More on the BFI Greatest Films

Well, I have now never seen the Greatest Film of All Time(TM). I guess I need to fix that. I have seen one or two Akerman films and found them a little slow. But I guess I need to watch this. As Scott pointed out, there’s more than 100 greatest films. I hate canonization with a great passion (talking to you Wynton Marsalis). I think it crushes independent thinking on art and creates self-repeating narratives that eliminate most of the deserving entries from getting consideration. So I have no problem with rethinking the history of the canon entirely. No, I do not think Citizen Kane is the best movie in history of the third best movie. It probably isn’t even in my top 100, but it is a great movie. Same with Vertigo. Why Vertigo instead of about 7 or 8 other Hitchcocks, for that matter? So whatever, we have a new winner this time. I find it to be a pretty shocking one, but then again, I haven’t seen it so what do I know?

What I do know is that the annoying response of aging white men like Paul Schrader is the typical bullshit of old white men who hate the idea that their influences may not be as influential to another generation and instead of just accepting it, yell and cry. Distorted Woke Reappraisal is my favorite new band though. Imagine even thinking that women or Africans could direct great films. Crazy, I know.

I will state that while there has been an awakening in the film community to African film, there is still a huge ignorance of what has come out of Latin America, especially the Mexican film community. So there’s more work to be done to get a real sense of what is great. I suppose one can say the same thing about India, since Bollywood tends to be ignored, but in this case, by me too. And there’s at least a few twenty-first century films on the list, but these last two decades are still vastly unrepresented.

Anyway, got to get to watching stuff!