántangó is as transfixing a film as any
that has ever been.

Carmen Gray The mud of relentless rain grounds us deep in a world that’s
winding down. A last gust of weighty, old-world beauty, transmitted into our
hyper-consumerist, disposable present.
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Michel Lipkes The passage of time as the main

character of a film, it haunts and hypnotises
us across a wasteland of human melancholy.
40

=78 A Brighter Summer Day

EDWARD YANG / 1991 / TAIWAN
POSITION IN 2012: =84

Young love and teen delinquency in Taiwan’s early 1960s adolescence, in

Yang’s slow-burn, bittersweet epic.

Neil Bahadur I can still vividly recall skipping the last two classes of the day
one afternoon in 11th Grade, going off to a nearby library and stumbling on a
stream of this movie long before it had been restored. So I sat for four hours,
watching a heavily compressed stream of an already low-resolution LaserDisc
rip, and was totally mesmerised. The characters were Taiwanese yet I related
so heavily to that search for identity and sense of alienation. In the years since,
it’s only become more meaningful for me – it’s a profound study of a social
ecosystem, our daily lives and its relation to a political situation, the hopes and
dreams of youth we have despite it, and the mistakes we make when we believe
the world is incomprehensible.

Flavia Dima A film born out of both love for cinema and a deep desire to
fully reform it. Yang understood mediality like few others; understood the
underlying reasons for social violence and the aimlessness of youth like even
fewer. His masterpiece traces a line from cinema past (Ozu Yasujirō) to cinema
future (Tsai Mingliang, Lav Diaz).

=75 Spirited Away

MIYAZAKI HAYAO / 2001 / JAPAN
POSITION IN 2012: =202

Miyazaki’s rich anime fantasy follows its ten-year-old heroine into the
labyrinth of a spirit-world bathhouse, teeming with phantoms and peril.

Susan Napier Spirited Away sets its intimations of mortality, the decline of a
culture and the loss of nature against one of the most sumptuous and dazzling
mises en scène ever created in cinema – in the bathhouse of the gods, where
the initially timorous young heroine goes to find work in order to rescue her
parents who have been cursed by a magic spell. This is an enchanting and
exciting coming-of-age story that can be enjoyed by all ages, but the subdued,
lambent melancholy of the movie’s final third, with its train ride into the
shadows, is a tour de force of what animation can do.

Anne GjelsvikThis is not only as good as animation

film gets – this is simply cinema at its best.
Alan Mattli Joe Hisaishi’s enchanting score, the watercolour-like tableaux,
and Miyazaki’s trademark trust in his audience to grasp the essence of a
moment without any dialogue – aesthetic, tonal and emotional perfection.

=75 Sansho the Bailiff

MIZOGUCHI KENJI / 1954 / JAPAN
POSITION IN 2012: =59

Mizoguchi’s tragic folk saga of the tribulations of an exiled governor’s

family in feudal Japan, tracked with exquisitely moving camerawork.

I vote in awe of one of the greatest

Eithne O’Neill
filmmakers our world has known. Blending
the exquisite precision of his indigenous
culture with a universal Weltanschauung, this
is one of Mizoguchi’s masterpieces; poetry
and melancholy are one with him. The viewer
who is not deeply moved by the final scene, the
rigorous outcome of the preceding political
and personal events, has a heart of stone.
Steven Shaviro The most beautiful and devastating of all Mizoguchi’s films.
 THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 41

Imitation of Life
DOUGLAS SIRK / 1959 / USA
POSITION IN 2012: =93 =75
Sirk ’s melodrama holds a mirror to the hypocrisies of 1950s America with
its pairs of mothers and daughters across class and racial divides.

Linda Marric Nobody does melodrama like Sirk does. It’s all in the subtext.

Jean-Marc Lalanne The genius of Douglas Sirk is on full display in his

critical auscultation of the foundations of America.

ODie Henderson The greatest tearjerker ever made.

Robin Baker Few Hollywood films are about as much or deliver their
messages so entertainingly. Imitation of Life is the apotheosis of melodrama,
but it’s also a guide to life (ie, don’t do what they do) and one of cinema’s most
extraordinary portraits of the impacts of racism.

Juliet Romeo A favourite of my grandmother; I grew up watching this film

with her. There is so much to touch upon. The relationship between a mother
and daughter is challenging regardless of race or social status.

L'avventura
MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI / 1960 / ITALY, FRANCE
POSITION IN 2012: =21 =72
Antonioni’s high-modernist breakthrough sends Monica Vitti in search
less of her disappeared friend than her own self, via images to get lost in.

Kaya Genc Michelangelo Antonioni’s masterpiece changed the course of

Italian neorealism and arthouse cinema. It injected a healthy dose of entropy
into conventions of European cinema, where plot and story lost their pre-
eminence, replaced by the potential of a searching, introverted, filmic gaze.

Dario Llinares When I first saw L’avventura, at film university, it made me

contemplate the idea that a filmmaker could be deliberately obtuse, vague,
mystifying, and that it could work so entirely in creating a mood of alienation.
Moving on to La notte (1961), Blow-Up (1966) and The Passenger (1975), this
was an artist who epitomised the auteurist possibility of a singular cinematic
vision structured across an entire body of work. I later saw a documentary on
Antonioni in which he described himself as the proponent of the “cinema of
miscommunication” – a statement as insightful as it was self-aware. Ironically,
his central insight is the modernist breakdown of coherence and unity, in
cinema and life. Also, Monica Vitti.

Journey to Italy
ROBERTO ROSSELLINI / 1954 / ITALY, FRANCE
POSITION IN 2012: =41 =72
Rossellini’s plaintively simple portrait of a marriage on the rocks,
imprinted with the ghosts of love, cultures and civilisations.

Giulio Casadei “With the appearance of Journey to

Italy, all films have suddenly aged ten years,”
Jacques Rivette wrote. Narratively open and
fragmented, driven by melancholy, astonishment
and the disruptive force of reality, it is the ideal
junction in Rossellini’s filmography between the
neorealist experience, his artistic collaboration
with Ingrid Bergman, and the adventurous,
avant-garde nature that would guide the great
Roman director throughout his career.
42
=72 my neighbour totoro
MIYAZAKI HAYAO / 1988 / JAPAN
POSITION IN 2012: 154
Miyazaki Hayao, the co-founder and driv-
ing visionary behind Japan’s Studio Ghibli,
is renowned for his world-spinning, fecund
and furious animated fantasies: across his
The storytelling 11 features he has conjured pre-modern and
is as simple post-apocalyptic, undersea and above-the-
clouds milieux teeming with angry earth
as Totoro is gods and lost robots, apprentice witches
inscrutable, and wracked wizards, flying pigs, runaway
unfolding in fish-girls and endless vivid bit-creations
besides. (His Oscar-winner Spirited Away,
a series of nearby in this poll, spills forth a phantas-
delightful, mic bathhouse of troubled ghouls.)
exquisitely My Neighbour Totoro is his less-is-more
work: a pastoral, pantheist chamber
constructed drama, where the ‘chamber’ lies under the
sequences canopy of a great camphor tree that lords
over the woods behind a tumbledown
farmhouse. Into this adventure realm
move two sisters, pre-school Mei and pre-
teen Satsuke, with their inattentive dad, to
be nearer their hospitalised mum. Each in
turn encounters the spirit of the woods: a
giant, furry, ovoid mammal with mighty
powers of flying, horticulture and slumber.
(He comes with two smaller surrogates,
who may or may not indicate a further
world of totori.)
The storytelling is as simple as Totoro
is inscrutable, unfolding in a series
of delightful, exquisitely constructed
sequences: Satsuke and Mei discovering
the farmhouse and its soot-sprite occu-
pants; Mei tracking Totoro’s minions to
his lair; the tired children, waiting in the
rain for their dad at a bus stop, finding
Totoro waiting too – for a twinkle-eyed
cat bus; a village-wide hunt for Mei after
a misunderstood message from hospital
leads her to run away. My favourite is the
nocturne in which the girls and Totoros
conjure shoots from acorns with an
incantatory dance, then soar triumphant
through the trees on a spinning top.
There’s no plot, just rousing impressions
of innocence and experience.
So many films ask us to see the adult
world through children’s eyes; My Neigh-
bour Totoro summons wilder, wide-eyed
wonder at the forces that inform us: life,
nature, connection, change. And, of
course, it hymns the uplift of imagination,
with Joe Hisaishi’s entrancing synth tunes
essential to the magic.
The film got two votes in Sight and
Sound’s 2002 poll, 11 in 2012. A swift hit in
Japan, it has spread its spell steadily across
the world ever since; a third of a century
after its release, many younger critics have
grown up with it. It’s clearly an antidote to
urbanisation and technology, and a rebuke
to a world of environmental breakdown.
It’s also a comfort and a reassurance that
shows we still have artists who can create
something timeless.
NICK BRADSHAW
 THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 43

La Jetée
CHRIS MARKER / 1962 / FRANCE
POSITION IN 2012: =50 =67
The rare short film in this list, Marker’s dazzling photo montage
ruminates on memory from beyond the apocalypse.

Kiva Reardon Chris Marker said so much about time and memory in this
mid-length film essay that, to this day, it remains a touchstone reference.

Miguel Valverde This circle story of a man marked by an image of his

childhood that is responsible for his travelling to the past only to see his
own death is a photo-roman, a war story, a love story, a science-fiction film, an
architectural construction and a painting of its time. It reveals the history of
our future.

Jane Giles La Jetée is perfection, its mysterious narrative gripping the viewer
with an extraordinarily moving moment of release when the black-and-white
still photographs that comprise the film come to life. Chris Marker proves
that a 30-minute film can be the intellectual and emotional equal of, or even
superior to, the much bigger, longer, more lavish time-trip sci-fi movies that
came in La Jetée’s wake.

The Red Shoes

MICHAEL POWELL & EMERIC PRESSBURGER / 1948 / UK
POSITION IN 2012: 117 =67
The feverish Technicolor and astonishing ballet sequences for which this
film is so renowned are as spellbinding as they are disturbing.

It’s hard to think of many films that

Rebecca Harrison
match The Red Shoes for ferocity and passion,
since in every costume, set, and streak of grease
paint there is desire. Moira Shearer’s performance
as an ambitious ballerina is a tour de force. Jack
Cardiff ’s moody colour work takes on a life of its
own on screen. And the cinematography in the
surreal extended dance sequence is breathtaking.
This film taught me to love melodrama, and to
understand ‘camp’ in new and complex ways.

Andrei Rublev
ANDREI TARKOVSKY / 1966 / USSR
POSITION IN 2012: 27 =67
Tarkovsky ’s epic portrait of a medieval artist may be the most wrenching
depiction of belief, creativity and the search for meaning ever filmed.

Santiago Navajas Among filmmakers, one of the paradigmatic cases of

indomitable entrepreneurial spirit was Andrei Tarkovsky. For each of his films
he had conflicts with the Soviet State Committee for Cinematography, to
the point that, from 1982, his films, which triumphed in festivals around the
world, were no longer screened in the Soviet Union and his name was never
again mentioned in the state-controlled media. Andrei Rublev, especially the
episode entitled ‘The Bell’, can be seen as a hymn to creative freedom; to the
innovator as a window to creativity that opens in societies; and to courage and
risk-taking as two of the fundamental characteristics that anyone who intends
to transform the world must have.
IMAGES: BFI NATIONAL ARCHIVE

Toni Dimkov The hand of man moved

by the hand of God.
44

=67 Metropolis
FRITZ LANG / 1927 / GERMANY
POSITION IN 2012: =36

Lang’s bombastic, stylised depiction of a future of profound inequality has

influenced generations of genre filmmakers.

A revolutionary film in both form

Jason Dorwart
and content.
Meaghan Morris Unrivalled for beauty and visual imagination, this film
is the passage between 19th-century folklore and fairytale, on the one hand,
and a future full of multiple genre possibilities and iffy political questions on
the other.

Andrew Pope Lang’s futuristic, expressionistic, operatic, romantic epic was,

he admitted, politically naive. But the politics are the least of it – the film’s
torrent of incredible and much-imitated imagery, aligned to its wild Freudian
themes, is nothing less than an explosion of pure id on to the screen. Viewed
as such, its absurdity is not a weakness, but a source of great strength. From
its catacombs to its penthouses, Metropolis is the city of dreams.

=67 The Gleaners and I

AGNÈS VARDA / 2000 / FRANCE
POSITION IN 2012: =377

Varda’s essay portrait of society ’s scavenger-recyclers – herself included –

is both free-radical and infectious.

Vlastimir Sudar The Gleaners and I is a reflexive and sagacious revelation

about alternative ways of living being possible, and perhaps already in
practice, but way beyond the radar of any mainstream outlet or point of
view. It is clear that Varda is also a veteran film polymath, capable of crafting
miracles with a small video camera.

Sukhdev Sandhu The first great digital film.

Ariel Baska Agnès Varda’s investigation into the cast-offs and castaways of
society is both brilliantly funny and well-observed in its meta-textual reflection
on the things we reclaim.

Peter Debruge So far, the 21st century has been defined by the
democratisation of filmmaking equipment and the rise of documentary. Leave
it to a veteran like Varda to playfully explore the potential of both.

=66 Touki Bouki

DJIBRIL DIOP MAMBÉTY / 1973 / SENEGAL
POSITION IN 2012: =93

A restless young couple dream of escaping Senegal for Paris in Mambéty ’s

stylish, poetic, irreverent expression of post-colonial fantasies.

Arike Oke Touki Bouki combines comedy, tragedy, road-movie tropes and
criminal glamour into an elegy for youth and disaffection.

Robin Baker Anarchic, surreal, shocking, frenetic…

Touki Bouki’s visual and aural juxtapositions
are simultaneously meditative and troubling.
Andreas Busche Few movies from the 1970s still feel as contemporary as the
(fairy)tale of Mory and Anta: a reimagination of the griot tradition through the
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prism of Jean-Luc Godard and Arthur Penn.

Alonso Díaz de la Vega Every shot is a painting which attempts to recreate

not the world but the experience of watching it with intense devotion.
 THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 45

The Third Man

CAROL REED / 1949 / UK
POSITION IN 2012: =73 =63
Joseph Cotten chases Orson Welles’s agent of corruption through the
ruins of divided post-war Vienna in this evocative classic thriller.

Philip Kemp A film of shrewdly chosen detail, with

even the smallest bit-part perfectly cast. Welles
doesn’t even appear until more than an hour
in and is on screen for barely 15 minutes, but
his spirit dominates the action. It’s aptly set
(and shot) in the shattered city of Vienna, its
professional charm worn perilously thin, its
once grand buildings now shabby and tottering.
Anton Karas’s solo zither score vividly captures
the wheedling, brittle mood of the defeated city.

GoodFellas
MARTIN SCORSESE / 1990 / US
POSITION IN 2012: =171 =63
The dizzying story of wiseguy Henry Hill, from his seduction into a life of
crime to his paranoid, cocaine-fuelled departure.

Jorge Ignacio Castillo Martin Scorsese is at his best when he indulges the
dark side of his artistic sensibilities. In GoodFellas he lets them run amok.

With the grace of an opera and

James Luxford
the brutality of a boxing match, GoodFellas is
one of the great American crime stories.
Ben Stoddart Joe Pesci has never been better or scarier, the late, great Ray
Liotta is a genuine revelation and De Niro is (as he always seemed to be at
that time) superb.

Jane Crowther The narrative flair, the immersive world-building,

that Steadicam shot, the script, the soundtrack… Scorsese at the height of
his powers.

Casablanca
MICHAEL CURTIZ / 1942 / USA
POSITION IN 2012: =84 =63
Ingrid Bergman rallies Humphrey Bogart’s embittered cynic to the anti-
Nazi cause in this classic romance.

Peter Debruge Conventional wisdom holds

that by the early 1940s, the Hollywood
studio system was a well-oiled machine. In
this case, it was as if the Model T assembly
line had produced a Rolls-Royce.
Danielle Solzman Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman put in
performances that would define both of their careers. It was a match made in
heaven. Also, it was a love story doomed from the very beginning.

Clara Bradbury-Rance The first time I remember falling head over heels in
love with film – and with Ingrid Bergman.
46

=60 Daughters of the dust

JULIE DASH / 1991 / USA
NEW ENTRY

The ascension of Julie Dash’s Daughters

of the Dust to recognition as one of the
greatest films of all time hardly comes as
a surprise to Black women moviegoers,
who championed the film from its earliest
screenings and fiercely defended it against
wilful misunderstandings in the decades
that followed. Black women, in whose
image the 1991 feature was directly created,
saw then what is now widely understood:
Dash’s visionary visual marriage between
Julie Dash’s Afrocentric aesthetics and the rich emo-
visionary visual tional depth of Black womanhood is a cin-
marriage ematic triumph.
Daughters rapidly engulfs you with the
between lush, matriarchal world of the Peazant
Afrocentric family, residing in South Carolina’s Sea
aesthetics Islands at the turn of the 20th century.
The fundamental crisis takes shape as the
and the rich women-centred family is split between
emotional migrating north or staying in the South
depth of Black Carolina Lowcountry. Dash’s multi-
layered narrative unfolds by allowing the
womanhood youngest member of the clan, an unborn
is a cinematic child, and the eldest members, the ances-
triumph tors, to weigh in, in an energetic display of
shared narrative.
Through a union of African diasporic
storytelling techniques, visually arrest-
ing imagery (assisted by cinematogra-
pher and co-producer Arthur Jafa) and Dash invites us through their interiority. By refusing a Eurocentric understand-
dynamic character scope, Daughters offers By doing so, we are granted access to ing of African-American identity, Dash’s
a deep reading of how ancestry and the cinematic language of Black women seminal work challenges us all to believe
the depth of Black souls are fractured defining themselves for themselves. in cinema’s creation – and viewing – as an
between a longing for modernity and The film, which recently celebrated its act of communal healing. With this cin-
tending to their roots. As the women 30th anniversary, remains an enduring ematic heirloom leading the way, may we
try to work towards a collective solu- symphony that sings, reframes and reig- all continue to.
tion and honour their individual paths, nites a Black girl’s song. MAYA S. CADE

=60 Moonlight
BARRY JENKINS / 2016 / USA
NEW ENTRY

Instantly heralded as a modern masterpiece, Jenkins’ stunning three-part

story of queer identity is both a technical and an emotional marvel.

Whitney Monaghan Told in three achingly beautiful acts, Moonlight

interrogates what it means to be a Black, gay man growing up in poverty
in America. Jenkins’ moving vision of queer sexuality is compounded by
extraordinary performances from the three actors portraying Chiron.

A work of such rare empathy and

Anna Möt tölä
vision. A transformative experience.
Bilal Qureshi Beautiful, romantic, lush and soul-opening.
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Grace Barber-Plentie It’s both an ode to the filmmakers that Jenkins loves,
like Wong Kar Wai and Claire Denis, and an ushering in of a new kind of
cinema. Film history in the future will be hugely indebted to Moonlight.

Christopher Neilan Longing, heartbreak and beauty in every frame.

 THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 47

La dolce vita
FEDERICO FELLINI / 1960 / ITALY
POSITION IN 2012: =39 =60
Fellini’s ode to Rome presents a lush, vibrant exterior to the swinging city,
before revealing its rotting moral core.

Richard Dyer Socially and historically a landmark film, sensing, influencing

and ambivalently critiquing the role of media, gossip, hedonism and celebrity
in modern culture – but all done with brio, scale and complexity achieved with
an astonishing lightness of touch, utterly confident in itself as cinema.

Sprawling, infuriating, profoundly

Belén Vidal
inventive – a film world populated by beautiful and
sinister creatures that never ceases to surprise.
Charles Bramesco An acrid romp through a demi-monde choking to
death on its own ennui-fuelled excess. We’re all still being deadened by the
same cultural hollowness depicted here, just without any of the glamour,
our present as garish and frightful as that fish on the beach. If you’re gonna
overdose on beauty, you might as well have Anita Ekberg around.

Sans soleil
CHRIS MARKER / 1982 / FRANCE
POSITION IN 2012: =69 59
Marker’s speculative travelogue-essay, reflecting on culture and history in
narrated letters from Guinea to Japan to Iceland.

tony rayns The consummate cine-essay, framed as reportage from a roving

cineaste, built mainly from Marker’s observations of the ‘empire of signs’ that
is modern Japan and the poverty endemic in Guinea Bissau. Entertainingly
provocative speculations on the ‘post-political’ world, haunted by the piano
music of Mussorgsky.

Bruce Jenkins A treatise on travel, on history, on art and on life, Marker’s

film unfolds like an epistolary novel in dialogue with itself. His virtuosity with
the camera is matched by the brilliance of the montage.

Rainer Rother The essay film par excellence.

Sometimes philosophical, sometimes playful,
always intriguing, always surprising.

Blade Runner
RIDLEY SCOTT / 1982 / USA, HONG KONG
POSITION IN 2012: =69 =54
Iconic neo-noir in a befouled sci-fi Los Angeles where humans and their
machine replicas vie to be predators rather than prey.

Nigel AndrewsScience-fiction cinema is transformed

forever in the furnace of production design.
Dario LLINARES Blade Runner distils the iconographies of dystopian science-
fiction and transmogrifies them to produce the blueprint for seemingly
every example of the genre to follow. As we have moved into the digital age
and passed 2019, the year the film is set, Blade Runner’s analogue materiality
now looks thoroughly retro-dystopian. But our deepest anxieties about the
integrity of the self, our technology-constituted experience, environmental
apocalypse and a polarised society in extremis have never felt more relevant.

Andy Lea Lawrence G. Paull’s cityscapes, Jordan Cronenweth’s

cinematography, Vangelis’s electronic score and Rutger Hauer’s soulful
android were all astonishing innovations that redefined movie sci-fi.
48

=54 Le Mépris
JEAN-LUC GODARD / 1963 / FRANCE, ITALY
POSITION IN 2012: =21

Disillusion in love and cinema in Godard’s most opulent and emotive

production, with lovers and film legends at loggerheads in Capri.

David Flint Godard’s finest film is a deeply cynical study of the loss of artistic
integrity and the loss of respect that comes from it, a warning to every artist
who chooses to sell out for financial gain.

The ideal balance between a Godard

Rielle Navitski
work’s self-reflexivity and its penchant for the
elegiac and transcendent. It’s at once a send-up
of the institution of cinema and, somehow, a
meditation on love and art’s profound mysteries.
François Jost The schematic beauty of the colours and the detached acting
of the actors, in contrast to the lyricism of the music, make Le Mépris an
obsessive story.

=54 Sherlock Jr.

BUSTER KEATON / 1924 / US
POSITION IN 2012: =59

Keaton’s would-be sleuth dreams himself into movie-heroic mastery in this

dazzling, evergreen, meta masterpiece of silent comedy.

A clockwork machine of
Paula Feliz-Didier
craftmanship, Sherlock Jr. is Keaton at his best.
Precise gag construction, lots of laughs and
a personal point of view make this film not
only one of the best comedies of all time, but
also an early reflection on the role of cinema
and storytelling in our personal lives.
Steve Seid Few captured the majesty of our cinema dream-life as well as
Buster Keaton. Here, the movie is the movie is the movie. That each of us
could enter and indulge in a redemptive dream life was the tacit promise of the
medium and Buster made good on that promise with pathetic nobility.

=54 Battleship Potemkin

SERGEI EISENSTEIN / 1925 / USSR
POSITION IN 2012: 11

Eisenstein’s renowned agit-drama of proto-revolutionary mutiny and

repression, often quoted but still powerful in its montage effects.

Ian Aitken No other film in the history of cinema has had such a
revolutionary impact.

Historically, Battleship Potemkin is

Eithne O’Neill
unsurpassed in its impact. The perfect blend of
aesthetic and social commitment, of the collective
and the individual, of thought and emotion.
James Leo Cahill A factory for some of the most iconic images in the
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medium’s history, which aim at doing nothing less than obliterating and
reconfiguring our vision of the world and our commitment to transforming it.
Eisenstein equally reveals himself to be a committed sensualist and wit: who
can watch this film and not appreciate its desirous, homoerotic gaze?
 THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 49

The Apartment
BILLY WILDER / 1960 / USA
POSITION IN 2012: =127 =54
Wilder’s then-risqué romcom, with Jack Lemmon and Shirley Maclaine
finding love amid corporate New York ’s sea of sexual deception.

Simon Duffy I’m still not sure if it’s really a romantic comedy or a
heartbreaking film about loneliness. Maybe it’s both…

Helen O’Hara Imagine being as good at anything as Jack Lemmon is for every
second of this tragicomic masterpiece.

This is a movie that will never age.

Ilaria Feole
A painstaking, heartbreaking, perfectly
funny portrait of Western society.
Oris Aigbokhaevbolo Comedy gets short shrift in lists of this kind;
sometimes it looks too easy to create. Billy Wilder made it look easy and yet
you know it was hard. The Apartment has a lot to say about heterosexual love
but manages to say it while commenting on class.

Fear Eats the Soul

RAINER WERNER FASSBINDER / 1974 / WEST GERMANY
POSITION IN 2012: =93 =52
Fassbinder’s heart-on-sleeve melodrama of a doomed romance across
racial and age divides probes social hypocrisy with feeling.

David Morrison Both a wonderful demonstration of how film form

creates meaning – the isolating framing and composition, the deliberately
stiff performance style – and a moving, unusual odd-couple romance that
highlights the hypocrisies and prejudices of society. This reworking of
Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows (1955) manages to be both more
emotionally involving (while somehow remaining detached) and much bleaker
than the original.

Alonso Díaz de la Vega Fear Eats the Soul is a sad, brilliant expression of
Fassbinder’s micropolitics.

No director has deconstructed

Mike Mashon
and rearticulated a genre like Fassbinder
and melodrama.

News from Home

CHANTAL AKERMAN / 1976 / FRANCE, BELGIUM
NEW ENTRY =52
Akerman’s epistolary film, shot in the grime of 70s New York, bridges the
distance from Brussels through dictated letters from her mother.

Kiva Reardon A portrait of a now-gone New

York and, sadly, of Chantal Akerman herself.
News from Home centres on the tension that
occurs when, after yearning for new space, this
sensation gives way to the reality of prolonged
(perhaps even unbridgeable) distance: the
inescapable condition of loneliness.
Andrew Simpson Enveloping, graceful, maudlin and spikily class-conscious.

Sophie Brown Akerman’s legacy is a tender, questioning voice in filmmaking,

peeling back layers of intimate dynamics.
50

=50 choose just one Jane Campion

the piano
film, but The Piano still resonates
JANE CAMPION / 1992 / NEW ZEALAND, AUSTRALIA
POSITION IN 2012: =235

This virtuoso drama of a mute woman’s and her daughter’s silent defiance of patriarchy in 19th-century New Zealand still has searing emotional heft.

Leslie Felperin So hard to Ava Cahen The image of Ada

for me and hits the sweet
spot thanks to an unbeatable
combination of talents, from
Campion herself and the stars to
Michael Nyman’s transcendent
compositions.
Suncica Unevska The Piano is
a film about passion and love for
life, for music, for the essence.
It is about the clash between
form and content, love and
possession, illusion and triviality.
It is about uncompromising will
and the choice to live one’s own
way, at any cost.
(Holly Hunter) on the beach, a
black umbrella in her hand, her
daughter on her lap, her piano
on the sand, is unforgettable.
Every shot in this film evokes
painting. Every image is a shock.
We go through all the emotions:
it is a tortured film, a tale about
emancipation, passion, fantasies.
Anchalee Chaiworaporn
A complex masterpiece full of
cinematic language that reflects
how women’s rights in the world
can be applied to contemporary
society.
Vigen Galstyan Jane Campion
is arguably one of the few
directors who has managed
to engender a new humanist
vision for cinema at the point of
modernity’s decline. Her Piano
is a vaccine that has helped
cinema’s relevance survive well
into the 21st century.
Bruno Oseguera Pizaña
One of the most visceral
film experiences I had as an
11-year-old moviegoer and the
impression has stayed intact.
Hunter’s performance and Stuart
Dryburgh’s cinematography are
something from another world.
Nazmia Jamal
The Piano is a film
Manish Agarwal Oceanic
cinema at its most all-
consuming: a singular, senses-
that springs to stunning wave of eroticism
entwined with tragedy, played
mind every time out on a canvas that demands
I find myself on the biggest screen while
piercing the heart with tiny
a rainy beach or details. You feel something new
with a hole in with each viewing. Campion
is also a pioneer in the field
my tights. Two of showcasing male nudity in
hours of perfect, mainstream film, redressing
a sexist imbalance that has
voluptuous diminished the artform for
repression decades (and continues to do
so). Absolutely wild it didn’t
and desire. make the top 100 in the critics’ or
directors’ poll last time!

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 THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 51

The 400 Blows

FRANÇOIS TRUFFAUT / 1959 / FRANCE
POSITION IN 2012: =39 =50
Truffaut’s free-wheeling debut, with Jean-Pierre Léaud as his rebel-
schoolboy surrogate, is still a banner film for nouvelle vague lyric realism.

Vassilis KroustalLis Respected, revered and taught in the academic

curricula for a long time, the impression of The 400 Blows is one of your elders’
masterpieces you need to bear. Yet the film itself stubbornly defies all such
preconditions, with its audacity, sincerity and the honesty of a kid who doesn’t
want to be treated as a kid; cinema grows up as a result.

LELYA Smolina Simply the greatest coming-of-age

story in film history.
Sukhdev Sandhu Cinema as sanctuary.

Nicola Marzano The 400 Blows is one of the greatest films to ever describe
that angst towards life, family and societal hierarchical structures.

Ordet
CARL THEODOR DREYER / 1955 / DENMARK
POSITION IN 2012: 24 =48
An austere parable on the power of faith, Dreyer’s penultimate film
culminates in a transcendent resurrection scene.

Jonathan Owen This film is the high watermark of spiritual or

transcendental cinema. Strangely atmospheric and exceptionally intense,
Ordet ’s discomforting meditation on the nature of real faith is served by
Dreyer’s masterful handling of camerawork, staging, physical detail and
sound, and builds to a climax that is arguably the most astonishing and
moving in all cinema.

Kevin B. Lee It’s hard to think of another film that more exquisitely captures
the perpetual heartbreak of being among other people, the distances of
understanding that linger in the spaces between figures in a single shot.
It literally takes a miracle to bring them together: a miracle made possible
through cinema.

Marco Müller Mise en scène as miracle.

Wanda
BARBARA LODEN / 1970 / USA
POSITION IN 2012: =202 =48
Barbara Loden’s tough, unsentimental portrait of a woman adrift in the
industrial heartlands of the north-eastern United States.

Savina Petkova How can a woman ever afford to

be both wayward and astray? Wanda showed
us how it’s done without telling us why (or
why not). Loden’s crisp sensitivity and sudden
spikes of ambivalence are immortalised in her
debut, and only, feature film as a director.
Becca Voelcker Flies in the face of the generic American road movie’s petro-
capitalist and patriarchal fantasies.

Anna Backman Rogers Quite simply, there is nothing else like this film.
52

=45 Barry Lyndon

STANLEY KUBRICK / 1975 / UK, USA
POSITION IN 2012: =59

Stanley Kubrick ’s meticulously designed epic recounts the picaresque

exploits of an 18th-century Irish adventurer.

Lelya Smolina Sublime and elusive, Barry Lyndon is Kubrick’s most sad,
mysterious and misleading work – flickering like the candlelight by which
some of it was famously lit.

Mournful, funny and exquisitely

Sean Hogan
beautiful, the film that puts the lie to the
notion of Kubrick being cold and unfeeling.
Michal Kriz In Kubrick’s opulent presentation, Thackeray’s opportunist is
not only a still-living caricature of many of us, but also, above all, a merciless
image of a society based on innate and hereditary superiority.

Michel Lipkes The most beautiful film about the triumph of human ambition
and then its decadence, made by cinema’s mightiest hermit.

=45 The Battle of Algiers

GILLO PONTECORVO / 1966 / ITALY, ALGERIA
POSITION IN 2012: =48

A window on Algeria’s wider liberation war, recreating a violent phase of

guerrilla struggle and suppression in powerful free-documentary style.

Unquestionably the greatest political

Michael Brooke
film ever made, and by such a wide margin that it’s
hard to think of an obvious runner-up. Riveting
as a suspense thriller and rigorously clear-eyed
in its presentation of atrocities committed by
both sides. It’s uncannily relevant to this day in its
forensically detailed explanation not merely of the
reasons why Western occupation of the Middle
East is always doomed to failure but also exactly
how terrorist cells operate, both then and now.

=45 North by Northwest

ALFRED HITCHCOCK / 1959 / USA
POSITION IN 2012: =53

Insouciant big-screen thrill-games from the Master of Suspense, hounding

Cary Grant’s smug adman across a continent’s span of peerless set pieces.

Lucy Bolton Brilliant performances by Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James
Mason and Martin Landau, stunning set pieces, a riveting mistaken identity
tale and a beautiful soundtrack – this is an absolute classic that always feels
fresh and exciting.

As well-directed as Vertigo, as tense

Jacob Stolworthy
as Rear Window and as thrilling as anything
that’s ever been released. A masterclass of
concise writing, too – there’s nothing here that
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could be shaved off to make the film any better.

James Healy Cary Grant is at his urbane best in a tale that effortlessly blends
menace with romance and sly humour.

killer of sheep
CHARLES BURNETT / 1977 / USA
POSITION IN 2012: =202
It’s hard to believe there was a time when
Killer of Sheep wasn’t widely recognised as a
canonical work. The operative word how-
ever, is ‘widely’: it got great reviews from its
premiere in 1978. So why the recognition
gap? In some ways the story parallels the
film itself: it lacked the cultural privileges
of other contemporary productions. Killer
of Sheep was made on a shoestring while its
writer/director Charles Burnett was a stu-
dent at UCLA, studying under luminaries
including Basil Wright and Elyseo Taylor.
Despite Hollywood’s looming presence,
Burnett found inspiration in the Italian
neorealist films he saw in class and, defying
expectations, adapted the department’s
resources to tell tales of an undocumented
America: everyday lives among the Black
community he knew in east Los Angeles.
But just as the film’s subjects were in a
sense ghettoised, so was the film. Without
funds, music rights couldn’t be cleared, and
for decades, despite being lauded, the film
was known only on the margins. I first saw
it in a poor 16mm print in the mid-1980s:
the only way it could be seen at the time.
The picture was soft, the dialogue muffled,
leaving me with the memory of a feeling as
much as anything. It wasn’t until I restored
the film for the UCLA Film & Television
Archive in the early 2000s – when improved
lab techniques allowed Burnett’s brilliant
photography and dialogue to emerge – that
I realised its genius. The visionary team at
Milestone Films agreed, going through
Herculean battles to clear music rights,
and launching its first international 35mm
release in 2007, 30 years after completion.
THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 53
Without funds,
=43
Suddenly, audiences across the world
saw scenes that have since been etched in
collective memory: children filmed from
below as they leap across the gap between
tenement rooftops; a hard-won car engine
music rights teetering precariously on the edge of a
couldn’t be departing truck; the sad lonely dance of
slaughterhouse worker Henry Sanders and
cleared, and for his wife, Kaycee Moore.
decades, despite After the film had been restored, I was
being lauded, occasionally fortunate enough to present
the film with Charles in attendance, and
the film was would introduce him not as one of Amer-
known only on ica’s “great Black directors” but rather as
the margins one of the “great American directors”.
Now I think it’s probably time to omit the
limiting descriptor ‘American’ as well: he’s
simply one of the world’s great directors.
ROSS LIPMAN
54

=43 Stalker
ANDREI TARKOVSKY / 1979 / USSR
POSITION IN 2012: =29

Two men recruit a guide to take them into ‘the Zone’, a mysterious realm
where one’s innermost wishes come true, in this metaphysical sci-fi epic.

David Heslin The film that has most insistently found its way into my dreams.
That lengthy trolley-car ride early on is like a ferry across the River Styx, or the
moment in sleep between the real world blurring away and the appearance of
the counterfeit images that our brains manifest. Only a director like Tarkovsky
could take this mysterious, slumbering landscape and fill it with metaphysical
currents; the result is that every pebble, blade of grass, bridge and power line
seem like the fingers and toes of a sleeping giant.

A masterwork of pacing,
Akira Mizuta LipPit
elemental precision and breathtaking patience.
One of the most beautiful films ever made.
Andreas Kilb I know of no better film about the human soul.

=41 Rashomon
KUROSAWA AKIRA / 1950 / JAPAN
POSITION IN 2012: =24

The film that brought Japanese cinema to the world, this 88-minute
firecracker proved a seminal assault on the notion of objectivity.

Ranjita Biswas What is the truth – the perceived, or the real? What is
justice? And who decides? A story of a murder told from four different
angles by four different people asks troubling questions of us.

Johannes Lõhmus Probably the greatest testament

to what film as an artform can do.
Rahul Desai A film that single-handedly changed the way we perceive
storytelling, its relationship with the visual medium and the narrative language
of cinema itself. This is where the movies’ long love affair with the grammar of
time started.

Vigen Galstyan It’s hard to think of a more perfect film about the focal role
of storytelling in the construction of human society.

=41 Bicycle Thieves

VITTORIO DE SICA / 1948 / ITALY
POSITION IN 2012: 33

The film that topped our inaugural poll in 1952, De Sica’s indelible
neorealist parable offers a sharp-eyed portrait of Italy ’s post-war privations.

Nico Marzano Bicycle Thieves not only embodies both aesthetically and
politically the most important features of the Italian neorealist movement but
also, with De Sica’s use of non-professional actors, social engagement and firm
roots in the fabric of society, paved the way for hybridity in film and therefore
the so-called ‘cinema of the real’.
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Kaya Genç This painfully beautiful chronicle of life in post-World War II

Rome salvages views of rundown streets, poverty and injustice with such
precision and simplicity that the emotional punch of the finale is unparalleled.

The gold standard for all

Andrei Liimets
human films about inequality.
 THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 55

Rear Window
ALFRED HITCHCOCK / 1954 / USA
POSITION IN 2012: =53 =38
The Master of Suspense ratchets up the tension while dishing out insights
into obsession, urban living and the dangers of the gaze.

Karan Bali Few filmmakers can tap into our dark and perverse sides as
Alfred Hitchcock can. In Rear Window he opens the shutters of our voyeuristic
tendencies as we follow a photographer, wheelchair-bound from an injury,
who gets his kicks from peeping into other people’s apartments. Fantastic
lensing and brilliant use of image-sizing in the POV shots come together in a
witty, romantic and sexy edge-of-the seat thriller that sees the director at his
very best.

András Bálint Kovács This film is an everlasting masterclass in how to

develop an emotional conflict within a murder investigation thriller. The
main story is hidden in several supporting subplots; many viewers do not
even recognise them and still they feel thrilled and engaged. The film is full of
psychological finesse.

Jorge Ignacio Castillo The perfect movie: it works as a romantic drama, as

a thriller and as a comedy. It’s Hitchcock at his finest.

Some Like It Hot

BILLY WILDER / 1959 / USA
POSITION IN 2012: =43 =38
Wilder’s supreme gender-bending comedy has Lemmon and Curtis as
female-posing musicians on the lam, and many knickers in a twist.

Alan Jones Sensationally funny, one of the best scripts ever, Marilyn Monroe
at the peak of her incandescence, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon beyond
brilliant in drag and some great songs. How can anyone not love this?

Guy Lodge I was about to write about the richly coded and deceptively
generous queerness of Billy Wilder’s immortal cross-dressing comedy, but I
also shouldn’t overcomplicate things: it’s here because it has always made me
laugh like nothing else, and still does.

Fabio Troncarelli Nobody’s perfect. Nobody but

Billy Wilder.
Barbara Schweizerhof Comedies are always underrated in this poll. This
is a masterpiece of its genre, one of the funniest films ever made. Wonderful
actors, wonderful tempo, wonderful dialogue.

À bout de souffle
JEAN-LUC GODARD / 1960 / FRANCE
POSITION IN 2012: 13 =38
Godard’s cock-of-the-walk calling card, mixing pulp pastiche and upstart
rebellion with Belmondo’s footloose Parisian delinquent.

The moment when cinema and

Katie Rife
cinephilia first consummated their marriage.
Two becoming one. Amen.
Mustapha Benfodil The plot may suggest a classic thriller – a story of
gangsters and a toxic passion between a criminal (Jean-Paul Belmondo) and an
American student in Paris (Jean Seberg) – but the form is just revolutionary.
The narration, the editing, the dialogue, the way the shooting interacts with
the city and the people of Paris, all its spontaneity and improvisation: it
prefigured a new cinema, movies as manifesto.

András Bálint Kovács This masterpiece of modern French cinema liberated

filmmakers from a lot of constraints and began a new era of playfulness.
Without it, cinema today would not be what it is.
56

=36 M
FRITZ LANG / 1931 / GERMANY
POSITION IN 2012: 56

Lang’s rack-taut first talkie, with a searing, animalistic Peter Lorre as a

serial child-murderer turned manhunt target.

Andreas Kilb The greatest of the early talkies.

Miquel Escudero Diéguez M is a dark symphony about Berlin at the dawn
of the 20s. A whole era is reflected on the face of one man – a man suffering
from “a social evil”, as Lang would say. Hans Beckert, the character played
by Peter Lorre, meets the fury of the crowd; they are about to lynch him. But
Lang is always on the side of those who try to understand human behaviour.

Giulio Casadei A film that interrogates the complex, ambiguous nature of the
human soul and notions of law and justice, with a mise en scène of rare stylistic
perfection that combines German expressionism with the absolute power of
offscreen and sound.

Zhang Ling A lively, important work from the early sound era, its ingenious
use of audio technique is still worth examining today.

=36 City lights

CHARLIE CHAPLIN / 1931 / USA
POSITION IN 2012: =50

A purely beautiful outing from the Tramp, this delightful urban romance
features one of cinema’s most heartbreaking smiles.

Pablo Villaça The balance between humour and drama that’s so effective
in Chaplin’s work has its roots not just in his undoubted talent but in the
real sympathy he felt for characters on the fringes of society. He saw rich
dramaturgical material in the dreams, love, disappointments and pains of such
people, but he never lost sight of the humanity and complexity of a stratum
of society often defined in fiction more by its financial conditions than by its
wellsprings of individuality and sensitivity. City Lights is, in those respects, the
best example of his best traits.

One of the most beautiful

Miquel Escudero Diéguez
films about seeing (and being seen).
Courtney Howard Chaplin’s romcom embodies all the magic and power of
cinema; it’s both awe-inducing and ‘aww’-inducing. The emotional drive of the
narrative and the creativity of its slapstick continue to inspire filmmakers.

=35 Pather Panchali

SATYAJIT RAY / 1955 / INDIA
POSITION IN 2012: =41

All the mischief, discoveries, joys and tragedies of life are given endlessly
lyrical expression in Ray ’s debut, the first entry in ‘ The Apu Trilogy ’.

Sukhdev Sandhu Here is a cinema of awakenings.

Khalid Mohamed A tour de force of humanist cinema, looking at a rural
family which faces tragedies as well as stolen moments of happiness and
togetherness. The influence of Jean Renoir, coupled with a fierce originality in
its black-and-white visuals, still mark it out as the best Indian film ever made –
and all achieved at a negligible budget.

Shubhra Gupta Ray’s classic was hailed internationally as a realist

masterpiece but dismissed in India by some eminent citizens (who should
have known better) as a film that did nothing but highlight Indian poverty for
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Western eyes. Looking at it today, you marvel at what Ray pulled off. He had a
great sense of design and space, but to have created a film whose every frame
captures time and place with such elegance and depth still takes you aback. To
me, it is Indian cinema’s first truly modern film, at home in the world.
 THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 57

L’Atalante
JEAN VIGO / 1934 / FRANCE
POSITION IN 2012: 12 =34
Vigo’s headily poetic portrait of young newlyweds on – and off – Michel
Simon’s barge on the Seine.

Imogen Sara Smith No one achieved more in less time

than Jean Vigo – how would the history of cinema
be different if he had lived past 29? L’Atalante
remains raw, strange, radical and singular. You
don’t watch it so much as you are immersed in
it, swimming through visions like the lovesick
barge captain when he plunges into the river in
search of his lost bride. No film embodies more
fully and purely the inherent fluidity, surrealism,
realism, eroticism and ghostliness of cinema.

Psycho
ALFRED HITCHCOCK / 1960 / USA
POSITION IN 2012: =34 =31
Hitchcock ’s unsparing wrong-motel shocker starring Janet Leigh is a
watershed for mainstream horror and still seminal in its suspense games.

A Hollywood movie that breaks rules

Ben Roberts
from the first scene but exists entirely to
entertain. Give the audience what they don’t
know they want.
Jai arjun Singh The film that set me on the path to reading about cinema,
thinking about it in ways I had never done before.

Ava Cahen One of Hitchcock’s most intriguing films, Psycho is a double

portrait of a young woman on the run and a disturbed young man whose
sexual impulses turn into murderous ones. The shower scene immediately
comes to mind: the editing, the knife, the music, the lifeless eye of the heroine,
the blood mixing with the water. It’s a truly terrifying sequence, even today.

8½
FEDERICO FELLINI / 1963 / ITALY, FRANCE
POSITION IN 2012: 10 =31
Fellini’s portrait of the film director as harried ringmaster and unreliable
dreamer, spinning gold from his memories and fantasies.

Carlos Alberto Mattos 8½ is a synthesis of modern cinema in terms of

narrative invention and reflexivity. The filmmaker’s crisis allows for a glimpse
of the doubts, weaknesses and ghosts involved in the creative process, calling
into question the idea of an omniscient author secure in their métier. Fellini
also develops a penetrating study of the artist’s psychology, projecting it on
to his alter ego, played by Marcello Mastroianni. The film condenses several
elements typical of the Fellinian universe, such as mass communication, the
circus, the game of affections and the artificial world provided by art.

Bina Paul Venugopal The best film about

filmmaking ever made.
Mustapha Benfodil The character of Guido Anselmi (Mastroianni) is the
perfect incarnation of the artist devoured by his demons, alone and helpless in
front of his artwork.
58

=31 Mirror
ANDREI TARKOVSKY / 1975 / USSR
POSITION IN 2012: 19

Cinema scaled new heights of visual poetry in this deeply personal,

elliptical film by the master of ‘sculpting in time’.

Barbara Schweizerhof You’d think Mirror might be a

heavy, intellectual film, but it is direct, even basic:
remembering, childhood, loss, speculation…
It talks to people not through words, but
through images and emotions. Wonderfully shot
and composed, it contains some of the most
spectacular imagery ever captured on screen.
Hauvick Habéchian A great reflection on Russian history through the eyes
of Tarkovsky. Non-linear storytelling, dreamlike sequences, historical footage
and much more… All this put together through amazing editing, influenced by
shattered memories.

=30 Portrait of a
Lady on Fire
Portrait of a lady on fire
CÉLINE SCIAMMA / 2019 / FRANCE
NEW ENTRY

The eruption of Céline Sciamma’s Portrait

of a Lady on Fire at 30th place, the highest
new entry in the poll, mirrors the mete-
demonstrates oric rise of a director who had just begun
her career at the time of the last poll. Her
Sciamma’s first three films, Water Lilies (2007), Tomboy
ability to make (2011) and Girlhood (2014), did much to
a timelessly redefine coming-of-age narratives, open-
ing new horizons on youth and queer
beautiful desire while manifesting a coherent stylis-
film that also tic vision, characterised notably by pared-
crystallises the down visuals. As a result, Sciamma, an
alumna of the prestigious Paris film school
gender politics La Fémis, swiftly rose to the pantheon of
of her era French auteur cinema (she scripts all her
films). Unusually in the French context,
she adroitly coordinated this cinephile
pedigree with her lesbian identity and
strongly articulated political – including
feminist – positions.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire brought Sciam-
ma’s work and status to another level. Her
first costume film, set on a remote Breton
island in the late 18th century, charts in a
series of exquisite tableaux the intense
passion between two women, a painter,
Marianne (Noémie Merlant), and her
model Héloïse (Adèle Haenel). Héloïse rejects a hierarchical vision of desire and as the perfect illustration of the female
is to be married against her will to a rich in the process updates the relationship gaze, a concept newly ‘discovered’ in a
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man on the strength of the portrait. After
initial resistance on both women’s parts,
the painting becomes the conductor for
their love for each other.
In Portrait, Sciamma fights patriarchal
oppression first of all by creating a uto-
pian, if temporary, all-women’s world.
More fundamentally, the relationship
between the two women develops as one
of reciprocity and equality. The film thus
between artist and model and the fetish-
ised figure of the ‘muse’. Portrait’s egali-
tarian ethos evidently echoes Sciamma’s
own commitment – among other things
she is deeply involved in the Collectif
50/50, which fights for gender equality
in the French film industry. But the film
resonated with the ambient culture in
other ways. When it came out in France
in the autumn of 2019, Portrait appeared
country that was still coming to terms,
only slowly, with the aftermath of the
#MeToo movement, about which both
Sciamma and Haenel (formerly a couple)
spoke out in various contexts. Portrait of
a Lady on Fire demonstrates Sciamma’s
ability to make a timelessly beautiful film
that also crystallises the gender politics
of her era.
GINET TE VINCENDEAU
 THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 59

Taxi Driver
MARTIN SCORSESE / 1976 / USA
POSITION IN 2012: =31 =29
Scorsese and Schrader’s high-art vigilante movie for fallen times, with a
coiled De Niro as psycho-saviour of an infernal NYC.

Political conspiracy, violence

Roger Luckhurst
and queasy comedy – as fresh as it ever was.
Mustapha Benfodil Following this cracked taxi driver through his nocturnal
wanderings, we also follow his dark thoughts. In the maze of the city swarm so
many lost and lonely souls exactly like our paranoiac protagonist – struggling
for a kind of justice and running madly for an unreachable inner peace.

Kevin Wynter The modern template for post-war disillusionment and

the brittle masculinities it produces. Setting the film in New York was a
masterstroke: watching Bickle struggle to reintegrate into a city that seems in
moral, spiritual freefall itself only makes his own predicaments all the sadder.

Marten Blomkvist A vivid love/hate letter to the history of American film.

Daisies
VĚRA CHYTILOVÁ / 1966 / CZECHOSLOVAKIA
POSITION IN 2012: =202 =28
This feminist milestone is an anarchic comedy of subversion whose
approach to montage is as exuberant as the film’s two protagonists.

Dorota LechReleased two years before the 1968

Prague Spring, Věra Chytilová’s second feature
follows the misadventures of two young
women who decide to mirror the indulgent
world around them. In their universe, nothing
traditional is sacred: food, clothes, men and
war become both ammunition and subject of
their pranks. This provocative and timeless gem
is a surrealist fever dream and begs the viewer
to open their eyes to what is sacred to them.

Shoah
CLAUDE LANZMANN / 1985 / FRANCE
POSITION IN 2012: =29 =27
To make sense of the 20th century ’s most horrific atrocity, Lanzmann
reinvented documentary itself, giving the form colossal new significance.

Catherine Portuges Lanzmann’s monumental nine-and-a-half-hour

investigation into the extermination of the Jews in World War II famously
includes no archival footage, a controversial decision by the director that
continues to reverberate in debates on documentary practice and film ethics
more broadly. Lanzmann did not consider the film to be, strictly speaking, a
Holocaust documentary, but rather an assemblage of first-person testimonies
by survivors, witnesses and former members of the Nazi Party. As such, it is
one of the most important cinematic contributions of all time. The insistent
and pervasive presence of the past in the present, nowhere more visible than in
contemporary European and, for that matter, global conflicts, bears eloquent
witness to Lanzmann’s timeless and visionary achievement.

James Harrison I’m still in awe of what Lanzmann and his team were
able to achieve: to show us the sheer evil that can be found within humanity.
Constantly, slowly but surely, it punches you in the face again and again.
60

=25 The Night of the Hunter

CHARLES LAUGHTON / 1955 / USA
POSITION IN 2012: =63

Actor Charles Laughton’s only film as director, starring Robert Mitchum

as an implacable child-hunting preacher, still leaves an indelible mark.

Gemma Files A mystical slice of Americana noir, this fable about the innate
unreliability of adults and the tragic spectrum of human nature sticks in the
memory like a stone in the craw. “It’s a hard world for the little things.”

The Night of the Hunter knows

Pedro Adrián Zuluaga
just how unsettling the perversion of innocence
can be, building on this premise to create a
poisoned fairytale. With his only film, Laughton
set out to film fear, and he succeeded.
Ruth Barton Robert Mitchum was the master of the languid gaze, a couldn’t-
care-less attitude that, in Laughton’s hands, made the allure of evil totally
understandable. Shelley Winters’ Willa might have been a foolish woman
for falling under the spell of the preacher with ‘love’ and ‘hate’ tattooed on
his knuckles, but he offered her something otherwise unimaginable in her
small Depression-era West Virginian town. Laughton’s masterpiece was
immediately dismissed by audience and critics alike: its visual compositions
led it to be suspected of artistry, while its refusal to conform to genre was
box-office death. The dreamlike sequences of the children’s escape down the
river viewed through an enormous spider’s web contrasted with the angular
shadows of the light falling into their room, and all pathways lead to Lillian
Gish’s final appearance, cradling a gun on the veranda as she waits, singing
hymns, for Mitchum to come for his prey.

James Swanton Laughton’s career-length frustrations at cinema’s expressive

limitations are here redeemed. A journey through the heart of darkness, in
which heart and dark have equal weight – just as in Laughton’s acting.

=25 Au hasard Balthazar

ROBERT BRESSON / 1966 / FRANCE, SWEDEN
POSITION IN 2012: 16

Bresson gave us a typically stark vision of humanity as experienced by a

put-upon, maltreated beast of burden that passes from owner to owner.

Barbara Creed Bresson’s minimalist masterpiece brings to life with

unequalled power the story of an abused donkey whose depth of
suffering illuminates the cruelty of the human world towards other
species and humanity’s unexamined belief in its own superiority.

Barrett Hodsdon The reverse of Disneyfication: a parable of animal

sacrifice and the price of human foibles.

Kaya GencRobert Bresson drafted the rules of a new

cinema and realised them in Au hasard Balthazar,
his masterpiece. This seemingly aloof, cold
film, inspired by a passage in Dostoevsky’s 1868
novel The Idiot, burns with a yearning for justice
and beauty. Bresson’s disciplined portraiture
of a donkey and the way of life in the French
countryside is a lesson in seeing the world anew
through the cinema and noticing the potential that
endeavour contains.
Flavia Dima Few have changed the face of cinema like Bresson, proposing a
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wholly new understanding of cinematic time, performance, découpage and the

fiction/nonfiction dichotomy. Au hasard Balthazar is the finest work to have
ever shifted from the human to the non-human and back again.

Massimo Causo Bresson’s stillness is a limpid and natural act of

consciousness in front of an impassive world. He stands at the heart of cinema.
 THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 61

Do the Right Thing

SPIKE LEE / 1989 / USA
POSITION IN 2012: =127 =24
Racial tensions reach boiling point in Lee’s incandescent portrait of a
Brooklyn neighbourhood on the hottest day of the year.

Helen DeWitt Spike Lee developed a street-smart cinematic language to

create this vibrant portrait of a Brooklyn community. It digs deep into the
structure and operation of racism and reveals the complexities and conflicts of
African-American life. An ingenious film whose subject is regrettably still so
relevant today.

Corrina Antrobus A piercing observation of how communities mix, blend

and burn under pressure. Spike Lee’s unchallenged style is at its sharpest and
most riveting right here.

Forrest CardamenisDo the Right Thing is a film

about who gets to see themselves represented in
public spaces (and under what conditions), so
it is a fitting movie to include here amid all the
unending debates about canon formulation.
Gemma Gracewood A turning point for cinematic voice.

