100 Years, 100 Arguments
I didn’t post any reactions to the American Film Institute’s “100 Years, 100 Movies” rankings the night they aired because I didn’t want to spoil it. I meant to post something the next day but never got around to it. It’s probably old news now, but I’m going to plunge on in:
- I started yelling at the screen at the very beginning of the list. “Ben Hur”?! 100? Say it ain’t so! I might not put it in the top ten, but I would definitely have put it higher than 100, by a long shot.
- I love “Singin’ In The Rain” (5) — I could watch the title number over and over and over — but there is no way on the planet it should be ranked higher than “Gone With The Wind” (6). I’m not what you would call a GWTW groupie, but it’s obviously a cinema landmark, one of the most powerful and enduring works of art the cinema has ever created.
- I am not a Hitchcock scholar and so I have no opinion on whether this was right or not, but I was surprised that “Vertigo” (9) ranked higher than “Psycho” (14), “Rear Window” (48) or “North By Northwest” (55), all of which seem more iconic.
- Since I list “Sullivan’s Travels” (61) as one of my three all-time favorites, I would like to have seen it higher. But I was really startled to look at the printout and realize that it hadn’t been included at all in the original 1998 list.
- It’s a mark of the subjectivity and unreliability of lists like this that the Buster Keaton silent comedy “The General” didn’t make the 1998 list at all but was #18 this year. Did the critical perception of this movie change that much in 10 years? If so, why? If not, does this mean that the sample of panelists who vote on this list is so small and finicky that it’s essentially a meaningless exercise?
One theory about some of the dramatic changes in ranking between 1998 and this year is that DVDs have become more common and more people have the chance to explore classic movies as a result. If true, I think this is a good thing.
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