This is significant, since CITIZEN KANE has the unprecedented honor of being voted number one in each of their five previous polls, going back to 1962, when the film fell into favor. Wikipedia details how KANE has since dominated other such lists: "A separate (Sight & Sound) poll of established film directors, held for the first time in 1992, has also placed Citizen Kane at the top. The film was selected as number one in a Village Voice and in a Time Out critics' poll. It was listed as the greatest American film by the American Film Institute in both the first (1998) and second (2007) versions of its 100 Years... 100 Movies list." For as long as I've been any kind of student of film, it appeared as though KANE's position as the Greatest was a given, a virtual lock forever.
None of this praise for CITIZEN KANE is hyperbole. The film is truly a monumental achievement, not so much for pioneering, but rather for how Welles and company utilized the best of what came before them in the art of filmmaking, be in terms of cinematography, visual effects, storytelling, acting, use of sound... the list goes on. KANE, in its day, was the pinnacle of the art. Unfortunately, it was also marred by controversy, having incurred the wrath of media mogul William Randolph Hurst, among other offenses. So, KANE would miss the Best Picture Oscar for its release year (losing to John Ford's HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY), as well as the top spot on the first Sight & Sound Best of All Time list. (That honor would go to Vittoria De Sica's heart-wrenching 1948 film BICYCLE THEIVES, itself now residing at #33 on the 2012 list.)
Also, let's not forget the Olympics factor. Not to get slightly conspiratorial, but perhaps British pride may be playing some part in this, what with their country on the global stage during it's hosting of the Olympic games and all. Never mind that S&S polls participants from all around the globe, a good portion of them American... like Orson Welles.
Welles, on the other hand, spent his career as a perpetual outsider, never bouncing back from the damaged he suffered in the initial reception of CITIZEN KANE. Although he hailed from Kenosha, Wisconsin, he did so as a divisive "boy genius", and would always display ex-pat tendencies, even if he never could truly escape the American filmmaking system. By legacy, Welles remains, of course, an American filmmaker, even if his own later career frustrations would perhaps give him pause to that, in terms of things such as national pride.
It's been said before, but such lists and polls, even major, carefully conducted polls such as the one in question, are, at the end of the day, just lists and polls. The stock we put in them is absolutely and only as much stock as they bear. Some, like the Sight & Sound poll, are worthy of our consideration and attention. Others, such as the "100 Years, 100 Movies" lists generated by the American Film Institute between 1998 and 2007, are less lofty if not fun. And then there's the regular myriad of ranked movie lists (20 Greatest Villains of All Time, Top 25 Cult Movies, etc.) that pop up in entertainment columns and magazines, many of which reek of editorial deadline dictate. And then on the far end, apart from all sensible legitimacy, I think of a local rock n' roll radio station, which, up until recently, spent the entire Memorial Day weekend counting down the Top 500 Rock Songs of All Time, all the while blatantly refusing to reveal how the list was arrived at, nor explaining the fact that the number one song of All Time was different every year. It was a sham, but so few of us could resist. I admit it, I'm a sucker for all such lists, but always with one foot planted firmly in the reality that ranking art is tantamount to dancing about architecture.
So let's look at the Sight & Sound poll just a little more closely. (For my own purposes, I'll go back as far as their 1972 list, and will remain less than scientific.) Many will no doubt look at such a list, and be a little perplexed. Most people, in this day and age, will not have seen, or even be familiar with the bulk of what this list touts as the Best. (I personally haven't seen all of them, but I've seen most of them. Of those, I will go to bat for any of them, any day of the week.) There's not a lot of mainstream here, but being mainstream is not the point here. Remember, these are critics and academics voting for S&S - film devotees who eat, sleep, and breathe global cinema in ways that most of us cannot afford the time or emotional energy to do. On a blanket level, this does not make them snobs, but rather experts. Experts worth listening to. Here's just a little of what they have to say:
- FORM MATTERS!: Sight & Sound critic's list mainstays such as Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (#6), Renoir's LA REGLE DU JEU (aka THE RULES OF THE GAME, #4), Fellini's 8 ½ (#10), and Ford's THE SEARCHERS (#7) to the top ten newcomer, Vertov's 1929 highly experimental MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA (#8), all, in their own ways, demonstrate the importance of cinematic visual language within the craft. Through their own very different uses of elements such as editing, framing, lighting, and set design, these towering films do the elusive thing that sets film apart from the other arts. They resonate as both engaging entertainment and intellectual stimulation, each in the best ways possible. They challenge and exhilarate us, primarily thanks to their winning craftsmanship that, no matter the film's age, never withers.
- EVERYONE CAN'T STAY: In 2002, Coppola's THE GODFATHER (actually both PARTS I & II, represented within a single entry) made the top ten for the first time, appearing at #4. This year, due primarily, I suspect, to a change in the rules that multiple films cannot occupy a single bracket, no GODFATHER films make the 2012 top ten. Also falling off are Donen & Kelly's SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (#3 in 1982, absent in 1992, and #10 in 2002) and Eisenstein's BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN (#7 in '02, #6 in both '92 and '82, #3 in '72). Other on-again-off-again entries that don't make the top ten cut this time include Keaton's THE GENERAL (#8 in 1972, #10 in 1982) and Kurosawa's SEVEN SAMURAI (#10 in '92, #3 in '82). Have these films really gotten any worse than the films they once ranked highly with? Of course not. One of the big points of this exercise is to demonstrate that although the movies don't change, we do. We change as individuals, we change as cultures, and there's always more to consider. In the meantime, a film's relevance may rise and fall, but there is no denying the greatness of these works.
- IT'S NOT A POPULARITY CONTEST?: Among the small group of directors with more than one film on the top fifty, we find Jean-Luc Godard, Francis Ford Coppola, Andrei Tarkovsky and Carl Dreyer with three each (of those, only Dreyer has one in the top ten), and Akira Kurosawa, Federico Fellini, Yasujiro Ozu each with two. Martin Scorsese, the "Greatest Living American Director", Charlie Chaplin, "the King of Silent Comedy", and Billy Wilder, who so dominated the AFI's 1998 top 100 list, each only have one film in the S&S top fifty. Knighted British luminary David Lean (LAWRENCE OF ARABIA) is nowhere to be found.
However one's favorites fared, it's good to see the torch burning bright for international cinema, particularly now. The sands of time, global politics and attitudes, as well as basic availability of the films themselves all play a part in how, every ten years, this list can and does change. Add to that this is not just a shell game, in which the same movies are shuffled and re-shuffled every decade. New movies are of course always being made, and although we cautiously tend to let time be the arbiter of "greatness", there is always bound to be fresh work worthy of standing with the giants. Taratino, Nolan, Fincher, Malick... your time will come.
VERTIGO, with it's deliberate pacing, unresolved inclinations, and rear-projection car drives, may not strike one as Hitchcock's crowning achievement (NORTH BY NORTHWEST, REAR WINDOW and PSYCHO all outrank it for me), much less the Greatest Film Ever Made. But for moment - for the decade - Hitch has more than earned his time on the gold medal platform. The portly gent may not appear to be a much of a distance runner, but he finally go around the considerably substantial Orson Welles.
- Jim Tudor
(This article also appears at Zekefilm.org.)