Ashanti Omkar Films like this serve a purpose, to enlighten people and open
their minds. ‘Fight the Power’ caught my ears and I delved deeper into the
Black culture I felt rooted to, Nigeria being as much a part of my formative
years as England was. As an adult, I visited Brooklyn, and Martin Luther
King Jr and Malcolm X’s ideas resonated with me: they had been fighting for
a cause similar to those my people, the Tamils, fought for with such brutality,
in the north of Sri Lanka, in the face of genocide. In the 1983 riots in Colombo,
our family home was burned to a crisp. Films like Do the Right Thing, which
hold a mirror to real violence in race-induced wars, touch my heartstrings.

Playtime
JACQUES TATI / 1967 / FRANCE, ITALY
POSITION IN 2012: 43 =23
Jacques Tati’s most painstaking accomplishment blends deft slapstick,
endless visual ingenuity and sonic comedy in a stupendous modern satire.

Tati’s ruinously ambitious

Imogen Sara Smith
masterpiece starts as a satire of modern
architecture and becomes a strangely
beatific celebration of the way people move
through public spaces. A film about minor
embarrassments and fleeting connections
between strangers, it begins in alienation and
builds to a transcendent vision of communal
harmony. Gruelling labour went into each
seemingly effortless grace note, as Tati the
performer drifts in aimless bewilderment through
the world that Tati the director obsessively
controls. In Playtime, the movie screen is an
idealised public space in which Tati’s people
demonstrate the joys of being one-dimensional.
Cristina Formenti There are plenty of films that offer a critique of
technology and modernity. Yet, with his distinctive, meticulous mise
en scène, which exploits depth of field in an unparalleled way, and his
peculiar ‘downgrading’ of dialogue to a sound like any other, boosting the
communicative role of the image, Tati does so in a unique and radical fashion.

Jai Arjun Singh One of the most ambitious films ever made.
62

=21 Late Spring

OZU YASUJIRŌ / 1949 / JAPAN
POSITION IN 2012: 15

The first of Ozu’s great cycle of dramas that place the joys and sadnesses
of family life in the context of a Japan disrupted by modernity.

Ruth Barton Is this my favourite of the works of the great minimalist Ozu?
You can summarise the plot of Late Spring in a couple of lines: the professor
(Chishū Ryū) lives happily with his daughter Noriko; her aunt announces
Noriko must marry before she is too old; the professor pretends he will marry
so Noriko will not feel guilty about leaving him on his own. She marries. Even
this is enough to understand that Ozu’s preoccupation with the precarity of
happiness frames his greatest works. Just a glance – the professor’s at Mrs
Miwa (Miyake Kuniko) during the Noh performance he attends with Noriko
(Hara Setsuko) – is enough for a swirl of connections to run through Noriko’s
mind. Ozu, who insisted on working over and over again with the same actors,
knows that he need do nothing other than let his camera rest on Hara’s face
and the slightest change of expression will tell us more than any words.

John Powers I’m always startled when Tokyo Story (1953) gets named the
‘greatest Asian film’ when Ozu himself made one that strikes me as better –
briefer, richer and more profoundly moving.

Ty Burr If I could pack Late Spring, Tokyo Story and Good Morning (1959) into
one No. 1 spot, I would, but the first is the one I keep coming back to – it
seems to hover so closely to the rhythms and regrets of ordinary life.

Nandana Bose Deeply poignant and tender, yet restrained, dignified, almost
stoic, it is narrated in Ozu’s typically minimalist style. Although it is difficult
to pick just one from his extraordinary body of work, Late Spring was my first
encounter with Ozu.

Sam Ho A search for the balance between the part and the whole, at once
profoundly sad and upliftingly heartwarming.

=21 The Passion of Joan of Arc

CARL THEODOR DREYER / 1928 / FRANCE
POSITION IN 2012: 9

Dreyer’s rapturous silent masterpiece, with soulful close-ups of

Falconetti’s tremulous martyr, transcending tyranny and temporality.

Kaya Genc Renée Falconetti gives the most impressive performance ever
recorded on film in this silent classic. Carl Theodor Dreyer expanded the
potential of the close-up in this chronicle of Joan of Arc’s trial and execution.
This “hymn to the triumph of the soul over life”, as Dreyer called it, re-emerges
in Vivre sa vie (1962), Jean-Luc Godard’s masterpiece, in which a devastated
Anna Karina watches Joan’s pains in a film theatre and cries with her.

Guy Lodge I think it’s in the last decade that Dreyer’s somehow rapturously
austere work of historical cinema shifted from being a film that enthralled
me as a scholar to one that fully involved and moved me as a viewer – and of
course, finally seeing it in an enveloping cinema environment, rather than a
university lecture theatre or my own living room, was the instigating factor.
You don’t absolutely need to see every crisply restored pore on Falconetti’s
extraordinary face to viscerally feel her pain, but it certainly doesn’t hurt.

Anton Dolin Simply the best (silent) film about (silent) resistance.

michael phillips A dream and a nightmare of spiritual ecstasy. Dreyer and

his design collaborators create an amalgam of the 14th and 20th centuries,
and somehow reach into the future with every stroke. Renée Falconetti’s
performance: incomparable, unbeatable, anguished and enough to make an
atheist think things over.

Anne Gjelsvik A quote from Jean Epstein’s 1921 essay ‘Magnification’ is

relevant here: “The close-up is an intensifying agent because of its size alone…
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whatever its numerical value, this magnification acts on one’s feelings more
to transform than to confirm them, and personally, it makes me uneasy… The
close-up modifies the drama by the impact of proximity. Pain is within reach.
If I stretch out my arm I touch you, and that is intimacy. I can count the
eyelashes of this suffering. I would be able to taste the tears.”

Seven Samurai
KUROSAWA AKIRA / 1954 / JAPAN
POSITION IN 2012: =17
Kurosawa’s monumental, scintillating tale of hired samurai protecting a peasant village: period thriller and moral/political fable in one.
Susan Napier So ambitious
and successful in its ambition
that it seems to embody the
most exciting aspects of the
cinematic medium: epic sweep,
not of place but of classes, from
samurai to peasant to bandit to
outsider; stunning photography
that recreates 16th-century
Japan, from its beautiful heights
(the flower-picking scene) to
its muddy depths (the final,
agonising battle); wonderful
performances, not only by
Mifune Toshirō as the intense
outsider who yearns to be a
samurai, but also by Shimura
Takashi as the samurai’s canny,
world-weary leader and the fine-
featured Miyaguchi Seiji, whom
I refer to as Cool Old Guy. And
with a moving, indeed shattering
finale that suggests the sorrow
of war both on the personal and
on the historical side.
Peter Debruge My list is light
on epics, in part because depth
of character impresses me more
than scope. But Kurosawa gives
us both.
Mårten Blomkvist Exciting
and moving, its handling of
characters and story makes it
maybe the best film school that
cinema has to offer.
Leigh Singer When I was a kid,
I watched an episode of the TV
programme Movie Masterclass
(1988), presented by Mamoun
Hassan, that analysed this film’s
framing, movement and editing,
scene by scene. It blew my
mind. Decades on, Kurosawa’s
dynamism still leads the way.
Ian Nathan Because Kurosawa
transcended action cinema
even as he invented it. Because
he made it rain and rain. And
because of his gaggle of oh-
so-human heroes: Shimura,
Inaba, Katō, Miyaguchi, Chiaki,
Kimura – and Mifune Toshirō
like a cat on a hotplate.
Peggy Chiao Seven Samurai
reminds us how moving
pictures move. The whole film
celebrates thrilling energy with
compassion and empathy for the
underprivileged.
Katie Smith-Wong The
intricacy, ferocity and poignancy
of Seven Samurai enable it to
define a genre.
JOan Mellen Kurosawa is
Eisenstein’s principal heir and
the genius of Japanese cinema.
THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 63
Andrei Liimets
20
Richard Propes Sixty-
eight years after its release,
The eastern to Kurosawa’s masterpiece still
top all westerns. defines everything that I want
an action film to possess – a
Kurosawa’s meaningful story with deep
absolute highlight characterisations, beautiful shots
and purposeful action, and a
and a film to be rhythm that immerses me in its
studied in terms every moment. There are very
few action films that achieve
of blending the this tapestry and Seven Samurai
exterior and the remains the best of them all.
interior, the grand Tambay Obenson Kurosawa’s
and the small, the samurai epic marked a peak
in the influential Japanese
there-and-then filmmaker’s most critically
and the timeless. appreciated period. Together
with star Mifune Toshirō, theirs
was a collaboration which
produced 17 years of films that
belong in any catalogue of the
greatest films ever made.
James Harrison Where would
cinema be without Kurosawa
Akira?
64
19
Adrian Wootton This raw,
ragged Vietnam War epic
Apocalypse Now
FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA / 1979 / USA
POSITION IN 2012: 14
Coppola’s Vietnam War blowout, a hell-trip through the smoke and dazzle of imperial America’s most grandstanding rogue show.
remains Coppola’s most
ambitious and original work. It
doesn’t have the classical poise of
The Godfather (1972) but offers so
much more in its impressionistic,
wild-ride, river-road-movie
journey, a post-60s version of
Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of
Darkness (1899). The set pieces,
music and performances are
exemplary. This is haunting,
ravishing cinema on a rare size
and scale.
Pablo Scholz Apocalypse Now is
cinema in its purest form.
Nico Marzano With innovative
sound design by the three-
time Oscar-winning genius
Walter Murch, Apocalypse Now
tells the story of a journey
into the Cambodian jungle by
US Special Forces Captain
Willard (Martin Sheen). His
mental and physical mission,
to “terminate” the dangerously
lawless Colonel Kurtz, who
has set himself up as the god of
a local tribe, soon becomes a
process of self-discovery, ending
with an outstanding, memorable
performance from Marlon
Brando.
Christian Monggaard The
insanity of war has seldom been
portrayed so vividly.
Mohammed Rouda This is
a film about the hell of war
and the lost meaning of glory
through that journey into
the abyss. It’s about agony,
misery and the fall of concepts,
principles and ideals. All this is
achieved with such visual and
poetic power. Each sequence
speaks volumes on the human
(or rather inhuman) condition,
through the main character and
all who surround him. These
sequences are not necessarily
present to develop the story, but
to give the audience samples and
examples of what it’s all about to
be in hell.
Emily Murray Greg Cwik Vittorio Storaro's
cinematography on Apocalypse
The greatest war Now imbues me with a sense
movie ever made, of awe – that image of a fat,
Apocalypse Now bald Brando swallowed up by
impermeable darkness as he
will leave you intones cryptic aphorisms, this
jungle sage, this mad god.
shaking. No other
film has explored Naman Ramachandran
Perhaps the most perfect
the human soul rendition of parallel internal and
quite like this one. external journeys that I have
ever seen.
Yael Shuv Coppola is one of the
greatest film artists and I could
submit a top-five-of-all-time list
composed solely of his films.
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Persona
INGMAR BERGMAN / 1966 / SWEDEN
POSITION IN 2012: =17
Ingmar Bergman’s Persona can be seen as
the apex of his cinematic career – at one
point in the film, even the celluloid itself
appears to burn up in the projector, as if
there was nowhere further to go. Like
his Italian counterpart Fellini, Bergman
achieved fame in European art cinema
in the 1950s and early 60s but unexpect-
edly made his masterpiece out of a crea-
tive crisis. After the collapse of a project
focusing on two actresses, Bibi Andersson
and Liv Ullmann (who both had intimate
relationships with the director), Bergman
spent time in hospital, where he came up
with a fresh idea. Struck by the women’s
physical likeness, he planned to explore
questions of identity through the encoun-
ter between a great stage actress (Ullmann)
who has inexplicably fallen silent and the
insecure, garrulous nurse (Andersson)
assigned to look after her. Secluded on the
barren island of Fårö (which became Berg-
man’s favourite location and main home),
the protagonists – both brilliantly played –
engage in a battle of wills, their divergent
attitudes towards sex and motherhood
merging in disturbing ways. The erotic
intensity and rawness of Persona was chal-
lenging in 1966, and remains so – few film
‘classics’ still feel so modern.
Any sense of a conventional psycho-
drama is constantly disrupted by the
experimental, improvisatory nature of
the filmmaking. Bergman begins the film
with a violent, fractured opening montage
illustrating the nature of cinema itself and
keeps ratcheting up the ambiguities by
blurring realism and fantasy. Self-reflexiv-
ity never seemed so seductive, as the film
freely plays with ideas of public masks and
THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 65
inner secrets, vampirism physical and met-
aphysical, and the fine line between screen
performance and real lives.
18
Persona has virtually defined the outer
reaches of subsequent ‘art’ cinema, influ- Any sense of a
encing visionary directors from Robert
Altman and Nicolas Roeg to David Lynch
conventional
and Olivier Assayas. Its iconography has psychodrama
become pervasive – Andersson’s cool black- is constantly
rimmed sunglasses, the haunting images of
the two women facing the camera, all beau-
disrupted by the
tifully rendered in the velvety monochrome experimental,
photography of Sven Nykvist. The film’s improvisatory
overtly Jungian aspects and slippery nar-
rative have provoked many questions and
filmmaking
debates; Bergman gave little away, prefer-
ring audiences to draw their own conclu-
sions. He followed Persona with some great
films, but nothing quite as audacious..
DAVID THOMPSON
66
17 Close-Up
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI / 1989 / IRAN
POSITION IN 2012: =43
From the mid-1990s until his death in 2016,
Abbas Kiarostami was widely regarded as
one of the most original, innovative and
The more important filmmakers around, an auda-
‘information’ cious, idiosyncratic artist with a profoundly
humane but highly distinctive view of the
we’re offered world. Close-Up is often seen not only as
about the case, a turning-point in the Iranian’s career – it
the more we cemented his confidence in blurring the
distinction between ‘documentary’ and ‘fic-
come to realise tion’ – but as the film most representative
that there of his aims and achievements.
are no easy It could have been a straightforward
record of the court case of an unemployed
answers to any print worker accused of impersonating
of the questions filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf with the
being raised intent of fraudulently obtaining money
from a well-to-do family. But in relating
the story of Hossein Sabzian’s encounter
with the Ahankhahs, Kiarostami char-
acteristically opts for anything but an
obvious linear narrative. Mixing 16mm
footage of the trial (in which Kiarostami
himself seems to ask as many questions as
the judge) with recreations of events per-
formed by the family, Sabzian and others
playing themselves, he fragments the story
into diverse meandering strands that fre-
quently frustrate expectations while still
remaining intelligible and engrossing.
‘Important’ events may be left unseen; in
their place, sequences in which nothing of
any clear consequence happens. Re-enact-
ments occur without giving away whose
point of view they represent. The more
‘information’ we’re offered about the case,
the more we come to realise that there are
no easy answers to any of the questions
being raised. The plot thickens – except
that we do, eventually, understand that
the accused, for all his strange, seemingly
unmotivated deceptions, is undoubtedly
a decent human being, worthy of our atten-
tion, sympathy and respect.
Though formally inventive, Close-Up
confirms that its creator is no formalist.
The film is driven both by deep, unsenti-
mental compassion and by genuine philo-
sophical curiosity; it explores the fraught
relationships between truth and falsehood,
film and ‘reality’, intention and action, and
acknowledges, from start to finish, the role
and responsibility of the director in his
engagement with the people in his film.
Also admirably typical of Kiarostami’s best
work is his admission – indeed, insistence
– that the film is incomplete until view-
ers respond by engaging with its artifice
and actively using their imaginations. For
Kiarostami, the unshown, the unsaid, the
unknown were crucially important; mean-
ing was inextricably linked to mystery.
GEOFF ANDREW
IMAGES: BFI NATIONAL ARCHIVE (2)

Meshes of the Afternoon
MAYA DEREN & ALEXANDER HAMMID / 1943 / USA
POSITION IN 2012: =102
Had Californian sunlight ever looked as
suggestive or sinister before the sharply
etched dream world of Meshes of the After-
noon? Certainly, it soon would, in Billy
Wilder’s Double Indemnity (1944) and many
later films noirs. That affiliation was first
proposed by J. Hoberman in the 1970s.
But Meshes has been invoked as seminal
by many traditions over eight decades.
For years, this 14-minute film was claimed
as a founding inspiration of a distinctively
American form of highly personal poetic
psychodrama, typified by Stan Brakhage,
who hailed Deren as “the mother of us all”.
Deren’s hands-on promotion of her
work became a model for the co-operative
movement of the 1960s. Rising interest in
women’s cinema would later refocus atten-
tion on her pioneering role. Today, she is
the only woman among seven experimen-
tal filmmakers featured on the front page
of the New York Filmmakers Co-op web-
site, while the haunting image of her at a
window must be one of the most widely
reproduced stills from any avant-garde
film. And rising interest in women’s film
after the 1970s would focus attention on
her aesthetic of ‘vertical cinema’, creat-
ing an emotional and intellectual density
within rather than between images, as
Barbara Hammer has described it.
Both Deren and her co-director Alexan-
der Hammid (originally Hackenschmied)
were immigrants from Eastern Europe.
She came from a Jewish family background
in Ukraine, heavily involved in psychiatry,
and he from experimental photography
and film in Czechoslovakia. Deren would
indignantly reject suggestions of influence
from two earlier European avant-garde
landmarks, Buñuel and Dalí’s Un chien
andalou (1928) and Cocteau’s The Blood of a
THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 67
16
Poet (Le Sang d’un poète, 1930). But for all its
cool originality, the eerie game of repeated
symbols that its maker-protagonists play
out in their West Hollywood home and
Had Californian garden – with a flower, key and knife
linking Deren’s divided self and a sinister
sunlight ever mirror-faced figure – has undoubtedly
looked as extended the legacy of those earlier works.
suggestive or Meshes has never reached the top 100
before in the S&S poll (despite some inter-
sinister before esting previous backers, such as Derek
the sharply Jarman in 1992). So this year’s result must
etched dream- reflect some significant shifts in taste –
most obviously the recognition of female
world of Meshes creativity apparent in the poll leaders, but
of the Afternoon? perhaps also a renewed interest in the
phantasmagoric, as explored by Deren’s
most consistent fans among contemporary
filmmakers, the David Lynch of Lost High-
way and Mulholland Dr., and Jordan Peele.
IAN CHRISTIE
68
15
Domino Renee Perez The
This poll’s last western standing, Ford’s sweeping, stirring rescue-or-revenge quest remains a film of magnificent mystery and poetry.
iconic image of Ethan Edwards
framed in the doorway, the
expanse of the West stretching
behind him, is as lyrical as it is
telling. A relic of the past, he
cannot cross over the threshold
into the civilised world. He has
helped to preserve a world he
cannot be a part of any longer.
Racist and unyielding, Ethan is
not likeable and his redemption
seems impossible. But Ford
holds audiences in his visual
and narrative thrall to the very
end so that when the door shuts
on Ethan, it's hard not to think
about those who get left behind
when the world moves on.
The Searchers
JOHN FORD / 1956 / USA
POSITION IN 2012: 7
Christian Viviani Still
mesmerising and full of mystery.
Jon Towlson Perhaps the
first, and greatest, revisionist
western.
Angie Errigo I cannot imagine
American cinema without
John Ford who, among other
things, created and defined the
western. This is the supreme
masterpiece of the genre,
forever compelling and moving,
superb in every department,
including John Wayne’s greatest
performance and arguably the
most memorable final shot in all
of cinema.
James Schamus In The
Searchers, Ford not only achieves
the pinnacle of the western – the
most influential and exemplary
movie genre in history, to which
no other director contributed
nearly as many canonical texts
– but also inscribes within the
film an astonishing critique
of his own life’s work up until
that point. A grand, brutal and
fearless work.
tom ryan It has me the moment
the door opens. Infuriatingly
flawed, but beautiful.
Andreas Kilb The essence of
the American Myth in one film.
eduardo Stupía The Milan Pavlovic John Ford’s
Searchers is a true Homeric milestone about
the loneliness of men and the
Fordian tour de inability to settle down.
force on the ethical Martin Rubin Its red-
and political face casting and other
representational archaisms
conceptions and may rankle contemporary
misconceptions sensibilities, but this stirring,
stunningly visualised western
of his own films. saga remains a profoundly
It is also an ambivalent exploration of both
the noblest and darkest impulses
anticipatory model that lie at the heart of American
of the modern history and consciousness.
American epic.

Cléo from 5 to 7
AGNÈS VARDA / 1962 / FRANCE, ITALY
PREVIOUSLY: =202
Sixty years after it was first released, Cléo
from 5 to 7 has finally leapt into the top 20:
a slow pace for a film so light on its feet.
When was this immaculate feature film,
Agnès Varda’s essay on time and space, love
and death, ever not on our minds?
Arriving with the first surge of the
French New Wave, Cléo from 5 to 7 crack-
les with the energy and modernity of that
cinephile movement, but it’s ultimately an
introspective piece, characterised by the
philosophical preoccupations of Varda’s
Left Bank peers. Corinne Marchand plays
Cléo, a blonde pop singer whose vanity
relaxes as her anxieties swell. As the film
begins, she visits a tarot reader, hoping for
good news about the medical test results
she is awaiting – but the cards spell only
death, and transformation.
While Cléo’s mind is f ixed on the
future, Varda’s camera captures her in the
present tense, killing time in Paris as she
ponders her own decay. Echoing Marcel
Duchamp’s 1912 painting Nude Descend-
ing a Staircase, No. 2, Varda dissects a trip
down the stairs to emphasise the moment
as it passes, one we would otherwise have
missed. As Cléo, a Parisian Mrs Dalloway,
walks the streets of her city, Varda also
captures a broader sense of time, an era
in history: Paris in the early 1960s, with its
crowds, cafés, shops, music, fashion and
cinema. The geography is precise: Varda
called the film “the portrait of a woman
painted on to a documentary about Paris”.
The film shifts from colour to black-
and-white to remind us that this is what
cinema does – it transforms life. A film
within the film turns the idea into a joke:
life makes no sense in monochrome. But
Cléo is transformed by the film, by these
90 minutes and the images of herself and
THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 69
In real time,
Cléo becomes
14
her future that confront her everywhere. In
real time, Cléo becomes more real, more
subject than object, more human, more
in tune with the city. She discards her
more real, more whipped-cream wig and polka dots for a
simple black shift. She performs less and
subject than feels more.
object. She With the kind of playfulness that
discards her Varda enjoyed so much, we could call
this ticking-clock film timeless. From the
whipped-cream feminist analysis of a woman’s commodi-
wig and polka fied beauty and a celebrity’s self-regarding
dots for a simple narcissism to the vulnerable heroine acting
out her messy emotions in public, the spec-
black shift. She tre of war and the fear of disease darkening
performs less a midsummer day, Cléo from 5 to 7 feels perti-
and feels more nent to the modern moment. It always will.
Marchand’s Cléo was pinned in a point in
time, but the film marches on, playing on a
loop in our imaginations.
PAMELA HUTCHINSON
70
13
João Antunes A lesson in life
in every word of dialogue, a
Huge-spirited and sharp-eyed, Renoir’s French-society fresco gathers high classes and low for a weekend of country-house fallout.
piece of cinema in every frame.
The joy of seeing a movie was
never as great as here.
Jan Olsson A merry-go-round
of love and sorrow. A masterful
comedy of manners replete with
unexpected twists and turns.
Carrie Rickey A stunning
panorama of metropolitan
and provincial, aristocrat
and peasant, nationalism and
cosmopolitanism, and a tale of
two marriages that seems to
sum up life in Europe just before
World War II.
La Règle du jeu
JEAN RENOIR / 1939 / FRANCE
POSITION IN 2012: 4
Roberto Manassero In this
film we can find everything: the
decadence of European culture
before the war, the creative
freedom of a film director both
modern and primitive, the
infinite potential of filming
in deep-focus and long shots
to grab and replicate the
complexity, the openness, the
elusiveness of reality.
Charles Ramírez Berg
Probably the best example of the
Renoir style, combining graceful
mise en scène, seamless plotting
and the peerless command of
cinematic technique.
Ian Aitken No more
devastatingly ironic and subtle
critique of wealth, power and
privilege has ever been made.
A great film by a committed
activist filmmaker.
AnuPAMA Chopra Luminous,
masterful filmmaking with a
piercing melancholy.
Raymond Phatanavirangoon
Characters and events move
between the foreground, middle
ground and background through
deep focus and long shots. A
masterpiece that uses cinema as
a playground.
Eddie MullerTo be Angie Errigo Deceptively
light-handed charm throughout
scathing and the upstairs, downstairs antics
humanist and in a country house doesn’t
obscure Jean Renoir’s contempt
gentle at the same for the underlying darkness and
time, and tell your his prescience of what was to
imminently befall such people.
tale effortlessly Still delightful, perfectly on
– that’s Renoir’s target and still imitated in film
and television by people who
genius. One of possibly don’t even know they
the world’s great are doing it.
filmmakers, and Michael Atkinson Hands
this is his greatest down the greatest film featuring
a gorilla suit.
achievement.

the godfather
FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA / 1972 / USA
PREVIOUSLY: =21
If you want a film that exemplifies and
honours the impossible, arbitrary and con-
tradictory history and nature of moviemak-
ing, look no further. Hollywood movies are
an artform and a mass entertainment, the
product of a singular vision and of a ruth-
less industry, the work of great directors
and the alchemical result of a thousand
collaborations, coincidences and backs-
against-the-wall snap decisions. The Godfa-
ther is all of the above and more – an unim-
aginably dark story that begins with the
hopeful sentence “I believe in America,” a
fat, full saga that, two years after its release,
revealed itself to be merely the middle of a
fatter, fuller saga, and a work the creation of
which has generated its own mythic origin
stories, from the director who wouldn’t
compromise to the leading man nobody
was sure could pull it off. It is enduring
and defining art, alchemically transmuted
from the pages of an OK bestseller and the
imaginations of everyone involved, first
among them its great co-writer and direc-
tor Francis Ford Coppola. As James Caan’s
Sonny Corleone says in one of the film’s
most enduring scenes, “This is business,
and this man is takin’ it very, very personal.”
So much of the most brilliant work from
Hollywood emerged from the conviction
that a movie could be both. Every scene of
The Godfather makes the case for that belief.
The movie exists on countless timelines
– it was an early peak for its director, given
his big studio shot at the unimaginable
age of 32; a mind-blowing return to form
for Marlon Brando; a stunning launch for
Al Pacino; a benchmark achievement of
New Hollywood; and a gauntlet thrown
down by its cinematographer Gordon
Willis, whose brown-black-and-blacker
lighting and compositions changed the
THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 71
It’s a crime story,
a family story
12
look of movies. Its most experienced actor
made his debut in the 1930s; its newcom-
ers are still working today. While no movie
can be said to gather both the past and the
that plunders the future of filmmaking into itself, The God-
word ‘family’ for father comes thrillingly close. It’s a crime
comedy, emotion story, a family story that plunders the word
‘family’ for comedy, emotion and profound
and horror, an horror, an immigrant story and a caution-
immigrant story ary tale about the American hunger for
and a cautionary power; it contains multitudes. Were the
screen suddenly to triple in size, as it does
tale about the in Abel Gance’s 1927 epic Napoléon (a film
American hunger Coppola reveres), you sense that a teem-
for power; ing world would reveal itself as always
having been there. But the world within
it contains Coppola’s frame is big enough; half a
multitudes century later, we can still walk around
in it and discover something new about
moviemaking and life with every visit.
MARK HARRIS
72
11
Chloe Walker Still staggering
in the vast sweep of its
The first American film by one of German expressionism’s leading exponents, this lush, atmospheric silent drama is replete with groundbreaking cinematography.
technical creativity and the
delicate honesty of its central
two performances. Huge and
intimate and lovely.
Peter Debruge Film language
reached such exciting heights in
the hands of Lang, Murnau and
other silent expressionists, it’s
almost a shame that sound
came along.
James Swanton The supreme
example of what was at risk
of being lost when the talkies
arrived. Thank God that
Murnau slipped this one under
the wire.
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
F.W. MURNAU / 1927 / USA
POSITION IN 2012: 5
Eric Hynes It’s quite possible
that cinema peaked in 1927,
and considering the greatness
of Sunrise there’s not even any
shame in that.
Joseph McBride The summit
of the then-new artform. Since
then, in so many ways, it’s been
a downhill road for American
filmmaking.
Jean-Marc Leveratto One of
the finest silent films. Stunning
cinematography, perfect
direction, excellent acting. Still
moving today.
Charlotte Garson How
hatred and romance are
intertwined, as are beauty
and death.
Carlo Chatrian Sunrise is
the perfect match between the
German way of framing and
lighting emotions and a simple,
moving, universal love story.
Claude Bertemes For the
sophistication, the poetry and
the tears. The most beautiful
film ever, as Truffaut rightly
stated.
Frédéric Maire Murnau is an
absolute genius of images and
his first American picture is
probably the most beautiful and
moving silent film in the world,
and the most moving love drama
ever made.
Miquel Escudero Diéguez René Wolf Murnau really was
able to express everything with
One of the most the cinematographic means
beautiful films ever available. He needed no sound
and hardly any intertitles, yet his
made. Murnau’s storytelling is crystal clear.
mise en scène is
Peter Hourigan As its subtitle
brilliant; he truly says, it’s just “a tale of two
understood the humans”, but the whole world of
humanity is in this film.
essence of the
cinematographic Nick Davis For being as sexy,
slippery, gorgeous and inventive
image. now as it was then, and for
refusing to simplistically take
sides between pastoral nostalgia
and bewitching novelty.
BFI NATIONAL ARCHIVE

Singin’ in the rain
STANLEY DONEN & GENE KELLY / 1951 / USA
POSITION IN 2012: 20
The most enduring of the four MGM col-
laborations between Gene Kelly and his
director and co-choreographer Stanley
Donen, Singin’ in the Rain rises ten places
from 20th in 2012 to land in the top ten
again. The film’s ascent almost feels like a
given, due to the effervescence that may be
its defining characteristic and the scarcity
of that quality in our trying times.
Yet, typically for anything that seems so
effortless, Kelly and Donen’s achievement
was in fact the product of an enormous
amount of toil and trouble. At the project’s
outset, the legendary writing team of Betty
Comden and Adolph Green tried and
failed to get out of the gig when MGM
musical head Arthur Freed ordered them
to build a new movie on top of a batch of
tunes by Freed and his partner Nacio Herb
Brown that were gathering dust. (Indeed,
‘Singin’ in the Rain’ itself had made its
MGM/PHOTOFEST
screen debut in The Hollywood Revue of 1929.)
Debbie Reynolds’ ordeal filming the ‘Good
Morning’ tap-dance number famously left
her with bloody feet. As for the title song,
six months of rehearsal culminated in
Gene Kelly gamely splashing about while
running a high fever.
None of that suffering is discernible on
screen, which is one of the many delight-
ful ironies about Hollywood’s most deeply
cherished movie about the making of a
Hollywood movie. Pulling back the cur-
tain to show yet more dazzling drapery,
Comden and Green celebrate an earlier era
of Tinseltown chancers and hustlers with
a tale of a production caught between the
silent and sound eras. Kelly’s plucky hoofer
and stuntman-turned-star Don Lockwood
leads the charge to retrofit a swashbuckler
picture named The Duelling Cavalier to take
advantage of the new vogue for sound,
THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 73
None of its
suffering is
10
with his new sweetie Kathy (Reynolds)
being his best means of disguising the
squawky voice of his leading lady Lina (a
hilarious Jean Hagen).
discernible on There are several movies besides Don’s
screen, one of the latest somehow contained within the text
many delightful of Singin’ in the Rain (including, if we are to
believe the deliciously meta billboard in
ironies about the final shot, Singin’ in the Rain). Cheekily
Hollywood’s purporting to reveal its own means of pro-
most deeply duction while still delivering one unabash-
edly theatrical showstopper after another,
cherished Kelly and Donen’s masterwork anticipates
movie about the brassy postmodernism of Moulin Rouge!
the making of (2001). But like such fellow homage-payers
as The Artist (2011) and La La Land (2016),
a Hollywood Baz Luhrmann’s rendition feels meagre
movie compared to the original and its seemingly
inexhaustible bounty of ingenuity, bravado
and sheer unabashed joy.
JASON ANDERSON
74
9
Dorota Lech David Abelevich
Kaufman, also known as Dziga
Bottomless invention and frenetic, dizzying montage make this city symphony one of cinema’s sharpest, most exciting experiences nearly a century after its release.
Vertov (a Ukrainian phrase
roughly meaning ‘spinning top’),
was born in 1896 into a Jewish
book-dealer’s family in the city
of Białystok, then part of the
Russian Empire, in modern-
day Poland. He understood
Lenin’s philosophy that film was
the most important of all the
propaganda forms (especially
among a largely illiterate
population) and his Anniversary
of the Revolution (1918), which
may be the first documentary
ever made, should be studied in
every film school. Though none
of us have truly experienced
Man with a Movie Camera – which
has not been seen in its original
Man with a Movie Camera
DZIGA VERTOV / 1929 / USSR
POSITION IN 2012: 8
form since the 1930s due to it
being widely replicated and
distributed at an inaccurate
speed, significantly changing its
rhythm and accents in a way that
does not match its original score
– I’m still dazzled by its artistry
and anticipate the forthcoming
restoration.
Helen DeWitt “Down with
bourgeois fairytale plots and
scenarios – long live life as it is!”
So said Dziga Vertov, for whom
documentary was the only true
revolutionary form as it freed
film from false scenarios and
performing actors. Man with
a Movie Camera, about life in a
Soviet city from dawn to dusk,
was certainly revolutionary in
its approach to image creation,
which continually undermines
and extends itself to dazzling
and witty effect. As well as
Vertov, the Kino-Eye Council
of Three – which attempted
to engender a new kind of
perception through cinematic
montage – comprised Vertov’s
editor wife, Elizaveta Svilova,
and his camera operator brother,
Mikhail Kaufman. All three
deserve authorship credit for
the film.
Alan Mattli Carlos Alberto Mattos
The dynamism of Vertov’s
The defining camerawork and montage
aspirational work reflect the enthusiasm of the
era for speed and movement,
of documentary presuppositions of urban
cinema, this film modernity.
understands and Cristina Formenti This
celebrates the dynamic documentary is much
more than a great city symphony.
power of cinematic It is an ode to cinema and its
manipulation infinite possibilities as well as
the clearest example of how
to uncover even the reality that nonfiction
profound artistic, films return to us is always
constructed, the outcome of
emotional and manipulation.
existential truths.
IMAGES: BFI NATIONAL ARCHIVE

Mulholland dr.
DAVID LYNCH / 2001 / USA
POSITION IN 2012: 28
Defiantly sui generis and unorthodox as
he’s always seemed, it may be that David
Lynch has by now become a paradigmatic
voice of our times. What has long been
labelled ‘Lynchian’, instead of merely ruling
over our culture’s more delicious margins,
might be instead how modern life feels for
most of us – a clotted dream of irrational
seizures and psychosexual secrets and
desires wracked by incomprehensible
forces. Certainly, the rise of his crepuscu-
lar masterpiece Mulholland Dr. up the new
poll’s canonical ladder – 20 rungs, from
28 in 2012 – suggests that we’re coming
around to accepting Lynch’s disorienting
voice as paradigmatic, even necessary.
Having begun as a post-Twin Peaks TV
pilot, dumped by ABC and expanded
upon into something completely differ-
ent, Lynch’s film is his gay Anna Karenina
(1878), his Hollywood death dive, his final
salute to the legacy mysteries of Vertigo
(1958) and his deepest dish of metaphysi-
cal tragedy. In the deftest of the filmmak-
er’s gnomic bifurcations, the movie’s flow
runs from network-gloss irony, through
a tunnel of angst, to a Sapphic wander
through Desolation Row, with its two
heroines (Naomi Watts and Laura Har-
ring) also doubled up, playing out two
contrasting narratives, each potentially
and mysteriously the psychic B-side of the
other. Identity, in Hollywood, is a quan-
tum reality, a fact that meets Lynch’s lust
for instability head on. Perhaps that is the
resonating clue as to the film’s ascendant
critical regard: its essential, unreasonable
slipperiness, its fierce embrace of uncer-
tainty and the indeterminate, speaks more
to our fraught present, 21 years later, than
it did to its heyday during the pre-9/11
Bush administration. (Not that it wasn’t
THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 75
Identity, in
8
beloved then, reaping dozens of critic-
group awards and getting Lynch an Oscar
nomination for Best Director.)
The film’s unironic payload of wrenching
Hollywood, is a heartbreak, swimming up from a swampy
quantum reality, dream of ironic strangeness, is singular in
a fact that meets his oeuvre, as if the vulnerabilities of young
women in the twisty roads and dusty hills
Lynch’s lust for of the American movie struck him in ways
instability head that the dark plight of smalltown Lum-
on. Perhaps that berton/Twin Peaks high-schoolers didn’t
quite? Perhaps. But it’s still a madden-
is the resonating ing, freaky, mysterious thing, seductively
clue as to the interpretable but, ultimately, Lynchianly
film’s ascendant resistant to final readings. That’s integral
to its allure, too. It’s like a hieroglyph you’re
critical regard always on the verge of translating or a
lover’s sphinx-like expression in bed that
suggests betrayal, devotion or something
in between.
MICHAEL ATKINSON
76
7 Denis’s great
Beau travail
CLAIRE DENIS / 1998 / FRANCE
POSITION IN 2012: =78
The first time I watched Beau travail, on
DVD, in my childhood bedroom, in the
spring of 2014, I didn’t know how it would
gift is to evoke end. My face split into a grin of disbelief as
emotion with the credits rolled and I rewound the final
scene. More than 20 years after its initial
gesture and release, that set piece, soundtracked by
juxtaposition. Corona’s 90s Eurodance hit ‘The Rhythm
In the desert, of the Night’, with its climactic burst of
feeling, is as well-known as the film itself.
water shimmers It started as a sort of joke. Claire Denis
and ripples, was commissioned by the TV network
naked shoulders Arte to make a film about foreignness and
so, wryly, provocatively, she made a movie
perspire, black in which her own people were the foreign-
mosquito nets ers. In Marseille, Sergeant Galoup (Denis
recall sheer Lavant) reflects on his time as “a perfect
legionnaire” in Djibouti, East Africa,
lingerie serving the French Foreign Legion. He
and his soldiers, including the undeni-
ably pretty and unusually well-liked Gilles
Sentain (Grégoire Colin), perform highly
choreographed military drills in the desert
heat. Under the blazing sun, resentments
simmer. In the evenings, the men dance
at a nightclub with the local women, who
are beautiful, modern and ambivalent.
Djibouti, a former French colony, gained
independence in 1977. These soldiers are
irrelevant; the colonial project is obsolete.
“Unfit for life, unfit for civilian life” is how
Galoup describes himself in his diary.
But feeling unmoored from one’s pur-
pose – feeling like a foreigner to your own
life – is a timeless conundrum, and one that
seems to resonate with both film lovers and
filmmakers (Barry Jenkins has mentioned
its influence on 2016’s Moonlight). It remains
Denis’s only true crowd-pleaser.
Denis’s great gift is her ability to evoke
emotion with gesture and juxtaposition.
In the Djibouti desert, water shimmers
and ripples, naked shoulders perspire and
black mosquito nets recall sheer lingerie.
In a Claire Denis film, dialogue is sparse,
but images are charged with meaning.
“Making films, for me, is to get rid of expla-
nation,” she told the Guardian back in 2000.
The final scene is pure release: a word-
less explanation after 90 minutes of ten-
sion. Visual references travel through
quotations in other works and, in recent
times, through the internet. Films are por-
tioned up and divorced from their original
contexts, re-appropriated and shared as
memes. I wonder if the renewed popular-
ity of Beau travail in this decade’s Greatest
Films poll is a result of its increased visibil-
ity among a younger generation, many of
whom have likely encountered, or at least
revisited, its euphoric dancefloor-set con-
clusion via their computers.
SIMRAN HANS
BFI NATIONAL ARCHIVE

2001: a space odyssey
STANLEY KUBRICK / 1968 / UK, USA
POSITION IN 2012: 6
Kubrick ’s grand vision of mankind’s journey from its hominid beginnings to its star-child evolution is a towering achievement of science-fiction cinema.
David Cairns “If Kubrick could
get rid of the human element,
he could make the perfect film,”
joked Malcolm McDowell.
But here, he almost does. By
acting, arrogantly, as if nobody
had ever made a really good
science-fiction film before,
Kubrick solves all the genre’s
problems methodically but also
pushes it into epic, mythic,
spiritual terrain. It’s stately,
bold, astonishingly beautiful.
The great rationalist suddenly
blasts us off into a psychedelic
experience which doesn’t yield
fully to reason. It’s not even
certain if the film is optimistic or
despairing (yet colourful).
MOVIE POSTER IMAGE ART/GET TY IMAGES
Stuart Brown Kubrick’s epic
contemplation on the nature and
origins of humanity remains one
of cinema’s greatest technical
feats, and one of its most poetic
and awe-inspiring.
Alan Mattli Human evolution,
both physical and spiritual,
translated into confoundingly
hypnotic imagery.
Bedatri Choudhury 2001:
A Space Odyssey created a
vocabulary from a vacuum; there
was nothing like it before or
after. It does that with so much
majesty, so much intrigue, yet it
manages to go into a very deep
philosophical, even spiritual,
personal space.
THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 77
Eric Hynes It took the art of
film somewhere it had never
Carlos Alberto De Mattos Naman Ramachandran
6
2001 is far beyond a technical
been before, and nothing has At the same time achievement – it is a gateway to
gone anywhere near it since. a science-fiction a vast universe where mankind is
infinitesimal.
John BLeasdale A space spectacle, an
opera of the most ambitious anthropological Rosie Fletcher Almost
kind. Kubrick weds his incomprehensibly massive, not
stunning imagery to a beautiful speculation and just in its scope and scale but in
soundtrack and creates a philosophical its ideas and philosophies. It’s a
something that can only be genre movie asking the biggest
cinema. meditation, of questions and it has a scary
Kubrick’s film computer to boot.
David Heslin A bold and
confident work that makes no created an Peter Howell Retains its
apologies for its bombast, and unavoidable power to fill the mind with
nor should it: this is cinema at its mystery and wonder, your head
operatic peak. monolith in forever tilted skywards.
its genre.
78
5 Its visual and
In the Mood for Love
WONG KAR WAI / 2000 / HONG KONG, FRANCE
POSITION IN 2012: =24
The signs were already there that Wong
Kar Wai’s woozy, hungry, love story was
likely to earn a significant promotion in
this year’s poll. Ten years ago, it stood out
sonic fragments as the best-performing film of the 21st cen-
cumulatively tury in the critics’ list, landing in 24th place.
evoke not just With a fresh generation of critics chiming
in – one that cinematically came of age
a firmly past when Wong’s film had already attained
time and place modern-classic status – it was sure to rise
but a mood, a up the ranks.
In the Mood for Love’s spectacular top five
feeling, a sorrow placement, however, demonstrates the
that drifts broadly seductive allure of a mid-century
from the film’s Hong Kong period piece that looks both
forward and back, wallowing in nostal-
world to ours gia for a purer, lusher form of cinematic
romanticism while carving out more
modern, even avant-garde forms of sen-
sual and psychological expression from
its saturated style. It’s a film that invites
you to think, “They don’t make them like
they used to” – even though you know they
never quite made them quite like this. The
film’s essential romantic narrative of for-
bidden yearnings and missed connections
may be the stuff of vintage melodrama, but
less familiar is the way Wong expands the
simple anatomy of a thwarted love affair
into an elastic meditation on personal
unrest, political statelessness and the vio-
lence of time’s unrelenting passage.
The film never tells you it’s about any of
that, of course. Wong’s porous, often head-
ily non-verbal filmmaking trusts us to feel
the lovers’ ennui and melancholy – and fur-
ther, to identify it within ourselves – via its
sheer accumulation of sounds, images and
sense memories: be it the damp wraiths
of steam swirling from an opened noodle
container, the warm, vinyl-roughened
croon of Nat King Cole on the soundtrack
or the impossible lobby-card beauty of
Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung, both
preserved here in their ravishing prime,
and somehow convincing as ordinary
mortals made movie-star beautiful by love.
We’re living through a fairly stifled age
of visual storytelling, as the televisual pull
of streaming culture encourages filmmak-
ers to think smaller and more literal. As
moving as its relationship study is, any-
body who thinks of In the Mood for Love,
however, thinks first of those sensory flour-
ishes and grace notes – it’s a film that even,
somehow, has a signature scent. Its visual
and sonic fragments cumulatively evoke
not just a firmly past time and place but a
mood, a feeling, a sorrow that drifts from
the film’s world to ours. That must account
for its enduring, even increasing, popular-
ity: it lingers like an unrequited crush.
GUY LODGE
IMAGES: BFI NATIONAL ARCHIVE (2)

Tokyo Story
OZU YASUJIRŌ / 1953 / JAPAN
POSITION IN 2012: 3
Told in Ozu’s simple and elegant style, this story of intergenerational discord is heartbreaking and deeply human.
Maria Delgado A brilliant film
on generational change, a society
in transition and what it means
to feel you are no longer needed.
Ozu is always the filmmaker
to turn to if you want to see
how to do more with less – the
filmmaker of the quotidian,
melding economy and intensity
to extraordinary effect.
Pedro Adrián Zuluaga
The evocative power of this
film remains intact. The soft
melancholy, the passage of time,
the understanding of life as a
spiritual adventure. All from the
adventures and misadventures of
a family. So simple, so complex.
Patrick McGilligan A
profound film. Ozu’s Zen style at
its simplest and most sublime.
José Arroyo A film full of
wisdom, understanding and
acceptance of life that never
ceases to move and amaze. A
beautiful heartbreak of a movie.
Saleem Albeik A
psychologically healing film, a
magically calming one.
Geoff Andrew This
extraordinary study of ageing,
mortality and family life
(among other things) has that
unforgettable moment: “Isn’t life
disappointing?” – “Yes” (with a
smile).
Eric Hynes Its reputation for
greatness is beyond deserved
but canonisation also risks
smothering its still live charge,
pinning behind glass a work of
art that still has the power to
astonish, disrupt and shatter.
Few works have ever been
as capable of expressing the
exquisite beauty and prevailing
intolerability of living.
Richard Dyer Poignancy,
regret and sadness come
through all the keener by virtue
of the restraint of performance,
composition and editing.
THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 79
Akira Mizuta Lippit A
4
David Morrison Ozu’s films
always feel deceptively simple,
film brimming despite their unusual framing
with restrained and editing structures. It’s not
just his mastery of cinema as a
emotion, which form that’s so impressive but the
is unleashed sheer humanity and compassion
with which he manages to fill
through a level of his films.
unparalleled film
Tom Ryan A gently tragic film
craftsmanship. about the wheel turning.
The model on
Charles Ramírez Berg As
which many of the you watch, it seems nothing
is happening. When it’s over
world’s greatest you realise you’ve just seen an
films are based. encyclopedia of the human
condition.
80
3
Roy Grundmann Citizen
Kane remains the ultimate
Famously sitting at the top of the S&S poll from 1962 to 2002, Welles’s masterful debut, about newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane, remains an enduring classic.
commentary on American
culture since the early
20th century. It conveys
America’s inherent polarities
(individualism vs collective
impulses; libertarianism vs
puritanism; innocence vs
corruption; the underdog
mentality to rebel against
oppression vs the impulse to
rule over the masses through
duping strategies) via a deft
synergy of form and content. It
has never been more rewarding
to screen and talk about this
film than in our current political
moment.
Citizen Kane
ORSON WELLES / 1941 / USA
POSITION IN 2012: 2
Scott Tobias The former
champion still feels like a
grand summation of film’s early
development as an artform
and a glimpse of the future,
too. At the same time, it’s a
hugely entertaining portrait
of the media narcissism and
demagoguery that underscore
American politics.
sarah street It still amazes
for its formal bravado, a barrage
of cinematographic strategies
which retain their innovative
resonances. The film’s reputation
as representing the apogee of an
ossified ‘canon’ of outstanding
films should not minimise its
qualities – it deserves to be so
recognised. It combines the
restless energy of its subject
with formal experimentation
which demonstrates the artistry
of filmmaking as a collaborative
enterprise when new technical
approaches were being explored.
Eddie Muller Sadly, it’s
fashionable now to chip away at
its greatness. This temptation
should be resisted. The
audacious American masterpiece
of the 20th century, not only
for its cinematic innovations
and storytelling vigour, but for
how accurately it dissects the
“American character”.
ORis Aigbokhaevbolo What
else is there to say about Kane?
It will always be remembered for
novelty, for vision, for the sheer
audacity of its existence.
Nigel Andrews The Geoff Andrew A film that
amply rewards repeated
ultimate in viewings, revealing new depths,
movie baroque. new nuanced details, new
mysteries. There is no greatest
Welles’s film is a film, but if there were, for
twisted pearl – me this would surely be the
strongest contender.
glorious, florid,
overweening David Cairns What, I’m going
to leave this off, so I can look
– about crazed more like a wild individualist? A
ambition and brilliant cinematic mind jumps
into the medium, determined
the virtues and to see what he can make it do.
innocences It may not invent anything
but it packs in a ton of radical
it crushes in creativity and unconventionality.
its wake.
BFI NATIONAL ARCHIVE

Vertigo
ALFRED HITCHCOCK / 1958 / USA
POSITION IN 2012: 1
So, wobbles at the top. Of all the films that
could surmount this poll (there have now
been four, across eight decades), it seems
apt that Alfred Hitchcock’s woozy psycho-
romance should lose its grip as soon as it
reached the summit – that this delirious
maunder with James Stewart’s acropho-
bic, impressionable detective through an
absurd murder-seduction intrigue in a
winding San Francisco wonderland should
place less steadily than the obdurate Citizen
Kane (1941), previously enshrined on high
for 40 years. Still, its fall has been less
steep than that of Bicycle Thieves (1948),
which sank from first to seventh between
1952 and 1962, or this year’s plunge of Jean
Renoir’s La Règle du jeu (1939), previously a
top-ten perennial, from fourth to 13th. Ver-
tigo came just seven votes short of the top
spot – proportionally closer than in 2002,
when it missed deposing Orson Welles’s
ALLSTAR PICTURE LIBRARY LTD/ALAMY
reigning champ by only four votes – while
the distance between it and Kane (now
third) has grown since 2012, from 34 votes
to 45. This is not a film in rapid descent.
As of last year, Vertigo’s 1958 release date
puts it in the first half of cinema’s history.
As that history extends, and this poll
grows, so the greater diversity of latter-day
filmmaking stretches the voting. In 2012
the film led with 191 votes – meaning it was
included in almost a quarter of the entries;
this year its 208 votes amounted to half that
proportion, 12 per cent. Lifting the lid of
the poll, though, shows a more fluid story
than just new voters moving on from the
old. Vertigo lost nearly three-quarters (139)
of its 2012 electors: three-fifths of them to
voter attrition (those voters who for what-
ever reason didn’t show up in 2022), but
more turned away from Vertigo (57) than
stuck with it (54). Sixteen swung behind it
THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 81
A darkly,
2
this year after choosing otherwise in 2012.
Meanwhile 140 of its 208 votes came from
new – and presumably younger – recruits
to the electorate.
bottomlessly After a decade of debate about the
reflexive justices of cinematic representation, I’d
portrait of wondered how Hitchcock’s frayed, pessi-
mistic thriller of estrangement would now
private vices and strike people. Filtering Pygmalion myths
compulsions; of idealisation and exploitation through
a vortex of Proustian memory games – with Ber-
nard Herrmann’s score adding top notes
perspective- of Wagnerian tragedy – it’s hardly a film
stretching, that promises hope or amelioration, more
misdirection and a darkly, bottomlessly reflexive portrait of
private vices and compulsions; a vortex of
disorientation perspective-stretching, misdirection and
disorientation; a whirlpool of obscure,
consuming desire. It seems many of us are
still plunging in.
NICK BRADSHAW
1
Jeanne Dielman,
23 Quai du Commerce,
1080 Bruxelles
CHANTAL AKERMAN / 1975 / BELGIUM, FRANCE
POSITION IN 2012: =36

For the first time in 70 years the Sight and Sound poll has been topped by a film directed by a woman –
and one that takes a consciously, radically feminist approach to cinema. Things will never be the same
BY LAURA MULVEY
 S
84 THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME
OPPOSITE
Delphine Seyrig as Jeanne Dielman
with (middle) Henri Storck as
the first of her three clients
uch a sudden shake-up at the top of Sight
and Sound’s ten-yearly poll! Chantal Aker-
man’s Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce,
1080 Bruxelles (1975) heads the 2022 list. No
other film made by a woman has ever even
reached the top ten. In the first instance,
this is unsurprising: women film directors
have always, obviously, been few and far
between; equally obviously, the contribut-
ing critics have been predominantly male.
It was when Sight and Sound expanded the
critics’ pool in 2012 that Jeanne Dielman first
entered the list, at number 35; its rise to the
top now is a triumph for women’s cinema.
But perhaps the ultimate surprise goes
even further: the film that collected the
most votes in 2022 is made with a cin-
ematic style and strategy closer to avant-
garde than mainstream traditions and,
furthermore, at just under three and a
half hours, demands dedicated viewing.
Although confrontational, idiosyncratic
and extraordinary films have consistently
appeared lower in the lists, the experi-
mental tradition, to which Jeanne Dielman
belongs, is – apart perhaps from the recent
appearance of Dziga Vertov’s Man with a
Movie Camera (1929) – absent. While it has
brought this tradition to the top of the list,
Jeanne Dielman is inescapably a woman’s
film, consciously feminist in its turn to the
avant garde. On the side of content, the
film charts the breakdown of a bourgeois
Belgian housewife, mother and part-time
prostitute over the course of three days;
on the side of form, it rigorously records
her domestic routine in extended time and
from a fixed camera position. In a film that,
agonisingly, depicts women’s oppression,
Akerman transforms cinema, itself so often
an instrument of women’s oppression, into
a liberating force.
All of us who have followed the Sight
and Sound polls over the years – always a
fascinating, if slow-moving, weathercock
of cinematic taste – are now, no doubt,
speculating about what this sudden
change might signify. I have found myself
wondering over the last few days, con-
fronted with this turn-up for the poll’s his-
tory, how Jeanne Dielman might possibly sit
alongside its three companion films. As we
all know, Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane (1941)
dominated the list for 40 years, from 1962
to 2002, bracketed at one end, in 2012, by
Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958) and, at the
other, in the first poll in 1952, by Vittorio
De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves (1948).
Vertigo had been gradually closing in
on Citizen Kane for decades; Jeanne Diel-
man has appeared from nowhere. Does
the new arrival throw some (speculative)
light on the top-of-the-poll films? Clearly,
Jeanne Dielman and Bicycle Thieves are both
‘movement’ films. The influence of the
women’s movement was crucial for Aker-
man; De Sica’s films of the late 1940s are
exemplary of neorealism, pioneering the
use of non-professional actors and loca-
tion shooting, and committed to depict-
ing the social problems of post-World War
II Italy. Citizen Kane and Vertigo are, on the
other hand, untethered oddities: both are
Hollywood films, benefiting enormously
from its technological supremacy, but both
Jeanne Dielman
was first screened
in the Directors’
Fortnight at Cannes.
Chantal Akerman
has described the
difficult atmosphere,
as she and Delphine
Seyrig sat at the
back of the cinema
listening to the
seats banging as the
audience walked out
are films of fixation, out of kilter with the
studio system. This sense of fixation runs
from one side of the camera to the other.
Kane and James Stewart’s Scottie are irra-
tionally driven; Welles and Hitchcock (one
at the beginning, one towards the end of
his career) conjure up their protagonists’
fragile, obsessive structures of self-delu-
sion with a special, perhaps appropriately
obsessive mastery of cinematic style. In a
sense, Jeanne Dielman shares something of
this: there’s a certain kind of unrelenting
rigour in Akerman’s cinematic strategies
that echo her protagonist’s fixations and,
indeed, the fragility of her self-delusion.
The unconscious plays such a determin-
ing part in all these three narratives. And
indeed, although seemingly the odd one
out, De Sica invests an element of per-
sonal desperation into Antonio’s pursuit of
his bicycle. Although, in the first instance,
he is driven by poverty and despair, might
the juxtaposition of Bicycle Thieves with the
other top-of-the-poll films allow Antonio
to be reimagined as another portrait of
fixation on a lost object? And De Sica’s
own pursuit in the immediate post-war
period of his neorealist aesthetic was sin-
gle-minded and, given his lack of critical
or box-office recognition in Italy, perhaps
even obsessive.
But leaving aside these dangerous
generalisations, for me, and for all of us
who have been rooting for Jeanne Dielman
over the decades, this is an extraordinary
moment of celebration. I would like to
use it go back to my own first encounter
with Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce,
1080 Bruxelles and reflect on the special sig-
nificance that the film has had for me over
the intervening years. I first saw it at the
Edinburgh Film Festival in 1975 –a year
remarkable for the energy and fertility of
experimental film, as it veered between an
extreme art cinema and an actual avant-
garde. The films shown included, from
the United States: Film About a Woman
Who… and Lives of Performers (both Yvonne
Rainer), What Maisie Knew (Babette
Mangolte – Akerman’s, Rainer’s and later
Sally Potter’s cinematographer), Rameau’s
Nephew by Diderot (Thanx to Dennis Young) by
Wilma Schoen (Michael Snow) and Speak-
ing Directly (Jon Jost); from the UK: The
Amazing Equal Pay Show (London Women’s
Film Group) and Nightcleaners (Berwick
Street Film Collective); and from Europe:
Moses and Aron (Jean-Marie Straub and
Danièle Huillet) and The Middle of the Road
Is a Very Dead End (Alexander Kluge and
Edgar Reitz).
Alongside these films, all remarkable in
their different ways, Jeanne Dielman stood
out as something completely new and
unexpected. It was the film’s courage that
was immediately most striking. Akerman’s
unwavering and completely luminous
adherence to a female perspective (not,
that is, via the character, Jeanne Diel-
man, but embedded in the film itself and
its director’s vision) combined with her
uncompromising and completely coher-
ent cinema to produce a film that was both
feminist and cinematically radical. One
might say that it felt as though there was
a before and an after Jeanne Dielman, just
as there had once been a before and after
Citizen Kane.
Jeanne Dielman had been first screened in
the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes. Aker-
man has described the difficult atmos-
phere, as she and Delphine Seyrig, the
film’s star, sat at the back of the cinema lis-
tening to the seats banging as the audience
walked out. In a later interview she said:
“The next day fifty people invited the film
to festivals. And I travelled with it all over
the world. The next day, I was on the map
as a filmmaker but not just any filmmaker.
At the age of twenty-five, I was given to
understand that I was a great filmmaker. It
was pleasing, of course, but also troubling
because I wondered how I could do better.
And I don’t know if I have.”
This “I don’t know if I have” is moving
and thought-provoking, and it relates
directly to the sense of ‘one-offness’ that
emanates from Jeanne Dielman. Akerman
had made, and went on to make, outstand-
ing films (for instance, Je, tu, il, elle in 1974
and News from Home in 1976), but the power
that radiates from Jeanne Dielman was not
to be repeated. This has, perhaps, some
bearing on its arrival at the top of the poll.
Akerman’s extraordinary qualities as a film-
maker made the film the phenomenon it
was and is, but the sense of unrepeatability
is rooted in the 1970s and in the conscious-
ness and the possibilities associated with
feminism and the avant garde. Jeanne Diel-
man remains, to my mind, the outstanding
film of that particular conjuncture of radi-
cal politics and radical aesthetics. How-
ever, the film raises an issue that is hard
to articulate: how the energy and creative
demands of a political movement interact
with the energy and creativity of an individ-
ual; when, that is, someone touches, and
TOP IMAGE: COLLECTIONS CINEMATEK/FONDATION CHANTAL AKERMAN
then draws on, a nerve of urgency beyond
the sum of his or her parts, the product is
more exemplary than personal, more trans-
cendent than subjective.
There is a great deal of illuminating
writing on Akerman’s cinema, particularly
on Jeanne Dielman. I want to try to focus
on the way that she exploits the cinema
specifically and as such, so that the spec-
tator is always and unavoidably aware of
watching events unfold through the film

medium and its various prisms. As Jeanne’s
fate rolls inexorably forward, like the reel of
the film, the moments of near stillness that
punctuate her days open up screen space,
bringing other temporal rhythms into play.
As Akerman translates the narrative situa-
tion into times and spaces specific to film,
supremely appropriate for the subject,
she is also drawing on intrinsically cin-
ematic qualities and values. For instance,
as Jeanne switches off the light every time
she leaves a room, with the instinct of an
economically minded housewife, Akerman
simultaneously, on a formal, filmic level,
varies lightness and darkness on screen.
Plot conflates with temporal struc-
tures as Jeanne’s (repeated) activities are
depicted serially across a three-day grid,
performing her role as housewife and
mother to her teenage son Sylvain, and
as prostitute for three loyal clients each
IMAGES: COLLECTIONS CINEMATEK/FONDATION CHANTAL AKERMAN, INCLUDING RIGHT © VIRGINIA HAGGARD-LEIERNS
with his own allocated day. Order and
cleanliness fill her daily existence and her
outward appearance has an unassuming
elegance that belies any connotation of
prostitution. But the absolute perfection
of her clothes, make-up and hair paradoxi-
cally suggests something hidden, some-
thing to be concealed. In keeping with
Akerman’s interest in psychoanalysis at the
time, Delphine Seyrig’s incomparable per-
formance intimates the active presence of
the character’s unconscious.
Akerman has described the way she
drew on the meticulous domestic culture
of the Belgian middle-class housewives
among whom she had grown up to create
the character of Jeanne Dielman. She
has said – and this is one reason why the
film has been so important to feminists
– that “I made this film to give all these
actions typically undervalued a life on
OPPOSITE
Delphine Seyrig as Jeanne with
(middle) Jan Decorte as her
son Sylvain and (bottom) Yves
Bical as her third client
BELOW
On the set of Jeanne Dielman – Chantal
Akerman, second from right
THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 87
film.” Akerman creates a kind of lexicon
of domestic gesture, which takes this
invisible culture and puts it at the centre
of an avant-garde film, at the centre of art.
As she gives these actions a new value on
the screen, she allows the real time they
take to become screen time, throwing the
spectator’s understanding of cinematic
convention into disarray. Filming always
from the same frontal position, at Aker-
man’s own eye level, the camera records, for
instance, Jeanne as she does the washing-
up, and then with a kind of anthropologi-
cal exactitude follows the intricate details
involved in French traditional cooking.
Film convention demands a shift in point
of view, camera movement and so on, to
save the spectator from the strangeness
of seeing time itself pass. When a shot is
held beyond normal expectation, the flow
of time belonging to the fiction begins to
fade, and the time of its recording comes
to the fore. Only film can record the image
of a chunk of time as it passes.
Halfway through the film, the narra-
tive harmony between Jeanne’s time and
space is shattered. There have been inti-
mations of this instability from very early
on. Jeanne’s interior autonomy is compli-
cated by a presence from outside, a hint of
a parallel, perhaps film noir-ish universe: a
blue neon light flashes continually into the
sitting room, its penetrating beam hitting
a glass-fronted case that stands directly
behind the dining table. Almost invisibly,
the flashing light unsettles the interior
space, like a sign from the unconscious
pointing to a site of repression. And then
an innocuous domestic object becomes
a metonymic representation of Jeanne’s
prostitution: after each client leaves, she
immediately puts her money into a deco-
rative soup tureen that sits on the dining
table. As she does so, she walks past the
flashing light reflected in the glass behind
her, accentuated by the semi-darkness of
the room. As Akerman, characteristically,
holds her shots for a few seconds after
Jeanne has left the frame, the flashing light
has time to become more acutely signifi-
cant. Each evening, mother and son sit at
the dining table. When the camera faces
Jeanne, the soup tureen is half visible to her
left at the edge of the frame, while the light
flashes beside her, creating – as it were – a
triangle of guilt.
The plot of Jeanne Dielman is structured
by the three afternoon visits of Jeanne’s
three clients; and the moment of change
revolves around the second client’s visit.
The film’s opening sequence has already
established the normal routine around
the first client (played by the Belgian
documentary filmmaker Henri Storck).
Jeanne is putting the potatoes on to cook
just before he rings the bell. The camera
stays outside the room and only a darken-
ing of the light in the corridor indicates
the passing of this (prostitution) time.
Then, in quick succession: she is paid, she
sees her client out, she puts the money in
the tureen, then drains the potatoes and
has a bath. On the second day, she puts
on the potatoes, precisely and according
to routine, just before her client (played
88 THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME
Perhaps as the oppression of women
in the film industry has attracted
attention, fuelled by the #MeToo
hashtag, so has the oppression of
women on the screen itself, in its fictions
and inscribed into film language
BELOW, FROM TOP
Previous Sight and Sound
poll winners: Vittorio De
Sica's Bicycle Thieves (1948),
winner in 1952; Orson Welles’s
Citizen Kane (1941), winner
1962-2002; Alfred Hitchcock's
Vertigo (1958), winner 2012
OPPOSITE
Chantal Akerman (1976)
by Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, a critic for
Cahiers du cinéma) arrives. But Jeanne
emerges from the bedroom disoriented.
At first, she forgets to turn on the light in
the corridor as she sees out her client; as
she puts the money in the tureen as usual,
she forgets to replace the lid; and then
she tidies the bedroom and has her bath,
forgetting that the potatoes are still cook-
ing on the stove. There is now an opaque
thread in the texture of the screen: the
heavy significance of the unseen bedroom
with implications of Jeanne’s capitulation
to her sexuality and the loss of bodily con-
trol inherent in orgasm.
On the third day, her routine is disrupted
by slight parapraxes, unconscious slips,
and she wanders aimlessly between activi-
ties and different rooms. Returning home
from afternoon shopping, still haunted
by slight misadventure, she finds a parcel
from her sister in Canada. Distracted, she
fails to put the potatoes on to cook at all.
Just before the third client (played by Yves
Bical) rings the bell, she fetches a pair of
scissors to unpack the parcel. This and the
next scene form the film’s ultimate conun-
drum. For the first time, the camera comes
into Jeanne’s bedroom as she undresses
and has sex with her client; and, also, for
the first time, Jeanne’s mask of composure
disintegrates into a series of grimaces as
she lies under the client, seeming to signal
an oscillation between disgust and pleas-
ure. As she gets dressed, carefully but-
toning her blouse, she is reflected in her
mirror, which also shows the man, lying
on the bed in the background. Suddenly
Jeanne grabs the scissors and stabs him.
The significance of the murder has been
discussed by many commentators with
varying perspectives over the years since
the film came out. Akerman has cited the
influence of Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot le
fou (1965), in which the hero blows himself
up, deprived by the narrative of any other
option. Similarly, Akerman has closed
in on Jeanne, narrowing her parameters,
just as Michael Snow’s 45-minute zoom
in Wavelength (1967, also cited by Akerman
as a key influence) reached the far end of
the loft and ran out of focal length. There
is also a death in Wavelength, but the film
continues to zoom, over the body, with
increasing abstraction until it closes on a
still photograph. Akerman, when asked
why she ended the film with a murder,
replied: “It didn’t end with a murder. There
are seven very strong minutes after that.”
In these seven minutes, Jeanne sits
in shadow at the dining room table, her
white blouse slightly stained with blood.
The blue light from outside seems to be
heightened in intensity in its reflection
behind her, further accentuated as its
beam hits a white china dog on the top
shelf of the cabinet; Jeanne and the soup
tureen next to her are both reflected vividly
in the shiny surface of the table. There is
something of a Brechtian gesture in the
murder, an explosive event that leaves
the spectator uncertain and wondering,
retracing the events that brought Jeanne
and the film to this final image. To sum up:
Akerman has made use of the language of
film to inscribe mute meanings on to the
screen and bring these questions, drama-
tised in the emblematic silence of Jeanne’s
existence and the gradual eruption of her
unconscious into symptomatic actions,
slips and parapraxes, into the public sphere
of cinema.
Chantal Akerman’s film has topped the
Sight and Sound list in its own right and
in recognition of a supreme cinematic
achievement. Interest in gender in cinema
and the objectification of women has gath-
ered momentum, especially as awareness
of the misogyny inherent in the industrial
mode of production – what we call ‘Holly-
wood’ – has become widespread. Perhaps
as the oppression of women in the film
industry has attracted attention, fuelled by
the #MeToo hashtag, so has the oppres-
sion of women on the screen itself, in its
fictions and inscribed into film language.
It would be gratifying to think that the tri-
umph of Jeanne Dielman in the poll gives
an affirmation to these shifts in conscious-
ness. But the critics’ greater willingness
to watch difficult films reflects a wider
acceptance of ‘slow cinema’. When I first
included Jeanne Dielman in avant-garde
film classes in the early 1980s, there were
always some students – perhaps even a
lot – who had to leave to smoke, to go to
the lavatory, etc. I noticed recently that, 20
or so years later, a whole class would be
gripped by the film, actually experiencing
its suspenseful plot as well as its mesmeris-
ing cinematic language.
Between 2013 and 2015, A Nos Amours,
a freelance project founded by Joanna
Hogg and Adam Roberts, curated a com-
plete retrospective of the films and videos
of Akerman in London. Over those two
years, with all films and videos shown
in correct format, the season gathered
a devoted following. It is impossible to
know whether this exposure in London
has had any effect on Akerman’s standing
in a poll of international critics. But she
has also had further exposure through
her installation work. The extraordinary
achievement of the A Nos Amours ret-
rospective culminated in a major exhibi-
tion of her installations at University of
Westminster’s Ambika P3 gallery and an
accompanying conference. But these cel-
ebrations were cast in a different light by
the tragic news of Akerman’s death on
5 October 2015, a few weeks before the
exhibition opened. Her premature death
has probably brought a wider section of
the film community to her work, includ-
ing many who might not, in their normal
viewing habits, have included a three-
IMAGES: BFI NATIONAL ARCHIVE (3); CHANTAL AKERMAN © MARION K ALTER 1976
and-a-half-hour-long feminist, avant-garde
film. The arrival of Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai
du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles at the top of the
2022 Sight and Sound poll signals an amaz-
ing shift in critical taste. Given the status
of the poll, the film will attract a new audi-
ence, drawn, first of all, by curiosity to this
latest addition to the list of great films of
cinema history; and then, held enthralled
by the extraordinarily daring cinema of a
great woman director.
Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles screens
at BFI Southbank, London, on 4 and 28 January
 THE
GREATEST
FILMS
OF
ALL
TIME
THE DIRECTORS’ POLL
A new number one, more women and Black f ilmmakers than ever before,
and some intriguing differences with the critics’ favourites. Here is a
selection of ballots from the world’s most important f ilmmakers
Introduction by arjun sajip
92

The ultimate trip,” promised the poster,

The Directors’ Top 50 and what a trip it continues to be. Over
50 years after first leaving audiences
1 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)
in slack-jawed wonder, 2001: A Space
2 Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
Odyssey now sits at the summit of the
3 The Godfather (Coppola, 1972)
Sight and Sound directors’ poll.
=4 Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce,
1080 Bruxelles (Akerman, 1975) It’s been a steady ascent for Stanley
=4 Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953) Kubrick’s seminal sci-fi epic. A decade
=6 8½ (Fellini, 1963) ago it was in second place alongside Citizen Kane; in 2002 it
=6 Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958) ranked 12th. What has propelled it to the top? The film is known
8 Mirror (Tarkovsky, 1975) for seeming to transcend space and time, but – deriving so much
=9 Close-Up (Kiarostami, 1989)
of its force purely from visuals and music, and operating as it
=9 In the Mood for Love (Wong, 2000)
does at a largely meta-human level – it also transcends cultures,
=9 Persona (Bergman, 1966)
language boundaries, differences in earthly outlook. Perhaps it
=12 Barry Lyndon (Kubrick, 1975)
was bound to thrive among the largest group of directors – the
=12 Taxi Driver (Scorsese, 1976)
most diverse in sex, geography, ethnicity and industry positioning
=14 À bout de souffle (Godard, 1960)
– ever polled. But as decades’ worth of advances in visual effects
=14 Beau travail (Denis, 1998)
fail to achieve anything remotely as visionary, and with global
=14 Seven Samurai (Kurosawa, 1954)
stability increasingly under threat, 2001 also looms ever larger as an
unmatched depiction of human vulnerability and the great beyond.
=14 Stalker (Tarkovsky, 1979)
Compared to the more seismic changes of the critics’ poll, the
18 Apocalypse Now (Coppola, 1979)
directors’ poll has remained stable; seven of this decade’s top
19 A Woman under the Influence (Cassavetes, 1974)
ten were also in 2012’s. The success stories have been heartening
=20 Bicycle Thieves (De Sica, 1948)
though: for one thing, women filmmakers have scored higher
=20 Rashomon (Kurosawa, 1950)
than ever. Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, which ranked 107th
=22 The Battle of Algiers (Pontecorvo, 1966)
in 2012, is now in fourth place, paralleling the film’s climb to the
=22 Mulholland Dr. (Lynch, 2001)
top of the critics’ poll; Claire Denis’s Beau travail (14th), Agnès
=22 Pather Panchali (Ray, 1955)
Varda’s Vagabond (41st) and Jane Campion’s The Piano (53rd)
=22 Raging Bull (Scorsese, 1980)
have also risen significantly. Great films by men about women,
=26 Andrei Rublev (Tarkovsky, 1966)
too, have performed strongly: Ingmar Bergman’s Persona has
=26 The Godfather Part II (Coppola, 1974)
glided into the top ten, while John Cassavetes’ A Woman Under
28 GoodFellas (Scorsese, 1990)
the Influence makes itself at home in the top 20 for the first time.
29 Do the Right Thing (Lee, 1989)
Meanwhile, Black filmmakers, who were not represented at all
=30 Man with a Movie Camera (Vertov, 1929)
in 2012’s directors’ top 100, now have three films in the list: Do the
=30 Ordet (Dreyer, 1955)
Right Thing (29th), Touki Bouki (72nd) and Moonlight (92nd).
=30 The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer, 1928)
It’s interesting that there are now not one but two films about
33 Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (Murnau, 1927) filmmaking in the directors’ top ten, with Federico Fellini’s 8½ now
=34 The 400 Blows (Truffaut, 1959) joined by Abbas Kiarostami’s Close-Up. Formal style and technical
=34 La dolce vita (Fellini, 1960) bravura certainly seem to be key criteria behind directors’ choices.
=34 La Jetée (Marker, 1962) While Varda’s Cléo and The Gleaners and I have been favoured
37 Au Hasard Balthazar (Bresson, 1966) by the critics, it is Vagabond, with its tracking shots and unusual
=38 L’Avventura (Antonioni, 1960) narrative structure, that is the Varda film to galvanise directors.
=38 La Règle du jeu (Renoir, 1939) Consider too the appearance in the top ten of Wong Kar Wai’s In
=38 La Strada (Fellini, 1954) the Mood for Love, with its rich visuals and lush music, and the fact
=41 Come and See (Klimov, 1985) that The Godfather, with Gordon Willis’s painterly camerawork
=41 A Man Escaped (Bresson, 1956) among its many assets, now sits in third place. Or is the latter’s
=41 The Night of the Hunter (Laughton, 1955) position due to the nostalgia of our voting filmmakers for a time
=41 Playtime (Tati, 1967) when peerless artistry went hand in hand with box-office glory?
=41 Vagabond (Varda, 1985) All the films in the directors’ top 100 – not least 2001 – cry out
=46 L’Atalante (Vigo, 1934) to be seen in a cinema. Perhaps this was an important factor for
=46 City Lights (Chaplin, 1931) directors, many of whose films have recently had only fleeting
=46 Don’t Look Now (Roeg, 1973) theatrical windows. Let this top 100 be, now more than ever, a
=46 Dr. Strangelove (Kubrick, 1963) celebration of the big screen and all it has done, and continues
=46 Le Mépris (Godard, 1963) to do, for the filmmakers who nourish us. Vive le cinéma.
=46 Once Upon a Time in the West (Leone, 1968) In January 2023, all the ballots and comments of the 480 directors who voted will be published in full at bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound
=46 Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960)
 93

And the winner is...

2001:
a space
odyssey
When a docking spaceship
Edgar Wright:
is soundtracked by ‘The Blue Danube’,
I’m in heaven. Will we ever see a
major studio film of its like again?

So deep and visionary,

Lucile Hadžihalilović:
it’s still unsurpassed. The more I see it, the
more I’m struck and moved by its optimism.
Stanley Kubrick, we miss you so much!

Me upon first seeing this:

Barry Jenkins:
“I guess… a film can be about everything.”

Daring in look, structure,

Armando Iannucci:
performance, editing, music. Cinematic
storytelling that defies gravity, and succeeds.

Without this film I would

Gaspar Noé:
never have become a director.

Shola Amoo: It’s not a film, it’s a religion.

It made me believe
Hope Dickson Leach:
cinema was otherworldly and science
fiction was the best of all of it.

Rarely has a film so philosophically

Atom Egoyan:
challenging been so wildly entertaining and
so impeccably designed. The reverberations
of this masterpiece are still being deeply felt.

James Gray: A myth of the gods –

unlike anything else.

How did he do it? How

Asif Kapadia:
did it do it then? What is it about? It’s
amazing and mind-blowing. Genius.

Pen-ek Ratanaruang :
Despite all the advances
in production and post-production
technology since 1968, there is yet to
be a space film that surpasses it.
94

Khalik
US
Allah
Black Mother, IWOW: I Walk on Water
Ari
US
Aster
Midsommar, Hereditary
These are some of the films that have The ranking of art is a fool’s errand.
left an indelible impression on me.
z Vertigo (Hitchcock)
z The Hidden Fortress (Kurosawa) Hitchcock’s most personal and
z Belly (Williams) perverse investigation into his own
z The Egyptian (Curtiz) obsessions – with women (that
z Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... is, with a specific type of woman
and Spring (Kim) – elegant and cold and always
z Malcolm X (Lee) unknowable), with artifice, with
z Kids (Clark) control… It might be the most
z Red Beard (Kurosawa) beautiful and disturbing movie ever
z Being There (Ashby) made about the sickness inherent in
z An Occurrence at Owl Creek ‘directing’.
Bridge (Enrico) z 8½ (Fellini)
z The Island (Lungin) A work of total formal authority
and absolute freedom. Fellini’s
camera – always dancing deliriously,
always restless to top itself – was
Allison
US
Anders
Gas Food Lodging, Grace of My Heart
never more fluid or agile or attentive,
his blocking of actors never more
acrobatic. A work of supreme,
Who knew I loved the early 70s so swirling inspiration. Raging Bull sprang from what Scorsese called
much? Well, unsurprisingly, the 70s is z Barry Lyndon (Kubrick)
where I became a conscious cineaste; The funniest, the most stately, and at ‘a kamikaze way of making movies’ and it feels
before then I just simply loved and
devoured movies, like most kids in
once the loveliest and most alienating like one of the most nakedly confessional, least
of Kubrick’s films. Everything here
my generation. All these films for me feels perfectly judged – from the compromised American films ever made at a studio
are favourites, very important to me ultra-deliberate tempo of its scenes
as a filmmaker, but also ones I feel to the uncannily measured line z Playtime (Tati) best close-ups in all of cinema), and
have earned their places in the highest readings to the famously immaculate One of the colossal achievements his formal and narrative daring. A
esteem: they speak to everything great slow zooms to that sudden, hilarious in world-building, and the most liberating film!
art must, and they pull it off beautifully. shift to handheld when cool heads generous celebration/lampooning z A Serious Man (Joel & Ethan Coen)
finally cease to prevail. of human civilisation I know. Shot The prologue alone gets it on this
z A Hard Day ’s Night (Lester) z Raging Bull (Scorsese) in 70mm – every plane inventively list! No movie has ever gotten at
z Giant (Stevens) Made after Scorsese hit rock utilised in any given shot – Playtime Jewishness – or Jewish anxieties,
z Odd Man Out (Reed) bottom, Raging Bull sprang from is a grand-scaled panoramic gag Jewish pessimism, Jewish interior
z Wanda (Loden) what he called “a kamikaze way of machine of peerless grace and design – in the way that A Serious
z Bless Their Little Hearts making movies” and it feels like one precision. Its benevolent, godlike Man does. Profoundly funny and
(Woodberry) of the most nakedly confessional, gaze could almost be described as profoundly serious.
z Alice in the Cities (Wenders) least compromised American films entomological. z Shoah (Lanzmann)
z Shoot the Piano Player (Truffaut) ever made at a studio. His ode to z Sansho the Bailiff (Mizoguchi) When one survivor breaks down,
z Two-Lane Blacktop (Hellman) the wretch is a mammoth wail of “A man is not a human being without pleading with the unflappable
z Harold and Maude (Ashby) anguish and impotence, and a work mercy. Even if you are hard on yourself, Lanzmann to stop the interview
z Cabaret (Fosse) of radical compassion. A portrait of be merciful to others. Men are created (“It’s too horrible”), the master
an emotional illiterate that carries equal. Everyone is entitled to their interrogator insists, “You have
overwhelming emotional power. happiness.” These words might strike to do it.” With Lanzmann, a
one as platitudes when they’re first ruthless, single-minded gatherer of
Wes
US
Anderson
Rushmore, The Grand Budapest Hotel,
spoken; by the time the film is over,
the urgency of those words couldn’t
testimonies, the moral imperative
always wins out. But Shoah is more
The French Dispatch be more deeply impressed upon the than a necessity; it is a work of
viewer. A work of perfect simplicity exquisite poetry.
Like most of us (I think?), I don’t and immense compassion. z Songs from the Second Floor
actually have ten favourite movies. z Persona (Bergman) (Andersson)
I thought I would pick ten favourite The monolithic dividing line If one is to argue the supremacy of
French ones (because I am listing between early and late Bergman, and the image in cinema, Andersson
this list in France). I will start the film most densely packed with represents a sort of dazzling apogee.
with number zero in fact: David all his greatest gifts – his hypnotic Everything is built from scratch
Golder (Julien Duvivier). Then (in dream sequences, his pummelling, on a sound stage, no detail left to
chronological order): literary dialogue (his love for accident. His humour is sublime, his
Strindberg always evident), his vignettes among the great gifts in
z La Grande Illusion (Renoir) genius for composition (arguably the modern movies.
z Quai des Orfèvres (Clouzot) Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull (1980)
z Madame de… (Ophuls)
z Vivre
re sa vie (Godard)
d
z Thee Man Who Loved Women
(Truffaut)
uffaut)
t
Like most of us Roy Andersson Olivier Assayas
z Loulou
ulou (Pialat)t (I think?), I don’t Sweden Songs from the Second Floor; France Personal Shopper, Irma Vep
z Vagabond
gabond (Varda) You, the Living
z Olivier,
vier, Olivier
actually have
ha ten z 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)
(Holland)
lland)
d favourite movies.
m z Bicycle Thieves (De Sica) z The Gospel According to St.
z It All Starts z Hiroshima mon amour (Resnais) Matthew (Pasolini)
Today
day (Tavernier)
I thought I would z Viridiana (Buñuel) z The Leopard (Visconti)
z Kingsgs & Queen pick ten favourite
fav z Rashomon (Kurosawa) z L’Argent (Bresson)
(Desplechin)
splechin) z Barry Lyndon (Kubrick) z Andrei Rublev (Tarkovsky)
French oneones (because
VAGABOND IMAGE: GET TY IMAGES

z La Grande Illusion (Renoir) z Napoleon (Gance)

I am listin
listing this list z Andrei Rublev (Tarkovsky) z The Iron Horse (Ford)
z Amarcord (Fellini) z Playtime (Tati)
France)
in Fra z Ashes and Diamonds (Wajda) z La Règle du jeu (Renoir)
Agnès Varda’s WES AN
ANDERSON z La notte (Antonioni) z La Maison des bois (Pialat)
Vagabondd (1985)
 THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 95

Clio
UK
Barnard
The Self ish Giant, Ali & Ava
Charles
US
Burnett
Killer of Sheep, To Sleep with Anger
Julie
US
Dash
Daughters of the Dust, Funny Valentines

z The Gospel According to St. z Shane (Stevens)

Matthew (Pasolini) z Blow-Up (Antonioni)
z Rashomon (Kurosowa) z Decision Before Dawn (Litvak)
z Fear Eats the Soul (Fassbinder) z Emitaï (Sembène)
z Andrei Rublev (Tarkovsky) z The Tree of Wooden Clogs (Olmi)
z L’Atalante (Vigo) z Bicycle Thieves (De Sica)
z Road (Clarke) z Pather Panchali (Ray)
z Chronicle of a Summer (Morin & z The Song of Ceylon (Wright)
Rouch) z Rain (Ivens & Franken)
z Vagabond (Varda) z À bout de souffle (Godard)
z Hunger (McQueen)
z La strada (Fellini)

Bi
China
Gan
Long Day’s Journey into Night
z Citizen Kane (Welles)
z 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)
z Mirror (Tarkovsky)
z 8½ (Fellini)
z Spring in a Small Town (Fei)
z A Brighter Summer Day (Yang)
z Underground (Kusturica)
z Vertigo (Hitchcock)
z Modern Times (Chaplin)
z The Matrix (Wachowskis)
John
US
Carpenter
Assault on Precinct 13, The Thing
z Only Angels Have Wings (Hawks)
z Chimes at Midnight (Welles)
z Rio Bravo (Hawks)
z The Discreet Charm of the
Bourgeoisie (Buñuel)
z Chinatown (Polanski)
z Bringing up Baby (Hawks)
In The Piano Jane Campion takes us where
z The Searchers (Ford) dreams reside, challenges us to locate the
z The Exterminating Angel (Buñuel)
z Scarface (Hawks)
central character and demands we discover
z Vertigo (Hitchcock) who is the hero or heroine in the story
z Moby Dick (Huston) z Raise the Red Lantern (Zhang)
A masterpiece of visual metaphors Essential viewing for mothers and

Bertrand
Bonello
France Saint Laurent, Zombi Child
z Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
(Murnau)
z The Godfather (Coppola)
z Vertigo (Hitchcock)
z La Maman et la Putain (Eustache)
z Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom
(Pasolini)
z Pickpocket (Bresson)
z Elephant (Clarke)
z Twin Peaks: The Return (Lynch)
z Eyes Wide Shut (Kubrick)
z Casino (Scorsese)
Bong Joon Ho
South Korea Memories of Murder,
Snowpiercer, Parasite
z Psycho (Hitchcock)
z The Housemaid (Kim)
z Rocco and His Brothers (Visconti)
z Vengeance Is Mine (Imamura)
z Raging Bull (Scorsese)
z A City of Sadness (Hou)
z Cure (Kurosawa K.)
z Zodiac (Fincher)
z Mad Max: Fury Road (Miller)
z Happy as Lazzaro (Rohrwacher)
Nuri
Turkey
Bilge Ceylan
Uzak, Winter Sleep
z Mirror (Tarkovsky)
z Andrei Rublev (Tarkovsky)
z Tokyo Story (Ozu)
z A Man Escaped (Bresson)
z Shame (Bergman)
z L’eclisse (Antonioni)
z Through the Olive Trees (Kiarostami)
z The Death of Mr Lazarescu (Puiu)
z Vive l’amour (Tsai)
z Stranger than Paradise (Jarmusch)
Roger
US
Corman
The Raven, The Masque of the Red
Death, The Trip
z Chinatown (Polanski)
z Citizen Kane (Welles)
z Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned
to Stop Worrying and Love the
Bomb (Kubrick)
z The Godfather (Coppola)
z La dolce vita (Fellini)
z Lawrence of Arabia (Lean)
z Rashomon (Kurosawa)
z The Seventh Seal (Bergman)
z The Tin Drum (Schlöndorff)
z War and Peace (Bondarchuk)
Ingmar Bergman’s
The Seventh Seal (1957)
and cinematic storytelling. I first
watched this movie on television
when I was a child and I continue to
revisit it and understand more and
more as an adult.
z Lawrence of Arabia (Lean)
I’m choosing this title for the
structure of the storytelling, the
cinematography and cinematic
displays. This choice is not about
the man T.E. Lawrence, who
committed numerous wartime
atrocities. For some, visual rhetoric
does not outweigh politics, but one
can certainly appreciate the art of
filmmaking from this title.
z Lust, Caution (Lee)
Passion and politics have never been
done better.
z The Lives of Others (Henckel von
Donnersmarck)
This is one perfect movie; a
cautionary tale never grows old.
z The Piano (Campion)
Jane Campion takes us where dreams
reside, challenges us to locate the
central character and demands we
discover who is the hero or heroine
in the story.
their daughters.
z Chungking Express (Wong)
Noir films have never been the same
since this offering of such unexpected
pure joy.
z The Woman King (Prince-
Bythewood)
Expressing feelings that can’t be told
any other way, this is a film we’ve
all been waiting for, and it changes
everything.
z Ikiru (Kurosawa)
The cinema of sentimentality and
truth produced to perfection.
z Amores perros (Iñárritu)
Many have copied Iñárritu’s
cinematic masterpiece but never
accomplishing the same powerful
drama, story form and structure.
This is another film that changed
how and why we make movies.
JULIE DASH: GET TY IMAGES

Tony Leung in Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution (2007)

96

Joe
US
Dante
The Howling, Gremlins, Matinee
Compiling a list of the ‘10 Greatest’
movies is no picnic. The guilt when you
realise you haven’t included a single
film by Wilder, Ozu, Murnau, Huston,
Lumet, Lupino, Wyler, Kurosawa,
Lumet, Aldrich, Fuller or, God help me,
Scorsese is palpable! Whew!
z City Lights (Chaplin)
z Pinocchio (Sharpsteen & Luske)
z 8½ (Fellini)
z The Grapes of Wrath (Ford)
z Citizen Kane (Welles)
z Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned
to Stop Worrying and Love the
Bomb (Kubrick)
z Chinatown (Polanski)
z The Godfather Part II (Coppola)
z Umberto D (De Sica)
z A Matter of Life and Death (Powell
& Pressburger)
Terence
UK
Davies
Distant Voices, Still Lives; Benediction
Pete
US
Docter
Up, Inside Out, Soul
Guillermo
Mexico
del Toro
Pan’s Labyrinth, The Shape of Water, Pinocchio
I only get ten?!?
z Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
(Hand)
z Paper Moon (Bogdanovich)
z It’s a Wonderful Life (Capra)
z One Froggy Evening /Feed the
Kitty (Jones)
Okay, this is two films, but they’re
each seven minutes so I’m hoping
Sight and Sound might let it slide.
z The Station Agent (McCarthy)
z Raiders of the Lost Ark (Spielberg)
z My Neighbour Totoro (Miyazaki)
When I first saw this film I figured
it’d be all about the Totoros – who
are indeed cute and just the right
amount of scary – but the real reason
to watch is the amazingly well
observed animation of the two kids.
z City Lights (Chaplin)
z Dumbo (Sharpsteen) Top tens are impossible, yes – but they are
z Casablanca (Curtiz)
revealing. They tell you where you are at that
precise moment in your film life… Ask me again

z Singin’ in the Rain (Kelly & Donen)

Best musical ever made!
z Kind Hearts and Coronets (Hamer)
Best comedy ever made!
z Shane (Stevens)
Best western ever made!
z The Happiest Days of Your Life
(Launder) Because Alastair Sim &
Margaret Rutherford are in it!
z The Pajama Game (Abbott & Donen)
Because Doris Day is in it!
z Young at Heart (Douglas)
Because Doris Day is in it!
z All About Eve (Mankiewicz)
Because Bette Davis is in it!
z Possessed (Bernhardt)
Because Joan Crawford is in it!
z A Letter to Three Wives
(Mankiewicz) It’s beautifully made!
z The Pumpkin Eater (Clayton)
Because Anne Bancroft is in it!
Molly
UK
Dineen
The Ark, The Lie of the Land
z Le Joli Mai (Marker)
z Kes (Loach)
z Naked (Leigh)
z Night and Fog (Resnais)
z The Battle of Algiers (Pontecorvo)
z The Gospel According to St.
Matthew (Pasolini)
z Hue and Cry (Crichton)
z The Sound of Music (Wise)
z Night Mail (Watt & Wright)
z The
he Harder They Come
Co (Henzell)
Cheryl
US
Dunye
The Watermelon Woman
z Imitation of Life (Sirk)
z Alphaville (Godard)
z Meshes of the Afternoon (Deren &
Hammid)
z Funny Girl (Wyler)
z Do the Right Thing (Lee)
z Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du
Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
(Akerman)
z Cléo from 5 to 7 (Varda)
z Daughters of the Dust (Dash)
z We Need to Talk about Kevin
(Ramsay)
z Midnight Cowboy (Schlesinger)
F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922)
Robert
US
Eggers
The Lighthouse, The Northman
z Andrei Rublev (Tarkovsky)
z The Elephant Man (Lynch)
z Seven Samurai (Kurosawa)
z The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
(Huston)
z Apocalypse Now (Coppola)
z 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)
on Friday and I’ll give you a different list
Top tens are impossible, yes – but they
are revealing. They tell you where you
are at that precise moment in your
film life. As I compiled this list with
solemn commitment, many alternative
titles came and went: Greed, Sunrise,
Great Expectations, Children of Men, High
and Low, The General, All That Heaven
Allows, Mad Max 2, Singin’ in the Rain,
Eyes Without a Face, Freaks, The Unknown,
Birdman, La Chienne, The Friends of Eddie
Coyle, etc etc, and of course this list
matters to no one but myself.
That said, I decided to just try
it once, jot it all down and list one
alternative title for each director’s work.
Even this proved difficult, but here they
are. Ask me again on Friday and I’ll give
you a different list.
James Whale’s
Frankenstein (1931)
z Barry Lyndon (Kubrick)
Alternative title: The Shining
z GoodFellas (Scorsese)
Alternative title: Taxi Driver
z City Lights (Chaplin)
Alternative title: Modern Times
z Close Encounters of the Third
Kind (Spielberg)
Alternative title: Duel
z Frankenstein (Whale)
Alternative title: Bride of Frankenstein
z 8½ (Fellini)
Alternative title: Amarcord
z Nazarín (Buñuel)
Alternative title: Los olvidados
z No Country for Old Men (Joel &
Ethan Coen)
Alternative title: A Serious Man
z Shadow of a Doubt (Hitchcock)
Alternative title: The Birds
z The Magnificent Ambersons
(Welles)
Alternative title: Touch of Evil
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z Nosferatu (Murnau)
z Fitzcarraldo (Herzog)
z The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer)
z Persona (Bergman)

Ken Loach’s
Kes (1969)
 THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 97

Arie
Nigeria
Esiri
Eyimofe (This Is My Desire)
These are the films that have meant the
most to me.
z Yi Yi (Yang)
z Bicycle Thieves (De Sica)
z Miracle in Milan (De Sica)
z A Separation (Farhadi)
z Taste of Cherry (Kiarostami)
z Dry Season (Haroun)
z Losing Ground (Collins)
z La notte (Antonioni)
z Jean de Florette/Manon des
sources (Berri)
z In the Mood for Love (Wong)
Chuko
Nigeria
Esiri
Eyimofe (This Is My Desire)
z A Brighter Summer Day (Yang)
z A City of Sadness (Hou)
z Don’t Cry, Pretty Girls (Mészáros)
z Grave of the Fireflies (Takahata)
z Losing Ground (Collins)
z Another Year (Leigh)
z Three Colours: Blue (Kieślowski)
z Taste of Cherry (Kiarostami)
z La notte (Antonioni)
z The Big City (Ray)
Asghar
Iran
Farhadi
A Separation, The Salesman
z La strada (Fellini)
z Bicycle Thieves (De Sica)
z Rashomon (Kurosawa)
z City Lights (Chaplin)
z The Apartment (Wilder)
z The Godfather (Coppola)
z Raging Bull (Scorsese)
z Tokyo Story (Ozu)
z Wild Strawberries (Bergman)
z Once upon a Time in the West
(Leone)
Abel
US
Ferrara
King of New York, Bad Lieutenant,
Zeros and Ones
Alejandro
Mexico
González Iñárritu
Amores perros, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), Bardo
I guess the only way to condense it is to
be aware of how the greatest films of all
time are changing permanently. These
changes in perspective are directly
related to the personal changes we go
through simultaneously. This selection
of films is faithful to the moment I am
going through at this moment in my life
and the way these films speak to me at
this time.
z Andrei Rublev (Tarkovsky)
There is a luminous duality
coexisting in every frame of this
film. The beauty and hardships of
the physical world and the spiritual
meaning in the interior life of Rublev.
z The Tree of Wooden Clogs (Olmi)
This transparent and deep
observation of human frailty
transpires in each of those faces
and those locations. It’s the highest
manifestation of intelligence, which
is empathy.
z You, the Living (Andersson)
The train fantasy scene, with
the newlywed couple on their
honeymoon while the rock star plays
guitar, is for me one of the most
beautiful moments made in cinema.
z L’avventura (Antonioni)
Antonioni is for me a cinematic
animal. Every one of his films
contains its own pace and language.
In L’avventura the beauty and
complexity is almost uncomfortable.
Its ending always leaves a void
within me which can only be filled by
watching it again.
z Ordet (Dreyer)
Ordet is a modern and relevant film
today as much as it was 65 years ago.
Everybody talks about the ending,
but Johannes reciting at the top of
that hill is as miraculous as the rest of
the film. Only Dreyer could turn such z Persona (Bergman)
a theatrically blocked composition
Everybody talks about From the opening credits to Bibi
into a completely cinematic the ending of Ordet, Andersson’s sexual monologue to
experience. how Liv Ullmann looks at the camera
z Playtime (Tati)
but Johannes reciting or how each silent moment is light,
Tati saw the world 50 years ahead
of his time and he commented
at the top of that hill framed, sober and perfect, you know
you are witnessing greatness. This is
on it. Sonically and visually,
is miraculous. Only a walk in the mind of Bergman.

It’s been a long time since I have seen

any of these films, but the shadow
they cast over me is long and dark, and
getting longer and darker.
z Touch of Evil (Welles)
z The Battle of Algiers (Pontecorvo)
z 3 Women (Altman)
z Raging Bull (Scorsese)
z Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom
(Pasolini)
z Family Nest (Tarr)
z A Woman Under the Influence
(Cassavetes)
z The Shining (Kubrick)
z Sherlock Jr. (Keaton)
z Psycho (Hitchcock)
each little detail on every single
frame of this massive scale f ilm is
obsessive and elegantly clever. Tati’s
unique timing and blocking made
something precise and controlled
extremely funny.
Dreyer could turn such
a theatrical composition
into a completely
cinematic experience
z Le Mépris (Godard)
Every time I hear George Delerue’s
theme start playing over and over
again, even when I know it will stop
abruptly, I feel a deep melancholy and
my eyes water.
z The Discreet Charm of the
Bourgeoisie (Buñuel)
Buñuel once said, “A film is a dream
being directed.” This film is precisely
that. I could have chosen The
Exterminating Angel or The Phantom
of Liberty, but this film’s humour and
social commentary make it clear
that we should not underestimate
the wisdom and power of the
subconscious.
z La dolce vita (Fellini)
When I first saw this film, I was
very young and I will never forget
my shock when Marcello finds out
about Steiner’s tragic end: it changed
IÑÁRRITO: GET TY IMAGES

something in me. The way Fellini

navigates through the surface of the
world while illuminating its darkest
depths is superb.
Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Ordet (1955)

Adoor
Gopalakrishnan
India Swayamvaram, Elippathayam
z Pather Panchali (Ray)
z La strada (Fellini)
z The 400 Blows (Truffaut)
z Andrei Rublev (Tarkovsky)
z Tokyo Story (Ozu)
z Rashomon (Kurosawa)
z Pickpocket (Bresson)
z The Puppetmaster (Hou)
z The Round-Up (Jancsó)
z Boy (Ōshima)
Federico Fellin’s La strada (1954)
James
US
Gray
The Yards, Ad Astra, Armageddon Time
z 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)
A myth of the gods – unlike anything
else, avant garde yet narrative.
z Citizen Kane (Welles)
Fully deserving, despite its ubiquity
on these lists. Think of the image of
the emotionally broken Kane, walking
down the mirrored hallway, his image
reflected multiple times into infinity –
his identity forever elusive.
z The Godfather (Coppola)
Unparalleled narrative force and
the greatest character arc in movie
history.
z 8½ (Fellini)
As close as we can get to stepping
inside the consciousness of another
human being.
z The Leopard (Visconti)
The ephemerality of life.
z Ordet (Dreyer)
Pure transcendence.
z Playtime (Tati)
An epic vision of the modern world,
absurd yet loving.
z Raging Bull (Scorsese)
A man’s soul on display: raw, honest,
at war with itself.
z Tokyo Story (Ozu)
Astonishingly humane,
compassionate – and above all,
tender.
z Vertigo (Hitchcock)
The absolute ultimate film on the
subject of desire.
Takahata Isao’s
Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
Peter Greenaway
UK The Draughtsman’s Contract, Drowning
by Numbers, Eisenstein in Guanajuato
These films set the pace of my interests,
told me that cinema was valid as an art
form, that I should take a keen interest,
and legitimised any attempt to try and
make a contribution. These are the
films that for me set up the standards
and created the measuring bar.
z Last Year at Marienbad (Resnais)
z 8½ (Fellini)
z Citizen Kane (Welles)
z The Seventh Seal (Bergman)
z Ivan the Terrible (Eisenstein)
z Throne of Blood (Kurosawa)
z À bout de souffle (Godard)
z Blade Runner (Scott)
z Gladiator (Scott)
z Jules et Jim (Truffaut)
Nan Goldin
US The Ballad of Sexual Dependency
z Sunrise (Murnau)
z Nothing but a Man (Roemer)
z The Cranes Are Flying (Kalatozov)
z Wanda (Loden)
z A Man Escaped (Bresson)
z A Woman Under the Influence
(Cassavetes)
z The Asphalt Jungle (Huston)
z Cléo from 5 to 7 (Varda)
z XXY (Puenzo)
z Titicut Follies (Wiseman)
Luca
Italy
Guadagnino
I Am Love, Call Me by Your Name,
Bones and All
z Journey to Italy (Rossellini)
z Germany, Year Zero (Rossellini)
z Europa 51 (Rossellini)
z Last Tango in Paris (Bertolucci)
z The Sheltering Sky (Bertolucci)
z L’Atalante (Vigo)
z In the Realm of the Senses (Ōshima)
z Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du
Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
(Akerman)
z Samba Traoré (Ouedraogo)
z Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
(Murnau)
Lucile
Hadžihalilović
France Evolution, Earwig
Here are ten films that have had the
greatest impact on me and whose
achievements are absolutely amazing.
Even the darkest ones give faith by
their inspiration and creativity.
z 2001: A Space Odyssey
(
(Kubrick
(Kubrick) )
z Stalker (Tarkovsky)
It’s not a film, it’s a place
that haunted you.
z The Life of Oharu
(
(Mizoguchi
(Mizoguchi) )
THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 99
z The Ascent (Shepitko)
I have recently discovered Larisa
Shepitko’s films and I couldn’t Mia Hansen-Løve
believe she hasn’t been as well
known as her contemporaries Andrei
France Things to Come, Bergman Island
z L’Enfant sauvage (Truffaut)
Tarkovsky, Sergei Parajanov and
(her husband) Elem Klimov. Deeply z The Leopard (Visconti)
z Fanny and Alexander (Bergman)
spiritual, The Ascent is far more than
z The Wind (Sjöström)
a film about war and deals with
z Ådalen 31 (Widerberg)
complex existential questions. The
z The Green Ray (Rohmer)
snow, ice and mud of the landscapes
z La Maison des bois (Pialat)
are the main characters in the story,
z La Maman et la Putain (Eustache)
with human beings trying to survive
z Eyes Wide Shut (Kubrick)
in such an environment.
z Imitation of Life (Sirk)
z Grave of the Fireflies (Takahata)
z Napoleon (Abel Gance)
I have never wept like that in front of
any other film.
z The Red Shoes (Powell &
Pressburger)
z Last Year at Marienbad (Resnais)
z Tabu (Murnau)
z Mamma Roma (Pasolini)
z The Spirit of the Beehive (Erice)
One of the most beautiful films about
the magic of cinema I know.
Andrew
UK
Haigh
Weekend, 45 Years
Jean Eustache’s La Maman et la Putain (1973)
z Some Like It Hot (Wilder)
Nobody’s perfect! Only this film is as
close to perfect as it gets.
MahamAt-
z Black Narcissus (Powell &
Pressburger)
Saleh
Chad
Haroun
Dry Season; Lingui, the Sacred Bonds
A dizzy masterpiece from the greatest
z A Man Escaped (Bresson)
of all British filmmakers. It is
z Seven Samurai (Kurosawa)
impossible to forget the red lipstick.
z Limelight (Chaplin)
z Cries and Whispers (Bergman)
An existential howl of a film that still
keeps me up at night.
z Close-Up (Kiarostami)
z Sunrise (Murnau)
z Uzak (Ceylan) z Apocalypse Now (Coppola)
Perhaps the best film of the last 25 z The Searchers (Ford)
years and one of the greatest ever z The Music Room (S. Ray)
z A Time to Live, a Time to Die (Hou)
made about loneliness.
z Don’t Look Now (Roeg) z The Magnificent Ambersons (Welles)
Erotic, terrifying and desperately sad.
A film about the horror of loss.
z The Holy Girl (Martel)
A puzzle of a movie that lingers like
a dream.
Don
US
Hertzfeldt
It’s Such a Beautiful Day
z The Manchurian Candidate
These ten titles have knocked me
(Frankenheimer)
over the head at some point in life and
60s cinema at its best. Paranoid,
continue to do so.
potent and thrillingly entertaining.
z L’avventura (Antonioni)
z 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)
I saw this film while working as an
z Citizen Kane (Welles)
usher at the NFT in the mid-90s.
z The Godfather (Coppola)
The screening had an earphone
z The Pianist (Polanski)
commentary rather than subtitles.
I didn’t have any earphones. The z Harold and Maude (Ashby)
images alone blew my mind to pieces. z Monty Python’s Life of Brian (Jones)
z Ratcatcher (Ramsay) z The Act of Killing (Oppenheimer)
Pure poetry. It made me want to z Close Encounters of the Third
make films.
z Watership Down (Rosen)
Kind (Spielberg)
z Gates of Heaven (Morris)
Cries and Whispers for kids. It should z GoodFellas (Scorsese)
be shown to every child, even if it
fucks them up. Which it will.
Walter
US
Hill
The Driver, The Warriors
z Seven Samurai (Kurosawa)
z Citizen Kane (Welles)
z The Wild Bunch (Peckinpah)
z 8½ (Fellini)
z Belle de jour (Buñuel)
z The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Demy)
z Sullivan’s Travels (Sturges)
z His Girl Friday (Hawks)
z Wild Strawberries (Bergman)
z Throne of Blood (Kurosawa)
Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now (1973)
100

Mike
UK
Hodges
Get Carter, Flash Gordon, Croupier
Armando
UK
Iannucci
The Death of Stalin, The Personal History of David Copperfield
z Ace in the Hole (Wilder) z 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick) multiple characters and storylines, to z Festen (Vinterberg)
z The Asphalt Jungle (Huston) z The Godfather (Coppola) come up with something truly whole z Ran (Kurosawa)
z The Bad Sleep Well (Kurosawa) z The Battle of Algiers (Pontecorvo) and original. z Monty Python’s Life of Brian (Jones)
z Charley Varrick (Siegel) More dramatic and tense than a z Annie Hall (Allen) Again, it’s comedy that shows how
z In a Lonely Place (Ray) thousand thrillers made after it. Allen shows how comedy can be huge themes can be tackled in an
z The Killing (Kubrick) z The Great Dictator (Chaplin) much more inventive and free in its interesting and formally daring way.
z Kiss Me Deadly (Aldrich) Chaplin shows us why movie comedy storytelling than straight linear drama. It looks lavish, but the jokes and
z The Prowler (Losey) is not just entertaining but essential. z Alien (Scott) themes stay close, intimate and real.
z Le Samouraï (Melville) z Nashville (Altman) Perfect storytelling, from a director This was impossible. But damn if it
z Sweet Smell of Success America’s Fellini, Altman revels in who knows precisely when to wind wasn’t fun.
(Mackendrick) sprawl, rawness, improvisation, and up and when to let go.

Joanna
UK
Hogg
Archipelago, Exhibition, The Souvenir,
Barry
US
Jenkins
Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk, The Underground Railroad
The Souvenir Part II
Cinema as action, a vital masterpiece
z All That Jazz (Fosse) of verve and invention.
z An Angel at My Table (Campion) z Taxi Driver (Scorsese)
z La dolce vita (Fellini) Lithe and lethal, a nihilistic
z The King of Comedy (Scorsese) symphony for the city of dreams.
z Margaret (Lonergan) z Beau travail (Denis)
z The Red Shoes (Powell & Claire cuts deep, a truly sensorial
Pressburger) cinema. The film lunges off the
z La Règle du jeu (Renoir) screen at you. You can taste this one.
z 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick) You smell it. It overwhelms.
z Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du z In the Mood for Love (Wong)
Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles Movement and stasis as theme and
(Akerman) aesthetic, tension and release.
z Journey to Italy (Rossellini) z Sátántangó (Tarr)
An uncompromising masterwork.
Humbling.
z The Round-Up (Jancsó)
Hong Sangsoo
South Korea The Day He Arrives,
Cinema is just past its 125th year. So
young. The most recent first viewing
Nobody’s Daughter Haewon, The Day After of my ten, Miklós Jancsó’s contained
epic of desperate glances and
z Boat Leaving the Port (Lumière) oppressive light, a film that harnesses
z Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans movement and silhouette to build
(Murnau) form as thematic impact. There
z Ordet (Dreyer) remains so much to be seen.
z L’Atalante (Vigo) z 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)
z Boudu Saved from Drowning Me upon first seeing this: “I guess... a
(Renoir) film CAN be about everything.”
z Late Spring (Ozu) z Hidden (Haneke)
z Young Mr. Lincoln (Ford) Not a wasted frame. Not a single
z A Man Escaped (Bresson) damn one.
z Nazarín (Buñuel) z Do the Right Thing (Lee)
z The Green Ray (Rohmer) The William Shakespeare of Bed-
z West Indies (Hondo) Stuy’s most devastating tragicomedy.
For many of us, Spike IS the canon.
Cinema is incomplete without him.
z Killer of Sheep (Burnett)
Mark
UK
Jenkin
Bait, Enys Men
Charles’s contribution to cinema
– to a very particular cinema – has
for too long gone understated. A
z Performance (Cammell & Roeg) monumental work.
z Persona (Bergman)
z L’Argent (Bresson)
z Radio On (Petit)
z Uzak (Ceylan) Claire Denis
z Salam Cinema (Makhmalbaf) cuts deep, a truly
z Daguérreotypes (Varda)
z The Gardenn (Jarman)
( ) sensorial cinema.
z Punishment
Punishm Park Beau travail lunges
(Watkins)
z Big Wednesday
We off the screen
(Milius)
(
(Milius ) at you. You can
taste this one.
You smell it.
BARRY JENKINS PORTRAIT: GET TY IMAGES

It overwhelms

Mick Jagger in
Performance (1970)
P Claire Denis’s Beau travail (1998)

Kirsten
US
Johnson
Cameraperson, Dick Johnson Is Dead
z Close-Up (Kiarostami)
z Yeelen (Cissé)
z Beau travail (Denis)
z All That Jazz (Fosse)
z Man with a Movie Camera (Vertov)
z Vagabond (Varda)
z The Ascent (Shepitko)
z The Battle of Algiers (Pontecorvo)
z Nostalgia for the Light (Guzmán)
z The Headless Woman (Martel)
Larisa Shepitko’s
The Ascent (1977)
Radu
Romania
Jude
The Happiest Girl in the World,
Aferim!, Scarred Hearts
I decided to choose films that I didn’t
choose in your last poll and that are not
as recognised as I think they should
be. I chose these films very quickly, in a
few minutes; tomorrow I would make
a different list, since there are so many
great movies, and even the bad ones are
also good.
z Je vous salue, Sarajevo (Godard)
z Homeland (Iraq Year Zero)
(Fahdel)
z Poor Little Rich Girl (Warhol)
z Christmas on Earth (Rubin)
z An Unforgettable Summer
(Pintilie)
z 365 Day Project (Mekas)
Mekas’s project is a proto-TikTok
and shows what great potential for
cinema these platforms offer. I could
nominate TikTok and Instagram in
their entirety for the top 10.
z Oh! Man (Gianikian &
Ricci Lucchi)
z Star Spangled to Death (Jacobs)
z Anaemic Cinema (Duchamp)
z Frownland (Bronstein)
Isaac
UK
Julien
Young Soul Rebels; Frantz Fanon: Black
Skin, White Mask
z Either Within Our Gates or Ten
Minutes to Live (Micheaux)
z Man with a Movie Camera (Vertov)
z The Night of the Hunter
(Laughton)
z Mandabi (Sembène)
z Touki Bouki (Mambéty)
z Fear Eats the Soul (Fassbinder)
z Sans soleil (Marker)
z Do the Right Thing (Lee)
z Blue (Jarman)
z Love Is the Devil (Maybury)
Asif
UK
Kapadia
The Warrior, Senna, Amy
z Vertigo (Hitchcock)
z Raging Bull (Scorsese)
z 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)
z La Jetée (Marker)
z Once upon a Time in the West
(Leone)
z Don’t Look Now (Roeg)
z The Godfather Part II (Coppola)
z Come and See (Klimov)
z Yojimbo (Kurosawa)
Kurosawa, the master. Mifune, the
scruffy, scratching, original man with
no name, I love the opening where
he throws a stick to figure out which
direction to take. There are so many
great Kurosawa films to choose from,
but I chose this because it’s blackly
funny, cool, a slow build of tension,
has great dialogue and it’s the
inspiration for so many other movies.
z In the Mood for Love (Wong)
Aki Kaurismäki
Finland Leningrad Cowboys Go America,
The Man Without a Past, Le Havre
z L’Age d’or (Buñuel)
z High Sierra (Walsh)
z The Spirit of the Beehive (Erice)
z Red Beard (Kurosawa)
z Casque d’or (Becker)
z Kalina Krasnaya (Shukshin)
z The Baker’s Wife (Pagnol)
z The White Balloon (Panahi)
z Cairo Station (Chahine)
z The Gold Rush (Chaplin)
Alexandre
Koberidze
Georgia What Do We See When We Look
at the Sky?
These are ten films I love the most
today, 5 October 2022.
z Feola (Tzouladze)
z Dear Diary (Moretti)
z Tushetian Shepherd (Chkhaidze)
z Four Adventures of Reinette and
Mirabelle (Rohmer)
z Great Green Valley (Kokochashvili)
z Kes (Loach)
z Don’t Grieve! (Daneliya)
z The Way Home (Rekhviashvili)
z The Day He Arrives (Hong)
z Love at First Sight (Esadze)
Kogonada
US Columbus, After Yang
z The 400 Blows (Truffaut)
z After Life (Koreeda)
z An Autumn Afternoon (Ozu)
z Burning (Lee Changdong)
z Early Summer (Ozu)
z In the Mood for Love (Wong)
z La Jetée (Marker)
z Platform (Jia)
z Tokyo Story (Ozu)
z Yi Yi (Yang)
THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 101
Koreeda
Japan
Hirokazu
Maborosi, After Life, Our Little
Sister, Shoplifters
I returned to classic films during the
pandemic when I was stuck in my
house. Considering the style of my
films, I’ve always considered works by
John Ford, Howard Hawks, and John
Huston as distant, with no ‘blood ties’
between them and my works, so to
speak. But returning to these films as a Carlos Reygadas’ Battle in Heaven (2005)
movie fan, I enjoyed them so much and
ended up thinking that such ‘ties’ don’t
matter at all. It’s with such thoughts
that I picked these films this time. Dea
z Antoine and Antoinette (Becker) Kulumbegashvili
z Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans Georgia Beginning
(Murnau)
z Persona (Bergman)
z The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
z The Cranes Are Flying (Kalatozov)
(Huston)
z Mirror (Tarkovsky)
z 3 Bad Men (Ford)
This film, more than any others,
z His Girl Friday (Hawks)
gave me the space to dream, to be
z To Be or Not to Be (Lubitsch)
sentimental, emotional, and perhaps
z Notorious (Hitchcock)
to stop making sense.
z They Live by Night (Ray)
z Bicycle Thieves (De Sica)
z Short Cuts (Altman)
z Hangmen Also Die (Lang)
z Heaven’s Gate (Cimino)
z Where Is the Friend’s House?
(Kiarostami)
There are so many z Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du
Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
great movies, and even
the bad ones are also
(Akerman)
z Battle in Heaven (Reygadas)
As transcendental as it is
good – Radu Jude transgressive, but also a tender
and sensitive exploration of human
existence.
z The Headless Woman (Martel)
A minimalistic masterpiece.
z Playtime (Tati)
A masterpiece that is a celebration of
cinema itself.
Marie Kreutzer
Austria The Fatherless, The Ground Beneath My Feet, Corsage
z The Things of Life (Sautet) z Barbara (Petzold)
I don’t know why but this is my very If you only want to watch one
favourite film. It is so simple yet German film, watch this one.
so beautiful! z Great Freedom (Meise)
z The Ice Storm (Lee) The best Austrian film there is.
The film that made me want to z In The Mood for Love (Wong)
become a director. z Me and You and Everyone We
z Magnolia (Anderson) Know (July)
Perfection! One of a kind while at the same time
z Lost in Translation (Coppola) the symbol for independent American
It is everything: light, heavy, cool, cinema to me. I don’t even remember
smart, atmospheric, emotional, specific scenes but I remember a
beautiful. feeling I had never felt when watching
z A Christmas Tale (Desplechin) a film. It is simply unique.
This film is chaos on many levels, but
in the best way.
z The Royal Tenenbaums (Anderson)
One of the best films about family.
If you only want
to watch one
German film,
watch Christian
Petzold’s Barbara
Christian Petzold’s
Barbara (2012)
102
Stanley Kwan
Hong Kong Rouge, Lan Yu
z A Brighter Summer Day (Yang)
z The Conformist (Bertolucci)
z Death in Venice (Visconti)
z The Godfather (Coppola)
z In a Year of 13 Moons (Fassbinder)
z The Travelling Players
(Angelopoulos)
z Raging Bull (Scorsese)
z The Searchers (Ford)
z La strada (Fellini)
z Tokyo Story (Ozu)
Nadav Lapid
Israel The Kindergarten Teacher, Synonyms
z La Maman et La Putain (Eustache)
The most true and miraculous film
ever made
z Pierrot le fou (Godard)
z Sauve qui peut (la vie) (Godard)
z Through the Olive Trees
(Kiarostami)
z Wild at Heart (Lynch)
z Theorem (Pasolini)
z I’m Hungry, I’m Cold (Akerman)
z Badlands (Malick)
z La notte (Antonioni)
z Man with a Movie Camera (Vertov)
Jean Eustache’s La Maman et la Putain (1973)
Mike Leigh
UK Naked, Secrets & Lies, Mr. Turner
z How a Mosquito Operates (McCay)
z Tokyo Story (Ozu)
z The 400 Blows (Truffaut)
z Some Like It Hot (Wilder)
z The Gospel According to St.
Matthew (Pasolini)
z A Blonde in Love (Forman)
z Here Is Your Life (Troell)
z Barry Lyndon (Kubrick)
z Songs from the Second Floor
(Andersson)
z The Death of Mr Lazarescu (Puiu)
Sebastián Lelio
Chile A Fantastic Woman, The Wonder
z 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)
z La dolce vita (Fellini)
z Solaris (Tarkovsky)
z Mulholland Dr. (Lynch)
z Playtime (Tati)
z Vertigo (Hitchcock)
z The Cameraman (Keaton)
z The 400 Blows (Truffaut)
z A Woman Under the Influence
(Cassavetes)
z Singin’ in the Rain (Kelly & Donen)
Richard
Linklater
US Dazed and Confused, Boyhood
z Some Came Running (Minnelli)
z GoodFellas (Scorsese)
z L’Argent (Bresson)
z Barry Lyndon (Kubrick)
z The Godfather (Coppola)
z Fanny and Alexander (Bergman)
z Nashville (Altman)
z La Maman et la Putain (Eustache)
z The Last Picture Show
(Bogdanovich)
z Citizen Kane (Welles)
Jennie Livingston
US Paris Is Burning
I’ve tried to pick an assortment of
movies that reflect work that changed
me, that changed cinema, and movies
that, if I were in charge of handing
down lists (which I guess I am here, for
the first time, in this very small way) I
would want people to know.
z 8½ (Fellini)
z Ikiru (Kurosawa)
z Fanny and Alexander (Bergman)
z Andrei Rublev (Tarkovsky)
z Black Rain (Imamura)
z Princess Mononoke (Miyazaki)
z All the President’s Men (Pakula)
z All That Jazz (Fosse)
z The Gleaners and I (Varda)
z Nashville (Altman)
Kim
UK
Longinotto
Divorce Iranian Style, Dreamcatcher
z The Silences of the Palace (Tlatli)
z Fucking Åmål (Moodysson)
z The Kid with a Bike (Jean-Pierre &
Luc Dardenne)
z 3 Faces (Panahi)
z The Lives of Others (Henckel von
Donnersmarck)
z Where Is the Friend’s House?
(Kiarostami)
z Wadjda (Al-Mansour)
z Withnail and I (Robinson)
z Sherman’s March (McElwee)
z Much Ado About Dying
(Chambers)
Guy
Canada
Maddin
The Saddest Music in the World,
My Winnipeg
z Pinocchio (Sharpsteen & Luske)
z Wagon Master (Ford)
z Hands Across the Table (Leisen)
z The Other Side of the Wind
(Welles)
z Man’s Castle (Borzage)
z Abismos de Pasión (Buñuel)
z Reap the Wild Wind (DeMille)
z Desire Me (No credited director)
z A New Leaf (May)
z Female Trouble (Waters)
Chantal Akerman’
Jeanne Dielman,n,
23 quai du Commerce,
1080 Bruxelles
Martin McDonagh Chris McQuarrie
uk/Ireland US
In Bruges, Seven
Psychopaths, The Banshees of Inisherin
z Days of Heaven (Malick)
z A Matter of Life and Death (Powell
& Pressburger)
z Badlands (Malick)
z Taxi Driver (Scorsese)
z The Godfather (Coppola)
z Seven Samurai (Kurosawa)
z The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
(Leone)
z The Night of the Hunter
(Laughton)
z Citizen Kane (Welles)
z The Wild Bunch (Peckinpah)
Adam
US
McKay
The Big Short, Don’t Look Up
z Citizen Kane (Welles)
z Network (Lumet)
Funny, razor sharp and maybe as
prescient as any movie ever made,
Network to me is everything cinema
can be.
z Kung Fu Hustle (Chow)
A reminder that with cinema you can
do anything. There are no limits.
z L’avventura (Antonioni)
z Do the Right Thing (Lee)
z Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du
Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
(Akerman)
Almost every emotion lives
underneath the dialogue and
routines. And when they finally
reveal themselves, the ending is like
20 Hitchcock films rolled into one.
z The Sound of Music (Wise)
This is quietly a very subversive
movie. Fighting fascism with music
and nature? Yes please. Did the
Baroness get a raw deal? Yes she
did. This is still in my opinion the
greatest movie musical ever made.
z A Separation (Farhadi)
z Office Space (Judge)
z Blue Velvet (Lynch)
The morning after I watched this
movie for the first time on VHS I
immediately got up and put the tape
in again to rewatch it because I was
convinced I had dreamt it.
n’s
ce,
les
The Usual Suspects, Mission: Impossible
– Fallout, Top Gun: Maverick
Opinions being what they are, I felt
increasingly ridiculous as I dared
to declare the ten ‘greatest’ movies
ever – particularly when a great many
movies I find great – along with the
central purpose of cinema itself – face a
dramatic contemporary re-evaluation.
I decided instead, with the kind
permission of Sight and Sound, to alter
the assignment somewhat. Below are
ten movies I simply think are great.
More than that, I think they’re great for
this particular time. Whether I mean
this time in Hollywood or the world,
I leave up to you. Here they are in
alphabetical order:
z Aliens (Cameron)
Among the very greatest of action
films, made ever much more so
thanks to its female protagonist –
elevating what would have otherwise
been a finely crafted monster movie
into a story of trauma, survival,
redemption, resurrection and
motherhood, without ever taking its
foot off the gas or showing its true
hand.
z The Big Country (Wyler)
William Wyler’s impeccable study
of character, integrity and moral
courage in the face of communal
cowardice and groupthink. Gregory
Peck’s iconoclastic star turn is in
many ways the flipside to Paul
Newman’s Cool Hand Luke, and the
film’s unselfconscious upending of
every western trope is sublime.
z The Conversation (Coppola)
Between two Godfathers, Francis Ford
Coppola made his less renowned
and far tighter film about a privacy-
obsessed surveillance expert played
impeccably by the never-not-great
Gene Hackman. While its analogue
world of the 70s stands in stark
contrast to our digitally dominated
present, its lesson on the importance
of context is one for the ages.
z Das Boot (Director’s Cut)
(Petersen)
Wolfgang Petersen’s astonishing
portrait of life on a German U-Boat
as the Nazi war machine implodes
puts an all-too-human face on
history’s go-to enemy – led by a
captain with no illusions about
the hopelessness of their cause or
the utter madness of their leader.
A complex and engrossing study
of duty, duality, camaraderie and
pressure and an unflinching reminder
that war is an entirely human affair.
z Dog Day Afternoon (Lumet)
Fast approaching its 50th birthday
and still ahead of its time, Sidney
Lumet’s sweaty, simmering and
remarkably sensitive bank heist
movie veers suddenly and seamlessly
into a story of sexual identity, the
details of which are better left
discovered than described.
z In the Heat of the Night (Jewison)
Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger
collide in Norman Jewison’s slow-
burn thriller about a murder in a
sleepy Mississippi town. In the
wrong place at the wrong time,
 THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 103

Poitier is arrested for no reason other

than the colour of his skin. When it’s
discovered he is, in fact, a Philadelphia
police detective just passing through,
MICHAEL MANN
US Thief, The Last of the Mohicans, Heat
he is released. When it becomes
clear he’s the only man equipped to
solve the case he was arrested for, his
superiors order him to stay and advise.
The unlikely pairing of Poitier with
Steiger’s gum-chewing, racist sheriff
(wearing shooter’s glasses throughout)
represents a major turn for Hollywood
in confronting institutionalised racism,
culminating in The Man taking a
literal – and satisfying – slap in the
face.
z Klute (Pakula)
Before they made All the President’s Men
and The Parallax View, director Alan J.
Pakula and cinematographer Gordon
Willis crafted this creepy gem – oddly
named after Donald Sutherland’s
supporting character instead of the
real protagonist: Jane Fonda’s Bree
(admittedly not as strong a title). This
apparent paranoid thriller is, in fact,
an extraordinarily non-judgemental
character study of a New York call
girl trying and failing to get out of the
life, just as she finds herself the only
viable lead in a missing person case
– one being investigated by the film’s
titular detective. Fonda’s nuanced,
career-best performance as the sexually
frank, emotionally chaotic Bree is Citizen Kane was a watershed: a life’s linear history reassembled
fearsome, fearful and fearless. She and into a novelistic narrative by investigators querying its meaning.
Sutherland’s repressed Klute don’t
so much fall in love as slide despite And done with Wellesian brio on a grand scale
themselves – all while being stalked by
the killer Klute is searching for. z Apocalypse Now (Coppola) z Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned z Raging Bull (Scorsese)
z The Man Who Would Be King Coppola’s dark, high-voltage to Stop Worrying and Love the Raging Bull immerses us into the
(Huston) identity quest, journeying into Bomb (Kubrick) failing and besotted life of Jake
John Huston’s adaptation of Rudyard overload; wildness and nihilism in The whole of Dr. Strangelove is a high- LaMotta, his violent quest for
Kipling’s adventure (and an echo of an operatic and concrete narrative. A energy third act. It’s all denouement. affirmation and his pursuit of
Huston’s equally brilliant Treasure of the masterpiece. Cold War policy and military culture, redemption. The humanity of
Sierra Madre) holds in its beating heart z Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein) it is devastatingly more effective via this picture is extraordinary, as is
a cautionary tale for the would-be Eisenstein not only laid the hilarious ridicule than any number of Scorsese’s execution.
white saviour. Michael Caine and Sean theoretical foundation for much of cautionary fables. z Out of the Past (Tourneur)
Connery star as two unrepentantly 20th-century modernist narrative z Citizen Kane (Welles) With The Asphalt Jungle (1950),
imperialist conmen who cross the but in 1924 made one of cinema’s Citizen Kane was a watershed: a life’s it’s a masterpiece of fatalism and
Hindu Kush, determined to beguile, great classics, applying dialectics to linear history reassembled into a alienation in the wake of WWII: an
dominate and swindle the indigenous montage, composition and meaning. novelistic narrative by investigators authentic and radical blast from the
populace whose spirit and spirituality Its influence in British, Weimar and querying its meaning. And done with 1940s.
they vastly underestimate. Their American cinema is huge. Wellesian brio on a grand scale. z Pale Flower (Shinoda)
scheme is made easier when Connery z Biutiful (Iñárritu) z The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer) For its incredible opening scenes alone.
is mistaken for a god. Alas, he is all too The profound struggle of a human Experience conveyed mostly from his z Confessions (Nakashima)
human, leading to the duo’s inevitable soul through the lower depths of visualisation of the human face: no Nakashima’s 2010 film – a Japanese
downfall. Barcelona street life, Biutiful is one else has composed and realised masterpiece. Frighteningly
z The Right Stuff (Kaufman) resplendent with grace, pathos and human form quite like Dreyer in The controlled, rigid, it’s unheralded
Director Philip Kaufman’s love letter love. Pure poetry. Passion of Joan of Arc. high art.
to the Mercury Space Program is really
a love letter to a certain ephemeral
essence. It can easily be dismissed as a
love letter to American exceptionalism,
provided you overlook its constant,
subtle and not so subtle reminders
that even in its finest hour, America
had – and has – a long, long way to go.
The Right Stuff loves America deeply
without ever losing perspective.
z The Train (Frankenheimer)
John Frankenheimer’s extraordinarily
crafted thriller about rail workers
of the French resistance in the days
before the liberation of Paris. A
groundbreaking practical action
film decades ahead of its time, with
genuine substance and powerfully
restrained performances from Burt
Lancaster and Paul Scofield, it deftly
conceals a meditation on the value
of art weighed against the value of
human life.
Shinoda Masahiro’s Pale Flower (1964)
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Steve
UK
McQueen
Shame, 12 Years a Slave, Small Axe
z The Battle of Algiers (Pontecorvo)
Such a great example of what cinema
can do: going beyond entertainment
and actually crossing over into the
everyday. It became a rallying call for
action.
z Zéro de conduite (Vigo)
z Couch (Warhol)
z La Règle du jeu (Renoir)
z Le Mépris (Godard)
z Do the Right Thing (Lee)
When I saw it, we were living it. A
lot of these films I’m mentioning
are films from the past. This was a
film of the present. In 1989 it was
electrifying. That’s what a film can
do, it can gauge the temperature of
the moment. It’s even more rare today
to see a picture that says something
about the here and now.
z Once upon a Time in America
(Leone)
A film about time and regret.
z Tokyo Story (Ozu)
z Singin’ in the Rain (Kelly & Donen)
I love, love, love Gene Kelly. The
exuberance. Even in the title. Right
now we should all be singing in the
rain.
z Beau travail (Denis)
A meditation; you have to tune
yourself into it, almost like a radio.
Kleber Mendonça
Filho
Brazil Aquarius, Bacura
Elem Klimov’s Come and See (1985)
z Man Marked for Death, 20 Years
Later (Coutinho)
The brutal logic of Brazil and its
history. A diaspora of violence which
is very much about love itself.
A masterpiece.
z Come and See (Klimov)
Still underseen for the astonishing
work of cinema it is.
z Mad Max 2 (Miller)
z Pixote (Babenco)
z Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du
Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
(Akerman)
z La Jetée (Marker)
z Fitzcarraldo (Herzog)
A mind-altering substance of a film
when I was 15, it has not changed a
bit all these years. And it is unique.
z La ciénaga (Martel)
The ghosts of realism.
z A Brighter Summer Day (Yang)
z Dogville (Von Trier)
A beautiful fairytale about the
United States of America.
THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 105
Nina
US
Menkes
Queen of Diamonds, Dissolution
Gaspar
France
Noé Irreversible, Climax
z Andrei Rublev (Tarkovsky)
z The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer)
z Vagabond (Varda)
z Nope (Peele)
z Wanda (Loden)
z Au hasard Balthazar (Bresson)
z Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du
Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
(Akerman)
z La ciénaga (Martel)
z Metropolis (Lang)
z Bless Their Little Hearts (Woodberry)
Márta
Hungary
Mészáros
Adoption, Diary for My Children
z Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein)
z La strada (Fellini)
z The Cranes Are Flying (Kalatazov)
z The Misfits (Huston) 2001 was my first hallucinogenic experience, my
z Wings (Shepitko) great artistic turning point and the moment when
z The Red and the White (Jancsó)
z Love (Makk) my mother finally explained what a foetus was
z The Shining (Kubrick)
z The White Ribbon (Haneke) z Un chien andalou (Buñuel) z La Maman et la Putain (Eustache)
z Gravity (Cuarón) If there’s one premiere I would dream It’s the most existentialist, raw, deep
of attending, it’s this film, which was film about the impossible nature of
decades ahead of its time. There are romantic love in the modern Western
many directors whose films inspire world.
George
Australia
Miller
Mad Max: Fury Road
envy, but in the case of Buñuel, it’s
also his life that does it. More of a cry
z Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom
(Pasolini)
of happiness than a call to murder. The film that my mother considered
z The Godfather Part II (Coppola) z King Kong (Cooper & Schoedsack) it essential to take me to see on
z The Battle of Algiers (Pontecorvo)
z Pinocchio (Sharpsteen & Luske)
Another film as perfect as it is
extraordinary. I wish I could have
the eve of my 18th birthday. I was
old enough to learn the torture
z Groundhog Day (Ramis)
z M*A*S*H (Altman)
been at the first screening in 1933!
That must have been pure magic
and the reptilian nature of human
relationships. To this day, I continue
z Boyhood (Linklater) for contemporary spectators. With to consider it as the most educational
z Alien (Scott) 2001 and Metropolis, it’s one of the film about man’s domination by man.
z Parasite (Bong) three most ambitious films of all z Taxi Driver (Scorsese)
z The Grand Budapest Hotel time and the greatest spectacle of If there’s a cinematic hero I dream of
(Anderson) entertainment that I know of. being, it’s Travis Bickle.
z Schindler’s List (Spielberg) z I Am Cuba (Kalatazov) z Eraserhead (Lynch)
z Scorpio Rising (Anger) This film is the second reason why
z 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick) I wanted to learn how to make
My life altered when I discovered it films. For me it’s the film that best
Carol
UK
Morley
Dreams of a Life, The Falling
when I was about seven in Buenos
Aires. It was my first hallucinogenic
reproduces the language of dreams
and nightmares. Apparently Kubrick
experience, my great artistic turning once said that he regretted not
z American Honey (Arnold) point and also the moment when having directed it himself.
z An Angel at My Table (Campion) my mother finally explained what a z Angst (Kargl)
z The Double Life of Véronique foetus was and how I came into the It’s the most emotional film about a
(Kieślowski) world. Without this film I would murderer that I’ve ever seen.
z Juliet of the Spirits (Fellini) never have become a director.
z Cléo from 5 to 7 (Varda)
z Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du
Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Akerman)
z Daughters of the Dust (Dash)
z The Thin Blue Line (Morris)
z Picnic at Hanging Rock (Weir)
z The Night of the Hunter (Laughton)
Léa
France
Mysius
Ava, The Five Devils
z The Master (Anderson)
z Fish Tank (Arnold)
z The Night of the Hunter
ERASERHEAD AND GASPAR NOÉ: SHUT TERSTOCK
(Laughton)
z Freaks (Browning)
z The Tin Drum (Schlöndorff)
z Chocolat (Denis)
z Mamma Roma (Pasolini)
z Short Cuts (Altman)
z Ugetsu Monogatari (Mizoguchi)
z Memories of Murder (Bong) David Lynch’s Eraserhead (1976)
106

Gary Oldman Christopher Petit Gina Prince-

UK Nil by Mouth

z Les Enfants du paradis (Carné) z In the Mood for Love (Wong)

UK
Bythewood
Radio On, London Orbital

Sorry to spoil the party, but cinema is

US
z The Conversation (Coppola) z The Wages of Fear (Clouzot) historically a solitary experience about
z 8½ (Fellini) z Husbands (Cassavetes) watching in the dark, passing time and
z The 400 Blows (Truffaut) z Rome, Open City (Rossellini) the art of dying. How many films that
z Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned z The Wind Will Carry Us stink of death have slaughtered for our
to Stop Worrying and Love the (Kiarostami) entertainment? The older one gets,
Bomb (Kubrick) what matters is films seen where, when,
at what age (Foreign Correspondent; six
years old) and with whom, hence the
inclusion of films watched with my two
sons (your guess which titles). In the
end, one gets caught between the hard-
edged, the unacceptable, bad weather,
dubious anthropology and frivolity. The
Great Gatsby’s last line – “So we beat on,
boats against the current, borne back
ceaselessly into the past” – makes the
F. Scott Fitzgerald joke in Ted 2 all the
funnier.
z The Great Silence (Corbucci)
z Foreign Correspondent (Hitchcock)
z Gidget Goes Hawaiian (Wendkos)
z The Hitch-Hiker (Lupino)
z No Sex Last Night (Calle &
Shephard)
z The Chekist (Rogozhkin)
z Ted 2 (MacFarlane)
Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1963)
z The Round-Up (Jancsó)
z JFK (Stone)
z Successive Slidings of Pleasure
The Old Guard, The Woman King
z Broadcast News (Brooks)
z Hoop Dreams (James)
z GoodFellas (Scorsese)
z Ordinary People (Redford)
z The Graduate (Nichols)
z Eve’s Bayou (Lemmons)
z Out of Sight (Soderbergh)
z 12 Years a Slave (McQueen)
z The Godfather (Coppola)
z Slumdog Millionaire (Boyle)
Cristi
Romania
Puiu
The Death of Mr Lazarescu
z A Woman Under the Influence
(Cassavetes)
z Mouchette (Bresson)
z La Maman et La Putain (Eustache)
z Diary 1973-1983 (Perlov)
z Mamma Roma (Pasolini)
z Unfinished Piece for the Player
Piano (Mikhalkov)
z Wanda (Loden)
z The Tree of Wooden Clogs (Olmi)
z Through the Olive Trees
(Kiarostami)
z The 400 Blows (Truffaut)

Horace Ové Paweł (Robbe-Grillet)

UK Pressure, A Hole in Babylon

z The Passenger (Antonioni)
Pawlikowski Brothers Quay
z Black Girl (Sembène)
z À bout de souffle (Godard)
Poland/uk Ida, Cold War
There are no objective criteria to
Laura
USA
Poitras
Citizenfour, All the Beauty and the
US Street of Crocodiles, Institute Benjamenta

measure the greatness of a film, so z L’Ange (Bokanowski)

z Citizen Kane (Welles) Bloodshed
this choice is purely personal. All the z The Cranes Are Flying (Kalatozov)
z Lawrence of Arabia (Lean)
films on this list were made during my z Dekalog (Kieślowski) z The Ascent (Shepitko)
z Pather Panchali (S. Ray)
lifetime, or rather its first half. Each one z 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick) z Diary of a Country Priest (Bresson)
z Persona (Bergman)
got under my skin when I first saw it, z Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du z L’eclisse (Antonioni)
z Seven Samurai (Kurosawa)
stayed there and didn’t disappoint when Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles z The Round-Up (Jancsó)
z Vertigo (Hitchcock)
I saw it again. (Akerman) z Ugetsu Monogatari (Mizoguchi)
z Viridiana (Buñuel)
z Man with a Movie Camera (Vertov) z The Fallen Idol (Reed)
z 8½ (Fellini) z Salesman (Albert & David Maysles z An Actor’s Revenge (Ichiwaka)
z Come and See (Klimov) & Zwerin) z Twilight (Fehér)
z Umberto D. (De Sica)
Frank Oz z The Godfather I and II (Coppola)
z La dolce vita (Fellini)
z La Jetée (Marker)
z Black Girl (Sembène) z Stone Wedding (Veroiu & Pita)
US The Dark Crystal, Bowf inger
z Mirror (Tarkovsky) z Happy Together (Wong) z Don Juan (Švankmajer)
z Taxi Driver (Scorsese) z The Conversation (Coppola) z Got0, Island of Love (Borowczyk)
OK, we all know there is no such
z Badlands (Malick) z Dont Look Back (Pennebaker) z The Colour of Pomegranates
thing as a list of the 10 best movies (to
z Cabaret (Fosse) (Parajanov)
really be able to answer that question
z Once upon a Time in Anatolia z Last Year at Marienbad (Resnais)
one would have to see every film ever
(Ceylan) z The Exterminating Angel (Buñuel)
made). However, below are 10 movies
that have taught me, inspired me,
viscerally affected me, or opened my
z Interrogation (Bugajski) Sally
UK
Potter
Orlando, The Tango Lesson
z No One Cries Out… (Kutz)
z Persona (Bergman)
z Day of Wrath (Dreyer)
eyes to new possibilities in filmmaking. Each of these films got Here is my list, with a ghost trail of
Each has jumped off thee screen and
landed inside me. under my skin when I regrets about those I love but have
left out.
first saw it, stayed there S.S. Rajamouli
z Citizen Kane (Welles)s)
z Touch of Evil (Welles)
s) and didn’t disappoint z The Apu Trilogy (Ray) India Eega, RRR
z Seven Samurai (Kurosawa) z Come and See (Klimov)
osawa) when I saw it again z I Am Cuba (Kalatozov) z Forrest Gump (Zemeckis)
z City of God (Meirelleses &
z A Matter of Life and Death (Powell z Mayabazar (Reddy)
Lund)
& Pressburger) z Raiders of the Lost Ark (Spielberg)
z The Act of Killing
z Duck Soup (McCarey) z Kung Fu Panda (Osborne &
(Oppenheimer)
z Au hasard Balthazar (Bresson) Stevenson)
z Eraserhead (Lynch)
z Bicycle Thieves (De Sica) z Aladdin (Musker & Clements)
z Annie Hall (Allen)
z Andrei Rublev (Tarkovsky) z Braveheart (Gibson)
z Pulp Fiction (Tarantino)
tino)
z Citizen Kane (Welles) z Apocalypto (Gibson)
z The Godfather (Coppola)
pola)
z Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein) z Ben-Hur (Wyler)
z Singin’ in the Rain (Kelly
Kelly
z Django Unchained (Tarantino)
& Donen)
z The Lion King (Allers & Minkoff)

Bob Fosse’s
Cabaret (1974)

Lynne
UK
Ramsay
Ratcatcher, We Need to Talk About Kevin, You Were Never Really Here
8½ is the ultimate film about making a film, the act
of creating and the self-doubt. Fellini captures
the circus with virtuosity, breaking all the rules
My criteria was breakthrough films
pushing cinema to new realms.
z Persona (Bergman)
A stunning film, deceptively
simple on the surface. An actress
(Liv Ullmann) experiencing stage
fright has stopped talking and is
convalescing under the care of a nurse
(Bibi Andersson) through summer on
a remote Swedish island. To fill the
silence, the nurse speaks more freely
and trustingly, as the actress absorbs
her every move. The scene where
the nurse describes an unexpected
sexual encounter on a beach is one
of the most erotically charged on
film. All played in a monologue – no
need for a supporting image. As the
nurse learns her deepest confessions
are merely an amusing ‘study’ for
the vampirish actress, the film
becomes more complex and fractured
– an experimental delve into the
subconscious as the two women blur
and merge. Who is who? And whose
story belongs to whom? The stark
black-and-white images are indelible,
as are the mysteries in the act of
constructing an identity, a history
and a film in itself. Its relevance now
is uncanny.
z Full Metal Jacket (Kubrick)
The beauty of the two parts – the war
starts before the war in the madness
of indoctrination. The Mickey Mouse
song at the end, men as boys clinging
to familiar phoney idealism – an
ingenious counterpoint to the horror
of the inexplicable present. Yet
brutally entertaining as it floors you.
z Mulholland Dr. (Lynch)
The perfect LA horror story – a
naive and ambitious young actress’s
downfall as the dark forces present
in the city spit her out. Through the
prism of David Lynch and bathed in
California sunlight, this transcends
into the savage, surreal and terrifying.
Seeing what goes on underneath like
no other. LA has never been the same
since, the darkness lurking under its
THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 107
shiny façade and behind a dumpster.
Echoes Persona in the blurred
identities of two woman.
z Stalker (Tarkovsky)
I don’t know how it is or appears
but there is no other filmmaker who
so evokes memory and spirituality
through his own particular
language. Every film he made was
a masterpiece – I was stunned by
Mirror and Andrei Rublev, but this one
in particular is a hypnotic and cryptic
journey to the meaning of existence.
z 8½ (Fellini)
La strada always floors me but this
is his masterpiece. The ultimate
film about making a film, the act of
creating and the self-doubt. Fellini
captures the circus with virtuosity,
breaking all the rules. It’s so
beautifully realised, modern, funny
and surreal.
z The Wizard of Oz (Fleming)
Follow the Yellow Brick Road – this
film has inspired so many others…
Stalker, Mulholland Dr.? Seeing my
daughter watch it over and over. It’s
wondrous.
z The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer)
Maria Falconetti’s face as Joan of
Arc is so luminous and expressive
in Dreyer’s silent masterpiece, so
modern and mind-blowing. Joan’s
male inquisitors surrounding her as
they force her to renounce her faith in
her holy visions and sentence her to
death is devastating, yet she endures
with such humility. It inspired the
gorgeous sequence with Anna Karina
watching Falconetti in the cinema z Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai de opening of Walkabout, is a jolting,
in Jean-Luc Godard’s Vivre sa vie. Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles unexpected and shocking collage
Incredibly moving. (Akerman) of images and sound. I remember
z Killer of Sheep (Burnett) Three days in the life of a middle- the opening from being a child –
Such a beautiful examination aged widow in minutiae. Banal acts watching when I wasn’t supposed to
of everyday life. I was so moved of cooking, cleaning, shopping and and getting sent to bed with the first
watching it at film school. It occasional prostitution to make five minutes seared into my mind
reminded me of where I grew up and ends meet build a creeping tension forever. Donald Sutherland’s silent
it provoked something in me – that twisting the fine line between order scream. The amazing and tender sex
I could film what I knew, and that and disorder, sanity and madness. scene remains one of the best ever
beauty can be found in the smallest of z Don’t Look Now (Roeg) on screen – all the more poignant
details and the poorest of places. So Nic Roeg redefined modern editing. because it’s between a grieving
gorgeous and human. The opening sequence, like the married couple.
Through the prism
of David Lynch and
bathed in California
sunlight, this
transcends into the
savage, surreal and
terrifying.…LA has
never been the same,
the darkness lurking
RAMSAY PORTRAIT: GET TY IMAGES
under its shiny façade
and behind a dumpster
David Lynch’s
Mulholland Dr. (2001)

Alice
Rohrwacher
Italy The Wonders, Happy as Lazzaro
I’ve never been good at making lists,
not even a shopping list. I always forget
the most important things.
This list of films is a spontaneous list
of ‘basic staples’, but I know it could go
on and on, because fortunately there
are many eyes that have fed me and still
feed me. But here are some films I’d
watch again tonight, hungrily.
z Strike (Eisenstein)
z Miracle in Milan (De Sica)
z Nights of Cabiria (Fellini)
z La terra vista dalla luna (Pasolini)
z Getting to Know the Big Wide
World (Muratova)
z Tale of Tales (Norstein)
z The Blue Planet (Piavoli)
z Vagabond (Varda)
z Le Havre (Kaurismäki)
z The Colour of Pomegranates
(Parajanov)
Benny
US
Safdie
Good Time, Uncut Gems
This is both a snapshot of where I am
today and also what I think will stick
with me forever.
z Requiem for a Heavyweight
(Nelson)
z A Man Escaped (Bresson)
z Husbands (Cassavetes)
z It’s a Wonderful Life (Capra)
z Alice in the Cities (Wenders)
z Taxi Driver (Scorsese)
z Bicycle Thieves (De Sica)
z The French Connection (Friedkin)
z High School (Wiseman)
z Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday (Tati)
Josh
US
Safdie
Uncut Gems, Good Time
z GoodFellas (Scorsese)
z Remorques (Grémillon)
z Saturday Night Fever (Badham)
z Close-Up (Kiarostami)
z Kramer vs Kramer (Benton)
z Bicycle Thieves (De Sica)
z Broadway Danny Rose (Allen)
z Camera Buff (Kieślowski)
z Night and the City (Dassin)
z Gloria (Cassavetes)
THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 109
Isabel
US
Sandoval Paul
US
Schrader
Apparition, Lingua Franca
Desire, transgression, seduction.
American Gigolo, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, The Card Counter
The closest I’ve come to a spiritual
possession.
z Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du
Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
(Akerman)
z Heat (Mann)
z In the Mood for Love (Wong)
z Holy Motors (Carax)
z Beau travail (Denis)
z Funeral Parade of Roses
(Matsumoto)
z Possession (Zulawski)
z Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
(Murnau)
z Tropical Malady (Weerasethakul)
z Perfect Blue (Kon)
Volker
Schlöndorff
Germany The Tin Drum, Swann in Love
z Pather Panchali (Ray) What I enjoy most is the mutating nature of the
I dunno any more what a good
film is, even less what the best lists. What makes way for the new films? How
is, but I know which ones I like does one balance a film’s impact on the history
best, depending on the days, in no
particular order. This one for the of cinema with its unique importance to you?
boy, for his grandma who waters
the weeds by the house, for Ravi I find the decennial Sight and Sound Searchers? La Règle du jeu give way to The
Shankar’s music, for the spotting of list an invigorating critical exercise. Conformist? Does Kane hold up? Which
his complaint after his big loss, for It forces one to re-evaluate films and Godard? Why does Hud grow in my
the photography, for the sensuality their personal importance. The fact esteem? Why did I come late to Persona?
of the countryside, for the sadness of that there are exponentially more Is this the year for Performance and In
childhood and all the hope of it. films to choose from complicates the the Mood for Love? For years I promoted
z La Règle du jeu (Renoir) task but I see no reason to expand Vertigo but was that a measure of its
For the half of my life spent in the list. Ten is a convenient number. undervaluation or true merit?
France, my coming of age and Boundaries focus the mind. I have a
apprenticeship there, for all my few ground rules: no film is eligible z Pickpocket (Bresson)
wonderful friends – all dead by now. for 25 years after release, there should z Tokyo Story (Ozu)
z On the Waterfront (Kazan) be one silent film and one comedy; z Persona (Bergman)
Because Brando put me in a trance, experimental and art installation films z La Règle du jeu (Renoir)
because injustice and martyrdom are are a separate category. z The Conformist (Bertolucci)
intolerable, because I too wanted What I enjoy most is the mutating z Vertigo (Hitchcock)
to be somebody, a contender. All of
this despite the academic, pompous
nature of the lists. What makes way for
the new films? How does one balance
z The Wild Bunch (Peckinpah)
z Metropolis (Lang)
side of it. a film’s impact on the history of cinema z The Godfather (Coppola)
z Army of Shadows (Melville) with its unique importance to you? z The Lady Eve (Sturges)
Because he was my first master, and Should The Wild Bunch supplant The
this is his masterpiece.
z Amarcord (Fellini)
For its humour and humanity. And
for its cri de coeur: “Voglio una donna!”
z Ivan the Terrible (Eisenstein)
The moment Nikolai Cherkasov
turns around on his staff as he
discovers the long procession of
people coming to find him in his
retreat in the monastery is for me
the strongest emotion I’ve ever felt
in a movie, and
an all the operatic, the
over-the-top acting, designing and
scripting is unique.
u
z Greed (von Stroheim)
S
z Ikiru (Kurosawa)
(Kurosa
z Ossessione (Visconti)
(
z Il grido (Antonioni)
((Ant
SCHRADER PORTRAIT: GET TY IMAGES
Satyajit Ray’s
Pather Panchali
Pan (1955) Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist (197o)
1 10

Martin
US
Scorsese
Taxi Driver, GoodFellas, The Irishman
Peter
UK
Strickland Joachim
Norway
Trier
The Duke of Burgundy, Flux Gourmet The Worst Person in the World

z Allures (Belson) z 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)

z The Cremator (Herz) z 8½ (Fellini)
z Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du z Annie Hall (Allen)
Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Akerman) z GoodFellas (Scorsese)
z Sátántangó (Tarr) z Hiroshima mon amour (Resnais)
z Shadows of Our Forgotten z La notte (Antonioni)
Ancestors (Parajanov) z Mirror (Tarkovsky)
z Street of Crocodiles (Brothers Quay) z Persona (Bergman)
z Raging Bull (Scorsese) z The Tree of Life (Malick)
z Trash (Morrissey) z Vertigo (Hitchcock)
z Viridiana (Buñuel)
z Windfall in Athens (Cacoyannis)

Tsai
Taiwan
Ming-liang
Goodbye, Dragon Inn
Tilda
UK
Swinton
The Seasons in Quincy: Four Portraits of z The 400 Blows (Truffaut)
John Berger z L’eclisse (Antonioni)
z Fear Eats the Soul (Fassbinder)
z A Matter of Life and Death (Powell z Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Tsai)
& Pressburger) z Mouchette (Bresson)
z Vertigo (Hitchcock) z The Night of the Hunter
z Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday (Tati) (Laughton)
z To Be or Not to Be (Lubitsch) z The Only Son (Ozu)
z Walkabout (Roeg) z The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer)
z Journey to Italy (Rossellini) z Spring in a Small Town (Fei)
z Pickpocket (Bresson) z Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
z Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du (Murnau)
Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Akerman)
z My Neighbour Totoro (Miyazaki)
z La dolce vita (Fellini)
Athina Rachel
Tsangari
z 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s The Red Shoes (1948)

z Paisà (Rossellini)
Małgorzata Greece Attenberg, Chevalier

z 8½ (Fellini)
z Ashes and Diamonds (Wajda)
z The Red Shoes (Powell &
Pressburger)
Szumowska
Poland In the Name of, The Other Lamb
z The House Is Black (Farrokhzad)
z Wanda (Loden)
z Citizen Kane (Welles) z The River (Renoir) z Zama (Martel)
z Diary of a Country Priest (Bresson) z Salvatore Giuliano (Rosi) z Mirror (Tarkovsky) z McCabe and Mrs Miller (Altman)
z Ikiru (Kurosawa) z The Searchers (Ford) z Cries and Whispers (Bergman) z Shoah (Lanzmann)
z The Leopard (Visconti) z Ugetsu Monogatari (Mizoguchi) z 8½ (Fellini) z Pierrot le fou (Godard)
z Ordet (Dreyer) z Vertigo (Hitchcock) z The Conformist (Bertolucci) z Dark Star (Carpenter)
z Apocalypse Now (Coppola) z Mikey and Nicky (May)
z La notte (Antonioni) z The General (Keaton)
z Blade Runner (Scott) z Blissfully Yours (Weerasethakul)
Penelope Whit Stillman z Rashomon (Kurosawa)
z Melancholia (von Trier)
Spheeris US Metropolitan, Love & Friendship
z The Piano Teacher (Haneke)
USThe Decline of Western Civilization,
Wayne’s World
z The Awful Truth (McCarey)
z Big Deal on Madonna Street
Laura
Belgium
Wandel
Playground
(Monicelli)
z Being There (Ashby)
z A Clockwork Orange (Kubrick)
z The Gay Divorcee (Sandrich)
z Howards End (Ivory)
Béla
Hungary
Tarr
Sátántangó, The Turin Horse
z Taste of Cherry (Kiarostami)
z The Son (Luc & Jean-Pierre
z One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest z The Palm Beach Story (Sturges) Dardenne)
(Forman) z The Shop Around the Corner z Alexander Nevsky (Eisenstein) z Humanity (Dumont)
z Alien (Scott) (Lubitsch) z Au hasard Balthazar (Bresson) z Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du
z A Beautiful Mind (Howard) z Stolen Kisses (Truffaut) z Berlin Alexanderplatz (Fassbinder) Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
z Rain Man (Levinson) z Stranger than Paradise (Jarmusch) z Frenzy (Hitchcock) (Akerman)
z Creature from the Black Lagoon z Young and Innocent (Hitchcock) z M (Lang) z Elephant (Van Sant)
(Arnold) z Wagon Master (Ford) z Man with a Movie Camera (Vertov) z Japón (Reygadas)
z The Fisher King (Gilliam) z The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer) z Shara (Kawase)
z Drugstore Cowboy (Van Sant) z The Round-Up (Jancsó) z Amour (Haneke)
z What’s Eating Gilbert Grape z Tokyo Story (Ozu) z Stalker (Tarkovsky)
(Hallström)
Oliver
US
Stone
Natural Born Killers, Platoon
z Vivre sa vie (Godard) z A Man Escaped (Bresson)

z The Bes
Best Years of Our Lives
(Wyler) Phil
US
Tippett
Mad God
z Lawrence
Lawrenc of Arabia (Lean)
z Dr. Strangelove
Stran or: How I z King Kong (Cooper & Schoedsack)
Learned to Stop Worrying and z Bride of Frankenstein (Whale)
Love the Bomb (Kubrick) z Sullivan’s Travels (Sturges)
z 1900 (Bertolucci)
(Be z The Bad and the Beautiful (Minnelli)
Jack Arnold’s
Creature from the
z Raging Bull
B (Scorsese) z Ace in the Hole (Wilder)
Black Lagoon z Mutiny oon the Bounty (Lloyd) z Sunset Blvd. (Wilder)
(1954) z On the Waterfront
W (Kazan) z The Searchers (Ford)
z The Godfather
God (Coppola) z 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)
z Avatar
Avata (Cameron) z Robocop (Verhoeven)
z Citizen
Ci Kane (Welles) z Starship Troopers (Verhoeven)

Claudia
US
Weill
Girlfriends, It’s My Turn
These are the films that moved me, that
I remember and return to.
z Phantom Thread (Anderson)
I was blown away by the archetypal
brilliance of this film about the war
between the sexes, embodied by
a charming but imperious British
haute couture dressmaker and his
latest muse, mistress and assistant
who won’t accept being the object to
his subject.
z Some Like It Hot (Wilder)
The scene where he tells Joe that
he and Osgood are engaged is a
classic. What about those maracas?!
Talk about the value of a prop – it’s
impossible to imagine the scene
without them. Pure Wilder brilliance.
z La Règle du jeu (Renoir)
Much has been made of the use
of deep focus photography in
Citizen Kane (1941) but perhaps it
was La Règle du jeu that inspired
Welles. Finally, Renoir’s enormous
compassion for his characters (he is
never cynical or judgemental) makes
what is essentially a social satire
profoundly humanistic.
z The Lost Daughter (Gyllenhaal)
An exploration of the profound
ambivalence many of us experience
in motherhood with subtlety, wit and
suspense.
z 12 Angry Men (Lumet)
For 90 minutes we too are locked
in the jury room with these 12 men.
There are no flashbacks, narration,
or subtitles, just 12 men talking, yet
the film is a thriller because of how
Lumet keeps the actors moving,
allowing multiple stories to play
out in the same frame, revealing
prejudices, ignorance and cultural
differences that threaten to lead to a
miscarriage of justice.
z The Godfather (Coppola)
A perfect film, as is The Godfather
Part II.
z A Woman Under the Influence
(Cassavetes)
As Roger Ebert comments,
Cassavetes is unbeatable at creating
powerful, specific characters and
then sticking with them through
long, painful, uncompromising
scenes until we think we know them
CLAUDIA WEILL PORTRAIT: MARISA CHAFETZ
Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread (2017)
well enough to predict what they’ll
I was blown away by the do next and even begin to understand
archetypal brilliance of why. My favourite Cassavetes film,
and also a major influence.
The Phantom Thread – z The Body Remembers When the
about the war between World Broke Open (Tailfeathers &
Hepburn)
the sexes, embodied by a The film is a about a chance
charming but imperious encounter between two Indigenous
British haute couture women from different classes who
meet at a bus stop, where Rosie, the
dressmaker and his younger, pregnant woman, barefoot
latest muse, mistress in the snow, is trying to evade her
and assistant who
abusive partner. Filmed in real time,
won’t accept being the
it communicates as much in silence
as it does with dialogue, making
you ‘feel’ this film more than watch
object to his subject it. I have rarely found myself so
immediately in the shoes of someone
so different from myself – and
so desperately hoping for them to
be OK.
z Ikiru (Kurosawa)
Led by the evocative Shimura
Takashi, beautifully observed, dark,
often funny and with an unexpected
and unconventional structure,
this film creeps up on you. It’s
almost impossible to see it without
questioning your own life choices. I
love that Kurosawa (like Ozu) doesn’t
sentimentalise the relationship
between parents and their adult
children.
z À bout de souffle (Godard)
I probably wouldn’t have made films
if it weren’t for Godard. I was 14
when I saw this film, and before that
I think I must have believed that
movies came out of a camera the way
we saw them.
THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME 111
Wang
China
Bing
West of the Tracks, Mrs Fang
Robert Bresson’s L’Argent (1983)
z Citizen Kane (Welles)
z L’Argent (Bresson)
z Man with a Movie Camera (Vertov)
z Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom
(Pasolini)
z À bout de souffle (Godard)
z Shoah (Lanzmann)
z Red Desert (Antonioni)
z Querelle (Fassbinder)
z Mirror (Tarkovsky)
z Eraserhead (Lynch)
Lulu
US
Wang
The Farewell
I think of these lists as the most
impactful kind of film school.
z Yi Yi (Yang)
z The Apartment (Wilder)
z Playtime (Tati)
z Nights of Cabiria (Fellini)
z Viridiana (Buñuel)
z Chungking Express (Wong)
z Tokyo Story (Ozu)
z Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du
Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
(Akerman)
z The Conversation (Coppola)
z Vagabond (Varda)
Apichatpong
Weerasethakul
Thailand Cemetery of Splendour, Memoria
z Rehearsals for Extinct Anatomies
(Brothers Quay)
z Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Tsai)
z The Puppetmaster (Hou)
z The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
(Hooper)
z Empire (Warhol & Palmer)
z The Chess Players (Ray)
z Mad Max: Fury Road (Miller)
z Quick Billy (Baillie)
z Rose Hobart (Cornell)
z The Nose or the Conspiracy of
Mavericks (Alexeieff & Parker)
1 12 THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME

Wim
Germany
Wenders
Wings of Desire; Paris, Texas
Edgar
UK
Wright
Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Last Night in Soho

Tomorrow the list will be different. The joy of being asked to contribute
to this list again is immediately
z On the Beach (Kramer) overwhelmed with searching questions
z Into the Void (Noé) of the differences between the objective
z Good Morning (Ozu) and the subjective, greatest and
z The King of Comedy (Scorsese) favourite, as well as the pressures to
z One, Two, Three (Wilder) change one’s list to not just be the
z The Last Adventure (Enrico) same person you were a decade ago,
z La Sirène du Mississipi (Truffaut) as well as the resulting pain of having
z Down by Law (Jarmusch) to seemingly invalidate the films you
z Barfly (Schroeder) threw off.
z Only Angels Have Wings (Hawks)
z 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)
The further we travel away from it in
time and space, the more impressive
Ti
US
West
Pearl, X
it becomes. It was groundbreaking
in its day, but if anything it’s even
more confounding now. Will we
z Citizen Kane (Welles) ever see a major studio f ilm of its
z The Godfather (Coppola) like again?
z 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick) z The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
z Apocalypse Now (Coppola) (Leone)
z Psycho (Hitchcock) Sergio Leone’s marriage of visual
z Sunset Blvd. (Wilder) storytelling with composer Ennio
z Chinatown (Polanski) Morricone’s score becomes utterly
z Jaws (Spielberg) divine in this film’s climax; elevating
z Taxi Driver (Scorsese) a scene of three men standing in a
z Easy Rider (Hopper) cemetery to transcendent art.
z Psycho (Hitchcock)
Perhaps the most influential and
indelible film of them all; with its
Frederick then-shocking subversions of the

Wiseman
US
A Couple, City Hall
z A Day at the Races (Wood)
z A Night at the Opera (Wood)
z Duck Soup (McCarey)
z Hotel Terminus: The Life and
Times of Klaus Barbie (Ophuls)
z Paths of Glory (Kubrick)
z Modern Times (Chaplin)
z La strada (Fellini)
z The Dentist (Pearce)
z La Grande Illusion (Renoir)
z The Gold Rush (Chaplin)
genre becoming well-worn tropes
ever since.
z Singin’ in the Rain (Kelly & Donen)
A satire of the tricky transitional
Sergio Leone’s marriage of visual storytelling with
period from silent films to talkies, and
a celebration of the back catalogue of composer Ennio Morricone’s score elevates a scene
songs from that era, becomes perhaps
of three men in a cemetery to transcendent art
the most famous Hollywood film of
them all.
z Don’t Look Now (Roeg) playful, tragic, strikingly self- z Raising Arizona (Joel & Ethan Coen)
A horror masterpiece that marries reflexive and (yes) about as ornate When a film is very funny, the
its theme of precognition to the and breathtakingly elaborate as word ‘effortless’ is often used.
beguiling wonders of associative cinema gets. But this denies the fact that any
editing. A beautifully nightmarish z An American Werewolf in London great comedy is a herculean task
palindrome. (Landis) that requires screenwriting,
z Taxi Driver (Scorsese) It’s not clear to me why a film that performance, direction, composition,
An existential trip into hell so mixes comedy, horror, pathos, astute editing and, frankly, every

Nicolas vividly depicted that you are not

only transfixed by the fates of the
groundbreaking effects, vivid gore,
terrific location work, inspired
department of the crew to hit a
bullseye on a moving target.

Winding
Denmark
Refn
Drive, Only God Forgives
characters, but concerned for the
well-being of everyone involved in the
casting, Buñuel-inspired dream logic,
moon-related soundtrack choices and
z Mad Max: Fury Road (Miller)
George Miller’s late-breaking visual
making of it. jokes about British TV would merit wonder of an action movie is both
z The Texas Chain Saw Massacre z Madame De… (Ophuls) being the pinnacle of the artform, but thrillingly modern and a glorious
(Hooper) A film about love, loss and wild I’ve never spent a more enjoyable 97 tribute to engines of pure cinema like
z It’s a Wonderful Life (Capra) chance, that is, all at once, romantic, minutes at the cinema. The General and Stagecoach.
z Once upon a Time in the West
(Leone)
z The Battle of Algiers (Pontecorvo)
z Night Tide (Harrington)
z Stalker (Tarkovsky)
z A Clockwork Orange
Ora
(Kubrick)
z The Leopard (Visconti)
(
z Vertigo (Hitch
(Hitchcock)
z Fat City (Huston)

F
Frank Capra’s
I a Wonderful
It’s
Life (1946) Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
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148
WIDER SCREEN
A new generation of Swiss
filmmakers is helping to overhaul
stereotypes about the country
W S
150
BOOKS
A volume celebrating Pasolini’s
centenary, an exploration of silent
comedian Fred Evans, and a surreal
fable by Derek Jarman
1 16
2002 edition of the book – is a natural free
Guillermo del spirit, a born-wild child with stick limbs, a
Toro’s Pinocchio
FILMS
rosette of carved hair, open, unvarnished
features and a nose for trouble. Where
USA/MEXICO 2022 CERTIFICATE PG 116M 36S
other characters in the film see a potential
model Italian youth, or a ticket to riches,
DIRECTORS GUILLERMO DEL TORO or even a surrogate son, del Toro gives
MARK GUSTAFSON us a puckish innocent driven by curiosity
SCREENPLAY GUILLERMO DEL TORO
PATRICK MCHALE and affection, whose need to become ‘real’
SCREEN STORY GUILLERMO DEL TORO is an embrace of love, loss and mortality.
MAT THEW ROBBINS
BASED ON THE BOOK BY CARLO COLLODI Around him, the film condenses Collodi’s
CINEMATOGRAPHY FRANK PASSINGHAM picaresque fable as a helter-skelter tumble
EDITORS KEN SCHRETZMANN
HOLLY KLEIN through the perils of patriarchy and fas-
PRODUCTION DESIGN CURT ENDERLE cism in a 1930s Italy rife with false idols
GUY DAVIS
MUSIC ALEX ANDRE DESPLAT and warped father figures.
VOICE CAST EWAN MCGREGOR For all the 20-plus film versions of
DAVID BRADLEY
GREGORY MANN Collodi’s story of an animated puppet –
TILDA SWINTON including (at least) four in the last three
CATE BLANCHET T
years, with two of those in as many
months – del Toro is right to express sur-
prise (and delight) that none have turned
SYNOPSIS to stop-motion puppet animation for
A stop-motion retelling of the Pinocchio the task. He shares directing credit with
story, set largely in 1930s Italy amid Mark Gustafson, the director of anima-
deepening fascism. An anarchic wooden boy tion on Wes Anderson’s stop-motion
created in grief by his carpenter father and Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009); the armature
brought to life by sprites, Pinocchio is soon
puppets were made by Manchester ani-
embroiled in dark adventures involving an
exploitative circus master, a military press
mation house Mackinnon & Saunders
gang and a monstrous whale. (which supplied Fantastic Mr. Fox, as well
as Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride, 2005, and
REVIEWED BY NICK BRADSHAW Frankenweenie, 2012); and the animation
was performed by Portland’s Shadow-
Humanity may be made of crooked Machine, with supplementary work by
timber, but in Guillermo del Toro’s take del Toro’s Centro Internacional de Ani-
on Carlo Collodi’s 1883 children’s clas- mación in Guadalajara. Ambition, cut-
sic, it’s the attempt to force us straight ting-edge skills and a thousand-odd days
that does the damage. Del Toro’s errant of shooting have produced a marvellously
wooden boy – lovingly conceived and rich and lively calibre of animation, a soar-
nurtured into the world over most of two ing interplay of lighting, camerawork and
decades by the Mexican director, mod- puppetry that raises the bar for the expres-
elled on Gris Grimly’s illustrations for a sion of character and action in this style.
What’s surprising – though it’s per-
haps an obvious corollary – is that the
WOODEN START FROM HERE
Geppetto and Pinocchio
(above); Sebastian J.
switch to stop-motion means Pinocchio Cricket (opposite)
really isn’t so different to his animated
maker and neighbours: they’re all the
same matter under the surface, though
the bare-wood Pinocchio doesn’t get to
hide it. Little wonder, then, that del Toro
makes Pinocchio’s birth scene rhyme with
that of Frankenstein’s monster, similarly
unholy progeny. As with Robert Zemeck-
is’s algorithmically ordained reanima-
tion of Disney’s Pinocchio starring Tom
Hanks (which premiered on Disney+
in September), del Toro’s film opens by
elaborating a back story in which Pinoc-
chio’s carpenter father Master Geppetto
(David Bradley) is racked by grief for a
real lost son (clear-throated Gregory
Mann, who also voices Pinocchio), killed
in a senseless act of violence at the end of
World War I. One stormy night, a soz-
zled Geppetto lets fly at an oak tree on
his grounds, dragging its trunk into his
workshop for some angry woodwork
before collapsing asleep, whereupon,
in one of the film’s looser bits of exposi-
tion, floaty-eyed spirits coalesce into the
blue-fairy Wood Sprite to give the boy
life. (This being a film about surrogates
and doppelgangers, both Sprite and her
underworld sister, the griffin-like Angel
of Death, are voiced by Tilda Swinton
– adding another to her portfolio of dou-
ble-acts to follow Hail, Caesar!, 2016; Okja,
2017; and The Eternal Daughter, 2022.)
The townsfolk are of course suspi-
cious of Geppetto’s spirited sprig, though
Pinocchio, struck by the church sculpture
of a wooden Jesus on his cross, innocently
wonders “why people love him and not

The film condenses Carlo Collodi’s
picaresque fable as a helter-skelter
tumble through the perils of patriarchy
and fascism in a 1930s Italy rife with
false idols and warped father figures
me” – a succinct shot/countershot beauti-
fully crystallising del Toro’s lapsed Cathol-
icism. But a larger-looming authority
figure is the local chief blackshirt, Podesta
(Ron Perlman), who admires Pinocchio’s
“good Italian wood” and insists he be sent
to school to learn discipline; Pinocchio’s
later truancy, however, raises a red flag:
he may be a “dissident – an independent
thinker”. One of del Toro’s masterstrokes
is to translate Collodi’s boy-trapping Land
of Toys (‘Pleasure Island’ in the Disney
adaptation) into a fascist paintball boot-
camp – no donkey metaphors required
– where no sooner have Pinocchio and
Podesta’s put-upon son Candlewick made
common cause than they are forced into
gladiatorial combat.
Disney’s original Pinocchio emerged
in 1940 into a world sliding into politi-
cal savagery and horror. Del Toro’s (like
Zemeckis’s, and Matteo Garrone’s 2019
prosthetic-effects version) arrives in an
era of rekindled grievance and chauvin-
ism, one in which aspiring tyrants incant
lies and the previous president of the US
fibbed so incontinently the Washington
Post’s fact checker felt compelled to invent
a ‘Bottomless Pinocchio’ rating. Facing
such adult wickedness, del Toro – conjur-
ing the monsters of European fascism a
third time after the Spanish-set The Devil’s
Backbone (2001) and Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
– upends Collodi’s instructional moral-
ism, in which it’s the wayward Pinoc-
chio who needs civilising restraint. Just
twice does del Toro’s Pinocchio find his
tell-tale nose growing (and not straight
but branching at all angles: it has to be
chopped back down, like del Toro’s Hell-
boy shaving his horns): the first time in a
gush of imagination-flexing, the second
a moment of creative deliverance, or big
white lies. The small-spirited mendacity
of the adult world, by contrast, comes to
a point in a diminutive role for a banally
murderous Benito Mussolini.
Not that the world of art and enter-
tainment is an escape from cruel vani-
ties. Pinocchio’s pied piper, Count
Volpe (Christoph Waltz) – a combina-
tion of three Collodi characters: tyran-
nical circus master Mangiafuoco and
tricksters the Fox and the Cat – proves
an impresario of the highest duplicity.
(He has his own brutalised underling,
the monkey Spazzatura, whose grunts
and shrieks are given virtuoso expression
by Cate Blanchett.) Ewan McGregor’s
Sebastian J. Cricket, Pinocchio’s would-
be guardian and biographer, is also prone
to pontification, though as a dapper yet
frequently flattened insect he also marks
the film’s intersection of gothic macabre
and cartoon levity – he’s del Toro’s most
garrulous bug, with his own slapstick
powers of revival. In the underworld, we
also meet death’s-head mafiosi rabbits;
above, in the Mediterranean, we find the
monstrous whale and naval mines on the
journey home to true familial love. How
the film keeps all these plates spinning
is a wonder, but the musical numbers,
composed by Alexandre Desplat with
lyrics by del Toro, Patrick McHale and
Roeban Katz, are nimble and witty.
Most of all, the film exudes all the joy it
preaches, giving and breathing life into
its world, then embracing it, in all its
wonky wonder.
On Netflix from 9 December
1 17
Q&A
MARK GUSTAFSON CO-DIRECTOR
BY ARJUN SAJIP
Q What were some of the visual
references you were working from
when designing the movie?
A We did a lot of historical research.
We wanted to give the setting a real
verisimilitude. The backgrounds feel
somewhat real; there are no wacky
angles. We wanted Pinocchio to be
the most fantastical element. So in a
given scene, everything is somewhat
recognisable and of a piece, but Pinocchio
pops against that background.
Q Stop-motion on this scale is a deeply
logistical exercise; you often had 60 units
working at the same time. What was your
approach to conveying so much spirit and
emotion via such a ‘mechanical’ medium?
A You get the best animators you can find and
build a relationship with each and every
one of them. You start to understand their
strengths and weaknesses, and you ‘cast’
them so they’re working on shots they’re
likely to excel at. You use certain animators
for emotional scenes, like the ones with
Geppetto; you use others for action scenes,
like those with Spazzatura. Some animators
had a real affinity with that crazy monkey.
FILMS
Q How did Cate Blanchett come on board
as Spazzatura the monkey? Given that
none of her dialogue is intelligible,
what was it like directing her?
A Guillermo had just worked with her on
Nightmare Alley [2021]. She approached him
to ask if they could work together on his
next project. He told her all the parts had
already been cast; she said, “Are you sure?”
He said, “Well, there’s a monkey…” And
immediately she said, “I’ll do the monkey.”
It’s intimidating trying to direct Cate
Blanchett to play a monkey. She’s squealing
and squawking, and it’s hard to say, “Can
you be a bit more high-pitched…?” We
were just trying to get a range out of
Spazzatura. He had to be angry, happy,
distraught, confused – it’s amazing how
much she got out of grunts and squeaks.
She was completely committed to it. She
really got inside that little guy’s head.
1 18
Corsage
DIRECTOR MARIE KREUTZER
WRIT TEN BY MARIE KREUTZER
CINEMATOGRAPHY JUDITH K AUFMANN
EDITOR ULRIKE KOFLER
PRODUCTION DESIGN MARTIN REITER
MUSIC CAMILLE
FILMS
COSTUME DESIGN MONIK A BUT TINGER
CAST VICKY KRIEPS
FLORIAN TEICHTMEISTER
COLIN MORGAN
SYNOPSIS
As she faces her 40th birthday in 1877, the
once-idolised Empress Elisabeth of Austria
takes stock of her dissatisfying life, loveless
marriage and withering public image –
arriving at a devious plan to assert her
independence, regain her taste for pleasure
and take control of her fate.
REVIEWED BY GUY LODGE
In Corsage, a dry, wry, winking quasi-
biopic of the Empress Elisabeth of
Austria, the anachronisms arrive slowly,
subtly and then, quite recklessly, all at
once. Does that swimming pool the
empress dives into, with its chrome-
plated handrail, not look a bit contem-
porary for a mid 19th-century palace?
That modernist doorway inside certainly
does. Who knew that Kris Kristofferson’s
‘Help Me Make it Through the Night’
was a prim chamber-music standard for
the House of Habsburg? Including the
Rolling Stones’ ‘As Tears Go By’ is push-
ing it a bit, though by the time Marie
Kreutzer’s film boldly and wittily departs
from biographical record to rewrite his-
tory entirely, such era-fudging seems posi-
tively cautious by comparison.
When stood, however, beside past
depictions of the empress – nicknamed
‘Sissi’, though Kreutzer’s film prefers
brisker formalities – Corsage seems less like
an audacious aberration than an attempt,
if not to correct the record, at least to
balance out the mythology surrounding
its subject. For a generation of European
filmgoers, the legend of Elisabeth was viv-
idly sealed and illustrated by the trilogy of
floridly romanticised Sissi films of the mid-
1950s, which starred a teenage, impossibly
beautiful Romy Schneider as a supposedly
true-life fairytale princess, and surrounded
her with so much sweetened visual and
aural viennoiserie that it was easy to forget
the real Elisabeth’s life ended grimly when
she was assassinated, aged 60, by an anar-
chist. (The third film in the Sissi trilogy
concluded with a sentimentally joyous
reunion between the empress and her
young daughter in Venice.)
Corsage coolly takes a seam-ripper to
such high-kitsch historical fantasy, even as
it constructs its own fiction around how
the empress lived and died – one that
grants its heroine both the agency and
tragedy denied her by past efforts to cast
her, sometimes quite literally, as a dainty
porcelain icon. Whether or not Kreutzer’s
film presents us with the ‘real’ Sissi, eons
after the death of anyone who could tes-
tify either way, is moot; the point is that
this empress, as tartly, cannily played
by the emphatically un-Schneider-like
Vicky Krieps, at least feels like she could
be real, possessed as she is of perverse
intelligence, petulant independence and
a palpable libido.
For starters, this empress is older
than the Sissi films ever permitted her
to get. The year is 1877, and she regards
her approaching 40th birthday with the
same thin-lipped moue of discontent
that she does most aspects of her lav-
ishly serviced but joyless courtly life –
from her diet (minimal) to her political
duties (even more so) to her relationship
(barely detectable) with cold-fish hus-
band Emperor Franz Joseph (Florian
Teichtmeister). Is that all there is? If so,
Elisabeth tallies the contents of her life
to an obsessively precise degree, logging
her weight and dimensions daily, insist-
DRESS TO EMPRESS
Vicky Krieps as
Empress Elisabeth
ing her handmaidens give not so much
as a millimetre as they fasten her corset,
practising and timing to the last second
her ability to hold her breath underwater.
Why? Let it be said that no detail is irrel-
evant in a film as fastidious as it imagines
its subject to be.
But then Corsage releases her, bit by
bit, from the prisons of both her palace
and her history. She cuts her high-piled
hair and relaxes into heroin; on hear-
ing rumours of her dalliance with dash-
ing riding instructor Middleton (Colin
Morgan), she decides to live up to
them. There’s even a tattoo planted on
her shoulder, though Kreutzer’s post-
modernism steers largely clear of the
adolescent punk vibrancy of Sofia Cop-
pola’s Marie Antoinette (2006). From the
bleached, lineny tones of Judith Kauf-
mann’s camerawork to the calm, cutting
strut of Krieps’s performance – her best
since her international breakthrough in
Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread
(2017), with Kreutzer’s film even more
fascinated by her stoic but quizzical fea-
tures – Corsage asserts its contemporary
perspective with an ironic propriety.
It maintains that veneer of good behav-
iour through to its fully radical final act,
in which a whimsically but intricately
planned climactic caper builds, most
unexpectedly, to a full rewrite of Sissi’s
own last chapter – a fiction that feels,
by this point, truer to its reconstructed
portrait of a woman determined to live,
breathe, speak, fuck and, if it comes down
to it, die on her own terms. With elegant
insouciance, Kreutzer and Krieps give us
a royal actually worthy of a mantelpiece
figurine – not that this empress would
have stood for such frippery.
In UK cinemas from 26 December

Utama
DIRECTOR ALEJANDRO
LOAYAZA GRISI
WRIT TEN BY ALEJANDRO
LOAYAZA GRISI
CINEMATOGRAPHY BARBARA ALVAREZ
EDITOR FERNANDO EPSTEIN
ART DIRECTION VALERIA WILDE
MUSIC CERGIO PRUDENCIO
CAST JOSÉ CALCINA
LUISA QUISPE
SANTOS CHOQUE
SYNOPSIS
An elderly Quechua couple living in the
Bolivian highlands, Virginio and Sisa
weather challenges created by a lengthy
drought and Virginio’s declining health.
The arrival of their grandson Clever and
worsening conditions in their community
complicate the couple’s struggle to decide
whether to stay or leave.
REVIEWED BY JASON ANDERSON
Given the stark beauty of the parched
plateau and imposing peaks of the Boliv-
ian highlands, it’s no surprise that the
landscape plays a major role in Alejandro
Loayza Grisi’s debut feature. Working
with cinematographer Barbara Alva-
rez – whose credits include such vivid
works as Lucrecia Martel’s The Headless
Woman (2008) and Maya Da-Rin’s The
Fever (2019) – and drawing from his own
background as a photographer and cin-
ematographer, Grisi makes appropriately
dramatic widescreen use of the setting.
He continually emphasises his charac-
ters’ vulnerability and the futility of their
actions by situating them within vast
environments that are made even more
formidable by the blazing yellow sun and
the condors circling in the sky above. It’s
hard to imagine that enough water could
ever have existed here to support com-
munities like the Quechua one portrayed
here. But as is the case for so many places
now being irrevocably changed by the
climate crisis, the effects of persistent
drought have made the already chal-
lenging daily routine of Grisi’s characters
impossible to endure.
For all the bleakness to be found in
Utama’s depiction of a vanishing way of
life and the accompanying loss of identity,
language and tradition for the Quechua
people, Grisi’s Sundance prizewinner bal-
ances it with warmth, gentleness and wry
humour. The most significant source of
those virtues are the film’s two lead per-
formers, José Calcina and Luisa Quispe,
who play elderly couple Virginio and Sisa.
Grisi initially encountered the real-life
married pair during a location scouting
trip and convinced them to play fictitious
versions of themselves. The early scenes
convey the familiar rhythms of their lives:
Virginio takes his herd of llamas out for
grazing and Sisa tends to her modest
garden before the couple reconnect over
their evening meal. They sleep in single
beds, a metre away from each other,
but their easy intimacy is unmistakable.
When she catches him gazing at her in
the morning, she playfully tells her hus-
band, “Get up instead of staring at me.”
Nevertheless, their lives are being
upended by change. When the well in the
nearest town runs dry, both are forced to
travel farther to get the water they need.
The weary Virginio’s physical decline
is signalled by the laboured breathing
almost omnipresent within Alejandro
Grillo’s intricate sound design.
Virginio’s difficulties initially do little
to curb his stubbornness or his irascibil-
ity, especially when their grandson Clever
(Santos Choque) arrives with the mission
of convincing the couple to relocate with
him to the city. With his hoodie, jeans and
headphones, Clever is a ready emblem of
the younger generations who have already
left these communities. Virginio regards
his grandson with undisguised scorn and
impatience, exploiting the young man’s
1 19
inability to speak their dialect by alter-
nately conversing with him in Spanish
and complaining about the “spoiled brat”
to Sisa. In one scene, Virginio obstinately
refuses to let his grandson get ahead of
him as they walk with the llamas. (Grisi
and Alvarez take every available opportu-
nity to emphasise the somewhat surreal
sight of the animals and the incongruous
burst of colour provided by the pink rib-
bons attached to their ears.)
Eventually, Virginio must acknowl-
edge the growing severity of his personal
situation and of the drought’s impact.
The atmosphere of gloom thickens after
Virginio and Clever travel with a group
of neighbours to examine conditions
higher up. “There’s no ice on the moun-
tain,” a worried Clever reports back to
his grandmother.
When the family experiences a further
crisis one night, catastrophe feels close
at hand. Yet rather than toughen him
further or cause more discord within
his family, the unmistakable signs of Vir-
ginio’s mortality begin to finally soften
his character. Likewise, Grisi’s film shifts
out of the more foreboding mood it
establishes in the early scenes to assume
a gentler, more open-hearted disposition
than viewers have been led to expect. By
combining an earnest celebration of the
couple’s love and resilience with a few
judiciously applied touches of magic
realism, Grisi is able to avoid the more
didactic and reductive tendencies that
FILMS
often mire dramas about the challenges
wrought by our deteriorating eco-sys-
tems. Instead, Utama finds subtler and
more unassuming means to convey the
extent of this loss in acutely human
terms. And while Virginio and Sisa may
at first seem puny within the film’s grand
vistas, they ultimately develop their own
kind of magnitude.
SHADOW OF A DROUGHT
In UK cinemas now José Calcina as Virginio
120

Nanny is, on its surface, a psychological
Nanny horror film that examines the economics
of motherhood. Aisha (Anna Diop) must
CERTIFICATE 15 98M 26S leave her son in Senegal so she can work
as a nanny in New York for a wealthy
DIRECTOR NIKYATU JUSU
WRIT TEN BY NIKYATU JUSU white woman, Amy. While Aisha dreams
CINEMATOGRAPHY RINA YANG of saving enough to bring her son to
EDITOR ROBERT MEAD
PRODUCTION DESIGN JONATHAN GUGGENHEIM America, Amy relies on Aisha so she can
MUSIC BARTEK GLINIAK focus on her own ambitions: climbing
TANERÉLLE
COSTUME DESIGN CHARLESE ANTOINET TE the corporate ladder, breaking into the
CAST ANNA DIOP ‘boys’ club’ and affording the apartment,
MICHELLE MONAGHAN
MORGAN SPECTOR education and therapist she believes her
daughter Rose needs. But while other
SYNOPSIS filmmakers – indeed, much of Western
Aisha takes a job as a nanny in New York, remitting money cinema – would have typically placed
to her son in Senegal and slowly saving up enough for him higher value on Amy’s story and ambi-
to join her. She resists her wealthy employer’s attempts to tions, Nikyatu Jusu’s directorial debut
exploit her but is increasingly plagued by visions of trickster devotes itself to Aisha’s.
god Anansi and water spirit Mami Wata.
Nanny acknowledges the differences
REVIEWED BY LEILA LATIF in power and precarity between the two
women, but it also refuses to define Aisha
by those terms, instead filling her life with
tenderness, magic and romance. Diop is
positioned in every frame as though she
were the subject of a baroque oil paint-
ing; constructing an almost worshipful
gaze, Jusu bounces colourful lights across
Diop’s skin and places her in silhouette
against shimmering sunsets.
Aisha’s modest home is just as carefully
and stylishly decorated as the cavernous
rooms of Amy’s apartment. And though
COMING TO AMERICA Sinqua Walls, Anna Diop Amy tries to tempt Aisha deeper into
her life, Aisha steadfastly refuses; she has
not only boundaries but a life outside her
charge’s dysfunctional family. She wishes
only to be treated with respect and paid
what she is owed. After all, she has prob-
lems of her own, ones that manifest in
visions, blackouts and a creeping sense of
dread. Aisha, like the spider god Anansi
she tells Rose about, is “a survivor”, but
not immune from the horrors that can
befall the world’s more vulnerable people.
Where the film over-indulges is in the
way it evokes that dread, which is paced
too languidly to build momentum.
Despite the beauty of the nightmarish
visions, accompanied by a sparse, maca-
bre soundtrack, the impact of each inci-
dent lessens as the film goes on. The final
twist is heavily signposted, and the epi-
logue wraps an incongruously neat bow
on Aisha’s story, undermining the discom-
fiting significance of what came before.
But Nanny remains an extraordinary
debut, one whose power does not rely on
a third-act reveal or the occasional jump-
scare. There is a rare elegance in its magic
realism that evokes Mati Diop’s Atlantics
(2019), and a spirituality that feels authen-
tic. With care and artistry, Nanny show
how exquisite even the most unglamor-
ous life can be.
In UK cinemas now

Anna Diop is positioned in every frame as though she were the subject of a baroque oil painting
FILMS

NANNY

Dawn Breaks Kevin Kopacka’s Dawn Breaks Behind the

Eyes slides through layers of fiction and
director Gregor Grause (Jeff Wilbusch)
and his partner and script collaborator
Behind the Eyes referentiality which reflect or illuminate Eva (Anna Platen), who disagree about
each other. The opening sequence pas- the ending Gregor has shot. Eva may also
GERMANY 2022 tiches the Eurohorror of the 1960s and be awakening to her status as a character
70s, territory explored by Hélène Cattet or characters in this film’s own multiverse
DIRECTOR KEVIN KOPACK A and Bruno Forzani in Amer (2009) and by of realities, which get more complicated
WRIT TEN BY LILI VILLÁNYI
KEVIN KOPACK A Peter Strickland in The Duke of Burgundy with a) the arrival of sinister hippies who
CINEMATOGRAPHY LUK AS DOLGNER (2014). A married couple – their surname seem to turn things into a Mansonesque
EDITOR KEVIN KOPACK A
SET DESIGNER RANI MESSIAS is Menliff, like the family in Mario Bava’s home invasion scenario, and b) the dish-
MUSIC AUDHENTIK The Whip and the Body (1963) – wander ing out of LSD-laced sugar cubes to cast
LIQUID BRAIN ORCHESTRA
FOR THOSE WHO STILL EXIST around a castle. Dieter (Frederik von and crew at the wrap party, which evokes
COSTUME DESIGN TERESA GROSSER Lüttichau) has a fright in the cellar and is Gaspar Noé’s Climax (2018) and precipi-
CAST ANNA PLATEN
JEFF WILBUSCH exaggeratedly reluctant to go back there tates a breakdown of personal and mental
LUISA TARAZ to pick up his dropped car keys. Margot barriers and an orgy from which only Eva
FREDERIK VON LÜT TICHAU
(Luisa Taraz) wearies of Dieter’s sniping, stands apart.
SYNOPSIS believing that he married her for money The playful sense of realities blurring
Dieter and his wife Margot explore a castle Margot has and now resents her for it. Under super- presumably extends to the doubling of
inherited. Certain presences violently exacerbate tensions within natural influence, she becomes a venge- Kopacka and his producer/co-writer
ple turn out to actually be Klaus and
their marriage. The couple ful harpy who ends their argument by Lili Villányi by Gregor and Eva. A final
Lilith, actors who have just finished work on an arty horror wrenching off his penis in a gore effect shift from philosophical awakening in a
movie directed by Gregor or Grause, who presides over a wrap that would once have landed this film on haunted world brings on a lengthy outro
party that turns into a psychedelic
sychedelic orgy. the ‘video nasties’ list. in which every crew member gets their
Or rather, the film within this film – own title card – apparently doubling
REVIEWED BY KIM NEWMANN
for the two-character first act turns out as part of the real-life credits sequence
to be a movie shot in the castle location. – as they’re seen enjoying themselves at
Like 2020’s Black Bear (a parallel rather the party accompanied by a selection
than an influence), Dawn Breaks Behind of upbeat music. Building its haunted
the Eyes switches from intense onscreen castle identikit-fashion by placing pre-
chamber piece to overpopulated on-set existing elements together in a new,
drama. The actors playing Dieter and dynamic configuration, this is gorgeous,
Margot happily shake off their roles exhilarating metacinema.
DEAD CALM
(or try to), while the intense couple
Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes dynamic shifts to the differences between In UK cinemas now
 121

MORE FILMS FROM

CARTOON SALOON
BY MICHAEL LEADER

SONG OF THE SEA (2014)

Cartoon Saloon’s second
feature, directed by Tomm
Moore, still stands as the
Irish animation studio’s most
overt nod to the work of
Miyazaki Hayao. Informed
by coastal folk tales of
magical selkie creatures and
visually inspired by the Irish
landscape, this modern-
day adventure follows
siblings Ben and Saoirse
as they traverse the land,
discovering long-buried
mythological beings and
uncovering heartbreaking
family secrets.

THE BREADWINNER (2017)

Executive-produced by

FILMS
Angelina Jolie, Nora
STRIPE CARTOON My Father’s Dragon
Twomey’s solo directorial
debut adapted Deborah

My Father’s Dragon
Ellis’s children’s novel about
Loosely adapted from Ruth Stiles Gannett’s 1948 novel by a young girl in war-torn
Meg LeFauve, who also scripted Pixar’s Inside Out (2015) Afghanistan, who poses
and its forthcoming sequel, the film sports a cast of Hol- as a boy to provide for her
CERTIFICATE PG 99M 22S
lywood-grade voice talent, led by Jacob Tremblay (Room, family after her father is
2015; Doctor Sleep, 2019) as our hero Elmer, and Gaten Mata- arrested and imprisoned by
DIRECTOR NORA T WOMEY
SCREENPLAY MEG LEFAUVE razzo (Stranger Things, 2016-) as Boris, the cuddly, green-and- Taliban soldiers. As with
SCREEN STORY JOHN MORGAN yellow-striped young dragon Elmer befriends and helps many of the studio’s films,
MEG LEFAUVE The Breadwinner explores the
BASED ON THE BOOK escape from the perilous Wild Island. power of the stories we tell:
MY FATHER’S DRAGON BY RUTH STILES GANNET T Unlike the formal innovations of Wolfwalkers, which con-
EDITOR RICHIE CODY about ourselves, our cultures
MUSIC MYCHAEL DANNA trasted sharp-edged designs for its British colonial charac- and our histories.
JEFF DANNA ters with free-flowing pencil-sketch linework for the Celtic
VOICE CAST JACOB TREMBLAY
GATEN MATARAZZO upstarts, My Father’s Dragon adopts a clean, colourful story-
GOLSHIFTEH FARAHANI book approach that befits its skew towards younger audi-
SYNOPSIS
ences. But the film isn’t unsophisticated: for every armpit
fart joke demanded by its buddy-movie stylings, there are
After ten-year-old Elmer and his mother move to the
shades of complexity one would struggle to find in major
unwelcoming Nevergreen City, he runs away from home and
ends up on the mysterious Wild Island. There, he finds a colony
studio animated fare. The design of the film’s ostensible
of ferocious talking animals and an imprisoned young dragon antagonists – the creatures of Wild Island who have impris- WOLFWALKERS (2020)
called Boris, tasked with keeping the sinking island afloat. oned Boris – strikes an intriguing balance between charm- Completing the studio’s
ing and chilling. These creatures also have concerns of their ‘Irish Folklore trilogy’,
REVIEWED BY MICHAEL LEADER own, something best expressed in a nerve-rattling scene Wolfwalkers saw Tomm
featuring a snap-happy crocodile (voiced by Alan Cum- Moore and co-director Ross
Stewart entering polemical
Ever since the surprise Best Animated Feature Oscar nomi- ming), who juggles terrorising Elmer with caring for several
alternative-history territory.
nation for their debut film, The Secret of Kells (2009), Irish tiny hatchlings, all vying for his attention. A working parent, Set in Kilkenny in 1650,
studio Cartoon Saloon has enjoyed a blossoming inter- even in this fantasy land. this anti-imperialist fable
national reputation among festival programmers, award Responsibility is the theme, and the film takes care to give focuses on two girls – one a
voters and animation-hungry audiences alike. But Kells’s weight to its tweenage protagonist’s plight. Elmer is eager Northern English expat, the
two co-directors have walked distinct creative paths since to be an adult, but has some way to go. His growing con- other a fire-haired local with
their first success. Tomm Moore has delved deeper into fidence in himself and the world around him gives him the the power to turn into a wolf
Irish mythology with Song of the Sea (2014) and Wolfwalkers false burden of having to solve everyone’s problems, from while she sleeps – whose
friendship defies the Puritan
(2020), while Nora Twomey has looked further afield for his mother’s financial woes to Boris’s anxieties about grow-
tyranny of the Cromwell-
inspiration: to Taliban-era Afghanistan for The Breadwinner ing into a mature ‘after-dragon’. My Father’s Dragon directly alike Lord Protector.
(2017), and now to the US for My Father’s Dragon. addresses that impulse, and attempts to reassure its view-
It is also, notably, the studio’s first feature collaboration ers, young and old, that it’s OK to not have all the answers.
with Netflix, which might go some way to explaining some
of its more pronounced shifts from what has come before. On Netflix now
122
Alcarràs
SPAIN/ITALY/FRANCE 2022
DIRECTOR CARLA SIMÓN
SCREENPLAY CARLA SIMÓN
ARNAU VILARÓ
CINEMATOGRAPHY DANIELA CAJÍAS
FILMS
EDITOR ANA PFAFF
ART DIRECTION MÓNICA BERNUY
MUSIC ANDREA KOCH
COSTUME DESIGN ANNA AGUILÀ
CAST JOSEP ABAD
JORDI PUJOL DOLCET
ANNA OTÍN
SYNOPSIS
The Solés, a Catalan peach-farming
family, face eviction from their land after
generations of living and working on it.
The patriarch, Quimet, rails against the
intrusion of modernity on his traditions; his
father Rogelio retreats into old customs;
and teens Mariona and Roger must take on
new responsibilities.
REVIEWED BY WILL WEBB
Three children, immersed in imaginative
play, occupy an abandoned car on the
edge of their family farm. As they chat-
ter about travelling through outer space,
their fantasy is interrupted by a monster:
a looming mechanical crane. Forced
to leave their den, the children can only
watch the car dangle above them – a sur-
real sight in this pastoral scene. It’s the
first upheaval of many for the Solé family
in Alcarràs, the Golden Bear-winning
second feature by director Carla Simón.
In her critically lauded debut, Summer
93 (2017), Simón mined her own biog-
raphy for a tender tale of a young girl
adopted by relatives after her mother’s
death. Alcarràs retains some features of
that film, including a lush Catalan set-
ting and an exquisitely detailed focus
on the rhythms of family life, not least
the vividly captured playtimes of the
younger family members.
The Solés are peach farmers who have
occupied their land for generations on
the basis of a handshake deal with the
original owners, the Pinyols; the ambi-
tious young Pinyol, whose first name we
never learn, doesn’t recognise this agree-
ment, and begins to make moves to evict
the family just as picking season starts.
Low on funds and with a hard summer
ahead, the Solés must contemplate an
uncertain future.
The large, tight-knit family includes
grandfather Rogelio (Josep Abad) and
his sister; patriarch Quimet (Jordi Pujol
Dolcet); his wife Dolors (Anna Otin);
and their three children, adolescent
Roger (Albert Bosch), young teen Mar-
iona (Xènia Roset), and the youngest, Iris
(Ainet Jounou). Quimet’s siblings also
weave in and out of the picture, with his
twin nephews in tow. Despite the sprawl-
ing multigenerational cast, each family
member is given roughly equal attention,
as Simón deftly shifts focus from person
to person. In an ensemble drama with six
prominent characters, Simón’s accom-
plished yet unshowy direction sees her
growing beyond the narrower confines
of her first feature. Its distinctive Spanish
setting aside, in its attention to the details
and rituals of family life Alcarràs recalls the
work of Koreeda Hirokazu.
Each scene unfolds largely at the eye
level of whoever it’s focusing on, with cin-
ematographer Daniela Cajías’s patient,
naturalistic style bringing the perfor-
mances to the fore. Her camera also peers
through doorways, looks out of windows
and gazes along lengthy avenues of peach
trees; the bucolic Catalan landscape is a
sea of rich greens and oranges, occasion-
ally punctuated by the sight of a gleaming
white solar-panel truck. Adults discuss
serious topics with their backs to the
camera, ceding prominence in the frame
to the concerned faces of the children.
Alcarràs largely avoids facing its high-
stakes premise head-on, much as the
PEACH RATS
Ainet Jounou as Iris
family do, and instead is concerned
with their attempts to care for, comfort
and sometimes control each other as
they react to the impending loss of their
livelihood. Amid the stress of the pick-
ing season, with their produce suddenly
more precious than usual as money
runs low, the extended family still finds
space for joy and nurturing. The great-
aunt recites fairytales; Rogelio helps his
grandchildren wash peach stones. Simón
and co-writer Arnau Vilaró celebrate the
vocation and heritage of these characters
without regressing into conservatism.
The family sing folk songs one moment,
and cheer on Mariona’s modern dance
routine the next.
Underneath the story, a subtext about
the invasion of the modern into tradition
swims in and out of view. The local coop-
erative organises protests about the price
of peaches, and grumble about those
who take up Pinyol’s offer of abandon-
ing farming and installing and maintain-
ing solar panels on their land. The Solés
weigh up this offer throughout the film.
Simón ventures into the political sphere
without losing sight of the domestic,
with larger conflicts bringing smaller
character moments into focus. Rogelio’s
repeated attempts to give the younger
Pinyol produce from the farm is met
with confusion, a custom that, much like
the handshake agreement, is no longer
understood. In a joyous moment later in
the film, Mariona and Roger put their
own rebellious spin on this, leaving dead
rabbits outside the landlord’s door in the
dead of night. Like so much of Alcarràs,
the outcome is unclear; Simón’s focus is
on the family’s shared experience in the
face of adversity.
In UK cinemas from 6 January

A placebo is a pharmacologically inac-
Nocebo tive substance that can still bring posi-
tive therapeutic outcomes to a credulous
IRELAND/UK/PHILIPPINES/BELGIUM/USA/FINLAND 2022 patient; a nocebo (Latin for ‘I shall harm’)
is the opposite, inactive but able to induce
DIRECTOR LORCAN FINNEGAN
WRIT TEN BY GARRET SHANLEY a negative response. Christine (Eva
CINEMATOGRAPHY RADEK LADCZUK Green), a designer of children’s cloth-
JAKUB KIJOWSKI
EDITOR TONY CRANSTOUN ing, comes down with a debilitating ill-
PRODUCTION DESIGN LUCY VAN LONKHUYZEN ness that baffles her marketing strategist
MUSIC JOSE ANTONIO C. BUENCAMINO
COSTUME DESIGN LEONIE PRENDERGAST husband Felix (Mark Strong) and affects
CAST EVA GREEN her relationship with her young daugh-
MARK STRONG
CHAI FONACIER ter Bobs (Billie Gadsdon). Whether the
condition is physiological or psychologi-
SYNOPSIS cal (Felix suggests it is ‘guilt’), Christine
The UK, present day. Filipina maid Diana arrives on the is crippled by its symptoms, including
doorstep of fashion designer Christine, offering to help cure amnesia – which may explain why, when
a mysterious affliction plaguing her mind as much as her Filipina maid Diana (an extraordinary
body. Coming with her own history of trauma, Diana slowly Chai Fonacier) turns up with a suitcase,
sets about confronting her new mistress about the latter’s
Christine has no memory of hiring her.
responsibility for distant harm.
Soon this interloper has installed herself
REVIEWED BY ANTON BITEL in the family’s opulent London home and
taken it upon herself to dispel Christine’s
problems with a programme of folk heal-
ing. But this witchlike ongo comes with
her own undiagnosed history of suffering.
Another collaboration between direc-
tor Lorcan Finnegan and writer Garret
Shanley (after Without Name, 2016,
and Vivarium, 2019), Nocebo is the first
Ireland-Philippines co-production, and
criss-crosses between those countries
(Dublin doubling for the UK) as Chris-
MASKING FOR TROUBLE Eva Green as Christine tine’s pathologies play out against Diana’s
This is matter-of-fact filmmaking whose quasi-documentary minimalism gains power by avoiding melodrama
TORI AND LOKITA
Tori and Lokita Earlier this year the Dardenne broth-
ers won yet another prize at the Cannes
CERTIFICATE 15 89M 26S
Film Festival, this time with Tori and
Lokita, which sees them continue their
DIRECTORS JEAN-PIERRE DARDENNE exploration of contemporary social ills
LUC DARDENNE – in this case, the plight of refugee Afri-
WRIT TEN BY JEAN-PIERRE DARDENNE
LUC DARDENNE can children. Lokita (Joely Mbundu)
CINEMATOGRAPHY BENOÎT DERVAUX and Tori (Pablo Schils), separated from
EDITOR MARIE-HÉLÈNE DOZO
PRODUCTION DESIGN IGOR GABRIEL their respective families, met on a boat
COSTUME DESIGN DOROTHÉE GUIRAUD to Sicily. Now in Belgium, Lokita claims
CAST PABLO SCHILS
JOELY MBUNDU to be Tori’s big sister, partly because of
ALBAN UK AJ their close bond and partly in the hope
TIJMEN GOVAERTS
of obtaining identity papers (which Tori
SYNOPSIS already has). The two youngsters do odd
Two West African refugees – adolescent girl Lokita and jobs to survive, which leads to small-time
younger boy Tori – try to survive in a Belgian city. Turning drug dealing for a local restaurant chef,
to drug dealing for a local chef, they are mercilessly Betim (Alban Ukaj). They encounter
exploited by all the adults around them. Lokita is soon hardship, exploitation and abuse from
taken to a cannabis farm, and quickly begins to slide into the adults around them, white and
even darker danger. Black, male and female: their smugglers,
Betim, the drug clients, and Lokita’s
REVIEWED BY GINET TE VINCENDEAU
mother, who shouts down the telephone,
demanding she send money. Lokita also
has to endure sexual abuse from Betim.
Even the friendly, apparently compas-
sionate immigration officials can’t, or
won’t, help.
If this suggests a film that simplisti-
cally conforms to the Dardennes’ reputa-
tion for producing work of unremitting
grimness, the experience of watching it
is more complex and more rewarding.
To be sure, the narrative is a tragic one,
BOND MOVIE Joely Mbundu as Lokita, Pablo Schils as Tori and it is impossible not to be moved
123
backstory. At its heart is a clash of class
and culture. For Christine’s first-world
problems prove intimately related to
Diana’s third-world origins, in a genre-
fuelled narrative about Western exploi-
tation which recalls the Vietnam sweat-
shop opening of Lars Klevberg’s Child’s
Play (2019) and the Indian cotton-picking
prologue to Elza Kephart’s fashion horror
Slaxx (2020) – and which, like Ruben
Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness, lets a Filipina
servant turn the tables on her socioeco-
nomic superiors.
In delirious scenes of body horror,
Christine sees – or dreams – her affliction
as a tick that buries itself under her skin:
a vivid image of a conscience pricked,
with the wound left to fester untreated.
Christine’s path of healing involves a con-
frontation with herself: acknowledging
what she has done and how it has harmed
others, and facing a fitting punishment.
For Diana is not the first of Christine’s
“little helpers”, and there is, inscribed
in the vintage sewing machine that she
keeps as an ornament, a legacy of casual
colonial attitudes towards a marginalised
proletariat. Nocebo is an angry allegory,
marking the iniquities in global capital-
ism through a satisfying fantasy of folk
revenge and generational change.
In UK cinemas from 9 December
FILMS
by the youngsters’ struggle in a pitiless
world. But from the opening sequence,
in which Lokita is interviewed by immi-
gration officials, the Dardennes’ very
mise en scène avoids pathos. Facing the
camera, Lokita answers the unseen
interviewer with the energy and confi-
dence of youth (recalling a famous scene
in François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows,
1959). Lokita may be a victim, but she is
not defined entirely in these terms.
The hitherto untrained actors deliver
superbly natural performances. Through-
out the film, the camera follows their
actions and movements tightly but never
lingers on their faces for effect. When
Lokita is taken for the first time to a can-
nabis farm, we discover the mysterious,
initially scary place with her; the camera
tracks her closely yet never feels intru-
sive or exploitative. Sordid details, such
as Lokita being forced to give sexual
favours to Betim, are left off screen. This
is matter-of-fact, economical filmmaking
whose quasi-documentary minimalism
gains power by avoiding melodrama.
Tori and Lokita is a humanist rather than a
political film, pointing the finger at human
cruelty, specifically the abuse of children,
rather than at racism per se. Whether this
is a weakness or a strength will depend on
the sensibilities of the viewer.
In UK cinemas now
School of Film
& Television

Empire of Light
DIRECTOR SAM MENDES
WRIT TEN BY SAM MENDES
CINEMATOGRAPHY ROGER DEAKINS
EDITOR LEE SMITH
PRODUCTION DESIGN MARK TILDESLEY
MUSIC TRENT REZNOR
AT TICUS ROSS
COSTUME DESIGN ALEX ANDRA BYRNE
CAST OLIVIA COLMAN
TOM BROOKE
MICHEAL WARD
TANYA MOODIE
SYNOPSIS
The south coast of England, 1980-81. Hilary is the
duty manager of a cinema, recovering from a mental
breakdown and sexually involved with her married
boss. When a young man, Stephen, starts working at the
cinema, they begin a relationship, but it hits the rocks
when she comes off her antidepressants.
REVIEWED BY PAMELA HUTCHINSON
Sam Mendes’s new film has three terrific strengths.
The first is a dream of a location: Margate’s refur-
bished Dreamland cinema has been made under into
the Empire, a scruffy, faded south coast picture palace
in the very early 1980s. Beyond the art deco foyer is a
gilded auditorium and a tatty booth papered with
film-star snaps, where Toby Jones’s proud projection-
ist guards his canisters and carbons; outside the glass
doors, the bleak horizon of the grey-blue sea. It’s a
pleasure, if a slightly seedy one, to spend time here.
Roger Deakins’ cinematography, another of the film’s
assets, picks out every crumb of popcorn lurking in
the tatty carpets, and bounces light around the rust
and burgundy decor to create an atmosphere that is
warm but tangibly grubby. Upstairs, there is almost as
much space again: a ballroom, and two more screens,
now dilapidated, dusty and closed to the public.
The film’s third ace card is Olivia Colman as duty
manager Hilary, who potters about the Empire
counting ticket stubs. She is as run down as the
cinema: taking daily lithium tablets after a serious
breakdown the previous summer and embroiled in
a joyless affair of sorts with the manager, played by
Colin Firth as a tedious lecher, inflated with smug-
ness. Hilary starts each shift by warming his slippers
by the electric heater and ends it by popping into his
office for an unsatisfactory, barely consensual shag.
Colman is, as always, mesmerising. The role
requires her to carry off extreme mood swings:
impassioned off-medication rants about the wrongs
of men, a wine glass clenched in her fist, coexist
with charming, light-touch romcom manoeuvres.
PROJECTION RACKET Micheal Ward and Olivia Colman
Extended close-ups capture her at her most psychi-
cally vulnerable, face drained of life, and at her radiant
peaks, when Mendes offers her some fairly conde-
scending redemption under a beam of dusty light.
Those peaks come largely in the wake of a hand-
some young man, Stephen (played quietly by Micheal
Ward), joining the staff; he rapidly clicks with Hilary,
who pounces on him for a New Year midnight kiss.
The feeling’s mutual, but he doesn’t just bring good
humour and sexual passion into Hilary’s life: he pro-
vides the first of the film’s clunking metaphors, as he
rescues a pigeon with a broken wing and nurses it
back to flight. Meanwhile, he has a broken heart and
a career false start to cope with, as well as daily threats
of racist violence from local skinheads. Hilary means
well, but can’t begin to understand how this affects
him; in one uncomfortable scene, Stephen is harassed
by a bigoted customer, and Hilary flounders.
Hilary and Stephen both, at different times, reach
a crisis point in the Empire’s foyer: she battles her
demons in public, while he takes on a local chapter of
the National Front. Neither comes out of their con-
frontations well, but the film cannot sit with either
storyline long enough to see it through. The racism
in Thatcher’s Britain, like Hilary’s mental illness, is
too serious a problem to be resolved by a film more
interested in nostalgically capturing the texture of
the recent past than exploring deeper matters.
Ultimately, the film fails its two leads, burdening
them with leaden dialogue and unresolved arcs.
Curiously, neither does it work as a tribute to the
transportive joys of cinema, a theme ushered in by
Jones’s crisp monologue on the persistence of vision
and Stephen’s delight in mastering the reel change
under the older man’s tutelage. Unsurprisingly for
a cinema-set film, the marquee groans with beloved
classics, yet for most of the duration, movies are
simply a way to pass the time. The foyer posters are
more meticulous set-dressing, like the retro fizzy-pop
cans and the sweets on the concession counter. A
sequence involving a gala screening of Chariots of Fire
(1981) drops Vangelis’s stirring theme tune right into
one of Hilary’s most harrowing moments, turning
tragedy abruptly into farce. And it’s characteristic of
the film’s elisions that the potential of the glorious
upstairs space remains untapped.
Empire of Light succeeds remarkably at evoking a
time and place, the austerity of the early 80s and the
blank skies and dirty concrete of a seaside town hiber-
nating through the winter. But with its clunky screen-
play, thematic glibness and many missed opportuni-
ties, Mendes’s latest creation feels rather off-season.
In UK cinemas from 13 January
PORTRAIT: MARK GREGSON
125
SPOTLIGHT
Micheal Ward
BY LEILA LATIF
With all the charisma (not to men-
tion the cheekbones) necessary to
reach the heights of movie stardom,
Micheal Ward radiates an innate
goodness whether he’s dancing to
reggae in Ladbroke Grove, dating
during a brutal gang war, or selling
tickets at a Margate cinema.
After a stint as a model, Ward
broke into acting through small roles
in Brotherhood (2016) and The A List
(2018-21) before starring in Rapman’s
acclaimed musical crime drama
Blue Story in 2019. The same year, he
FILMS
became Jamie, the antihero of Series
3 and 4 of Top Boy (2011-). To that role
Ward brought an intoxicating com-
bination of sensitivity and arrogance,
as Jamie tried to carve out a name for
himself and support his loved ones
but ultimately fell victim to hubris.
Steve McQueen would scrub
away all that bravado for Ward’s role
in Lovers Rock, the second entry in
McQueen’s ‘Small Axe’ pentalogy
(2020). Ward played Franklyn, an
almost too-good-to-be-true young
mechanic who sweeps Amarah-Jae
St Aubyn’s Martha off her feet. Lovers
Rock is the tale of a single night where
many things nearly go wrong, but
everything works out in its charac-
ters’ favour. This is no better embod-
ied than in Ward’s performance, in
which Franklyn turns out to be every
bit as wonderful Martha dared hope.
Ward has since won a Bafta
and worked with the likes of Gina
Prince-Bythewood and Bill Nighy.
And though it largely purports
to be a love letter to cinema, Sam
Mendes’s Empire of Light is just
as adoring of its male star, who’s
proving an increasingly compel-
ling reason to enter a multiplex.
126

The Silent Twins Gibbons, who refused to talk to any-

body except each other. Individually
Bobby’s expense – though even Pallen-
berg has his reasons.
PRIVATE LIVES
Letitia Wright as June, Tamara
Lawrance as Jennifer
and together, they produced enormous Smoczyńska is as visually confronta-
UK/POLAND/USA/FRANCE 2022
quantities of art and writing: tableaux tional as she was in The Lure and Fugue
DIRECTOR AGNIESZK A
involving dolls (which come to eerie (whose amnesiac protagonist wanders
SMOCZYNSK A life in the film via Barbara Rupik’s stop- around naked from the waist down
SCREENPLAY ANDREA SEIGEL motion animation), stories, poems and because she couldn’t f ind the right
BASED UPON THE BOOK
THE SILENT T WINS BY MARJORIE WALLACE full-length novels, written in notebooks clothes). There’s a verbal and visual focus
KUBA KIJOWSKI
FILMS

CINEMATOGRAPHY
EDITOR AGNIESZK A GLINSK A
PRODUCTION DESIGN JAGNA DOBESZ
MUSIC MARCIN MACUK
ZUZANNA WROŃSK A
COSTUME DESIGN K ATARZYNA LEWINSK A
CAST LETITIA WRIGHT
TAMARA LAWRANCE
NADINE MARSHALL
LEAH
MONDESIR-SIMMONDS
EVA-ARIANNA BA XTER
SYNOPSIS
In Haverfordwest, Wales, identical twins
June and Jennifer Gibbons refuse to talk to
anyone but each other, and together produce
a huge body of creative work. In 1981, their
attempts at experiencing the real world first-
hand lead them to commit theft, vandalism
and arson, leading to very real consequences
for the twins.
REVIEWED BY MICHAEL BROOKE
It’s easy to be distracted by killer mer-
maids who sing. Agnieszka Smoczyńska’s
2015 feature debut The Lure had such an
eye-catching premise that the more for-
mally conventional Fugue (2018) passed
comparatively under the radar. But with
her superb third feature The Silent Twins,
it’s clear that Smoczyńska’s overarching
theme is that of women in such extreme
psychological circumstances (invariably
through no fault of their own) that they’re
happiest when shut out of ‘normal’ soci-
ety, and that it’s when society asserts its
collective will that things go badly wrong.
The big departure with The Silent
Twins (besides the fact that it is in Eng-
lish instead of Smoczyńska’s native
Polish) is that it’s based on a true story
– that of identical twins June and Jennifer
in tiny handwriting, edge to edge on the
page as though paper were at a premium.
Letitia Wright (as June) and Tamara
Lawrance (as Jennifer) aren’t as physi-
cally indistinguishable as the real Gib-
bons twins, but this piece of dramatic
licence is a help to the audience. Oth-
erwise, they mirror uncannily each oth-
er’s gestures and speech, including an
impediment that suggests they’re trying
to talk through clenched teeth.
Smoczyńska frequently immerses us
thoroughly in the twins’ imaginative,
intensely colourful universe. When the
drab greys and browns of the real world
suddenly return, it’s like a slap in the face.
The parallel worlds concept extends to
the soundtrack, with familiar 1970s and
80s hits (useful temporal anchor points)
being interspersed with songs composed
for the film by Zuzanna Wrońska from
lyrics based on the twins’ own writing.
It’s an exceptionally empathetic film:
while remaining firmly on the twins’ side,
Smoczyńska and screenwriter Andrea
Seigel are careful not to demonise the
authority figures who must intervene
when the sisters’ behaviour turns to
arson and physical attacks on each other.
Michael Smiley’s teacher, Ben Moor’s
psychologist and John Hyatt’s judge
all have the same droopily disconsolate
demeanour reminiscent of a dog named
Bobby, a recurring presence in the twins’
fantasies. They’re certainly less sinister
than the eerily blank-faced stop-motion
puppet Dr Pallenberg, who at one point
performs a gory heart transplant opera-
tion to save the life of his baby son at
on bodily fluids – saliva (used aggres-
sively), blood as a by-product of virginity
loss, and the way that the animated char-
acters seem oddly saturated – possibly
with tears, of which there are many.
The film largely elides the issue of race,
although there’s an early visual suggestion
that, as the only Black kids in a Welsh
market town, the twins were picked on by
bullies, which might have triggered their
withdrawal. It may also explain why their
joint choice of boyfriend is fellow outsider
Wayne (Jack Bandeira), a stereotypical
American jock who is only too happy to
indulge them. And their desire for real-
world experience is what gets them into
serious trouble, as they extend the ‘write
what you know’ principle to sex, drugs
and the thrill of committing a crime – the
latter invariably followed by dialling 999
and a full confession, as though that was
all it took to expiate matters.
As an example of how thought-through
the film is, an Esther Williams-style musi-
cal number (imaginatively triggered by
news that Broadmoor psychiatric hospital
has a swimming pool) features male par-
ticipants wearing either suits, school uni-
form or Virginia High jackets as sported
by Wayne, representing the totality of
the twins’ experience of the opposite sex.
This is one of many examples of how even
the film’s sunnier moments are suffused
with overwhelming loss. Such material
could hardly have been a better fit for
Smoczyńska’s preoccupations, and the
result is her most impressive film to date.
In UK cinemas from 9 December

Glass Onion: A
Knives Out Mystery
USA 2022 CERTIFICATE 12A  139M 33S
DIRECTOR RIAN JOHNSON
WRIT TEN BY RIAN JOHNSON
CINEMATOGRAPHY STEVE YEDLIN
FILM EDITOR BOB DUCSAY
PRODUCTION DESIGN RICK HEINRICHS
MUSIC NATHAN JOHNSON
COSTUME DESIGN JENNY EAGAN
CAST DANIEL CRAIG
EDWARD NORTON
JANELLE MONÁE
K ATHRYN HAHN
LESLIE ODOM JR
SYNOPSIS
Gentleman detective Benoit Blanc is invited
to the Glass Onion, the high-tech Greek
island home of billionaire Miles Bron, for a
murder-mystery weekend. Also invited are
Bron’s former business partner and several
of their old friends. When a real death takes
place, Blanc must unravel the mystery.
REVIEWED BY BEN WALTERS
Daniel Craig is perhaps the only screen
actor to have emulated iconic swim-
wear looks originated by both Ursula
Andress and Peter Ustinov. To Craig’s
sultry emergence from the waves as
James Bond in Casino Royale (2006),
which echoed Andress’s as Honey Ryder
in Dr. No (1960), we can now add his
poolside appearance as Benoit Blanc in
Glass Onion, sporting a bold update of the
absurd aquatic two-piece worn by Usti-
nov’s Hercule Poirot in Evil Under the Sun
(1982). Versatile!
Reference and recapitulation are at
the heart of Rian Johnson’s new film, a
follow-up to Knives Out (2019), his popu-
lar reinvention of the country-house
whodunnit. Once again, Blanc – “last of
the gentleman sleuths” – is called upon
to investigate foul play among a motley
group of wealthy deplorables and to stick
up for a diamond in the rough at risk of
becoming collateral damage. The gang
here includes Edward Norton’s narcis-
sistic tech billionaire, Kate Hudson’s
heedless fashionista, Kathryn Hahn’s
calculating politician, Dave Bautista’s
macho influencer and Janelle Monáe as
Norton’s enigmatic former business part-
ner. All have gathered at the billionaire’s
private Greek island for a murder-mystery
game that turns out – you guessed it – to
be more deadly than anticipated.
Glass Onion shifts the action from Knives
Out’s stately pile to a sun-drenched locale,
comparable to the sites of similarly lethal
shenanigans in Evil Under the Sun and
another favourite of Johnson’s, The Last
of Sheila (1973). There are numerous ref-
erences to those pictures and, like them,
Glass Onion offers plenty of red herrings
and rug-pulls, characters who turn out
to be smarter or dumber than expected
or to not be who they seem (or, batheti-
cally, to never have had much point at
all). It’s one of the film’s pleasures that it
pastiches and reconfigures itself as well
as its generic forebears, not least through
a satisfying midpoint twist.
In a whodunnit, mechanics are all, and
while Glass Onion is even longer than its
130-minute predecessor, it’s better paced.
It’s also augmented by some ingenious
plot points and suspense mechanisms.
Who knew that a trickle of condiment
could be as compelling a ticking-clock
device as the dwindling champagne in
Notorious (1946)? The tone, meanwhile,
is markedly goofier than in Knives Out,
less heightened tongue-in-cheek than
flat-out screwball, particularly in the early
sequences. Much of this is down to the
cast’s willingness to be silly. Channelling
Ustinov’s Poirot, Craig ramps up the
guileless interloper shtick to great effect,
Blanc often serving as faux naïf straight
man to the grotesques around him while
retaining his acuity and decency. Hudson
127
is the standout, bringing just the right
balance of charisma, calculation and inan-
GREEK LABYRINTH
Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc
ity to her frequently cancelled fashion-
designer character. The film is replete
with larky star cameos and celebrity ref-
erences (tennis lessons from Serena Wil-
liams, anyone? Or a drop of Jared Leto’s
hard kombucha?). Rick Heinrichs’ pro-
FILMS
duction design is suitably futuristic and
outré: when Craig reaches the island,
you’d be excused for thinking he was
Bond arriving at a villain’s lair, robo-por-
ters and all. There’s also some cathartic
Covid-era snark, the pandemic providing
a pretext for social satire here much as
Trump-era culture wars did in Knives Out.
The knockabout stuff is fun but goofy
humour can wear thin. Human interest
goes a long way, especially in a film this
long, and it’s in short supply here. There’s
an early reference to classical fugue form,
and how it takes on depth and complexity
through the repetition with variance of
apparent simplicity. And it’s true that, as
more narrative layers are revealed, things
that seemed shallow take on more reso-
nance. But only up to a point.
Knives Out leaned heavily into carica-
ture and contrivance, at times straining
credulity. But its characters felt lived-
in, the family dynamic a plausible mix
of more and less rational grudges and
soft spots. Glass Onion’s characters are
broader and flatter, bouncing off one
another to comic effect but reading as
pieces of a puzzle rather than human
beings; certainly, they never convince as
a longstanding friendship group. The
plot holes are bigger, too, which would
matter less if tone and characterisation
were more consistently compelling, the
runtime shorter, or both. It’s easy, though,
to imagine another case for Blanc, and
further recapitulations of the theme.
In UK cinemas now
On Netflix from 23 December
128

narrative. Most distinctively, thanks to Netflix, director

Roald Dahl’s Matilda Warchus has a much bigger stage to play with, and is
the Musical determined to fill it: Busby Berkeley-style dance rou-
tines and gospel-inflected choruses, hot-air balloons and
circus big-tops, digital butterflies and a real giraffe. You
CERTIFICATE PG 117M 17S
won’t find those on Matilda’s West End stage.
DIRECTOR MAT THEW WARCHUS Warchus’s maximalism has its benefits. Crunchem
SCREENPLAY DENNIS KELLY Hall, the school attended by Matilda (an impressive,
BASED ON THE STAGE MUSICAL
MATILDA THE MUSICAL WRIT TEN BY DENNIS KELLY expressive Alisha Weir), is a marvel of forbidding,
STAGE MUSICAL SONGS BY TIM MINCHIN Shawshank-esque proportions, as befits an institution
BASED ON THE BOOK MATILDA BY ROALD DAHL
CINEMATOGRAPHY TAT RADCLIFFE run like a prison by hulking, child-hating Miss Trunch-
EDITOR MELANIE OLIVER bull (Emma Thompson in lifts and prosthetics). And
PRODUCTION DESIGN CHRISTIAN HUBAND
DAVID HINDLE Trunchbull’s fearsome PE sessions have been gleefully
COMPOSER TIM MINCHIN refitted into an assault course from hell, complete with
SPOTLIGHT
ORIGINAL SCORE CHRISTOPHER NIGHTINGALE
COSTUME DESIGN ROB HOWELL landmines. Matilda’s telekinetic abilities are augmented
EMMA THOMPSON
CAST
ALISHA WEIR
LASHANA LYNCH
too. She’s basically now a mini Carrie, wreaking destruc-
tion on her nemesis, particularly in a CGI-steeped finale.
Lashana Lynch
STEPHEN GRAHAM At times, excess works against the musical’s charm.
BY KIM NEWMAN
Hyperactive editing doesn’t always invigorate the
SYNOPSIS
dance set-pieces, and the key number ‘When I Grow
Young Matilda Wormwood is an avid reader and a genius Up’, which on stage has a stripped-down intensity that The British actor Lashana Lynch
with telekinetic powers, but is despised and neglected by
allows Minchin’s dark yet defiant lyrics to resonate, is is most recognised for her vivid
her self-centred parents. When she finally goes to school,
she must use her abilities to protect her classmates and
here background chatter to cute kid motorbike stunts appearances in secondary roles in
their caring teacher Miss Honey from the tyrannical and plane piloting. Crucially, though, the film stays true big-ticket franchises. She’s twice
headmistress, Agatha Trunchbull. to the spirit of Dahl’s novel and the musical’s thematic been positioned as a possible
expansions. One of Kelly’s deftest strokes was to make alternative holder of a prominent
REVIEWED BY LEIGH SINGER Matilda an almost psychic storyteller herself, bringing heroic licence – as Maria Ram-
to the fore the power of imagination and rewriting your beau, an alternative-universe Cap-
It’s rare for a piece of popular culture’s third major own life. Connecting this to a backstory for Matilda’s tain Marvel in the films Captain
incarnation to become its defining one for so many, schoolteacher saviour reframed the story as a tale of two Marvel (2019) and Doctor Strange
but that, arguably, is the status of Roald Dahl’s Mat- abused kids, Matilda Wormwood and Jenny Honey, in the Multiverse of Madness (2022),
ilda. The 1988 children’s novel is an evergreen favourite; who save each other – a tale tenderly acted here by Weir and as Nomi, the MI5 agent who
Danny DeVito’s zany, Americanised 1996 film also has and Lashana Lynch. Thompson is an effective choice takes the code number 007 while
its admirers. But the story of a little girl who stands up for the villainous Trunchbull, though one wonders why James Bond is retired in No Time
to her own loathsome parents and a monstrous, bullying the theatrical version’s gambit of having the character to Die (2021).
headmistress – a girl armed with only her love of books, played by a man has been abandoned, especially when Born in Hammersmith, Lynch
FILMS

her wily charms and her, er, telekinetic powers – was the terrific Bertie Carvel made his stage Trunchbull so made her film debut in the sports
turbo-charged by the Royal Shakespeare Company’s much more than a panto dame. drama Fast Girls (2012), though
2010 stage version, Matilda the Musical. A rousing, rebel- If Netflix, planning to unleash a vast new array of she’d already started to play roles
yell song-and-dance extravaganza, built on a brilliantly Dahl adaptations, has any qualms about the author’s in British TV staples such as The
expanded book by Dennis Kelly and gloriously witty less savoury creative impulses (the gauche, working- Bill, Silent Witness, Death in Para-
songs by Tim Minchin, Matthew Warchus’s produc- class Wormwoods – played by Stephen Graham and dise and Doctors. A regular on the
tion became a globetrotting, Olivier Awards record- Andrea Riseborough, both short-changed – are crea- UK series Crims (2015) and Bul-
breaking phenomenon. tions of pure snobbery on the author’s part) or political letproof (2018-21), she made her
Inevitably, the hit theatrical adaptation has led to views, those qualms aren’t evident. Indeed, this produc- US debut as a Capulet in Shonda
its own movie version. Happily, Warchus, Kelly and tion’s first image is of a chocolate Wonka Bar unwrapped Rimes’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ sequel
Minchin are on board, and have declined to simply film to reveal… an embossed ‘Roald Dahl’ imprint beneath it. series Still Star-Crossed (2017).
their previous success for posterity. Kelly has finessed And if this adaptation can’t eclipse its theatrical forebear, After minor roles in the Brit-
storylines and characters. Minchin has reappraised his it’s still proof that Dahl remains the real Golden Ticket. ish features Powder Room (2013),
sequence of songs, with several, more tangential toe- alongside Sheridan Smith, and
tappers now removed to recalibrate a more streamlined In UK cinemas now Noel Clarke’s Brotherhood (2016),
Lynch was cast as Rambeau, best
friend of Carol Danvers (Brie
Larson), in Captain Marvel. It
made Lynch a big-budget pres-
ence, though she also brings a
liveliness to the far less expensive
sci-fi action comedy The Intergalac-
tic Adventures of Max Cloud (2020).
Established as an action film
presence with Marvel and Bond,
Lynch went on to be one of the
ferocious female warriors in The
Woman King (2022), before show-
ing a sweeter side as Miss Honey
in Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical
(2022). She has been cast oppo-
site Kingsley Ben-Adir in a Bob
Marley biopic and will play her first
film lead in the upcoming Apart-
heid-era drama The Outside Room.

IRKING CLASS HERO Alisha Weir as Matilda


Just before its end credits roll, Chinonye
Till Chukwu’s Till, which chronicles the
campaign for justice waged by Mamie
USA/UK 2022 CERTIFICATE 12A 130M Till in the wake of the kidnapping, tor-
ture and murder of her 14-year-old son
DIRECTOR CHINONYE CHUKWU
WRIT TEN BY MICHAEL REILLY Emmett in 1955, delivers one final blow:
KEITH BEAUCHAMP “The Emmett Till Antilynching Act was
CHINONYE CHUKWU
CINEMATOGRAPHY BOBBY BUKOWSKI passed into federal law on the 29th of
EDITOR RON PATANE March 2022.” We are left to sit with the
PRODUCTION DESIGN CURT BEECH
MUSIC ABEL KORZENIOWSKI knowledge that Mamie’s efforts to seek
COSTUME DESIGN MARCI RODGERS some kind of redress for an unimaginably
CAST DANIELLE DEADW YLER
JALYN HALL deplorable, deeply American crime took
FRANKIE FAISON 67 years to bear fruit.
We first meet Mamie (Danielle Dead-
SYNOPSIS
wyler) as a strikingly glamorous figure,
Mamie Till’s 14-year-old son Emmett is lynched while visiting driving her beloved son to do some shop-
family in Mississippi in 1955. She insists on an open casket
ping in Chicago. But, eyes brimming with
for his mutilated corpse in order to show the world just what
happened to him, and channels her grief into activism with the
tears while Abel Korzeniowski’s rich score
help of Medgar Evers, Dr. T.R.M. Howard and the National echoes ominously, she seems already to
Association for the Advancement of Colored People. foresee his fate. Emmett, played with radi-
ant exuberance by Jalyn Hall, is excited to
REVIEWED BY LEILA LATIF visit his cousins in rural Mississippi, but is
doomed to return in a box.
Both Hall and Deadwyler are wonder-
ful in their roles, and the film has many
shocking moments. But some of Chuk-
wu’s directorial choices make it surpris-
ingly difficult to feel, rather than simply
see, the human cost of the tragedy. The
rationale behind aestheticising Black
bodies while refusing to show violence
being enacted upon them, and depicting
LOST SON Jalyn Hall as Emmett Till, Danielle Deadwyler as Mamie Till the all-Black town of Mound Bayou as a
Some directorial choices make it difficult to feel, rather than simply see, the human cost of the tragedy
TILL
Goodbye, Don Glees! The second feature film by director Ishi-
zuka Atsuko, Goodbye, Don Glees! com-
DIRECTOR ISHIZUK A ATSUKO
bines bittersweet memories of young
SCREENPLAY ISHIZUK A ATSUKO friendship and adventure, in the manner
CINEMATOGRAPHY K AWASHITA YūKI of Rob Reiner’s Stand by Me (1986), with
EDITOR KIMURA K ASHIKO
ART DIRECTION OK AMOTO AYANO some of the visual hallmarks and wander-
CHARACTER DESIGN YOSHIMATSU TAK AHIRO lust of Ishizuka’s 2018 anime travelogue
MUSIC FUJISAWA YOSHIAKI
VOICE CAST HANAE NATSUKI series A Place Further than the Universe.
K AJI YūKI Following an enigmatic framing device
MURASE AYUMU
in which small-town teenagers Roma and
SYNOPSIS Toto are observing a burning bonfire –
Don Glees is a nickname for a group of close teenage the tragic resonance of which becomes
friends: Roma, Toto and Drop. To clear their name from a apparent later – we rewind a few months,
false accusation of starting a forest fire, they embark on a to simpler times, where we spend most
long hike through the mountains for their alibi: footage from of the film. Roma narrates in past tense
a crashed drone. over imagery of him being mocked for the
manure-shovelling that is his daily lot as
REVIEWED BY K AMBOLE CAMPBELL
a farmers’ son. He and his friends Toto
and Drop (the English translation of the
Japanese name Shizuku) comprise the
small club the ‘Don Glees’; together they
embark on little adventures. But they’re
heading in separate directions: Roma
pines after long-distance high-school
sweetheart Tivoli, Toto frets about leav-
ing behind childish things, and Drop
talks cryptically about wanting to find a
‘treasure’ that will give their life meaning.
Enhanced by lively voice perfor-
mances, Ishizuka’s character animation
contains plenty of entertaining slap-
stick, as the boys blunder through fail-
ures at survivalism and efforts to look
DRONE RANGERS Goodbye, Don Glees! good in front of their peers. Ishizuka
129
glistening utopia, is clear – too clear, to
the point of appearing calculated. When
the casket is being viewed and a woman
says she cannot bring herself to look at
Emmett’s mutilated body, Mamie prac-
tically breaks the fourth wall to say, “We
have to,” before the camera fixes on what
remains of her 14-year-old son. The power
of Mamie’s choice – of having an open
casket and a public funeral, so pictures
of her son’s body could be published in
the international press – is restated so fre-
quently and bluntly that it loses its impact.
The supporting cast all perform with
style and grace. Whoopi Goldberg, Sean
Patrick Thomas and Frankie Faison play
Mamie’s loving and devastated family,
while Tosin Cole and Jayme Lawson
bring a strength and dignity befitting the
activist couple Medgar and Myrlie Evers.
Much of the film sees Mamie paired off
with other characters, engaged in duo-
logues on grief and motherhood while
tears pour down their faces. But even the
most complex performance can be in the
service of the broadest dialogue. Mamie
speaks of always having to present her-
self as beyond reproach; the film seems
weighed down by the same burden, so
caught up in its own unimpeachability
that it flattens the people inside it.
In UK cinemas from 6 January
FILMS
also playfully uses the teens’ subjectivity
to manipulate the audience, such as a
tumble over a ‘waterfall’ that turns out
to be a gentle slope. Goodbye, Don Glees!
is never less than pleasant to look at,
and is best at its most ethereal – through
warmly lit landscapes, roads submerged
in flooded valleys, or a hazy red telephone
box in an improbable location, con-
necting two sides of the world. There’s
majesty in Okamoto Ayano’s art direc-
tion and Kawashita Yuki’s camerawork,
which presents the natural world on an
overwhelmingly large scale, stretching
beyond the human eye’s field of view. In
such moments, Goodbye, Don Glees! feels
like a film you can get lost in, a testament
to Ishizuka’s compelling visual instincts.
There’s a wistful nostalgia to the gang’s
capers over a lazy summer in an isolated
country town, but, though the character
work is generally compelling, the film
often tips over into schmaltz. Syrupy
needle drops test the patience, while
coincidences and twists of fate pile up
into ridiculous contrivance. There’s not
an ounce of cynicism here – the whole
thing feels goofily earnest even by the
standards of anime dramas. Goodbye, Don
Glees! emulates its teenagers, in a sense
– slightly embarrassing one minute, stum-
bling upon profundity the next.
In UK cinemas now
130

Enys Men beauty of the landscape and the evocative traces

of human activity.
According to Jenkin, the woman is a Wildlife
UK 2022 CERTIFICATE 15 96M 28S Trust volunteer, but in the film the purpose of her
activities remains unexplained. The enigmatic
DIRECTOR MARK JENKIN
WRIT TEN BY MARK JENKIN accumulation of observations leads to seeing
ORIGINAL STORY IDEA MARK JENKIN things that are not only beyond the limits of wild-
ADRIAN BAILEY
CINEMATOGRAPHY MARK JENKIN life documentation, but well beyond the realm
EDITOR MARK JENKIN of the visible. The yellow raincoat and the ship’s
PRODUCTION DESIGN JOE GRAY
MAE VOOGD broken nameplate she finds among the rocks
MUSIC MARK JENKIN seem like clues or charms that can conjure the
COSTUME CONSULTANT MEIER WILLIAMS
CAST MARY WOODVINE ghosts of the past: women in identical bonnets,
EDWARD ROWE grimy miners, a rugged seaman and a young girl
FLO CROWE
JOHN WOODVINE in flares standing precariously on a roof all start
to appear and disappear with alarming regularity.
SYNOPSIS The carefully constructed sound design plays
An island off the Cornish coast, 1973. A woman a powerful role in the haunting ambience that
returns daily to the same rocky outcrop to chart pervades the film. The crackling of the radio,
changes in strange flowers growing there. She the disembodied voices over the airwaves, the
experiences visions involving, among other things, clanking of metal in the mineshaft create a for-
a group of miners, a gaggle of children, a boatman,
bidding atmosphere whose threats end up real-
and an enormous ancient rock overlooking the isle.
ised, albeit not in a conventional way. Like the
REVIEWED BY VIRGINIE SÉLAV Y visuals, the soundtrack diverts habitual horror
motifs from their expected uses. Sinister low
drones and strident frequencies build tension
Inhabiting a space somewhere between folk and genuine unease, but they are made all the
horror and nature documentary, Mark Jenkin’s more disquieting by the jarring contrast with
Enys Men is as idiosyncratic as his acclaimed first the natural imagery and mundane objects they
feature Bait. Told through poetic visuals, it is often accompany. MARINE GIRLS Nathalie and Manal Issa as Yusra and Sarah Mardini
similarly shot on grainy 16mm, though this time As May Day approaches, the flowers start to
in colour. Rooted in Jenkin’s Cornish childhood,
the film was conceived in response to audiences’
change, the stone’s presence seems more omi-
nous, and the lichen grows in impossible places.
The Swimmers
reactions to Bait: the foreboding tension in that The elliptical sense of tension culminates in an
CERTIFICATE 15 134M 6S
fishing village drama had led viewers to expect eerie sequence where white-clad children bear-
a horror film, which prompted the director to ing hawthorn branches sing outside the woman’s DIRECTOR SALLY EL HOSAINI
make one. But Enys Men is certainly not straight- house. These familiar folk-horror elements are SCREENPLAY JACK THORNE
SALLY EL HOSAINI
FILMS

forward genre cinema: as with Bait, Jenkin uses
the cinematic grammar of the past, this time
drawing on the 1970s, and reconfigures it into a
revelatory experience.
On a deserted island overlooked by an ancient
stone, a woman (Mary Woodvine) takes a daily
walk to the cliff to monitor a bunch of peculiar
flowers. As she goes through her repetitive rou-
tine, anxious to record any changes, the camera
meticulously observes the choppy sea, the dark
cliffs, the seagulls and the heath. It is not just
the wildlife that is attentively documented, but
human artefacts too, old and new: ruined build-
ings, rusting tracks, a red generator. Enys Men
– the title means ‘stone island’ in Cornish – offers
a sensorial immersion in the textures, shapes
and colours of the place, charting both the harsh
ROCKY HORROR Mary Woodvine as The Volunteer
used obliquely, renewing their power. Enys Men
shares with folk horror its concern with what lies
deep in the land, with buried archaic connections
between humans and natural forces, which still
exert an influence over the living. In Jenkin’s film,
these connections are rooted in the physical real-
ity of death, in the decomposed bodies of past
inhabitants whose broken-down components
have become part of the sea and the soil.
There is a playful element of eco-horror, nod-
ding to The Day of the Triffids (1962), in the flowers
with their weird red pistils, and in the invasive
lichen that is infused with a life of its own. But
the lichen also has a central thematic resonance,
and the film draws on the real strangeness of this
plant-like life-form that is not really a plant: a
composite organism formed of fungus and alga,
which can break up rock and help disseminate
minerals into the soil, lichen embodies symbio-
sis and the dissolution of boundaries between
separate realms.
This dissolution lies at the heart of the film.
As the narrative progresses, the demarcation
between reality and perception melts away.
Temporal planes merge and bleed into one
another. The notions of presence and absence
become elusive and relative. As the woman
interacts with the apparitions, her sense of self
grows blurred and unstable, and through her
fragmentary impressions we are led to experi-
ence the world of the island as a rich, disorient-
ing coexistence of multiple dimensions. Her
bedtime reading is the influential 1972 environ-
mentalist text A Blueprint for Survival; perhaps
Enys Men aims to offer its own transforma-
tive manual for the unnerving complexities of
human experience.
In UK cinemas from 13 January
CINEMATOGRAPHY CHRISTOPHER ROSS
EDITOR IAIN KITCHING
PRODUCTION DESIGN PATRICK ROLFE
MUSIC STEVEN PRICE
COSTUME DESIGN MOLLY EMMA ROWE
CAST MANAL ISSA
NATHALIE ISSA
MAT THIAS SCHWEIGHÖFER
SYNOPSIS
Syria, 2015. When the Civil War intensifies,
teenagers Yusra and Sarah Mardini flee the country,
hoping to enter Germany as refugees and pursue
their dreams of swimming in the Olympics. When
the overloaded dinghy begins taking on water, the
sisters start to swim and pull their fellow migrants
to Lesbos.
REVIEWED BY PHILIP CONCANNON
Many athletes have overcome seemingly insur-
mountable obstacles to achieve dreams of com-
peting at the Olympic Games, but few can tell a
story to match Yusra Mardini’s. Having fled war-
torn Syria in August 2015, Yusra and her sister
Sarah embarked on a dangerous smugglers’ route
across the Aegean Sea in a flimsy dinghy with
eighteen other refugees. When the boat’s motor
failed and it began taking on water, the two sis-
ters tethered themselves to the craft and swam
towards land, hauling their fellow refugees behind
them for three hours. It was an astonishing feat of
endurance and survival, and the fact that Yusra
then went on to swim at Rio 2016 – a stateless
competitor in the newly formed Refugee Olym-
pic Team – is the kind of happy ending that only
the most shameless screenwriter would dream up.
Having been handed a true story that feels
tailor-made for an uplifting tale of triumph
against the odds, that’s exactly what director
Sally El Hosaini and screenwriter Jack Thorne
have delivered. Their film is a solid recounting

of the Mardinis’ odyssey that hits the required
narrative beats efficiently without ever really stir-
ring the emotions in a major way. It feels like a
true story that has had its edges sanded down,
although the inherent drama of the source mate-
rial and the polish of the presentation ensures it
is mostly a pleasurable viewing experience.
Making a confident return to feature direct-
ing a decade after her tighter and more nuanced
debut My Brother the Devil (2012), El Hosaini
brings some strong visual ideas to the table. The
Swimmers begins in Syria a few years before the
sisters’ departure, when the conflict is still far
enough away to feel slightly unreal. As Yusra
(Nathalie Issa) and Sarah (Manal Issa, Nath-
alie’s real-life sister) party on a rooftop in Damas-
cus, missiles streak across the night sky behind
them, and when the warheads do start to land
in their vicinity, one crashes into the pool that
Yusra is competing in, with the young swimmer
and the projectile facing each other underwater
in a suspended moment.
At this point, the girls’ father, Ezzat Mardini
(Ali Suliman), finally relents and allows them to
leave for Germany, where they plan to apply for
asylum. Having had his own Olympic dreams
shattered as a young man, Ezzat attempts to
shape his daughters in his own image, which
the two girls react to in divergent ways. Yusra
is a serious teen who is completely devoted to
achieving her goals and refuses to let anything
knock her off course. Her older sister Sarah is
more restless and rebellious, increasingly feel-
ing that the dream their father imposed on them
is not for her. In the wake of Mahsa Amini’s
recent real-life death in Iran, the sight of a young
Muslim woman chopping off her hair to forge
her own identity has taken on an additional layer
of resonance.
The Swimmers contains a number of these
arresting and affecting moments, and the sparky
chemistry shared by the Issa sisters powers a
vital core of authentic feeling, but the film
has a significant pacing problem. At 134 min-
utes, it feels unnecessarily baggy for what is a
fairly straightforward tale, and I could feel my
patience and interest waning as the focus finally
shifted towards the Rio Olympics. Although
El Hosaini gives her other set-pieces a visual
punch, there’s little she can do to elevate these
climactic scenes beyond sports movie clichés,
with the training montage (in a film already
overly padded with pop-scored montages) feel-
ing particularly rote.
Since The Swimmers’s narrative peaks early,
nothing that El Hosaini and Thorne give us
in the second half can match the astonishment
of watching two teenage girls save a boatful of
people through sheer force of will. The odds
of any of them surviving such a crossing must
have been vanishingly small, and when Yusra
overhears some bitchy athletes suggesting she
shouldn’t be in Rio, her sister reminds her: “You
should be at the bottom of the sea.” The most
haunting moment in the film comes just after the
Mardinis and their fellow refugees have reached
land and find life jackets, shoes and other para-
phernalia littering the coastline as far as the eye
can see. The Swimmers may be a film that cele-
brates a unique and inspiring achievement, but it
is at its most powerful when reminding us of the
countless others who have made and continue to
make this perilous journey.
On Netflix now
Lynch/Oz
CERTIFICATE 15 109M 18S
DIRECTOR ALEX ANDRE O. PHILIPPE
WRIT TEN BY ALEX ANDRE O. PHILIPPE
CINEMATOGRAPHY ROBERT MURATORE
EDITOR DAVID LAWRENCE
MUSIC A ARON LAWRENCE
SYNOPSIS
A compilation of six video essays – narrated
respectively by critic Amy Nicholson and
filmmakers Rodney Ascher, John Waters, Karyn
Kusama, the duo Justin Benson and Aaron
Moorhead, and David Lowery – exploring the
connections between The Wizard of Oz (1939) and
the film and television work of artist and director
David Lynch.
REVIEWED BY BEN WALTERS
Alexandre O. Philippe has previously directed
essayistic documentaries about Psycho (1960),
Night of the Living Dead (1968), The Exorcist
(1973) and Alien (1979). He turns now to two
cinematic subjects that aren’t always associ-
ated with the horror genre but are both dis-
tinctively nightmarish: Victor Fleming’s 1939
film The Wizard of Oz and the works of David
Lynch. In Lynch/Oz, Philippe coordinates six
video essays, narrated by critics and filmmak-
ers, trying to unpack the links between Victor
Fleming’s seminal musical fantasy odyssey
and Lynch’s “populist surrealist” works, which
include Blue Velvet (1986), the ‘Twin Peaks’ cycle
(1990-2017) and Lost Highway (1997). Touching
on resonances and motifs both broad (heroes’
journeys, parallel worlds, uncanny opulence)
and specific (curtains, lingering cross-fades,
boldly coloured make-up), it makes for a potent
dialectical brew, even if some elements land
more convincingly than others.
The format brings to mind the online video-
essay mode of f ilm criticism, where chatty
engagement, critical insight, poetic expres-
sion and personal memoir are literally or asso-
ciatively illustrated with shrewdly selected clips
and images. There are nods here not only to
the key texts but to proposed analogues to The
Wizard of Oz as various as Gone with the Wind
(1939), It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), Apocalypse Now
(1979) and Back to the Future (1985); The Brain from
Planet Arous (1957) is referenced twice. When it
comes to Lynch, there’s a pervasive presumption
SHARD VISION David Lynch
131
that childhood TV viewings of Fleming’s film
made a seismic impression, positioning young
David as a kind of Dorothy nudged from Mid-
western childhood down the yellow brick road
of artistic expression.
Each section offers its own take, in comple-
mentary, sometimes overlapping ways. Critic
Amy Nicholson is alive to the ways wind figures
in the works in question, relating the narrative
uses of meteorology to more expressionistic
atmospheric intentions. The tornado-battered
context of Dorothy’s adventures in Oz, she sug-
gests, frames it as a psychosomatic fugue of the
kind Lynch often portrays, a form of personal
psychological rupture that opens the door to
a more cosmic understanding that “nothing is
exactly what it is”. Meanwhile, Rodney Ascher
– whose 2012 documentary Room 237, about the
semiotics of The Shining (1980), is a key recent cin-
ematic essay film – zeroes in on the potent strains
of archetypal Americana connecting The Wizard
of Oz and Lynch.
The section by John Waters is great fun.
Waters and Lynch both grew up with The
Wizard of Oz on TV and came up as filmmak-
ers on the midnight movie circuit – there’s an
adorable archive photo of them looking young
together against a kitsch fast-food backdrop.
Both filmmakers’ sensibilities are shaped by
deeply ambivalent attachments to 1950s Ameri-
can culture and the understanding – informed,
Waters suggests, by Margaret Hamilton’s
wicked witch – that villainy is charismatic and
heroism a matter of perspective.
Ambivalence is central to Karyn Kusama’s con-
tribution, which focuses on the slipperiness and
FILMS
multiplicity of both personal identity and struc-
tures of reality, as expressed in Lynch’s Mulholland
Dr. (2001). Kusama highlights in this context the
lip-synch motif running through Lynch’s work,
suggesting it might have been inspired by an
intuition he had when watching Dorothy launch
into ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow’ that here
was an instance of a performer miming to a pre-
recorded track – which, of course, it was.
This opens up consideration of how under-
standings of the real-life conditions of the pro-
duction of The Wizard of Oz and the life of Judy
Garland might darkly inflect the meanings avail-
able from a film that presents as a candy-coloured
children’s adventure. Justin Benson and Aaron
Moorhead bring the real Judy to the fore, noting
the frequency of the name (along with ‘Garland’
and ‘Dorothy’) in Lynch’s screenplays. They also
unpack the explicit references to The Wizard of Oz
running through Wild at Heart (1990).
Finally, David Lowery ponders the discontent-
ment at entering adulthood implicit in Dorothy’s
journey and in some of Lynch’s work – the idea
that this transition simultaneously implies leav-
ing the home forever and realising it can never
truly be left behind – and the related notion that
filmmakers tend to remake a beloved source text
over and over again.
It’s a rich mix even if there are overlaps in
these arguments, and more than one struggles
to fix to Fleming’s film in specific terms ideas
that really refer to the broad and ancient schema
of the hero’s journey. But an observation from
Lynch himself is the most telling. The Wizard of
Oz, he says, has “caused people to dream now for
decades” – in ways both deeply heartening and
utterly terrifying. Lynchian indeed.
In UK cinemas now
132
Through films like Dig! (2004), Join Us
Last Flight Home (2007), We Live in Public (2009) and Brand:
A Second Coming (2015), Ondi Timoner has
USA 2022 long explored the boundaries between
private and public life, self-preservation
DIRECTOR ONDI TIMONER
WRIT TEN BY ONDI TIMONER and altruism, success and failure. A visible
CINEMATOGRAPHY ONDI TIMONER personality in her films, she has formed
EDITOR ONDI TIMONER
MUSIC MORGAN DOCTOR intense relationships with human subjects,
weighing in on their choices via storytell-
SYNOPSIS ing and editing choices, voiceovers and off-
American documentarian Ondi Timoner observes and camera comments. Often, she has found
participates in the process whereby her father, Eli Timoner, her subject matter in the life stories of com-
legally ends his own life, which is legal in his home state of plex, visionary, but compromised men.
California. Family members and friends gather, discussing Almost two decades after Dig! made her
Eli’s rich life history and the impact of his final choice.
a breakout star of the then-burgeoning fea-
REVIEWED BY HANNAH MCGILL ture documentary scene, it’s as if Timoner’s
style and interests have hit an apotheosis
– albeit a deeply poignant one. The lives
and relationships being delved into in Last
Flight Home are her own and those of her
immediate family; the extraordinary man
at its centre is her father, Eli Timoner. At
92, Eli has decided to avail himself of the
legal death available in his home state of
California. As his wife Lisa and children
Ondi, David and Rachel help their patri-
arch towards his exit, Ondi films.
Though it’s initially hard not to feel pro-
tective of Eli’s dignity in this situation, it
quickly becomes apparent that his mind is
not only sound but exceptionally sharp. So
it is that the film’s most affecting observa-
A GOOD DEATH Ondi and Eli Timoner tion reveals itself: the presence of mind that
The presence of mind that legally permits Eli to seek his own death also makes clear what is being lost
FILMS
LAST FLIGHT HOME
She Said “It does damage to shout when no one lis-
tens,” says Rose McGowan, on the phone
CERTIFICATE 15 128M
to a reporter. The actress, whom we hear
but never see in She Said (she’s voiced by
DIRECTOR MARIA SCHRADER Keilly McQuail), was one of several women
SCREENPLAY REBECCA LENKIEWICZ who came forward in 2017 about their
BASED ON THE NEW YORK
TIMES INVESTIGATION BY JODI K ANTOR experiences of sexual abuse at the hands
MEGAN T WOHEY of Hollywood producer Harvey Wein-
REBECCA CORBET T
AND THE BOOK SHE SAID: BREAKING stein. This understated adaptation of Jodi
THE SEXUAL HARASSMENT STORY Kantor and Megan Twohey’s 2019 book
THAT HELPED IGNITE A MOVEMENT BY JODI K ANTOR
MEGAN T WOHEY about their investigation into Weinstein
CINEMATOGRAPHY NATASHA BRAIER for the New York Times finds tension and
EDITOR HANSJÖRG WEISSBRICH
PRODUCTION DESIGN MEREDITH LIPPINCOT T drama in the process of preparing for the
MUSIC NICHOLAS BRITELL right moment to speak out. Their report-
COSTUME DESIGN BRIT TANY LOAR
CAST CAREY MULLIGAN ing on Weinstein’s abuses of power rang the
ZOE K AZAN alarm for sexual misconduct in the work-
PATRICIA CLARKSON
ANDRE BRAUGHER place, sparking the #MeToo movement
and winning the pair a Pulitzer Prize. They
SYNOPSIS understood that a whisper network could
Two female journalists from the New York Times investigate be transformed into a chorus of voices
the stories of women who claim to have been sexually impossible to ignore.
abused by Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. The first The film follows Kantor (Zoe Kazan)
rumblings of the #MeToo movement are dramatised in this and Twohey (Carey Mulligan) as they
tense, efficient newsroom thriller based on Jodi Kantor and
work on the story and attempt
a to juggle
Megan Twohey’s Pulitzer Prize-winning
i
ize-winning reporting.
motherhood with their demanding jobs.
REVIEWED BY SIMRAN HANS The process of convin
convincing sources to
speak on record is sho shown to be a slow
grind full of dead eends, even if each
increas the dramatic
setback increases
stakes of the duo’
duos mission.
Like KittKitty Green’s 2019
A
drama The Assistant, also about
CALLING OUT
Carey Mulligan as Megan Twohey,
an abusive Hollywood execu-
Zoe Kazan as Jodi Kantor tive, it is n
not very interested
legally permits Eli to seek his own death
also makes heartbreakingly clear what is
being lost. A child of Russian immigrants,
Eli was successful in retail before start-
ing the no-frills airline Air Florida in 1972.
During his time there, and in the aftermath
of a catastrophic plane crash from which the
company never recovered, Eli suffered an
incapacitating stroke. He later moved into
philanthropy and community service.
At one point in this film, Eli resolves to
communicate with the president about
something, and Ondi points out that this
isn’t an elderly man’s fantasy – he knows
Joe Biden. His children, too, are clearly
impactful individuals: high-achieving,
voluble, confident. As with Kirsten John-
son’s more theatrically inclined but simi-
larly cathartic Dick Johnson Is Dead (2020),
sniffing out dysfunction or expressing
resentment is not the intention. Specific
personality traits and dynamics between
the family members are apparent and
acknowledged, but are shown with ten-
derness rather than defensiveness or spite.
If this family’s capacity to collectively ver-
balise and process an experience of such
intensity may be more exceptional than
broadly relatable, their openness has
granted us a bracingly positive depiction
of a good death.
In UK cinemas now
in the perpetrator, whose face is never seen.
Tracking shots of hotel hallways and empty
suites are charged with meaning; violence
is visible only on the faces of survivors like
Laura Madden (Jennifer Ehle) and Zelda
Perkins (Samantha Morton), whose raw
expressions are blisteringly revealing.
Mulligan plays Twohey with fiery con-
viction, as a woman whose work gives her
purpose and lifts her out of the fog of post-
partum depression. The actress uses her
gravelly voice to project wit, authority and
swagger, qualities dampened in the survi-
vors whose careers Weinstein cut short.
Meanwhile, scenes of a weary Kantor
video-chatting with her preteen daughter
while on the road are designed to explain
her sense of duty, though Kazan struggles
to give her a vivid inner life.
The hasty dramatisation of Kantor and
Twohey’s investigation, which was pub-
lished only five years ago, is not a straight-
forward cause for celebration. Director
Maria Schrader ends the film with a cliché
of the based-on-a-true-story genre: small
white text on a large black screen insists
on the story’s real-world impact and crys-
tallises its historical significance into a his-
toric event. Still, even if the impulse to rush
out a Hollywood production betrays a cyn-
ical desire to capitalise on ‘timely’ material,
abuse of power is a timeless theme.
In UK cinemas now
 133

MORE FILMS BY
SEBASTIÁN LELIO
BY BEN WALTERS

GLORIA (2013)
Lelio’s fourth feature
was his international
breakthrough. In a widely
acclaimed turn, Paulina
García stars as a middle-
aged woman embarking on
a new search for passion
and companionship.
Alive to the challenge of
HUNGER GAMES Florence Pugh as Lib, Kíla Lord Cassidy as Anna negotiating change, the
f ilm attends to the allure
and dissatisfactions of
The Wonder The O’Donnell family claims that Anna’s miraculous
good health in spite of starvation is due to “manna from
couple and family bonds
– and indeed of national
heaven” – which turns out to be food surreptitiously regurgi- identity – as well as single
CERTIFICATE 15 108M 28S
tated by her mother Rosaleen (Elaine Cassidy) into Anna’s life. Lelio later remade it as
DIRECTOR SEBASTIÁN LELIO mouth under the guise of good night kisses. For such a Gloria Bell (2018), starring
WRIT TEN BY ALICE BIRCH pious clan, the O’Donnells have no qualms about using Julianne Moore.
SEBASTIÁN LELIO
BASED ON THE BOOK BY EMMA DONOGHUE this avian procedure – gleaned, of course, from scientific
CINEMATOGRAPHY ARI WEGNER observation of the natural world – when divine deliverance
EDITOR KRISTINA HETHERINGTON
PRODUCTION DESIGN GRANT MONTGOMERY has failed to materialise. Anna, it emerges, also harbours
MUSIC MAT THEW HERBERT a harrowing secret of familial abuse that perhaps explains
COSTUME DESIGN ODILE DICKS-MIREAUX
CAST FLORENCE PUGH why she’s willing to carry a lie to keep her family together. It
TOM BURKE hints, too, at why she’s prepared to make herself ill once Lib
KÍLA LORD CASSIDY
bans Rosaleen from bidding Anna good night in person A FANTASTIC WOMAN (2017)
and the girl begins to truly starve. For some, death seems Daniela Vega stars as
SYNOPSIS

FILMS
preferable to living with the burden of painful truths. Marina, a club singer
An English nurse travels to Ireland in 1862 to keep watch whose life is thrown into
over an 11-year-old girl who reportedly hasn’t eaten for four
Lib’s only genuine ally is William Byrne (Tom Burke),
turmoil when her late
months yet remains healthy. Sceptical of belief that the girl’s an Irish Daily Telegraph journalist sent across from his partner’s family ostracises
condition is a miracle, she reports her findings to a committee adoptive city of London to investigate this latest case of her. The f ilm was widely
of prominent local men, including a priest and a doctor. the ‘fasting girls’ (between 50 and 60 real-life cases were praised for its empathetic
reported). Byrne had left his family as the famine took hold engagement with trans
REVIEWED BY LOU THOMAS and was the only survivor. The pair forge a partnership, experience – albeit largely
united by sexual attraction, tragic backstories and their through a lens of suffering.
Filled with complex, compromised individuals haunted search for the truth. It elegantly sidesteps strict
realism in its exploration
by guilt and the ravages of the past, The Wonder has, at its A proven talent at creating films about headstrong
of structural oppression in
heart, a simple thematic division: faith versus facts. Other women in difficult situations, from Gloria (2013) to its familial, religious, legal,
key differences are explored – particularly those between English-language remake Gloria Bell (2018) via A Fantastic medical and other contexts.
men and women – but these are less prominent than the Woman and Disobedience (both 2017), Lelio has achieved Like Gloria, it boasts a
theological to-and-fro that takes place in this film’s setting: his most assured work to date by teaming up with three richly diverse soundtrack.
the Irish Midlands in 1862. women who can justifiably claim the same broad special-
At the outset of this interrogative drama by the Chilean ism. As his lead, Pugh offers a lived-in performance of
director Sebastián Lelio, we are told that the great famine steely determination shaded by grief-stricken vulnerability.
which ended ten years before the story’s events “cast a long It’s possibly her best since Lady Macbeth (2016); that film
shadow” and that “the Irish blame the English”. One might was written by Alice Birch, who here co-writes with Lelio
therefore expect English nurse Elizabeth ‘Lib’ Wright (Flor- and Emma Donoghue, whose novel The Wonder this film is
ence Pugh) to be made unwelcome in a rural Irish village, based on. (The novel was published in 2016, the same year DISOBEDIENCE (2017)
but for most of the film her nationality is little commented Donoghue bagged an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Lelio’s first English-
on. Lib has been employed to observe 11-year-old Anna Screenplay for Lenny Abrahamson’s Room.) language feature was set
O’Donnell (Kíla Lord Cassidy), a girl who has apparently Jones, Hinds and Burke provide reliably strong support- among north London’s
not eaten in four months yet still seems to be in fine health. ing turns, and the real-life mother-and-daughter Cassidys Orthodox Jewish
community. Rachel Weisz’s
When informed of this at a five-man committee, Lib is excel, particularly newcomer Kíla Lord. Niamh Algar also
Ronit returns from New
incredulous – certainly more cynical than visitors who have impresses as Kitty, helper to the O’Donnells, and contrib- York for her father’s funeral,
heard the story and offer money to the O’Donnell family. utes narration in fourth-wall-breaking present-day scenes rekindling a bond with
Though Dr McBrearty (Toby Jones) is ostensibly on that bookend the film but are arguably unnecessary. Rachel McAdams’s Esti
Lib’s side, he marches a dozen yards in front of her on their The cinematographer Ari Wegner, who shot not only that sparked significant
way to the O’Donnells’ home. He eventually agrees with Lady Macbeth but Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog (2021), opposition from others
local priest Father Thaddeus (Ciarán Hinds) how the case memorably captures the wild greens and charcoal skies of earlier in their lives. Another
should be handled, proving himself a man of science only the turbulent Irish countryside; his searing reds light Lib’s story about endurance,
adaptation and exclusion,
when it suits him. McBrearty lights a candle in religious morphine torment to powerful effect. Matthew Herbert’s
Disobedience deploys a more
ritual to mark the loss, presumably through famine, of his use of swooping vocal hooks in his score add an unex- muted formal approach,
own wife and children. Lib, too, has in her own way faced pected dose of off-kilter euphoria. These are just some of with more quiet and stillness
death: she is not only a widow, but nursed dying soldiers in the wonders of a work containing many. in its mise en scène, dialogue
the Crimean War. She cries herself to sleep with morphine and performances.
and an empty pair of baby’s bootees. On Netflix now
 134

MORE WORKS BY
ADAM CURTIS
BY BEN NICHOLSON

PANDORA’S BOX (1992)

Curtis had been working
at the BBC since 1980 but
it was this six-part series
that saw the emergence
of his now trademark
archival style. Essentially
a rundown of moments of
technocratic hubris and
political rationalism in the
20th century, it playfully
skewered the ambition of
post-revolutionary Russia,
British economic strategies
in the 70s and the birth of
the nuclear age.

COLLAGE LECTURE Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone

Russia 1985-1999: Their experiences run the gamut, from youths relishing
liberalisation to mothers marching to the Chechen border to
TraumaZone try to convince their sons to desert the armed conflict. Even
when the grand sweep of military history is being shown, the THE POWER OF
UK 2022
focus is often on encounters with individual soldiers or inno- NIGHTMARES (2004)
cent citizens. Such sequences are, of course, dictated by over- Subtitled ‘ The Rise of
WRITER ADAM CURTIS arching geopolitical facts, but they are also human moments. the Politics of Fear’, this
TELEVISION

EDITOR ADAM CURTIS
MUSIC LAWRENCE ENGLISH
SYNOPSIS
This compilation documentary, constructed from the BBC
archives, charts the experience of the populace living through
the 1980s and 90s in the Soviet Union and Russia. Having
survived the hardships of Communism, they transition to
democracy only to find further poverty, corruption, and the
emergence of the oligarchs.
REVIEWED BY BEN NICHOLSON
In the preface to his monumental 1996 history of the Russian
Revolution, A People’s Tragedy, Orlando Figes claims that “it
would be absurd – and in Russia’s case obscene – to imply
that a people gets the rulers it deserves”. There’s no doubt
that the documentarian Adam Curtis, creator of the new
series Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone, would echo that senti-
ment. But perhaps the most crushing aspect of his astonish-
ing seven-hour nonfiction epic is how the Russian people
themselves were gradually disabused of that notion. In the
series’ final episode, Galina Starovoitova, a vehemently pro-
democracy member of the Russian parliament who would be
murdered shortly after, reflects that the experiment has failed,
“faced with the resistance of the majority of Russian people”.
How the Russian people react to and engage with the
chaos of the 1980s and 90s is Curtis’s primary subject here,
cultivated from myriad hours of reportage by BBC cor-
respondents on the ground during the period. After the
title flashes up at the start of each episode, it is followed by
the same almost-subtitle: “What it felt like to live through
the collapse of Communism [pause] and democracy.” The
chronological chapters follow the major political events of
the period: Gorbachev’s inauguration, the announcement of
perestroika, the 1991 coup that ultimately led to the dissolu-
tion of the Soviet Union, the rise of the oligarchs, economic
‘shock therapy’, the emergence of Vladimir Putin. These
events are as much context as content, though, often the
backdrop to footage chosen predominantly for its focus on
common people.
There is a motif of reporters trying and failing to engage 180-minute film, broadcast
women in political discourse. One woman is asked what her in three parts, compared
dreams are: she doesn’t have any, she says, “And even if I did, the rise of American
neoconservatism with
they wouldn’t come true. I don’t believe in anything.” Later, a
that of radical Islam.
woman asked about perestroika replies, “I have no idea. All I Most memorable – and
know is to milk the cows and cycle home…” – but, she adds, controversial – for the
almost reluctantly, there is nothing to eat in their rural town. assertion that the threat
The most striking thing about TraumaZone for those famil- posed by Islamist terrorism
iar with Curtis’s found-footage modus operandi might be was, in effect, a myth, it’s
how absent the filmmaker himself seems at first. There is no also a clear example of
Curtis’s interest in shifting
voiceover – a decision which, over a nearly seven-hour runt-
social tectonic plates and
ime, can make the series feel a bit of a slog at times, though it
the interconnected winds
makes sense given the focus on oral testimony. Intertitles offer of geopolitics.
key information, but in many instances the footage and the
Russian people are left to speak for themselves. This might
mean that some events could do with more explanation, but
in most cases the evident impact on the populace conveys the
import of specific circumstances. Whether or not you under-
stand the finer points of radical economic restructuring, the
message is forcefully brought home through stories of a child
peddling goods at car windows, a young woman attempting HYPERNORMALISATION
to get an abortion, or people milling around on the streets, (2016)
selling their belongings for food. This almost three-hour
But Curtis’s presence is palpable in the selection and film intertwines many of
arrangement of the footage – the invisible hand of the editor Curtis’s recurring thematic
can be just as powerful in shaping documentary narratives as fascinations, from Western
an onscreen presenter or omniscient narrator. In one scene military interventions
to shadowy corporate
we see a sculptor in Turkmenistan, after the fall of the USSR,
machinations via a liberal
crafting a bust of the new, independent president, eventu- distrust of the notion of
ally revealing he’s using as his model a bust of the same man a technological utopia. A
from when he was the head of the local Communist Party. swirling history of how we
It’s a perfect, absurd encapsulation of the way corruption arrived at ‘post-truth’ politics
endures despite apparent ideological change. Through such and the internet’s role in
moments, Curtis picks out a trajectory – one that, extrapo- creating an unthinking
lated, makes the invasion of Ukraine far less surprising. He modern society, it draws a
line from the decline of the
also manages both to make clear the callous abuse of the Rus-
Soviet Union right to the
sian people by those in power, and to wrangle a vast archive rise of Trump.
into something narratively absorbing and deeply affecting.
Seven episodes on BBC iPlayer now
 135

TRIER LIFE
The Kingdom: The new season starts with the end
of the last season – literally, from the end
in being lost than in finding your way.
Much of the comedy derives from the
Birgitte Raaberg as Judith Petersen,
Nicolas Bro as Balder, Bodil

Exodus titles, as an old DVD of the TV show

comes to a close. Elderly superfan and
exaggerated enmity between Sweden
and Denmark – the Volvo-driving, Ikea-
Jørgensen as Karen Svensson,
Lars Mikkelsen as Pontopidan

DIRECTOR LARS VON TRIER sleepwalker Karen Svensson (Bodil
WRITERS LARS VON TRIER Jørgensen) is not happy. “What kind of
NIELS VØRSEL
CINEMATOGRAPHY MANUEL ALBERTO ending was that!” she harrumphs. No
CLARO sooner does she go to bed than she sleep-
EDITORS JACOB SCHULSINGER
MY THORDAL walks (and then sleep-hails a cab) to the
OLIVIER BUGGE COUT TÉ rebuilt hospital, where a bored porter
PRODUCTION DESIGN SIMONE GRAU RONEY
MUSIC JOACHIM HOLBEK complains that the idiot von Trier’s show
COSTUME DESIGN MANON RASMUSSEN has ruined the hospital’s reputation.
CAST MIK AEL ÅKE
PERSBRANDT It’s true that Copenhagen’s Rigshospi-
BODIL JØRGENSEN talet – nicknamed Riget – has changed,
LARS MIKKELSEN
WILLEM DAFOE modernised with large revolving doors
and shiny wards; one of the dish-wash-
SYNOPSIS ers who served in the first two seasons
A fan of Lars von Trier’s 1990s TV show as a chorus to the goings-on has been
The Kingdom sleepwalks through that replaced by a robot. But fact and fiction
show’s setting, the Copenhagen hospital blur. Helmer Jr (Mikael Åke Persbrandt),
Rigshospitalet (aka Riget), in search of the son of the bad-tempered Swedish
real-life resolutions to the original show’s surgeon from the earlier seasons, arrives
loose ends. A Swedish doctor arrives to by helicopter to take up his position as
investigate his brother’s fate. Satanic forces
co-head of the ward with Pontopidan
prowl the wards.
(Lars Mikkelsen), with the intention of
REVIEWED BY JOHN BLEASDALE finding out what drove his father insane.
In between staff meetings, operations
and medical conferences – “Pain is your
Horror-comedies are difficult to pull off friend,” one doctor announces – Karen
and even harder to excel at, but the first and a porter called Balder (Nicolas
two seasons of Lars von Trier’s TV series Bro) attempt to locate the spirits and
The Kingdom (Danish title Riget) dished the portal that will take them back to
out laughs and chills, with some deranged the afterlife. But it’s not going to be easy.
body-horror moments in the mix. Listen Satan (Willem Dafoe), in a white coat,
to Joachim Holbek’s theme song, a jaunty prowls the corridors with a red right
loving Helmer Jr attends a group called
Swedes Anonymous, whose mem-
bers gather in the basement and moan
about working in Denmark. (“Damned
Danes!” is the show’s equivalent to Twin
Peaks’ “Damn fine coffee”.) Another new
character is Naver (Nikolaj Lie Kaas),
a neurosurgeon with anger issues, who,
once enraged, threatens to scoop out his
own eye with a spoon. The presence of
von Trier the arch-provocateur is felt not
least in a running gag involving a lawyer
(Alexander Skarsgård) acting for both
the victim and the accused in a sexual
harassment case.
The production values are a notable
step up from the original series, with
some impressive visual effects, but in
some ways von Trier maintains the origi-
nal’s lo-fi charm, imbuing the low-resolu-
tion camerawork with a yellow tint, the
colour of a urine sample. The editing is
choppy, giving the action the spontaneity
of a workplace documentary. With The
Kingdom: Exodus, von Trier has achieved
something analogous to David Lynch’s
Twin Peaks: The Return (2017), at once
faithful to his earlier work and breaking
its confines to move into broader, more
ambitious territories. Von Trier even
allows himself a delicious cameo, as

earworm with a demented rhythm and
demonic vocals. Part parody of daytime
hospital drama, part satanic horror, the
Danish show premiered in 1994, with
a second four-episode season released
three years later, achieving cult status and
spawning an American remake produced
by the novelist Stephen King. Now, some
25 years later, the Danish enfant terrible, no
longer enfant, has returned to the hospi-
tal built on the old bleaching ponds for a
five-episode conclusion to the saga.
hand, and soon he and his devotees are
ranged against the forces of good.
Von Trier and his team, including co-
writer Niels Vørsel, get the right balance
between providing fans of the original
with a sense of continuity and creat-
ing a new season so madly entertaining
that it really doesn’t matter what went
on before. Exodus moves with its own
demonic logic, and the eccentricities
of the characters allow for so many sur-
prises and twists that there is more fun
TELEVISION
though autographing his diabolical crea-
tion with an audacious blood-red flour-
ish. Whatever you think of the director
– and he certainly has issues – it is unde-
niable that he has produced a substantial
body of work that infuriates and amazes
but is never boring. With this latest
season, the Kingdom series still stands as
his most purely entertaining work. The
damned Dane has done it again.
Five episodes on Mubi, weekly from 27 November
 136

American Gigolo would make an escort for rich widows

and neglected wives like Julian Kay (as
GERE CHANGE
Jon Bernthal as Julian Kaye
Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket (1959) and
was just as fixated as the other two parts
the name of Richard Gere’s antihero was of Schrader’s so-called ‘Man in a Room’
DIRECTORS DAVID HOLLANDER spelled) redundant in the 2020s. More trilogy – Taxi Driver (1976), which he
TUCKER GATES
GREGG ARAKI pertinently, perhaps, Schrader’s movie wrote, and Light Sleeper (1992) – on a sin-
DAMIAN MARCANO equated the nouveau riche materialism induced crisis of alienated masculinity.
NATASHA BRAIER
CHERYL DUNYE of the Armani-clad, Mercedes roadster- Hollander and his fellow series directors,
WRITERS DAVID HOLLANDER driving Julian and his pleasureless pleas- who include Gregg Araki and Cheryl
CAMI DELAVIGNE
EMILY K ACZMAREK ure-giving with the empty conspicuous Dunye, make nods to Taxi Driver, and
DAVID BAR K ATZ consumerism of the early 1980s. although Travis Bickle in that film exudes
WALTER BLOUNT
ALYE MILLER The eight-part Showtime series Ameri- negative charisma in direct opposition to
NIKKI TOSCANO can Gigolo, a partial remake of the film, Julian, Bernthal’s body language sug-
RUSSELL ROTHBERG
DAN DWORKIN developed by David Hollander, starring gests Robert De Niro’s influence more
JAY BEAT TIE Jon Bernthal as Julian and deplored than Gere’s, Hollander even affording
BASED ON CHARACTERS
CREATED BY PAUL SCHRADER as a project by Schrader, is a watchable him a fleeting ‘You talkin’ to me?’-esque
CINEMATOGRAPHY NATASHA BRAIER if convoluted neo-noir which fails as a moment. The series also has a Blondie
ROBERT MCLACHLAN
TIM NAGASAWA mystery. It becomes clear early on which obsession – a Debbie Harry clone sits in
EDITORS JOHN A XNESS character framed Julian for the murder of Julian’s passenger seat during the open-
MIRIAM KIM
LYNNE WILLINGHAM a client 15 years previously, in 2006, while ing credit sequence, and most of the
PRODUCTION DESIGN RAY YAMAGATA the slaying of his former procuress Olga episodes are named for the band’s songs.
MUSIC MARCELO ZARVOS
COSTUME DESIGN DAYNA PINK and her assistant after Julian’s release add The pilot episode not only recycles ‘Call
STEPHANI LEWIS up to less than expected. The casting Me’, the theme song of Schrader’s film,
CAST JON BERNTHAL
GRETCHEN MOL of Gabriel LaBelle as both the teenage but reprises it much as Robert Altman’s
ROSIE O’DONNELL Julian and Colin Stratton, teenage son neo-noir The Long Goodbye (1973) playfully
LIZZIE BROCHERÉ
of Julian’s former lover Michelle Stratton reprises its title song.
SYNOPSIS (Gretchen Mol) and her tech tycoon hus- Hollander might have learned a more
Wrongfully convicted Los Angeles escort band Richard (Leland Orser), spoils the useful trick from Altman. Given that
Julian Kaye completes a 15-year sentence for revelation that Julian is a father. Julian has been incarcerated for 15 years,
homicide. Detective Sunday, who extracted Frequent introductions of new char- the series misses an opportunity to make
Julian’s confession, reinvestigates the case. acters and copious flashbacks to 1993 him, as a stranger to sexual politics as
Suspicion falls on Julian again following (when Julian is a sexually abused trailer- reconfigured by #MeToo and Time’s
the killings of his one-time pimp and the park kid sold to Olga’s prostitution racket Up, the kind of Rip Van Winkle figure
teacher who has kidnapped the teenage by his mother) and 2006 render the series The Long Goodbye made of Raymond
son of Julian’s ex-lover Michelle and her
intriguingly labyrinthine. This doesn’t Chandler’s throwback gumshoe Philip
billionaire husband.
atone for its reactionary depiction of sex Marlowe in hippie-era LA. With a dif-
TELEVISION

REVIEWED BY GRAHAM FULLER
Paul Schrader has resisted making a
sequel to his seminal Los Angeles neo-
noir American Gigolo (1980) because he
considers it a film of its time and place.
Internet porn, Schrader has reasoned,
work and its exploitation of paedophilia ferent script, there’s no telling what queer
as a plot element enfolding young Julian, directors Araki and Dunye might have
Colin and the little girl who becomes made of a martyred straight nice-guy pro-
Olga’s business heir and the adult Julian’s tagonist who, though potent in the sack,
nemesis, Isabelle (Lizzie Brocheré). is chronically passive out of it.
Like his more recent First Reformed Current sensitivities about racial and
(2017) and The Card Counter (2021), LBGTQ+ representation – or at least
Schrader’s American Gigolo drew on the commercial imperative of catering
to them – have steered the series from
Schrader’s agenda of analysing strung-
out, beleaguered manhood. Yet there
is only one queer character and none
of the Black characters are allowed to
share in the melodrama or psychologi-
cal complexity that propels the white
ones – namely, the role-playing that
enables Julian, Michelle and Detec-
tive Joan Sunday (Rosie O’Donnell) to
avoid painful home truths. The landlady
(Yolonda Ross) who rents Julian a room
and befriends him is the only carefully
delineated African American.
Though Julian’s subjectivity dominates
the series – he is frequently observed pon-
dering his existential plight, despite not
being crippled by loneliness like Schrad-
er’s Julian – the show hedges its bets by
offering Michelle and Sunday’s perspec-
tives and memories. O’Donnell is to the
manner born as the wisecracking lesbian
cop whose hardboiled demeanour con-
ceals a nagging sadness, and who is anx-
ious to atone for bullying the traumatised
Julian into confessing to murder. Rather
than produce a second American Gigolo
series, Showtime should star O’Donnell
in a spin-off, albeit one that’s genuinely
interested in queerness.

Eight episodes on Paramount+ now

 138

Dahmer: Monster – The The pilot episode of this controversial

Netflix series shows in excruciating detail
household, while not happy, was not par-
ticularly monstrous either, even as the
Jeffrey Dahmer Story the entrapment of a young man by a drunk
and dead-eyed Jeffrey Dahmer. When the
filmmaking subtly underlines the constant
presence of psychological violence.
DIRECTORS CARL FRANKLIN
young man unexpectedly escapes and the Without falling into pop psychology,
CLEMENT VIRGO police arrest Dahmer, our sense of relief is the series creates a layered portrait which
JENNIFER LYNCH bittersweet. We know that it would have accounts for the way upbringing, circum-
PARIS BARCLAY
GREGG ARAKI been just as truthful for the series to open stances, bad decisions, accidents and
WRITERS RYAN MURPHY with a young man being killed. other unknowable factors contributed
IAN BRENNAN
DAVID MCMILLAN If Monster begins by reminding us of the to making Dahmer who he was. But the
JANET MOCK terror Dahmer caused, it does so without show’s aims don’t stop there. One of its
REILLY SMITH
TODD KUBRAK the spectacle of a murder, and without pur- achievements is to discredit the notion that
CINEMATOGRAPHY JASON MCCORMICK porting to put viewers ‘in the shoes of ’ real Dahmer wasn’t caught sooner because his
JOHN T. CONNOR
EDITORS REGIS KIMBLE victims. This is one way the show demon- victims, many of them young gay men of
TAYLOR MASON strates a rare understanding of how true- colour, had no one who cared about them
CURTIS THURBER
STEPHANIE FILO crime formats reveal, better than others, or reported them missing. The final epi-
ROBIN AUGUST what filmmakers working from ‘true sto- sodes focus on the families’ ongoing fight
PRODUCTION DESIGN MAT THEW FLOOD FERGUSON
MUSIC NICK CAVE ries’ really do: they exploit the invisible rela- to have their loved ones remembered as
WARREN ELLIS tions between historical fact, conventional people, not just as victims.
COSTUME DESIGN RUDY MANCE
CAST EVAN PETERS narratives and audience expectations to The overall story of disconnect, isola-
RICHARD JENKINS create heightened onscreen drama. tion, loneliness and bad habits is particu-
MOLLY RINGWALD
Many have pointed out that, contrary larly suited to breaks, silences and rep-
SYNOPSIS to what some of the publicity around the etitions – things the series format can take
This ten-part series tells the story of American serial killer show has suggested, Monster does not advantage of. The compounding effect of
Jeffrey Dahmer, from his childhood to his death. It looks at focus solely on the victims. Fewer have a series, too, allows us to entertain several
the circumstances that shaped him, the unfair realities he maintained that this might actually be an truths that are often difficult to reconcile.
took advantage of, and the devastation he left in his wake. asset: despite its title, Monster shows that Through it all, Evan Peters’ stunningly
the notorious serial killer was ultimately grounded performance as a young man
REVIEWED BY ELENA LAZIC
human. Careful not to make an apology untethered from reality and unable or
for his crimes, however, it brings Dah- unwilling to find his way back is as heart-
mer’s humanity into view only very slowly. breaking as it is chilling.
The second and third episodes, centred
on his childhood, reveal that the Dahmer Ten episodes on Netflix now
TELEVISION

This story of disconnect, isolation, loneliness and bad habits is suited to breaks, silences and repetitions
DAHMER: MONSTER – THE JEFFREY DAHMER STORY

The Peripheral “ The future is already here,” William

Gibson said in 2003. “It’s just not evenly
(2016-), who is an executive producer – The
Peripheral’s mix of future-shock action and
distributed.” The venerable sci-fi writer’s technophobic paranoia can’t help but feel
DIRECTORS VINCENZO NATALI penetrating one-liner can be applied to familiar. The fact that the storytelling is so
ALRICK RILEY
WRITERS SCOT T B. SMITH Amazon Prime’s new adaptation of his thick and exposition-heavy, with an entire
BRONW YN GARRITY 2014 novel The Peripheral, whose heroine, appendix’s worth of gearhead nomencla-
JAMIE CHAN
GREG PLAGEMAN Flynne Fisher (Chloë Grace Moretz) – an ture to be parsed per episode, doesn’t help.
BASED ON THE NOVEL BY WILLIAM GIBSON Appalachian girl making ends meet for With this kind of material, a certain
CINEMATOGRAPHY STUART HOWELL
ROBERTO SCHAEFER her family circa 2032 – is unknowingly pro- amount of disorientation is part of the
EDITORS ANDREW GROVES pelled several decades forward through a equation: the early twist that Flynne’s
ASHER PINK
NAOMI SUNRISE FILORAMO VR simulator-style video game. Immersed digital avatar is made in the image of her
SHAUN LAVERY in espionage high jinks suggesting a post- ex-Marine older brother (Jack Reynor)
SPENCER KOOBATIAN
PRODUCTION DESIGN JAN ROELFS apocalyptic incarnation of James Bond, entertainingly complicates the themes of
MUSIC MARK KORVEN Flynne realises that the reason this particu- cosplay and identity crisis. The slick profi-
COSTUME DESIGN MICHELE CLAPTON
CAST CHLOË GRACE MORETZ lar spy campaign feels so real is because ciency of Vincenzo Natali’s direction goes a
GARY CARR somehow it is. It’s a ‘whoa’ moment on a long way towards glossing over the script’s
JACK REYNOR
par with Neo’s awakening in The Matrix flaws; he certainly knows how to integrate
(1999), and it imbues our plucky heroine special effects into his mise en scène. And
SYNOPSIS with a similarly paradigm-shifting poten- Moretz, who’s finally accrued enough
In 2032, a skilled freelance video gamer named Flynne tial, as well as making her a target for vari- gravitas to push beyond her whizz-kid per-
accidentally accesses a futuristic timeline while playing an ous time-travelling bad guys. sona, is a sturdy, empathetic presence. But
espionage simulation under her older brother’s avatar; her Ideally, the ontological gamesmanship when it comes to narratives like this, there’s
discovery ends up putting the fate of society at stake. of The Peripheral would vibrate with the something to be said for compression, and
same virtuosic, mind-warping excitement the longer Smith goes on shifting between
REVIEWED BY ADAM NAYMAN
as The Matrix, which was itself deeply timelines, the clearer it becomes that both
indebted to Gibson’s tech noir-tinged of the show’s realities are stretched thin.
oeuvre. But virtual insanity has become Instead of playing with or subverting its
such a growth industry since that film’s gleaming array of genre tropes, The Periph-
release that it’s hard to keep up with the eral is ultimately just instrumentalising
curve, much less be ahead of it, and for all them: going through the motions with the
the talent behind the camera here – includ- same automatic, uninspired prowess its
ing horror novelist Scott B. Smith, who protagonist is ostensibly rebelling against.
serves as the creator and main writer, and
Jonathan Nolan, co-creator of Westworld Eight episodes on Amazon Prime now
 139

Copenhagen
Cowboy
DIRECTOR NICOLAS WINDING REFN
WRITERS JOHANNE ALGREN
SARA ISABELLA
JØNSSON VEDDE
MONA MASRI
CINEMATOGRAPHY MAGNUS NORDENHOF
JØNCK
EDITORS OLIVIA
NEERGA ARD-HOLM
OLIVIER BUGGE COUT TÉ
ALLAN FUNCH
MAT THEW NORMAN
PRODUCTION DESIGN GIT TE MALLING
MUSIC CLIFF MARTINEZ
PETER PETER
PETER KYED
JULIAN WINDING
COSTUME DESIGN JANE WHIT TAKER
CAST ANGELA BUNDALOVIC
LOLA CORFIXEN
ZLATKO BURIĆ

SYNOPSIS

A woman named Miu traverses

Copenhagen’s criminal netherworld in
search of her destiny. She meets a local
crime lord, who bears witness to Miu’s
metaphysical gifts. But when she encounters
a serial killer who has a sister endowed
with supernatural powers, she must
outmanoeuvre the forces in her way.

REVIEWED BY STEPH GREEN

In 2013, a Calabrian mobster was fed alive

to an enclosure of pigs by a rival family,
a murder method that has reportedly
been used by the Mafia for decades. It

TELEVISION
feels almost like poetic justice: some of
the most intelligent animals on earth,
characterised for their gluttony, enacting
revenge on the greediest mammal of all. Chinese restaurants via corporate back drug dealer Miroslav, and a whole roster TRACKIE BUSINESS
Pigs are a pervasive symbol in Copen- rooms and elaborate mansion estates, of first-time screen actors: Zhang Li Ii as Angela Bundalovic as Miu

hagen Cowboy, the new six-episode series
by Nicolas Winding Refn. Wounded
men squeal like pigs. A pig farm is the
setting for several gruesome acts of vio-
lence. Given the squalor of its nighttime
underbelly, Copenhagen itself may well
be a filthy pen. Pigs, as humans often do,
devour without thinking.
Inspired by westerns, fairytales and
what Refn has called the “metaphysi-
cal power of femininity”, the series is a
glacial, occasionally gripping odyssey
through concentric circles of Copen-
hagen hell. In typical Refn fashion, the
protagonist is inscrutable: Miu, a tiny,
wily girl with a bowl-cut and soulful,
saucer-wide eyes. She’s played by Angela
Bundalovic, all cheekbone and jaw, her
gamine face paired with arms that hang
rigid by her sides, as if her muscles have
taken on rigor mortis prematurely. She’s
dressed throughout in a sporty zip jacket
and tracksuit bottoms, her disconcert-
ing stillness interrupted only by small
flashes of elasticity in martial-arts scenes.
“You’re stressing me out with your gaze,”
someone says to her, and we’re inclined
to agree; later, asked if she is a ghost,
Miu merely pauses, then answers with a
strange miaow.
We follow Miu, the cowboy of the
title, with no past and an uncertain
future, as she traverses the Copenha-
gen criminal underworld. From seedy
underground brothels to fluorescent
she embarks on various missions for
truth and redemption, only to find her-
self thrown from one sticky situation
into another; episode arcs involve stolen
drug money, trafficked sex workers and
a sadistic, flamboyant villain. Miu, our
roving avenger, has been bought and
sold throughout her life, initially at the
age of seven by her own mother; in the
present day, she has been purchased by
and now belongs to a dotty middle-aged
woman named Rosella, who believes
that Miu will be a good-luck charm in
Rosella’s pursuit of fertility.
Throughout the six episodes, we
gather droplets of information on a cer-
tain cryptic gift Miu possesses – the kind
that “40 years ago, they would have burnt
you at the stake” for – though the fact
that nobody can quite put their finger on
the nature of this gift is a source of some
frustration to the viewer. It’s clear, how-
ever, that Miu draws upon these curious
powers to wriggle out of the most vola-
tile scenarios. The show’s supernatural
elements are somewhat elucidated in the
final episode, when Miu has a meeting
of minds with her nemesis and alter-ego
Rakel, played, in her first screen role, by
Refn’s own daughter Lola Corfixen as
a steely-eyed, hyper-feminine princess.
Corfixen provides one of many small
but assured supporting turns; others
come from seasoned Refn collaborator
Zlatko Burić, who plays unscrupulous
the tricksy Mother Hulda, Jason Hendil-
Forssel as brutal kidnapper Mr. Chiang,
and Andreas Lykke Jørgensen as serial
killer Nicklas.
This is the first work Refn has shot
and set in his native Denmark in over
20 years, but is filtered through the
same neon-drenched neo-noir aesthetic
we’ve seen throughout his career. High-
contrast colour abounds: pinks, purples
and blues illuminate Miu’s world, her
path lit with LED striplights and the
garish, gaudy glow of slot machines,
storefronts and cavernous basements;
ripe lilac sunsets backlight her distinctive
silhouette. Also unsurprising is the styl-
ish, synth-heavy score from regular Refn
collaborator Cliff Martinez, which over-
lays the elegant onscreen violence with an
eardrum-pounding beat.
Some viewers will find the relentless
distancing a bit much – those sweeping
arc shots across empty rooms, the scenes
shot at a chilly remove, the enigmatic,
poker-faced protagonist – but Copenhagen
Cowboy will be manna for those partial to
Refn’s acidic, arcane movies. With no cer-
tainty of future seasons, it’s a bold move
for the director to begin setting up the
story’s superhero elements only in the
final episode. But until that point, it’s an
overly languid journey, however visually
striking it may be.
Six episodes on Netflix from early 2023
 140
Ingmar Bergman: Volume 3
These Blu-rays show the director’s mid-period masterpieces off in exquisite style, from
the austere darkness of works exploring faith and cruelty to lighter, kookier, comic fare
REVIEWED BY HANNAH MCGILL
The third instalment of the BFI’s four-vol-
ume compendium covers Ingmar Berg-
man’s 1960s work, and includes several
of his most extraordinary and justly cele-
brated meditations on human frailty, cru-
elty and perversity, among them The Virgin
Spring (1960), Winter Light (1963) and
Persona (1966). Also present are a couple
of works that far less readily conform to
assumptions about the great Swede’s tone
and style: the perky, carnivalesque sex
farce The Devil’s Eye (1960); and the lavish,
mannered comedy All These Women (1964),
co-written with actor Erland Josephson,
Bergman’s first film in colour.
This mix consciously confronts the
idea that mid-period Bergman was all
austere monochrome compositions,
repressed hysteria and razor blades; but
the tonal outcome is counter-intuitive,
at least for this viewer. Rewatched all
together, the films that are most known
for their thematic darkness are exhilarat-
ing and even joyous in their effect, thanks
to the searing beauty of their imagery, the
DVD & BLU-RAY
multiple startling insights contained in
their scripts and the thrilling conviction
of their performances. It’s the playful,
kooky stuff, gorgeously envisaged and
presented though it is, that lands oddly
and leaves one a little bit depressed.
Perhaps there was truth to the hurtful
family maxim “Ingmar has no sense of
humour” – quoted by Bergman in his
autobiography and by Ellen Cheshire
in the essay that accompanies All These
Women here – or perhaps it’s much more
that his sense of humour was of a subtle
and indirect nature and not ideally served
by slapstick. That said, The Devil’s Eye
and All These Women are by no means
disposable or insignificant. Jarl Kulle
is archly magnificent in both, as is Bibi
Andersson; their playfully extreme exter-
nalisation and mythologisation of power
struggles and sexual hang-ups provide an
amusing counter to the restraint of the
more sombre works; and the clothes in
All These Women are fabulous enough to
merit special attention all on their own.
The accompanying essays by Cheshire
and – for The Devil’s Eye – Kat Ellinger
make spirited cases for both films’ inclu-
sion in the Bergman canon.
The Virgin Spring, starring Birgitta Pet-
tersson as a medieval murder victim and
THE DEVIL’S EYE
THE VIRGIN SPRING
THROUGH A GLASS
DARKLY
WINTER LIGHT
THE SILENCE
Max von Sydow as her devastated and ALL THESE WOMEN
vengeful father, is frequently cited as an PERSONA
influence on the horror genre: its plot THE RITE
inspired Wes Craven’s The Last House on
the Left (1972), and current interest in folk Ingmar Bergman; Sweden 1960-69;
horror sees it frequently cited as a semi- BFI; Region B Blu-ray, 5 discs; b&w
and colour; in Swedish with English
nal example, due to its rural setting and subtitles; Certificate 15; 687 minutes;
1.37:1 except The Rite, 1.33:1. Extras:
interest in the confrontation between audio commentary for The Virgin
nature and religion. Its impact, however, Spring by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
and Josh Nelson; documentary by
is rather more direct than its creepy repu- Eva Beling, The Men and Bergman
tation suggests: it’s a clear-eyed, devastat- (2007); selected 2003 introductions
ing depiction of ill-fortune, inhumanity by Bergman; introduction to Persona
by Richard Ayoade; Persona trailer;
and grief, which requires no spiritual or stills gallery; booklet.
supernatural overlay to make it meaning-
ful. Those who do lose sleep over how a
film is or isn’t categorised, however, can
find a lot of discussion of how the film has
been viewed since its release in the newly
commissioned commentary by Alexandra
Heller-Nicholas and Josh Nelson – the
only commentary included in this set.
This film also marked the first major col-
laboration (after the experimental Sawdust
and Tinsel in 1953) between Bergman and
the cinematographer who would become SWEDE DREAMS
his favourite, Sven Nykvist. All These Women (1964, below)
There follows the trilogy of works HELL AND HIGH WATER
through which Bergman established his The Virgin Spring (1960, opposite)
IMAGES: BFI NATIONAL ARCHIVE

definitive mode, at least of this period:
Through a Glass Darkly (1961), Winter Light
and The Silence (1963). Though their nar-
rative styles differ dramatically – the first a
restless, edgy evocation of the dual experi-
ences of being and loving a woman with
schizophrenia, the second a pared-back
story of devotion cruelly betrayed, and
the third a fractured, formally experimen-
tal Freudian dreamscape – these films all
confront the absence of faith, the failure
of love and the way in which life pounds
on regardless. They also showcase some
of Bergman’s preferred actresses at their
astonishing best – Harriet Andersson,
Gunnel Lindblom, Ingrid Thulin – and
set the stage for the masterpiece that fol-
lowed, Persona. These Blu-ray discs, all
drawn from 2K restorations by the Swed-
ish Film Institute except The Rite (1969),
which is in Standard Definition, present
the films with ravishing clarity, with razor-
sharp image quality and no hiss intruding
on those all-important silences.
Given how often the type of cinema
exemplified by Persona – verbose, intro-
spective, angst-infused, unambiguously
arty – is parodied or wearily discounted
as pretentious, you’d think the film itself
would feel hackneyed. The extent to which
it doesn’t is extraordinary. The story of a
famous actress named Elisabet Vogler
(Liv Ullmann), who has become mute in
response to some sort of existential crisis,
and her intense relationship with the
young nurse Alma (Bibi Andersson), it
feels fierce, fresh and – despite its famous
141
DVD & BLU-RAY
obscurity of meaning – extremely direct in
its emotional impact. Nykvist’s photogra-
phy is meanwhile at its most astounding,
both women’s faces becoming landscapes
of shifting emotion and mystique. An
excellent accompanying essay by Geoff
Andrew guides us through some notions
about where its imagery and ideas came
from and how they might be read.
Lastly there’s The Rite, made for tel-
evision and arguably representing a sort
of mid-point between the austere existen-
tialist dramas included in this collection,
and the florid, self-referential, satirical The films generally known for their
chamber pieces. Featuring a further mes-
merising performance by Thulin, it con- thematic darkness are exhilarating
stitutes Bergman’s response to the critics and even joyous in their effect,
who increasingly badgered him as his fame thanks to the searing beauty of their
built, dramatising a theatre company’s
show trial for alleged obscenity. Shot in imagery, their startling insights
only nine days, it’s too raw, jerky and bitter and their thrilling performances
to achieve the transcendence we find else-
where in this collection, but it adds intrigu-
ing biographical and formal spice.
In terms of the discs, film presentation is
stunning across the board. On-disc extras
are a bit slight and variable: extracts from a
2003 Bergman interview by Marie Nyreröd
make for a few decent intros, but one wishes
they were longer or that the whole conver-
sation was included. Eva Beling’s 52-minute
documentary The Men and Bergman (2007),
however, looking at his work with actors, is
a very valuable inclusion. The accompany-
ing 100-page book is where the analysis is,
with lively and informative essays from a
range of critical perspectives.
 142
CINEMA’S FIRST NASTY WOMEN
Various; Denmark/France/Italy/Netherlands/
Sweden/UK/US 1898-1926; Kino Classics;
region-free Blu-ray; 4 discs; b&w; silent; 875
minutes; 1.33:1. Extras: What Is a Nasty Woman?
video introduction; 11 short documentaries; audio
commentaries for selected films; booklet.
REVIEWED BY MICHAEL ATKINSON
This ambitious compilation comes
touting an explicit agenda: to reacquaint
film history with the silent era’s busy
legacy of powerful, disobedient,
autonomous women, in films that have
been almost entirely neglected up to
now. Overseen by feminist academics
Laura Horak (from Carleton University
in Canada) and Maggie Hennefeld
(University of Minnesota), who have
both recently written books exploring
the terrain, the project’s payload is
99 films (shorts plus two features)
from 13 different archives and made
in seven countries, filling out over 14
hours. The result is an abundance of
low-down female slapstick anarchy, in
DVD & BLU-RAY
which standard silent-comedy set-ups
are relentlessly disrupted by women
characters busting out of their assigned
gender roles.
‘Nasty’ is a rather creaky, Pythonesque
way to characterise the vibe, given the
veneer of scholarly rectitude involved
– and there’s a lot of editorialising
about the films’ frequent “racist
imagery” and stereotypes – but the
hitherto catacombed films can be eye-
opening and exhilarating. Some of the
filmmakers are women, but the focus
falls on the actresses, from the nameless
French tornado playing the titular
vandalising teen in the globally popular
Léontine films (1910-11), to Gene
Gauntier as a Civil War ‘Girl Spy’ in
films she scripted (1909-10) and gender-
fluid pioneers like Biograph star Edna
‘Billy’ Foster (who mostly played boys),
and Ora Carew, who in one Keystone
comedy plays her own twin brother, who
then masquerades as his sister. We get
women routinely passing for men, doing
their own risky stunts, playing ‘manly’
women entirely uninterested in hetero
romance, staging working women’s
strikes, drinking hard and protesting for
women’s rights. Native American stars
such as Minnie Devereaux (in a 1914
Fatty Arbuckle short) and Lilian St Cyr
are rescued from obscurity, rebellious
wives are sometimes played by actors in
drag, and even a hefty sampling of D.W.
Griffith films are offered, in which the
usually virginal-recessive heroines are
instead “tyrannising the hearthstone”, as
Hennefeld puts it. It’s old-school film
history turned inside out.
Discs: Heroic efforts at restoration across
the board, and as indicated, the wealth
of exegesis on hand is both thoroughly
researched and rather ebullient.
THE DRAUGHTSMAN’S CONTRACT
Peter Greenaway; UK 1982; BFI; Region B Blu-ray;
English SDH; Certificate 15; 108 minutes; 1.66:1.
Extras: 2003 audio commentary and introduction
by Greenaway; contemporary television review
by Angela Carter; audio interview with composer
Michael Nyman (2002); Saskia Boddeke’s film
portrait of her husband, The Greenaway Alphabet
(2017); three short films by Greenaway – H Is for
House (1976), A Walk Through H (1978), Insight:
Zandra Rhodes (1981); 1981 interviews with Janet
Suzman, Greenaway and Anthony Higgins;
behind-the-scenes footage; deleted scenes; image
gallery; original and restoration trailers.
REVIEWED BY BEN NICHOLSON
An arrogant draughtsman of lower
social station, Mr Neville (Anthony
Higgins), agrees to draw 12 aspects of
a stately home on the condition that,
beyond financial remuneration, he is
permitted to take his daily pleasure
with the lady of the house, Mrs Herbert
(Janet Suzman) while her husband is
away. This is the ostensible premise
of Peter Greenaway’s gloriously arch
feature debut The Draughtsman’s Contract,
a film of exquisite composition which
gradually reveals itself as a cryptic
whodunnit dressed in the finery of a late
17th-century romp.
As with most of its characters – save,
perhaps the draughtsman himself – there
is a lot more going on in the film than
might initially meet the eye; a particular
irony given that Neville’s vocation
demands that he depict only what he
sees, not what he otherwise knows.
Taking his hosts and their friends at face
value, Neville becomes embroiled in a
potential murder plot in which clues
are sprinkled enigmatically around the
pristine grounds, power dynamics shift
like the elusive sunlight, and the garden’s
statues seem to come inexplicably to life.
Set in 1694, to coincide with the
founding of the Bank of England and
reforms around women and property
inheritance, this is a film packed with
political and social detail but not weighed
down by it. Many describe the narrative
as baffling, but it remains eminently
watchable. It’s a cliché to suggest every
frame could be a painting, but here the
sumptuous cinematography – filled with
symmetrical, baroque arrangements – is
designed to evoke such lofty comparisons.
DISC: This is, suitably, a handsomely
mounted release from the BFI,
featuring an array of additional
material: from Greenaway’s own 2003
audio commentary to Angela Carter’s
contemporary television review of the
film, as well as various interviews and
behind-the-scenes clips. As is often the
case with BFI Blu-rays, some of the
other films slipped in with the release
are genuine highlights. These discs
feature The Greenaway Alphabet – a 2017
film portrait of the director by his wife
Saskia Boddeke – and two excellent
early Greenaway shorts, H Is for House
(1976) and A Walk Through H (1978).
DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN
Susan Seidelman; US 1985; Final Cut Entertainment; Region B Blu-
ray; Certificate 15; 144 minutes; 1.84:1. Extras: New interviews with
director Susan Seidelman and producer Sarah Pillsbury; interview
with music writer Lucy O’Brien about Madonna; alternative
ending; photo gallery; trailer; poster; postcards; booklet.
REVIEWED BY HANNAH MCGILL
Leora Barish’s female-fronted screwball script Desperately
Seeking Susan passed through numerous directorial hands
before it reached Susan Seidelman. In the interviews
included with this Blu-ray release, Seidelman mentions that
the project had been with John Sayles before it came to her,
while producer Sarah Pillsbury recalls taking it to Hal Ashby,
George Roy Hill, Claude Lelouche and Jonathan Demme.
What the project gained by settling with Seidelman – who,
since her admired 1982 debut Smithereens, had been wading
through dispiriting scripts for sorority sex comedies – was
not only an all-female top team, but the punk credibility that
adds such background richness to its dreamy comic capers. In
peopling her fairytale of New York with real figures from the
city’s counterculture, Seidelman created a record of a scene
she knew and loved, as well as a fizzy romcom that continues
to charm. In collaboration with her director of photography
Edward Lachman and production and costume designer
Santo Loquasto, Seidelman made downtown NYC at once
rough and alluring – just as it appears to the film’s protagonist,
bored New Jersey housewife Roberta (Rosanna Arquette).
Desperately Seeking Susan of course gains much of its enduring
fame from the exposure it offered to a burgeoning pop star
named Madonna. Chosen over a raft of far better-known
names to play the sexy drifter who tempts Roberta down
her rabbit hole, Madonna made the film exactly as her star
ascended: Seidelman in her interviews recalls the startling
difference in “the atmosphere around her” over the course of
shooting. Acting chops have never been part of Madonna’s
redoubtable arsenal, but her physical charisma and developing
personal style (which the film adopted as Susan’s) more than
compensate for her flat delivery. Arguably, her awkward acting
even contributes to the thrill of her presence: she already
carries a sense of specialness and separation, her constant
knowing smile indicating both joy in the role and no intention
whatsoever of disappearing into it. Pillsbury, in the extras, nails
the effect by calling Madonna “a downtown Mae West”: just
like West, Madonna provides the soul and spirit of the film,
and glides through it seeming rather unaffected by its fictional
ups and downs. This self-possession balances Arquette’s nervy
neediness as Roberta, while Aidan Quinn anchors them by
playing nice-guy love interest Dez completely straight.
It’s not incidental, of course, that Dez is a movie
projectionist. The film is, says Pillsbury, “a metaphor for
the movie experience”. Clear narrative resonances exist with
Jacques Rivette’s Céline and Julie Go Boating (1974), for those
desperately seeking them – but for most viewers, the chief
interest here is less the plot than the time-capsule preservation
of a fashion and pop culture moment.
Disc: Completists will already have been able to source the
Blu-ray transfer, but this ‘deluxe limited edition’ package
looks and sounds good. Director and producer interviews
are excellent, and an alternative ending reveals the additional
convolutions the film almost embraced – but without a new
restoration, actor contributions or commentaries, the package
may strike some as a touch less than ‘deluxe’.

REDISCOVERY
Marcell Jankovics; Hungary
1981; Eureka/Masters of Cinema;
Region B Blu-ray; in Hungarian,
with English subtitles; Certificate
12; 86 minutes; 1.37:1. Extras:
78-minute animated feature film
Johnny Corncob (1973); short films
Sisyphus (1974) and The Struggle
(1977); promotional film Dreams on
Wings (1968); Brighter Colours, a 2020
interview with Jankovics (33 minutes)
and two featurettes; booklet.
REVIEWED BY ANDREW OSMOND
HOLD YOUR HORSES
Son of the White Mare (above)
Son of the White Mare
This magical Hungarian film by Marcell Jankovics is one
of the greatest animations ever made – a classically simple
story that channels the power of myths and dreams
Marcell Jankovics, the Hungarian direc-
tor of Son of the White Mare, one of the
most extraordinary animated films ever
made, thought fairytales were for bed-
time. In an interview on the film’s first
British Blu-ray, by Eureka Video, Janko-
vics says, “When a child is going to bed,
and approaches the night-time dark-
ness… dreams help them through the dif-
ficult parts of the night. That’s what we
have to feed, with a positive story and a
happy ending. What is the happy ending?
I wake up and the sun is shining.”
Released in 1981, White Mare was a box-
office disappointment. A decade later,
though, Jankovics met a man whose child
loved the film obsessively, saying it cap-
tured how he dreamed. “We all want to
make mature animation,” Jankovics said
of his Hungarian peers who were taking
cartoons beyond Disney demographics.
“But as we get old, we realise that the
true audience for animation is the open-
minded child, who hasn’t been spoiled by
anything yet.” It might have been his last
word on the subject: the interview was
recorded in August 2020 and Jankovics
died the following May.
White Mare could never be mistaken
for Disney. It’s like no other animated
film, and many viewers may think it’s
palpably unsuitable for children. What
enchanted one child as a dream could
be taken instead as a nightmare. The
film presents a world of symbolic char-
acters and burning colours, in which a
foal turns into a baby who grows into a
Herculean hero, wrestling monsters that
look like tanks or skyscrapers.
It’s an absurdly simple story, though
with subtleties for repeat viewing. The
hero, Treeshaker, enters an underworld
and saves three princesses, helped by two
brothers whom he commands (and spanks
when they disappoint him). The story is
indeed as cosy as a bedtime tale, but chil-
dren may need to reassure their parents
when they see how Jankovics tells it.
Treeshaker’s world is composed of
endlessly changing landscapes that col-
lapse into decorative patterns or fleshy
symbols, accompanied by an ambient
electronic soundscape without a trace
of melody. Treeshaker’s hair is a yellow
flame on his golden head. He’s born in the
vaginal hollow of a luminous blue tree, a
living metaphor for his mother’s body.
Later, the manly Treeshaker meets a
bare-breasted seductress, and his mighty
sword tries to flee its scabbard.
The best scenes are those with baby
Treeshaker. “If you don’t listen to my
story,” scolds his mare mother, “may sev-
enty-seven dragons steal your soul, and
seventy-seven crows peck out your eyes!”
Then she laughs, lovingly, at her child.
The moment could stand for the film,
where we’re led into the dream by voices
that are sometimes strange but always
warm, guiding us through the night.
(These voices may be something of a bar
to children, as the disc is subtitled only.)
Hungarian animation has received less
anglophone attention than the work of its
neighbours. While Czech stop-motion
f ilms were being acclaimed abroad,
Hungary was releasing a multitude of
cel-animated feature films that had little
impact in the West. In 1980, the Hunga-
rofilm Bulletin journal interviewed three
animators who agreed that Hungary had
no unifying national style of animation.
Even the animators working at Pannonia,
the state-funded studio that made White
Mare, sought “to differ from, not resem-
ble, one another”.
Some readers may know Pannonia’s
bizarre 1975 children’s cartoon Hugo the
Hippo, which was co-produced with the
US. It has sappy pop tunes and night-
mare imagery that’s far less coherent
than White Mare (killer vegetables, sharks
eating people for laughs). Recently, Mubi
143
has streamed György Kovásznai’s adult
musical cartoon Foam Bath (1979). Janko-
vics remembers that the film made use of
some of his own animators. It has many
admirers, but compared to the beautiful
undulations of White Mare, I find Foam
Bath’s brashly anti-Disney movements
and contortions unwatchably ugly.
Eureka’s edition of White Mare also
includes Jankovics’ Johnny Corncob (1973),
the first Hungarian animated feature. By
Jankovics’ account, the film was heavily
influenced by the Beatles musical Yellow
Submarine (1968). That’s evident in the
film’s cheerfully gaudy, ungainly charac-
ters, with many of the villains resembling
Blue Meanies.
Like White Mare, it’s a hero story, about
a failed shepherd who protects France
from the Turks, then fights demons in hell
and giants that are living mountains. The
DVD & BLU-RAY
film has sweet moments: the hero loses
his flock when they run up into the sky
and become clouds. It also makes clever
use of animation cycles, in which hordes
of characters move in identical patterns.
Some of the humour could be from Hol-
lywood cartoons, especially when we see
the epic march of soldiers and their long-
suffering, sarcastically grinning horses.
Johnny Corncob, however, lacks White
Mare’s narrative unity and visual audacity.
More impressive are Jankovics’ short
films on the Eureka disc, including the
brilliant Sisyphus (1974), an exhausting
two-minute ordeal which shows its hero,
via a few tortured black lines, straining
to push a boulder’s crushing weight up
a hill. Jankovics said the film was really
about him making Johnny Corncob. The
disc also includes an eight-minute promo-
tional film, Dreams of Wings, that Janko-
vics made for Air India in 1968. He said
it taught him the power of using meta-
morphing images in animation, as vividly
demonstrated in White Mare.
For readers who want to see Jankovics’
work beyond what’s on the disc, YouTube
is selling and renting a legal streaming
copy of his 2011 animated epic The Trag-
edy of Man. It’s a stupendous 166-minute
portrait of human misery throughout
history. On the Eureka disc, Jankovics
mentions that he conceived White Mare
as being about the eternally recurring
stories in mythology. This disappointed
the Hungarian authorities, who would
have preferred him to make a linear story
about the triumph of communism. With
The Tragedy of Man, Jankovics did depict a
linear history, and the result is his most
profoundly despairing film.
 144
ARCHIVE TV
The Billy Plays
This fine trilogy of tales set in Belfast during the Troubles
offers a moving portrait of a place, a time and a class, and
launched Kenneth Branagh’s career in the early 1980s
Hard to remember now, when Kenneth
TOO LATE TO TALK Branagh is such an established, even
TO BILLY establishment figure – at times revered
A MATTER OF CHOICE (the knighthood! the screenwriting
FOR BILLY Oscar for Belfast!), at times ridiculed (the
A COMING TO TERMS ubiquity! that Poirot moustache!) – that
FOR BILLY he was once the latest, hottest thing,
Paul Seed; UK 1982-84; BBC seemingly the most dynamic, intelligent
iPlayer; 85 /84/82 minutes. young actor around. The Billy Plays,
a trilogy written by Graham Reid and
REVIEWED BY ROBERT HANKS
directed by Paul Seed, were Branagh’s
launchpad, straight out of Rada. Origi-
nally filmed and broadcast across three
years in the Play for Today strand, prime-
time on a Tuesday night, they were
rerun on BBC4 in October as part of
the BBC’s centenary celebrations, and
are now on iPlayer for a year, along with
a short feature in which Branagh remi-
nisces about the experience.
The plays follow two years in the lives
DVD & BLU-RAY
of a working-class Protestant family
in Belfast in the late 1970s. In the first
play, Too Late to Talk to Billy (1982), Billy
Martin’s mother Janet is dying of cancer
up at the hospital. Billy (Branagh) and
his sister Lorna visit her there, but she
doesn’t know them, and she keeps call-
ing for another man, not their father. He
– their father, Norman – keeps finding
excuses not to visit; Billy seethes with
rage, because of that and because of a
lot of other stuff in the past: Norman is
a hard drinker and a notorious local hard
man, and he hasn’t been gentle with his
family. Lorna stays at home, taking care
of Ann and Maureen, their much younger
sisters, cooking the meals and ironing
Norman’s shirts, trying to smooth over
BELFAST AND LOOSE
Kenneth Branagh as Billy
everything. Billy is seeing a nice girl, June,
but her middle-class mother disapproves,
and June’s off to university in England –
she’d like Billy to go too, but he doesn’t
want to commit himself. His best mate
Ian – a goofball, a bit of a coward – is in
trouble with his old girlfriend, and he’s
got his new girlfriend in trouble. And
then there are the other Troubles, which
grumble along in the background but
seem insignificant compared with what’s
going on at home and in everyday life.
Ian’s in the UDA – the Ulster Defence
Association – but it’s more like playing
soldiers than anything actually paramili-
tary. Still, there’s no shortage of violence;
part of Billy’s campaign against Norman
is a refusal to touch alcohol, but he finds
the fighting harder to kick: when Ian is
threatened by his old UDA sergeant,
John Fletcher, Billy puts Fletcher down
(Ian grabs the chance to give the uncon-
scious man a kicking).
By the end of the play, Janet is dead
and Norman has left to work in England.
A Matter of Choice for Billy (1983) finds the
family rubbing along without him. Janet’s
brother Andy has been in hospital with
emphysema, and he comes to stay, adding
a hum of cantankerousness and a wet
cough to the household. Billy is seeing a
nurse, Pauline, a ‘Fenian’, who’s been look-
ing after Uncle Andy; but Pauline, like
June before her, is planning her escape
(a job in Canada) and again, Billy doesn’t
want to get in too deep. Lorna sees a lot
of John Fletcher, out of hospital after his
kicking and a gentler man than before.
Ann’s getting into trouble at school
– unacceptable language after a teacher
said something slighting about her father.
Norman writes to say he’s coming home,
and bringing a lady friend. A Coming to
Terms for Billy (1984) covers Norman’s
visit, with all the old sores reopened, and
at last a perverse kind of reconciliation.
From the titles, you might take it
that the plays revolve around Billy, and
to some extent that’s true – he’s the link
between the various storylines, and a
simple accounting of screentime or lines
would confirm his importance. But what
makes the plays stick in the mind is the
evenhanded generosity of Reid’s script
and Seed’s direction, the way that inter-
est and sympathy are shared around, so
that what emerges is less a portrait of an
individual or even a family than a place,
a time, a class – a culture of hard certain-
ties, where talking about feelings is dif-
ficult and starting fights is easy. It’s like
a soap opera, in the best sense – it has
a soap’s distrust of stories that are too
tightly circumscribed, or that have neat
beginnings and endings.
The breadth of attention is helped
by the performances: Branagh has pace
and charm, but he doesn’t hold atten-
tion when he’s sharing the screen with
Bríd Brennan as Lorna – contained and
understated, but radiating joy or grief.
There are exceptionally sharp, natural
performances from the children playing
Maureen and Ann, Ainé Gorman and
Tracey Lynch (who’s still in the busi-
ness – she played the savage chip-shop
owner Fionnula in an early episode of
Derry Girls, 2018-22). But the real revela-
tion is James Ellis as Norman: Ellis was
at this time a household name, thanks to
his role as the shrewd, kindly Bert Lynch
in over 600 episodes of Z Cars (1962-78);
so it came as a shock to see him play-
ing a domineering, menacing patriarch.
While he conveys brilliantly the sense of
violence poised around the character, he
(and Reid) also create the most moving
moments in the trilogy: the mingled ten-
derness and horror that overtake him
when one of his young daughters answers
his drunken, raging demand for a good-
night kiss by clasping his face tenderly
and planting her lips gently on the corner
of his mouth; his abject misery at his
wife’s deathbed, clasping desperately at
her cold hand; his clumsy attempt, as he
IMAGES: BFI NATIONAL ARCHIVE
sets off to England to work, to embrace
his son – which Billy fends off firmly. It’s a
miraculous piece of acting at the heart of
a drama that still, after 40 years, feels raw
and contemporary.

CASANOVA
Alexandre Volkoff; France 1927; Flicker Alley; region-
free Blu-ray; b&w; silent, with English, French or
Italian subtitles; 159 minutes; 1.33:1. Extras: Interview
with score composer Gunther A. Buchwald;
original promo materials; image gallery; booklet.
REVIEWED BY MICHAEL ATKINSON
EL MAR LA MAR
Here’s another neglected major work
Joshua Bonnetta and J.P. Sniadecki; US 2017; Second Run; Region B Blu-ray; 94 from Les Films Albatros, the fecund
minutes; 1:85:1. Extras: a new filmed appreciation by Gareth Evans; trailer; booklet. French production outfit established
in 1922 by relocated tsarist Russian
REVIEWED BY SOPHIA SATCHELL BAEZA filmmakers after the Bolsheviks gained
complete control of their country.
An artist and an anthropologist walk into the desert, but this is Relying on the mesmerising presence of
not the beginning of a joke. Joshua Bonnetta, a film and sound star Ivan Mosjoukine (the face used by
artist, and J.P. Sniadecki, a filmmaker-anthropologist, entered Russian filmmaker Lev Kuleshov in his
the Sonoran Desert, one of the most dangerous and unforgiving experiments with montage years earlier)
expanses of land in the world, on the heavily politicised border and the energy of director Alexandre
between Mexico and the US, to shoot this landscape essay Volkoff, the Albatros catalogue gleefully
film of spectral beauty. Newly released on Blu-ray in the UK by employed all manner of au courant Soviet
Second Run, El Mar La Mar (2017) drops you in the middle of experimentalism, German expressionism
a border crossing and leaves you to find your bearings. At first, and French cultural zest, and helped
there seems little to orient us: no single narrator or anchoring revitalise the French industry at a time
storyline to guide us across, with extensive voiceover testimonies when only Abel Gance and Marcel
delivered over black screens bearing no indexical link to the L’Herbier were taking reckless formal
person speaking. But soon, the cumulative effect of the visceral risks. Albatros also embraced genre and
oral histories along with the hand-processed 16mm footage of middlebrow melodrama, with the expats
lush desert fauna and relics of human tragedy becomes apparent becoming thoroughly Gallicised and
as a structuring principle. Under cover of darkness, we begin to hiring the likes of L’Herbier, Jacques
find our way around. Feyder, Jean Epstein and René Clair
The film is told in three chapters, with a poetic epilogue. Many to direct their movies. (Clair’s 1928 The
of the experiences on the edgelands of the desert are as mystical Italian Straw Hat remains the studio’s
as they are inexplicable. They tell of human and nonhuman most famous film.)
encounters, of strange sightings and horrible monsters, moments This edge-of-talkies film is at least
that tread the membranous borders between life and death. The the second shot at adapting the
real monsters are, of course, out there. In a sobering New York exploits of the 18th-century Venetian
Times report, journalist James Verini outlines how US federal sybarite Casanova, and one of the most
policy has “turned the Sonoran Desert into a graveyard for ambitious. Mosjoukine, lipsticked
migrants”. The most haunting visual images come from those up, decked out in Harlequin silks and
items left behind on the border crossing: degraded 16mm still indulging in zesty grandiloquence,
lifes of lost jackets, an abandoned mobile phone and a cracked may have had his perfect role here,
pair of glasses. The lunar landscape of the Sonoran Desert, with self-satirising his own reputation
its luminous dunes and whispering grasses, is rendered even while playing a helplessly solipsistic
more uncanny by the degraded film stock. (According to the mega-actor for whom the whole world,
same New York Times piece, Nasa used to train Apollo astronauts and its women, are a stage. The action
in the Sonoran Desert because it was the closest they could get runs from Venice (shot spectacularly
to a moonscape.) on location) to Austria to the Russian
El Mar La Mar is an unforgettable experience which invites boudoir of a smitten Catherine the
you both to lose yourself in an intimate encounter with stories Great (Suzanne Bianchetti) and an
of transcendence and to confront difficult questions about idiotic Peter III (Rudolf Klein-Rogge),
borders and the people who construct them. It asks you to sit in as various authority figures chase
the dark, listening to the desert wind and the crunching of sand him for various crimes and debts,
underfoot, and feel scared. Sniadecki is affiliated with Harvard’s and he steals the identity of a lingerie
Sensory Ethnography Lab, a laboratory promoting innovative merchant to royalty. Volkoff ’s film
experiments in ethnographic filmmaking; Bonnetta’s carefully manages to detour around sex (mostly)
crafted soundscapes were created partly by installing microphones and to make Casanova, famously a
on barbed wire and cacti to acutely capture the rumbles of the complete reprobate, a heroic fighter
desert and the buzz of radio transmissions. As Patrick Gamble for justice and victim of love; it elides
observes in an excellent essay accompanying the Blu-ray release: biography altogether in favour of being
“Listening to these disembodied voices in a darkened space leads a matinee hoot. Oddly for its scope and
to a different form of intimacy; allowing us the opportunity to budget, the movie is more orthodox,
attune our ears to these voices and better imagine the harrowing and less formally inventive, than the
experiences they’re recounting.” El Mar La Mar is a powerful other Albatross films, sticking to the
antidote to both the sensationalism of media portrayals of migrant straight-on needs of farce and costume
border crossings and the mirage-like frontier mythology of the pageantry. Which it does beautifully.
desert as a vast expanse of possibility.
Disc: Lovely, if a tiny bit decomposed,
DISC: The film looks beautiful: the blacks of night are inky and restoration from La Cinémathèque
the desert landscapes shimmer. Gamble’s excellent and wide- française. The booklet provides basic
ranging booklet essay helps situate the film in a wider political background and no more, and the
and cinematic context. supplements are minor.
145
THE DRIVER
Walter Hill; US 1978; StudioCanal; region-free
UHD/Region B Blu-ray; English SDH; 87
minutes; 1.85:1. Extras: new 15-minute ‘masterclass’
with Hill; new 30-minute interview with Hill;
alternative opening sequence; trailer; teasers.
REVIEWED BY ARJUN SAJIP
Having served as a second assistant
director on Peter Yates’s Bullitt (1968)
and scripted Sam Peckinpah’s The
Getaway (1972), Walter Hill was a choice
candidate to write and direct The Driver,
a taut, moody film about a professional
getaway driver (Ryan O’Neal) being
pursued through Los Angeles by a
crooked detective (Bruce Dern). Fine-
tuning several motifs and plot devices
from The Getaway – right down to the
feverish hunt for an attaché case full
of money on a moving train – Hill, in
charge of his own material for the first
time, created something distinctively
new. Too new, perhaps, for American
audiences and critics, who instantly
rejected it as somehow both too pulpy
DVD & BLU-RAY
and too pretentious for its own good.
The notion that an 87-minute
thriller structured around three
visceral car chases could be seen as
pretentious seems decidedly odd, so
perhaps ‘pretentious’ is best read as
code for ‘European’. Certainly, the
film is Bressonian in its editing and
formal efficiency; a large shadow is
cast by Jean-Pierre Melville’s quiet,
conscientious professional criminals;
and an inscrutable Isabelle Adjani plays
an enigmatic cipher. But The Driver
is thoroughly American, and not just
because of its motor madness: it feels
like a western with a neo-noir aesthetic,
haunted by the nighthawk spirit of
Edward Hopper.
Though the car chases, which
comprise nearly a fifth of the running
time, are key to the film’s appeal, the
characterisation – derided by critics at
the time – is as striking as it is stripped
back. Charles Bronson and Steve
McQueen turned down the lead role,
and good thing, too: it’s hard to imagine
them bringing more than hard-edged
cool to a film already full of it. With
his puppy-dog eyes and expressive
brow, O’Neal, the crucial ghost in the
machine, wordlessly projects a plaintive
vulnerability from behind cold, hard
bodywork.
Even if Hill’s own influences are easy
to detect, The Driver itself hasn’t so much
influenced certain films as kept them
in its slipstream – most prominently
Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive (2011)
and Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver (2017).
Nearly 45 years since The Driver, few
other films have been as arresting in
extolling the art of the wheel.
Disc: The only upgrade from
StudioCanal’s 2014 Blu-ray release is
45 minutes of discussion with Hill.
 146
THE TRIAL
Orson Welles; France/Germany 1962; StudioCanal;
UHD, Blu-ray, DVD and digital; b&w; Certificate
PG; 119 minutes; 1.66:1. Extras: interview with
Edmond Richard, Welles – Architect of Light;
interview with Steven Berkoff; documentary
This Is Orson Welles; deleted scene; trailers.
THE GUILTY REVIEWED BY PHILIP KEMP
HIGH TIDE
Orson Welles’s adaptation of Franz
John Reinhardt; US 1947; Flicker Alley; region-free Blu-ray/DVD
Kafka’s 1925 classic of paranoia, Der
dual format, 2 discs; b&w; English SDH; 71/72 minutes; 1.33:1. Extras: Prozess, has long divided the critics. For
introduction by Eddie Muller; commentaries by film historians Jake Hinkson Peter Cowie it was the director’s “finest
(The Guilty), Alan K. Rode (High Tide); features on Reinhardt, producer
Jack Wrather, writer Cornell Woolrich and actor Lee Tracy; booklet.
film since Kane” and a perfect translation
to the screen of Kafka’s “terrifying vision
REVIEWED BY ROBERT HANKS of the modern world”. Charles Higham,
along with most American critics, found
The claim on the sleeve that this release represents “the it “muffled, dull, and unexciting on every
return of two lost noir classics” is, frankly, pushing it; level”, and for Andrew Sarris it was “the
but Flicker Alley’s package, with its enriching context, most hateful, the most repellent, and the
is still deeply satisfying for fans of the genre. Both films most perverted film Welles ever made”.
were produced by Jack Wrather, a Texas oilman, partly Welles himself, in 1965, called it “the best
as a showcase for his actor friend Don Castle; John film I have ever made”.
Reinhardt, an Austrian exile whose career didn’t live up Welles follows the outline of Kafka’s
to his abilities, was hired as director, with Henry Sharpe plot fairly closely, while elaborating and
as cinematographer – he’d once been Douglas Fairbanks’ expanding on it. A respectable office
DVD & BLU-RAY
cameraman of choice, and more recently had made Ministry worker, Josef K (Anthony Perkins), is
of Fear (1943) with Fritz Lang. Both films were distributed awakened one morning by men entering
by Monogram, the Poverty Row outfit to which Godard his room who claim to be police officers
dedicated À bout de souffle (1960). and tell him he’s under arrest – but refuse
The Guilty started life as a pulp-magazine short story to say what for. From here on K struggles
by Cornell Woolrich, narrated by a man who suspects with the impenetrable labyrinth of the
his roommate has murdered his own girlfriend. The Law, not only getting no answers but
film gives the girlfriend a sluttier twin – both played by never even discovering who he should
Bonita Granville, once a child star, more recently the put his questions to. The film, as Welles
plucky heroine of the Nancy Drew films – and adds a says in his spoken introduction, has “the
somewhat contrived but very noir twist. In a shrewd audio logic of a nightmare”.
commentary, Jake Hinkson draws a distinction between the The movie was shot in Zagreb,
noir of Woolrich and the hardboiled style of Hammett or Rome and Paris; in Paris, Welles made
Chandler, suggesting that hardboiled is about toughness, masterly use of the then disused Gare
noir about weakness. As the narrator figure, Castle, a d’Orsay (now the Musée d’Orsay) on
leaner version of Clark Gable, blends the two modes nicely. the Left Bank, with its grim vistas of
The atmosphere of urban cheapness, of life maybe a couple internal glass, crude iron stairways
of steps from the gutter, is convincingly done, too. Still, the and interminable corridors adding to
plot doesn’t cohere and the echoes of more successful films K’s sense of alienation. Settings are
are too loud for it to be really convincing. juxtaposed in defiance of all logic,
High Tide is a slicker, more entertaining product, leaning less locations than dislocations.
towards the hardboiled end of things. The source this time Jean Ledrut’s edgy jazz-based score
is a story by Raoul Whitfield – best pals with Hammett, periodically cedes to the melancholy of
and it shows. This time, Castle is a former reporter turned the pseudo-Albinoni ‘Adagio’. Perkins,
private eye, brought in to act as protection and investigator just post-Psycho (1960), is ideally cast as
for his old editor, who’s up against the mob; among the K, his nervous indignation undermined
complications are Castle’s not quite past romance with by increasingly bemused guilt; Welles
the wife of the paper’s proprietor. The editor is played himself deploys ironic gravitas in
by Lee Tracy, who more or less invented the image of the the role of the ominously influential
fast-talking, hardbitten newsman in the original Broadway Advocate; while Jeanne Moreau, Romy
run of The Front Page, in which he created the role of Hildy Schneider and Elsa Martinelli enrich
Johnson, and in a series of pre-Code films. Again, the plot the story with a teasing eroticism largely
won’t stand a lot of scrutiny, but Tracy is terrific and Castle absent from the original.
makes a good foil as the cynical, attractive kind-of hero.
Disc: The 4K restoration effects a
Disc: Nice restorations, but it’s the bonus features that great improvement, in both sound and
make the disc, setting out the way the films fit into visuals, over previous releases, with the
the wider genre of noir and into a network of personal baroque angles and ominous lighting
relationships: Granville and Wrather married, with Castle of director of photography Edmond
as best man, and seem to have lived happily ever after, with Richard’s camerawork gaining their full
Wrather diversifying very successfully into TV, hotels and impact. Among the substantial extras:
Republican politics. Castle was brought in on some of his a six-minute deleted scene with Katina
deals, so he didn’t lack money, but his acting career never Paxinou (dialogue subtitled only).
took off and he slid into alcoholism. Imogen Sara Smith’s
appreciation of Tracy is particularly fine.
COME BACK LUCY
Paul Harrison; UK 1978; Network; Region 2 DVD,
2 discs; English SDH; Certificate PG; 1.33:1.
Extras: Coming Back – interviews with Harrison,
actor François Evans, writers Gail Renard and
Colin Shindler; Through the Mirror – appreciation of
Pamela Sykes’s novel; titles from German broadcast.
REVIEWED BY ROBERT HANKS
Pamela Sykes’s 1973 novel is another
entry in the timeslip subgenre of
English children’s fantasy, in which
either a present-day protagonist slips
into the past or the dead slip into
the present – see also Tom’s Midnight
Garden (1958), Stig of the Dump (1963)
and Moondial (1987), all turned into
TV series. Come Back Lucy does offer a
couple of interesting twists, though.
The first is that Lucy herself, the
child of the present, is detached from
the modern world: an orphan, she has
been educated at home by an elderly
aunt; when the aunt dies and distant
cousins take her in, she is at sea in their
noisy household (in the accompanying
featurette, co-writer Colin Shindler
talks about how he ramped up the
family’s leftist bohemianism). Retreating
to the attic of their Victorian house,
Lucy meets a girl of her own age, Alice,
who lived a century earlier; she makes
excursions back to Alice’s time, feeling
more at home there, until Alice becomes
more demanding.
In this six-part ATV serialisation,
the script is untidy, the visual effects
primitive – though the eeriness of the
title sequence just about survives: we
see from behind Lucy look at herself
in a mirror; the reflection walks away,
and Lucy turns to look at the viewer,
revealing a head of hair with no face
inside. I’d guess that sequence is one
reason the serial sticks in viewers’ minds;
others might include the solemnity of
Emma Bakhle’s Lucy and the uncanny
intensity of Bernadette Windsor’s
Alice – her performance makes more
sense when you realise that she was not
a child but a small adult. Phyllida Law
and Royce Mills are excellent as Lucy’s
loving, semi-comic foster-parents.
Disc: A decent transfer, but the
combination of film for location
shooting and indoor video is rarely
pretty. The accompanying interviews
are interesting.

LOST AND FOUND
Robert Wise, US 1944
BY KIM NEWMAN
THE PRUSSIANS ARE COMING
Simone Simon as Elisabeth Rousset
and Kurt Kreuger as Lt von
Eyrick, aka ‘Mademoiselle Fifi’
IMAGE: RKO/KOBAL/SHUT TERSTOCK
Mademoiselle Fifi
Alongside the low-budget RKO horror films for which he
is best remembered, Val Lewton oversaw Robert Wise’s
stirring 1944 tale of resistance, starring Simone Simon
Between 1942 and 1946, producer Val
Lewton headed a unit at RKO charged
with making inexpensive horror films. It’s
always been a mistake to label Lewton’s
output B pictures. With a few excep-
tions, such as The Hunchback of Notre
Dame (1939) or Citizen Kane (1941), RKO’s
movies weren’t budgeted as healthily as
the average MGM or Paramount pres-
tige item. Though they were genre films
turned out for the market that embraced
Universal monster movies, Lewton’s hor-
rors benefited from more cash, care and
attention than actual B pictures made by
Monogram or PRC, home to threadbare
schlock like The Mad Monster (1942), Voodoo
Man (1944) or The Face of Marble (1946).
Lewton’s first production was Jacques
Tourneur’s Cat People (1942), a box-office
hit which attracted immediate critical
acclaim. Lewton’s lasting reputation rests
on the nine horror or horror-adjacent
movies he made with directors Tourneur,
Mark Robson and Robert Wise. Ever
since Carlos Clarens’ pioneering An
Illustrated History of the Horror Film (1967),
which had a chapter on Lewton, these
have been seen as a highlight of 1940s
horror. Book-length studies have been
published, beginning with Joel E. Siegel’s
Val Lewton: The Reality of Terror (1972); I
wrote the BFI Film Classics monograph
on Cat People. They’ve also been revived
often and reissued on various formats,
either separately or in box-sets. The
‘Lewton nine’ – even Robson’s The Ghost
Ship (1943), unavailable for decades after
a nuisance plagiarism suit – are already
well known.
But the unit made eleven films.
The first cycle of Lewton produc-
tions concentrates on supernatural or
sinister business in the present day and
runs from Cat People to The Curse of the
Cat People (1944), followed by a trilogy of
period piece melodramas starring Boris
Karloff: The Body Snatcher (1945), Isle of the
Dead (1945) and Bedlam (1946). Between
these, Lewton persuaded RKO to let
him branch out from horror – pitching
subjects that interested him but that
could be promoted as topical items. As
it happens, neither found favour with
audiences. Lewton had a knack of seem-
ing to play the studio game, then not
telling people what they wanted to hear.
Robson’s Youth Runs Wild (1944) is about
home-front kids slipping into juvenile
delinquency while the grown-ups are at
war. The studio that let Lewton get away
with censor-baiting gruesomeness, sexual
themes and high-flown poetic fatalism
in such extraordinary works as I Walked
with a Zombie (1943) and The Seventh Victim
(1943) took umbrage at its explicit criti-
cism of America and imposed cuts and
alterations that severely compromised
the film. It is, by some measure, the least
of the Lewtons.
The other film in this time-out from
terror is Robert Wise’s Mademoiselle Fifi
(1944). The first Lewton production with
a historical setting, it re-dresses Hunchback
of Notre Dame sets and delights in fixtures,
costumes and period tit-bits. A caption
underlines contemporary parallels: “1870
The Franco-Prussian War. Then as in our
own time there was Occupied and Unoc-
cupied Territory.” Pulp novelist Peter
Ruric (who wrote Edgar G. Ulmer’s The
Black Cat, 1934) and Josef Mischel stitch
together two of “the patriotic stories of
Guy de Maupassant”, ‘Boule de Suif ’
(acknowledged model for Stagecoach, 1939)
and ‘Mademoiselle Fifi’. Given the star
presence of Simone Simon, more kitten-
ish and steely than in her Cat People turns,
audiences tended to assume she was play-
ing the mademoiselle. ‘Fifi’ is actually a
nickname for Prussian Lieutenant von
147
Eyrick (Kurt Kreuger), who is given to
using the expression fi fi donc. Simon plays
Elisabeth Rousset, a ‘little laundress’ (as
much a euphemism as Claire Trevor’s
‘dance-hall girl’ in Stagecoach) despised
for her low status by bourgeois and aris-
tocratic fellow-travellers in a snowbound
coach from Rouen to Dieppe. Lewton
loved character actors: Alan Napier, Jason
Robards Sr, Fay Helm, John Emery and
others get to contribute vivid studies in
polite or venomous hypocrisy.
The film’s alternative title The Silent Bell
refers to the church in Elisabeth’s home
town of Cleresville, where the bell hasn’t
rung since the Germans occupied. A new
priest is due and von Eyrick hopes to pres-
sure him into breaking the silence. Rather
than taking direct action himself, his
preferred tactic is to make the occupied
DVD & BLU-RAY
populace humiliate themselves. On the
coach, the well-prepared, humble young
woman shares her food hamper with the
other passengers, who are forced to mod-
erate their disdain for her. At a stopover,
von Eyrick refuses to let the coach move
on unless Elisabeth dines with him in
a private room. She resists and is sup-
ported by the worthies… but days pass
and the other passengers get irritated
with her inconvenient patriotism. Fifi is
a Nazi substitute baddie – Kreuger had
just had a row with the studio over being
typecast as Nazis and this must have been
a bittersweet compensation gig – but the
story spotlights resistance all the better to
show up the self-serving, complacent go-
along-with-the-occupiers attitudes of the
others, who aren’t exactly collaborators in
the 1944 sense but are only patriots when
there is no inconvenience or risk. When
Elisabeth gives in, the coach moves on
but now she is despised even more as a
slut – it’s established in a sop to the censor
that she hasn’t slept with Fifi – and a
living reminder of the others’ gutlessness.
Lewton and Wise go further than John
Ford in Stagecoach: it’s not just the bour-
geoisie who sell out, since when she gets
home Elisabeth finds all the other girls in
the laundry happy to put on gowns and
be willing guests of the German officers
at the local chateau.
Reluctantly joining the party, Elisa-
beth finally gives the bell cause to ring in
a moment which – unsurprisingly given
Lewton’s role in perfecting the jump scare
– still manages to shock, as the laundress
reacts to the German’s overbearing grop-
ing and cynical contempt for a conquered
people by sticking a breadknife in his chest.
 148
New Swiss cinema
WIDER SCREEN
A new generation of filmmakers is helping to overhaul
reductive stereotypes about Switzerland, delighting
in subverting assumptions and reconfiguring ideas
of place in eccentric and often challenging ways
BY CARMEN GRAY
One of the best-known visions of Switz-
erland, Thomas Mann’s early 20th-cen-
tury German classic The Magic Mountain,
portrays an absurdist, mysticism-tinged
world in which time flows differently in
the feverish perceptions of the chroni-
cally ill residents of a remote Alpine
sanatorium, as down below forces
gather for war. Latterly, the Swiss have
been regarded as a people of confound-
ing ways, able to run with oiled precision
an isolationist outpost smack-bang in
the heart of Europe; a reductive stereo-
type that is now being dismantled and
recast from within by a new generation
of filmmakers.
The decentred nature of Switzerland,
a confederation of cantons with four offi-
cial languages (German, French, Italian,
and Romansh), has produced a cinema
over the years that is difficult to reduce
to monolithic defining traits. But, from
a country generally better known for its
documentary filmmaking, it’s been excit-
ing to see a crop of surprisingly fresh fic-
tion features at festivals this year – Cyril
Schäublin’s Unrest, Michael Koch’s A
Piece of Sky and Carmen Jaquier’s Thun-
der – that draw on documentary ele-
ments in the form of non-professional
actors, historical texts and ethnographic
research, only to then subvert dominant
capitalist and patriarchal norms of power,
and reframe history through acts of radi-
cal imagination.
These directors join other highly
original Swiss f ilmmakers such as
Ramon and Silvan Zürcher, whose
Berlinale-awarded The Girl and the Spider
(2021) was an uncanny, physics-defying
defamiliarisation of domestic space;
and Valentin Merz, whose inventive
genre-bending debut De noche los gatos son
pardos, in which a libertine porn shoot
in the woods is disrupted when the
director disappears, was the talk of this
year’s Locarno (Merz also plays a factory
director in Unrest). These directors too
delight in subverting assumptions and
reconfiguring ideas of place in eccentric
and often challenging ways.
“It’s always better to start with a cliché
than to end with one,” declares Schäublin,
citing an exchange between Hitchcock
and Truffaut. The idea is almost a modus
operandi for the Swiss-German director,
who places stereotypical symbols of Swiss
prestige front and centre of his films, only
to deconstruct them and thereby ques-
tion what Switzerland really means as
a place. Following Those Who Are Fine
(2017), about money-making schemes in
the banking capital Zurich, his second
feature, Unrest, is set in and around a fac-
tory for watches, those emblems of Swiss
precision, in the Jura mountains.
“My wish was to unmask and disman-
tle the concept of a nation and national
identity,” explains Schäublin, who comes
from a family of watch-makers and drew
on the memories of his relatives for
Unrest, widely praised on its Berlinale
premiere for its highly idiosyncratic take
on period drama. The film is set in 1877,
when the Jura was a centre for both mass
production of watches and the global
anarchist movement, at the same time
as the Swiss nation state was emerging.
Switzerland had become a safe haven
for European revolutionaries in exile
from monarchist regimes. When Pyotr
Kropotkin (Alexei Evstratov), a Russian
leftist thinker and cartographer, arrives
in Jura, his contact with anarchist watch-
maker unions influences him to advocate
anarcho-communism.
Schäublin compares the construction
of a narrative to the building of a clock,
since both involve ordering a series of
events. The crucial question, he says, is
“who gets to put it together” and deter-
mine what is chosen for inclusion. Unrest
uses wide shots to decentre individuals
and to acknowledge, in a true anti-author-
itarian spirit, that co-operative group alle-
giances are determining forces of history.
Schäublin also ensured that Kropotkin
was not the only reference point for anar-
chism’s story, reincorporating women
who had been sidelined from official
history and prevented from having a say
in the organisational model of a Switzer-
land “built by privileged men”.
Intellectual sparks fly between the
real-life figure of Kropotkin and union
member Josephine (played by architect
Clara Gostynski), who is in charge of
making the ‘unrest’ balance wheel at
the watch’s heart. Unions were the only
sources of health insurance for unmar-
ried women in Jura factories. In spite of
feminist stirrings within the anarchist
movement, little is recorded about the
lives of the Jura’s working-class women,
Schäublin tells me, “We couldn’t recon-
struct their biographies, but we could
reconstruct their work.”
IMAGES: A PIECE OF THE SKY: HUGOFILM FEATURES; UNREST: SEELAND FILMPRODUKTION

Unrest was also influenced by the writ-
ings of French philosopher, activist and
mystic Simone Weil, who worked in
a steel factory in the 1920s and under-
stood that machines set out a cadence
that demands the same of everybody
despite their differences. We hear the
incessant ticking of industrial timekeep-
ing over the breathing of factory work-
ers. The rhythms of the watch factory
were inscribed so deeply in the psyches
of Schäublin’s long-retired relatives that
they still have nightmares about screws
not fitting. “In Switzerland and in all the
places industrialisation happened, we
have this distance between our bodies
and the clocks or machines we need to
adjust to. It’s tragic and funny because
we’re not robots, we’re humans.”
The struggle of ideas in Unrest stands
in contrast to the valley’s picturesque,
almost benign, appearance. Such con-
tradiction is at the heart of the velvet-
gloved exercise of control in Switzerland,
according to Schäublin, whose relatives
spoke of the former factory owner as if
he were a kindly benefactor. “This caring
oppression is a very Swiss concept,” he
said. “It’s smooth but, for me, very violent
in the end.”
The management of violence and
veiled urges is also at the heart of both
the Swiss-German film A Piece of Sky,
awarded a special mention at this year’s
Berlinale, and the Swiss-French Thunder,
which premiered in Toronto. And in both
films, characters in remote Alpine farm-
ing settlements grapple with an aware-
ness that they are powerless in the face of
the brutal unpredictability of nature.
In A Piece of Sky – which, unlike Unrest
IMAGE: CLOSE UP FILMS
or Thunder, has a more or less contempo-
rary setting – newly-weds Anna (Michèle
Brand) and Marco (Simon Wisler) are
hit by crisis and scandal when a brain
tumour leaves Marco dangerously
unable to regulate his impulses. He is
a lowlander, an outsider, and has never
been fully accepted by the locals; as his
deteriorating condition alienates him fur-
ther, loyalty and betrayal become impos-
sibly complicated notions for Anna, who
adopts a stoical approach in her decision
not to leave him totally alone in his final
days, even though he has caused her tre-
mendous hurt.
After conducting research in the
canton of Uri, director Michael Koch
decided to cast a number of locals, who
had not previously acted. “The people
there don’t talk a lot, but you can gain
some idea of how they feel in their
bodies and faces,” he said. “My interest,
in the end, became ethnographic, and
they are the core of the film.” Village
routines revolve around physical labour
and the season’s cycles, a rhythm offset
by Marco’s stark decline toward death,
his large body frail despite its apparent
strength. “The audience has the oppor-
tunity to experience this cycle, as several
years pass, and it’s the one thing that lasts
in the end. As a new spring comes, the
rocks are still there witnessing the story,
and it goes on, despite Marco having
just a moment on Earth.” Koch mixed
his documentary approach with highly
stylised elements, including a choir that
functions like a narrator or the chorus of
a Greek tragedy.
Thunder, Carmen Jaquier’s intense,
haunting debut feature, was inspired
by a short news item about a couple
who set themselves alight in a suburb of
Berlin. The film that emerged, however,
explores repression and explosive acts in
19th-century Switzerland through a lens
of female mysticism prevalent at the time.
Jaquier drew on the diaries of her great-
grandmother and conversations with
149
It’s been exciting other elderly women about pre-indus-
trialised times in the south-west Valais
to see a crop canton, where there is still a strong con-
of surprisingly nection to the environment. “There is,
WIDER SCREEN
fresh Swiss for sure, intensive production with farms
there, but people also know they are not
fiction features controlling nature and need to listen to
at festivals it,” Jaquier says. Mysticism thus became
this year: Cyril “a question of survival”, because of the
inherent danger of living close to steep
Schäublin’s slopes and water. “It is always connected
Unrest, Michael with death, and deadly landscapes.”
Koch’s A Piece of In 1900, Elisabeth (Lilith Grasmug), a
17-year-old nun, returns to her village in a
Sky and Carmen mountain valley to assist with farmwork
Jaquier’s after the mysterious death of her older
Thunder sister, Innocente, whose rumoured sexual
escapades led the clergy to believe she
was in league with the Devil. Elisabeth
discovers in Innocente’s diary a rapturous
vision of religion incorporating devotion
to physical desire. Her sister believed that
God had made her as a being of blood
and lust – a travesty in the eyes of patri-
archal authorities and their fear-based
control of women’s bodies. Her animis-
tic, sensual imaginings fill the landscape
with an erotic charge; she sees herself as
a shape-shifter able to fuse with the river
and mountains.
“I realised through my great-grand-
mother’s diaries that she was a super-cre-
ative and sensual woman, and probably
very alone,” Jaquier says. “She is not there
any more, so I could only make projec-
tions. The fiction starts from this point,
when you have a lot of questions but no
answers. I can imagine this as my origin,
even if it’s not exact. If we can rewrite
OPPOSITE, TOP
our histories, we can also think differ-
Michèle Brand in A Piece of Sky ently today.”
ABOVE
Indeed, if an essence of new Swiss
Carmen Jaquier’s Thunder cinema is to be found, it may be in defin-
OPPOSITE
ing entirely new ways to be Swiss, devoid
Cyril Schäublin’s Unrest of the usual clichés.
150
Pier Paolo
Pasolini: Writing
on Burning Paper
EDITED BY GIOVANNI MARCHINI CAMIA
& ANNABEL BRADY-BROWN
PUBLISHER FIREFLIES PRESS
ISBN 9780645454727
BOOKS
PAGES 160 (PLUS 40-PAGE BOOKLET)
REVIEWED BY JOHN DAVID RHODES
Pier Paolo Pasolini is not a filmmaker
who I tend to think of as having exerted
a clearly identified stylistic influence on
subsequent practitioners in the manner,
for instance, of someone like Fellini. To
invoke the ‘Pasolinian’ summons an image
of Pasolini’s world – of subproletarian
swindlers, pimps, ne’er do wells and rough
trade – more than it names a tradition or
genealogy of stylistic affiliation. Pasolini
names less a style and more a set of iden-
tifiable contents and commitments. His
own style is brusque, even brutal. Each
film feels like someone is trying to figure
out how to make a film for the first time.
In a typically gnomic essay on his working
methods entitled ‘Technical Confessions’,
Pasolini writes that he “simplified to the
maximum” cinema’s “objective simplicity”
– by which he intends the crudeness of its
means of expression when compared to
the other arts. Pasolini declared himself
“inexpert in cinema”. But it is precisely his
rough handling of film form that results in
a “frontality” that discovers or reveals the
“sacrality” of the world. Instead of sacral-
ity, we might prefer other terms: alterity,
or mystery, or autonomy. In any case, sty-
listically, this purposeful naivety that tran-
scends naievety does not indicate a path
many filmmakers may be likely to follow.
Pasolini is, in many ways – for better or
worse – more idea than reality. At times
he seems nothing more than the Che
Guevara of Italian film history, or Italian
left politics more broadly. But he is an
awkward poster boy. A life-long Marxist,
he was expelled by the Italian Commu-
nist Party in 1949, but his memorial ser-
vice in 1975 was organised by the party’s
Youth Federation.
One of the exquisite ironies of Paso-
lini’s life is that the year of his birth, 1922,
was also the year of Italian Fascism’s rise
to official political power and control of
the Italian state. This year marks the hun-
dredth anniversary of both events. While
Fascism’s centenary has been marked by
the return to political power in Italy of
real live fascists, Pasolini’s has been cel-
ebrated by dozens of symposia, confer-
ences, exhibitions and publications.
Perhaps the most beautifully produced
of the many tributes made to Pasolini in
his centenary year is the book Pier Paolo
Pasolini: Writing on Burning Paper, edited
by Giovanni Marchini Camia and
Annabel Brady-Brown and published
by Fireflies Press, a small publishing
house focused on experimental and art
cinema that they founded in 2014. The
press derives its name, in fact, from an
essay Pasolini wrote in 1975 about the
eerie disappearance of fireflies from the
Italian countryside – a sign, presciently
observed, of the damage wrought on the
natural world by capitalism.
In order to “pay meaningful tribute” to
Pasolini, the editors asked 20 filmmakers
to respond, in whatever way they wanted,
to his legacy in order “to probe his influ-
ence vis-à-vis cinema today”. This propo-
sition could have resulted in a banality,
but, instead, the editors and the filmmak-
ers to whom they extended this open-
ended invitation, including Jia Zhangke
and Mike Leigh, have produced a jewel
of cinephilic thinking and reflection.
The way the influence unfolds across
the collection bears out the productive
difficulty of pinning down exactly what
it is that Pasolini offers to filmmakers
who came and continue to come in his
wake. Catherine Breillat’s essay is one of
the longest and most revealingly gener-
ous in the book. She writes that Pasolini
first appeared to her not via his films.
Instead, she writes that, long before she
had decided to become a filmmaker, it
was “the poster for Accattone that first made
me dream”. The poster, as Breillat remem-
bers it, featured “the boy with a face as
if carved with a billhook”. (This would
be the face of Franco Citti as the film’s
eponymous protagonist.) Her love affair
with Pasolini was, however, not straight-
forward – as should be expected with a
figure and a body of work as hardheaded
and flagrantly frustrating as Pasolini’s. She
writes of refusing to see Salò, then being
made to watch it (on VHS!) in 2000 by a
“very young boy, marvellous and dandy”:
“I found it magisterial! I couldn’t stand it:
I regretted having seen this terrible film.”
Her ambivalent refusal turned to
homage, however, in her film Anatomy of
Hell (2004), which signifies her debt to
Pasolini (and to Marguerite Duras). This
brief and moving history of not watching
and then watching, of not liking and then
ABOVE
Pier Paolo Pasolini’s
loving Salò concludes with this exhorta-
tion: “It is not strictly necessary for a
Salò, or the 120 Days
of Sodom (1975) masterpiece to be seen. It is absolutely
essential that it should EXIST outside
of ordinary commerce. And that it should
wait for us until our day arrives.”
Other contributions reveal less direct
and lifelong relationships with Pasolini,
but most – or at least the most compel-
ling ones – demonstrate the generative
ambivalence Pasolini inspires. Radu
Jude, the Romanian filmmaker, captures
this feeling succinctly: “…that I don’t
agree with everything that Pasolini wrote
or filmed doesn’t mean I devalue his
This book work. In a way it’s the opposite. I prefer
is perhaps artists who are not always right, where
you can see their mind struggling, trying
the most to understand the world and to express
beautifully it.” That is what Anocha Suwichakorn-
produced of the pong’s delightful, fiercely political essay
offers in its neorealist narration of going
many tributes to a screening of The Gospel According to St.
made to Matthew (1964) and being the only spec-
Pasolini in his tator, apart from an old man who, she
realises when the film is over, has died
centenary year during the projection.
Each entry offers something valu-
able. Memorable among these are Ben
Rivers’ exquisite ink-wash drawings of
several key faces and bodies that appear
in Pasolini’s oeuvre. The book itself is
lovely to hold and behold as an object. It
is printed on thick paper, bound in a plain
red board cover and feels like something
from another time, which is fitting for an
artist who saw himself as a “force from
the past”. The book is accompanied by
a second, slim volume that slides inside
its host: a revised translation, by Stephen
Sartarelli, of Pasolini’s autobiographical
“unpoetic” poem ‘Poet of Ashes’. Pier Paolo
Pasolini: Writing on Burning Paper is the
IMAGE: BFI NATIONAL ARCHIVE
best thing I’ve seen issue from the cen-
tenary goings-on. It confirmed my own
sense in having been right in committing
so much of my life to grappling with Paso-
lini’s exasperating and inspiring example.

Barry’s Anthony’s latest book on his special-
ist subject of British music hall and its per-
formers is a very welcome and long-awaited
biography of Fred Evans, aka Pimple, one
of my favourite comedians in my special-
ist subject of early British film. The most
remarkable feature of this home-grown
comic, as the publisher’s blurb states, is that
he was, in 1915, voted second only in popu-
larity to Charles Chaplin by British readers
of Picturegoer magazine. Fred Evans made
more than 200 films with his brother Joe,
ran his own film company and toured exten-
sively around the country supporting his
Pimple’s Progress: films, but by 1921, just as Chaplin returned
to London from Hollywood to a hero’s wel-
Fred Evans, Britain’s come, Evans was bankrupt, pursued not by
First Comedy Star admiring fans but by clamouring creditors.
The author chronicles this trajectory, fill-
ing in the background of the Evans family,
AUTHOR BARRY ANTHONY
PUBLISHER MCFARLAND who were, like the Chaplins, a dynasty of
PAGES 208 circus, pantomime and music hall perform-
ISBN 9781476688312
ers, changing their acts to suit public tastes
REVIEWED BY BRYONY DIXON and developments in pantomime, stage
variety and the new medium of film.
Evans’ on-screen persona, Pimple, was,
like Chaplin’s Tramp, a down-at-heel clown
and opportunist, but he found his niche in
lampoons of popular culture rather than in
physical comedy. The Evans brothers made
a virtue of the cheapness of their produc-
tions, and their satirical humour, which we
can discern from the handful of surviving
This trippy fantasia is a diagnostic of American consumerism, cloaked in the shimmering form of a fairytale
THROUGH THE BILLBOARD PROMISED LAND WITHOUT EVER STOPPING
“Owing to lack of interest, tomorrow has
been cancelled.” So wails the depressed
Pierrot as he circles a walled garden of
Escher-esque strawberry beds in Derek
Jarman’s only prose fiction. Published for
the first time, by Jess Chandler and Gareth
Evans’s House Sparrow Press, Through
the Billboard Promised Land Without Ever
Stopping (1971) is a slim, surreal fable that
crackles with electric one-liners and marvel-
lous tableaux like this one. It also, at times,
feels uncannily familiar. Where have I heard
that line before? In Declan Wiffen’s rich
afterword, he points to Jarman’s tendency
Through the Billboard to reuse material in different works. As it
turns out, that line, already borrowed from
Promised Land without the title to a 1969 book by Irene Kampen,
Ever Stopping reappeared in Jarman’s apocalyptic state-
of-the-nation feature The Last of England
(1987). That film saw Jarman identifying a
AUTHOR DEREK JARMAN
PUBLISHER HOUSE SPARROW PRESS profound sickness at the heart of Thatcher’s
PAGES 120 England; here, his trippy fantasia is a diag-
ISBN 9781913513320
nostic of American consumerism, cloaked
REVIEWED BY SOPHIA SATCHELL BAEZA in the shimmering form of a fairytale.
Part of the pleasure of reading Jarman’s
story lies in unpicking the ragbag of refer-
ences to later work, but it is also its own
discrete universe, opening a “portal into
Jarmanworld”, as Philip Hoare puts it in his
excellent foreword. Jarman’s psychedelic
vision of America is at once recognisable
and deeply strange: electric pylons coated
in gold leaf, a swimming pool filled with
Vichy water, and a great Superhighway lit
151
films, has a very English flavour, more remi-
niscent of anarchic TV comedy by the likes
of Monty Python and The Goodies than of
the well-resourced Hollywood comedians
of the mid-1910s. From their studio on Eel
Pie Island in the Thames, the Evans boys
churned out spoofs of famous novels (such
as Elinor Glyn’s 1907 Three Weeks), famous
plays (such as the equestrian spectacular
The Whip) and of the new ‘feature’ films
such as British and Colonial’s The Battle of
Waterloo (1913) .
They also produced a host of situational
comedy shorts, made weekly on an abso-
lute shoestring. Anthony’s book is par-
ticularly strong in creating a sense of the
working environment for filmmakers and
touring stage performers in Britain in these
years – how much the landladies charged
for digs, how the war affected the economy,
how investment depended too heavily on
family connections. He tells a cautionary
tale in intensively researched detail. Far
from the happy endings peddled by the
Hollywood machine, most people’s careers
in the entertainment business, at that time
and probably since, are more like Pimple’s
than Charlie’s.
If you are curious to understand the
scale of the divergence of the British and
American film comedy industries in the
1910s, this meticulous and well-illustrated
account is a great place to start.
BOOKS
by sodium lamps. From its pink neon trees
to its silver lawns, Jarman’s road-movie
landscapes are tinged in a lysergic palette
not unlike his Super 8 films, such as 1971’s
A Journey to Avebury. (You can also listen to
Jarman read his story; the recording from
which it was transcribed can be heard in
full on Soundcloud or purchased on lim-
ited-edition cassette tape by purge.xxx.)
Jarman’s relationship with America was
clearly ambiguous. While he critiques its
rampant consumerism and surface-level
seductions, he is clearly taken in by its pop
culture, not least the swooning decadence
of Movietown, a stand-in for Hollywood,
and the mythic frontier iconography of the
vast desert and the open road. Much like
the feverish filmic writing of underground
filmmaker Jack Smith, Jarman delights in
the camp subversion of Hollywood glam-
our; there are echoes, for example, of the
Busby Berkeley formation to his descrip-
tion of “four silver dancing girls, automata
of a perfection beyond description”. His
characters are archetypes drawn as much
from the movies as from myth: the blind
King and valet who pretend to be beggars
on a hero’s quest with no endpoint, and the
cruel Yellow Empress of Movietown, pre-
siding over a court of fawning subs. This
all makes for propulsive reading, taking us
forward on a “journey with no destination”,
but one headed ultimately towards human-
made destruction.
152
FROM THE ARCHIVE
‘I’M FASCINATED.
BY OUR HISTORY’
As Martin Scorsese, who turned 80 in November, signs on to reimagine his 2002 film Gangs of New York as a
television series, it’s a good moment to revisit our discussion with the director about the original epic enterprise
Herbert Asbury (1891-1963) was a
journalist and pioneer historian of
low life, whose The Gangs of New York,
subtitled An Informal History of the Under-
world, first appeared in 1928. Scorsese
read it in 1970 and was immediately
entranced by the teeming life of the
Old Brewery, a seething tenement near
the Five Points which housed many
of the early gangsters who swagger
through Asbury’s pages. Scorsese and
his first co-writer Jay Cocks took Bill
the Butcher as their main historical
protagonist, surrounding him with a
gallery of invented characters and the
fearsome, exotically named mobs who
were these first New York gangs.
Comparisons will eventually be made
with Scorsese’s other images of New
York – from the belle epoque of The Age
of Innocence (1993) to the apocalyptic
Bringing out the Dead (1999) via the clas-
sics Mean Streets (1973) and Taxi Driver
(1976). Both the two last, he also noted
during the interview, faced even greater
production and budget problems.
For now, though, there is the bloody,
atavistic yet ultimately affirmative world
of Gangs. As Vic Armstrong, director
of the action unit and veteran Bond
fight arranger, describes it: “Charles
Dickens in New York with a Mad
Max slant.” You have been warned.
SIGHT AND SOUND, JANUARY 2003 BY IAN CHRISTIE
Q How did you go about
recreating the specific world
of Gangs of New York?
A The world of Gangs of New York is
very different from the underworlds
I dealt with in Mean Streets,
GoodFellas [1990] and Casino [1995].
Those came from another country,
Sicily, and they are self-supporting,
even self-contained. So much has
been written about the formation
and tradition of the so-called
Mafia that it’s easy to research.
And you only have to read any of
Giovanni Verga’s stories to get a
sense of the background of 19th-
century Sicily. You can understand
why that society became more or
less tribal, which continued even
when they went abroad – they
kept their deep suspicion of the
authorities, particularly the police.
I was part of that old world,
growing up with my parents in
Elizabeth Street, but it was one that
had stopped somewhere between
1910 and 1920, while the real Sicily
kept evolving. So when my parents
went over to Italy in the late 1970s
and met the Taviani brothers,
they immediately noticed how my
parents spoke this old form of the
language that had stayed as it was in
New York. My father’s values were
probably 75 per cent old Sicilian and
25 per cent American, compared
with his father’s completely Sicilian
values. This is what I grew up with,
dealing with my father and the
family, and it’s what I finally blew up
in the explosion at the end of Casino.
That was an end to it. I don’t think
I could do anything further on that.
They wanted me to do Analyze This,
but I couldn’t because I’d already
done that comedy in GoodFellas, and
I couldn’t get myself back into it.
However, the underworld of
Gangs of New York belongs to another
time and place. As an American,
I’m fascinated by our history,
particularly by the East Coast
and how America was formed.
As you read and experience more,
you realise what those we call our
founding fathers had to overcome.
Way back in history, after the fall of
Rome, when the Goths had taken
all of Italy, England was abandoned
and this people who had sometimes
seemed more Roman than the
IMAGE: BFI NATIONAL ARCHIVE
Romans had to create their culture
all over again. Then there were the
religious wars in Europe and Henry
VIII’s revolt against the jurisdiction OPPOSITE
of Roman papal authority. It wasn’t Martin Scorsese
154 FROM THE ARCHIVE

‘Helen, my wife, found a piece in the New Yorker right after the Gore-Bush stand-
off which quoted [New York Democratic boss William] Tweed in 1870: “How
many times do I have to tell you, it’s not the voters that make the election. It’s
IMAGES: MARIO TURSI/MIRAMA X/DIMENSION/KOBAL/SHUT TERSTOC

the counters. Recount. Keep counting.” And we have that in the film.’
 155

OPPOSITE
Leonardo DiCaprio and
Cameron Diaz as Amsterdam
and Jenny in Gangs of New York

TOP
Daniel Day-Lewis as
Bill the Butcher

ABOVE
Diaz as Jenny
156 FROM THE ARCHIVE
just that everybody else could
get a divorce and he couldn’t:
the question was, why should
this island have to deal with an
authority from a different country?
So you begin to understand.
These people in America had the
same problem, and they had to deal
with this issue of freedom of the
individual, and, most importantly,
insist on the separation of church
and state. Signing that Declaration
of Independence was like signing
their death warrant, but there was
also the extraordinary courage
to pull it all together. Nor was
everybody united behind the cause:
there were a lot of Tories in New
York, happily doing business with
England, who thought the founding
fathers were taking things too far.
Having said all that, what
fascinates me about the beginnings
of large-scale immigration is how
it tested the values America was
supposed to embody. And of course
the underworld of the early 19th
century was very different from
the underworld today because it
was closely tied in with political
parties. I don’t know if we show
enough of this in Gangs, but at
least there’s some of it, and you
get a sense of the underhand deals
with William Tweed before he
became ‘Boss’ Tweed [head of the
corrupt New York Democratic
party machine in the 186os
and 187os]. The gangs backed
candidates and helped to rig
elections – which of course doesn’t
happen in America any more!
Q What’s that word used in
Gangs – ‘re-voting’?
A At one point a character tells Tweed,
who’s played by Jim Broadbent, that
he’s winning by ten thousand more
votes than there are people in that
ward. He replies that it’s going to be a
Roman triumph. Helen, my wife,
found a piece in the New Yorker right
after the Gore-Bush stand-off which
quoted Tweed in 1870: “How many
times do I have to tell you, it’s not the
voters that make the election. It’s the
counters. Recount. Keep counting.”
And we have that in the film.
Q I grew up in Northern Ireland,
where the phrase used to be,
“Vote early and vote often.’’
A So you know what I’m talking
about. Of course the Sicilians are
very different – they don’t even get
involved with voting because they
don’t trust any of it. But with the
Irish coming into America, as I said,
the values the country was supposed
to represent were tested for the first
time. “Bring us your homeless and
your poor” – well, here they are,
pouring off the boats in extraordinary
numbers. Where are they to go?
According to the Anglo-Americans
of that period, they posed a danger:
the complexion and the whole
nature of America would change.
Q I suppose we assume it was
always America’s destiny to accept
the “poor huddled masses”, but
that lies in the future, after that
first wave of Irish emigration.
A What’s interesting is that the country
wasn’t fully formed with the winning
of the revolution in 1783. This only
began to happen after the end of the
Civil War in 1865, and the picture
in the film is of America in conflict
in the early 1860s. Even though
there were the Abolitionists and
John Brown, Blacks were attacked
in the streets of New York, so the
racism in the film is pretty strong.
The melting-pot idea began to
emerge with the arrival of the Irish
in the 1840s. But these people spoke
Gaelic and were seen by Protestant
Americans as tied to the Vatican. At
one point Bill the Butcher, played
by Daniel Day-Lewis, says, “How
do they vote? Their archbishop tells
them how to vote. And who tells
the archbishop? Their king in the
pointed hat who sits in Rome.”
Q That also sounds familiar from
Northern Ireland, where the
ultra-Loyalists would accuse
Catholics of “taking orders
from Rome”. Bill the Butcher
is a larger-than-life character
in Asbury’s book, described
as ‘’the champion brawler and
eye-gouger of his time”.
A We changed his name to William
Cutting and have him dying later
‘The gangs in than the real Bill Poole, who was
killed in 1855. He’s a pretty rough
19th-century character, and partly this comes
New York backed from his father being killed by the
candidates British when he was a baby. We
worked it out so he would have
and helped to been born just when his father was
rig elections – killed in the Battle of Bridgewater
which of course in 1814, where the Americans were
slaughtered trying to take Niagara
doesn’t happen Falls from Canada. So he’s insane
in America about giving over the country to
any more!’ people who had nothing to do
with its making, and this ‘nativism’
becomes the film’s political basis.
Then we had to find a motor for it,
and that became a simple story of
revenge in which the boy played by
Leo DiCaprio is orphaned at the
age of eight, in 1846, when his father
is killed while leading the Dead
Rabbits and other Irish groups in a
pitched battle against the nativists.
It’s what happens in any tribal
situation; and I wanted to show,
in the first part of the film, a world
that nobody would recognise if
they didn’t know the title. In fact,
we’re planning not to have the title
at the beginning, so audiences
will think they’re in some sort of
medieval society where a breakdown
of civilisation has occurred and
these people are battling it out.
This is what has always happened
when people come into an area
where there’s already another
ethnic group – like the Bloods
ABOVE
Scorsese with DiCaprio on and the Crips today. There will be
the set of Gangs of New York fighting, and major battles which
OPPOSITE everyone thinks are decisive.
Scorsese shooting the film Anyway, the boy sees his father

killed by Bill the Butcher and
he’s sent away by the nativists
to a house of reform, upriver
in Hell’s Gate, for five years.
When he comes back into New
York, in terms of tribal loyalty
he knows only one thing: blood
revenge. So he finds his way back
into the Five Points area, with the
knife that killed his father, which
he’s going to use to kill Bill.
[DiCaprio’s character] Amsterdam
has to bide his time, because to kill
somebody that big you have to gain
their confidence so you can take
revenge in a ritualistic way. You can’t
just stab him in the middle of the
night and run away: that wouldn’t
be honourable in tribal terms.
He has to do it a certain way to
avenge the blood of his father. But
as he becomes familiar with Bill,
and Bill with him, there’s another
complication: as a boy who’s lost
his father, he finds himself attracted
to Bill. So there’s an ambivalence,
and when he’s forced to make a
move, on a certain night, in a ritual,
he just can’t do it. Then he finds
himself back in the underground,
in the caves, where he has to build
himself up again, not only to take
Bill down, but also, in a way, to
attack the whole structure of this
nativist society. And no matter how
he’s going to take Bill down, he’s got
to deal with his feelings about his
own father, because Bill, in a sense,
almost blames his father. Ultimately
he finds a way through politics. So,
in a sense, Amsterdam represents
the new world, and Bill the old.
IMAGES: MIRAMA X/DIMENSION FILMS/KOBAL/SHUT TERSTOCK
Q I can see why you’re thinking about ‘It’s a western
John Ford in terms of civilising
the lawless West. This is a mixture
meets a gangster
of old and new ground for you, film, topped
in narrative terms, isn’t it? off with a
A The story of the father is something
I’ve always been dealing with,
soupçon of the
I think, but especially since my Civil War and
father’s death I’ve been thinking the abolition
about my relationship with him
and my brother. But you were
of slavery’
talking about narrative?
Q Well, in some ways it taps
into a very traditional kind of
19th-century narrative, like the
epic revenge story of Dumas’
Count of Monte Cristo.
A Absolutely, Edmond Dantès:
I always felt there was a very
strong sense of that.
Q It’s the mainstream of what
drives narrative ...
A [Laughing] I think that’s why
I found it very hard.
Q ... with disguises, obstacles,
scruples, all of which are needed
to complicate what would
otherwise be a straightforward
story of revenge.
A We complicated it because I was
interested in the emotions. It
evolved from a story about a boy
who needs a father and a father who
needs a son, against the backdrop
of the frontier meets the city, or
a western meets a gangster film,
topped off with a soupçon of the
Civil War and the abolition of
slavery – all of that in one movie!
157
‘MY WHOLE LIFE HAS BEEN
MOVIES AND RELIGION’:
THE CAREER OF MARTIN SCORSESE
Martin Scorsese was born in 1942 in
Queens, New York, to parents of Sicilian
descent, and raised in the neighbourhood
known as Little Italy, which inspired
several of his early films. He graduated
from NYU’s School of Film in 1966 and
directed his first feature, Who’s That
Knocking at My Door in 1967. Notably he
served as assistant director and editor
on the acclaimed documentary Woodstock
(1970). Scorsese then directed Boxcar
Bertha (1972), but it was his next feature,
Mean Streets (1973), focused on small-time
Italian-American gangsters and dealing
with his trademark themes of violence,
guilt and redemption, which cemented his
reputation as one of the great talents of the
New Hollywood generation. It was also
the start of a longstanding collaboration
with Robert De Niro, who starred in the
riveting Taxi Driver (1976), which won the
Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
Scorsese by now was on blistering form
and embarked on a run of astonishing films
from the late 70s to the mid-90s, most of
them starring De Niro, which placed him
at the forefront of world cinema. These
include Raging Bull (1980), about the boxer
Jake LaMotta, the blackly comic The King
of Comedy (1982), the gangster ensemble
GoodFellas (1990) starring Ray Liotta, and
the brilliant mob film Casino (1995).
In this century Scorsese has enjoyed a
fruitful collaboration with Leonardo
DiCaprio, which started with Gangs of New
York in 2002 and continued with The Aviator
(2004), The Departed (2006) and The Wolf
of Wall Street (2013). The Irishman (2019)
reunited Scorsese with De Niro and was
widely seen as a summative masterpiece.
Scorsese has also directed several
acclaimed music documentaries, notably
The Last Waltz (1978), capturing The
Band’s final concert, and No Direction Home
(2005), about the career of Bob Dylan.
He has also contributed enormously
to the preservation of film heritage by
rediscovering and restoring classics of
world cinema through the establishment of
various non-profit organisations, including
the World Cinema Foundation.
THE ORIGINAL ISSUE
PUBLISHED IN JANUARY 2003
INTERVIEW BY IAN CHRISTIE
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 1960
159

THIS MONTH IN…

Typically, the last Sight and Sound issue of the year
provides an opportunity to announce the critics’ best
films from that year, but in this Winter 1960-61 edition,
it’s interesting to note that readers are not privy to
the individual contributions of those polled. Instead,
Penelope Houston uses her editorial to comment on
the films’ merits, which include some sterling items
– Antonioni’s L’avventura takes top spot, followed by
Shadows, the second part of Ivan the Terrible, The 400
Blows, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Psycho,
Pickpocket, etc. The glittering 60s are off with a bang.
REVIEWS
SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING
Peter John Dyer was hugely impressed
by Karel Reisz’s adaptation (pictured
above) of Alan Sillitoe’s novel.
“Reisz’s main achievement, shared
by his writer and his leading actor,
Albert Finney, is the creation of a
contemporary backyard-and-factory
conscience. With more insight and
instinct and spontaneity than John
Osborne and Tony Richardson, this
trio has created a face, a voice, a
habit of mind, true in every detail of a
lifelong combatant against authority.”
WHY NEOREALISM FAILED
Eric Rhode again, with a thought-
provoking jeremiad on the pre-eminent
post-war film movement to that point.
“De Sica and [Cesare] Zavattini [one
of the screenwriters of Bicycle Thieves,
pictured below] are using Christianity…
as an escape from facing up to social
problems. This is a debatable point.
What is less debatable is the effect of
naturalism on their work. It is totally
pernicious. For not only does it not
help them to resolve the contradictions
between their social and metaphysical
themes, but it doesn’t help them to
confront the social conditions of their
time. Perhaps the methods of realism
might have taken them further; but that
would have required a clearer idea of
what realism is.”

LA DOLCE VITA
Eric Rhode was less taken by Federico
Fellini’s Roman fresco.
“ Though art by its very metaphorical
(and therefore illogical) nature is
usually dishonest, one really asks to
be cheated a little more intelligently...
Fellini admits to having a confused
sense of values, to being as uncertain
as a child. Why then does he try to
ON THE COVER make realist films? It’s a great pity; for
This issue has a dynamic still from West Side Story, which wouldn’t premiere until if La dolce vita had been less grandiose
October 1961, in New York, and was reviewed in our Spring 1962 issue, not altogether and more private and personal it might
favourably, by John Russell Taylor. “With West Side Story we are involved in… a tragic have worked.”
drama retelling Romeo and Juliet in terms of modern race-conflict, no less. And for
most of the time the song-into-speech-into-dance convention just does not work as a THE WORLD OF APU
way of telling it, or not if you are going to have any truck with realism as well.” ELSEWHERE IN THE ISSUE
For the final film in the Apu trilogy,
John Gillett weighed up the artistic · A short photo-led piece on the set of
gains and losses since Satyajit Ray’s what was at that stage called L’Année
INSIDE STORY masterpiece Pather panchali (1955). dernière, soon to storm the world
A one-page piece by Stanley Kubrick, as Last Year at Marienbad, starring
“ The chief gain is an even richer Delphine Seyrig (pictured above).
entitled ‘Words and movies’, in which he feeling for relationships between
reflected on his forthcoming adaptation of · A report on the 1960 London
people, expressed through a style Film Festival, which had in its
Nabokov’s Lolita (pictured right). again dependent on a careful line-up a few films which would
“People have asked me how it is possible accumulation of selected details. prove to be immortal.
to make a film out of Lolita when so So, in the film’s central section · A feature about the groundbreaking
much of the quality of the book depends concerning Apu’s life with his new BBC arts series Monitor, launched
on Nabokov’s prose style… Of course, bride, love is crystallised through a in 1958.
the quality of the writing is one of the glance, a movement, the placing of · An ecstatic review of
elements that make a novel great. But a head on a shoulder. Because Ray Jazz on a Summer’s Day.
this quality is a result of the quality of resolutely refuses to force the pace or · A striking on-set photo of Elia
the writer’s obsession with his subject, the emotion, this is one of the most
IMAGES: BFI NATIONAL ARCHIVE (4)

Kazan ‘directing’ – some might say

with a theme and a concept and a view of beautiful love affairs in all cinema.” manhandling – Barbara Loden in
life and an understanding of character. Splendor in the Grass; the pair would
Style is what an artist uses to fascinate marry in 1966.
the beholder to convey to him his feelings
and emotions and thoughts. These are
what have to be dramatised, not the style.”
 EDITORIAL

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162

ENDINGS
The Breakfast Club
By the close of John Hughes’s 1985 high-school comedy, the young
students have found liberation from the stereotypical roles that
have been suffocating them, but how long will the euphoria last?

BY NIKKI BAUGHAN
It’s perhaps one of the most memorable
freeze-frames in modern cinema. Strid-
ing across a high-school football field
to the urgent strains of Simple Minds’
‘Don’t You (Forget About Me)’, Judd
Nelson triumphantly punches the air,
silhouetted against the darkening sky.
The shot freezes and slowly fades, a
euphoric ending to John Hughes’s
seminal 1985 film The Breakfast Club…
Or is it? While Hughes’s film, about five
high-school students discovering them-
selves during a Saturday detention,
is widely regarded as an upbeat 80s
comedy, there’s a darker seam running
through the narrative, one that can’t be
so neatly resolved.
Central to the film is the idea that
each of its characters is not only
defined by a recognisable stereotype
but is being suffocated by it – the brain
(Anthony Michael Hall’s Brian), the
athlete (Emilio Estévez’s Andy), the
basket case (Ally Sheedy’s Allison), the
princess (Molly Ringwald’s Claire) and
the criminal (Nelson’s John Bender).
Even Claire, supposedly top of the heap
as the popular prom queen, longs for
her own identity. “I hate having to go
along with everything my friends say,”
she laments. But, of course, it’s easier to
just give people what they want.
While The Breakfast Club is set entirely
within Shermer High School, Hughes
makes it clear that this doctrine of
conformity extends beyond the institu-
tion’s walls; that each character’s sense
of self is also being pummelled by their
parents. Brian reveals how the aca-
demic pressure placed upon him has
led him to contemplate suicide. Andy’s
aggressive behaviour is a reflection of
his father’s philosophy of performative
machismo. Claire feels like a manipu-
lated pawn in her parents’ divorce, while
Allison is utterly ignored by hers. And
while Bender may mimic his abusive
father to ridicule his peers’ sob stories,
he’s obviously buckling under physical
and emotional torment.
These are some weighty shackles to
shake off, but this time together – unob-
served by anyone other than spiteful
teacher Mr Vernon, an enemy against
whom they can unite – gives them a
neutral space in which their masks
begin to slip. Souls are bared, experi-
ences shared and what feel like genuine
While John connections made. (In a somewhat eye-
rolling nod to genre convention, Bender
Hughes’s and Claire share a kiss, as do Allison
film is widely and Andy). They have seen each other,
regarded as and themselves, outside of hierarchical
constraints. There is hope for some-
an upbeat thing different.
80s comedy, The film’s final scenes share a visual
there’s a darker symmetry with the opening ones, but
are tonally very different. The f irst
seam running sequences detail the kids’ interactions
through the (or otherwise) with their parents as they
narrative, one are dropped off at detention: Brian’s
mother barking at him to study, Andy’s
that can’t be father instructing him to toughen up,
neatly resolved Claire’s father offering sushi for lunch,
Allison’s father driving off without a
word and Bender – in a neat mirroring
of his final strut – walking up alone.
Eight hours later, however, and
there is a sense that these teens have
fledged, have exorcised the demons of
expectation and are now operating on
their own terms. While cars pull up,
we don’t see any parents, let alone hear
them; the camera is focused on the
kids’ farewells. The words of Brian’s
detention essay for Mr Vernon, which
were partly intoned over the opening
scenes, now take on a rebellious defi-
ance: “You see us as you want to see us:
in the simplest terms, in the most con-
venient definitions. But what we found
ABOVE out is that each one of us is a brain, and
Judd Nelson in the
final moments of
an athlete, and a basket case, and a
John Hughes’s film princess, and a criminal.”
It feels like a jubilant moment of rec-
ognition, a shift of the dial. To mark the
occasion, totems are exchanged: Claire
gives Bender her earring, Allison takes
Andy’s varsity patch. But it’s notably
unclear whether these are a reminder
not to fall back into old ways, or a sou-
venir from a fleeting moment in time.
Earlier, Claire speculates that none of
these new bonds will be able to sur-
vive the scrutiny of their peers; while
she is derided for her comments, she
likely gives voice to an uncomfortable
truth. Framed in this way, those Simple
Minds lyrics seem to take on a pleading
air: “Will you recognise me? Call my
name or walk on by?” That this deten-
tion may be a respite and not a revolu-
tion is an idea encapsulated by that
freeze-frame, that slow fade. The future
is far from certain.
It’s also important to note that, like
other Hughes films including Sixteen
Candles (1984), The Breakfast Club has
not aged well in its treatment of its
female characters. Allison is subject
to that tired genre cliché, a climactic
‘prettification’, which wins Andy’s atten-
tion. More egregious is Bender’s sexual
hounding of Claire; at one horrifying
point, putting his head between her
legs. So, while the film may remain rele-
vant in its exploration of adolescent vul-
nerability, that ending should, perhaps,
also be a fade-out on such outdated
gender representation.