A couple of weeks ago, Dennis Cozzalio, proprietor of the essential film blog Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule, invited me to participate in a poll Edward Copeland was conducting on his wonderful blog Edward Copeland on Film. (Are you still with me? Good.) The end result of the poll will be to create a list of the Top 25 Non-English-Language Features of All Time, similar to those incessant AFI “Top 100” lists, but without a bloated three-hour TV special propping it up. As part of the 51-member nominating committee, I was asked to submit my own Top 25 list; Copeland would then compile a list of every film that had been named by at least three committee members and open up the resulting slate of nominees to votes by the public at large. (As it turned out, 121 titles made the cut; you can read the list here.
I have to admit, I was a little mortified when I saw who else was on the nominating committee; the thought that my opinions on world cinema were being given the same weight as people like Jonathan Rosenbaum and Annette Insdorf seemed absurd to me. But I don’t think I embarrassed myself—by which I guess I mean that my picks seem to be more or less congruent with the rest of the committee’s choices. Of my 25 titles, only seven weren’t cited by at least two other critics. (And I’ve belatedly realized that one of those titles, La Jetée, was disqualified from the poll, not being feature-length.)
If you’re curious, here’s my list, in alphabetical order (a star indicates a title that did not make it onto the master list of nominees):
8 1/2 (Federico Fellini)
Aguirre: The Wrath of God (Werner Herzog)
* The American Soldier (Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
L’Atalante (Jean Vigo)
The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo)
Belle de Jour (Luis Buñuel)
The Blue Angel (Josef von Sternberg)
* A Chinese Ghost Story (Siu-Tung Ching)
Cléo From 5 to 7 (Agnès Varda)
Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard)
Cries and Whispers (Ingmar Bergman)
L’Eclisse (Michelangelo Antonioni)
* Fires on the Plain (Kon Ichikawa)
In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-Wai)
* La Jetée (Chris Marker)
* The Kingdom (Lars von Trier)
* Onibaba (Kaneto Shindo)
Playtime (Jacques Tati)
Raise the Red Lantern (Zhang Yimou)
The Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir)
Sátántangó (Béla Tarr)
Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa)
Shoot the Piano Player (François Truffaut)
Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders)
* The Young Girls of Rochefort (Jacques Demy)
A couple of notes: films made before 2002 were ineligible. Also, I restricted myself to no more than one film from any particular director—hence, The American Soldier instead of Ali: Fear Eats the Soul; Contempt instead of Weekend or A Woman Is a Woman; Shoot the Piano Player instead of Jules and Jim; Cries and Whispers instead of Persona. Paul Schrader will be furious with me: Bresson, Dreyer and Ozu are all absent from my list.
Of my starred films, I’m most surprised that Fires on the Plain had so few fans; this 1959 film’s nightmarish vision of war has haunted me ever since I saw it as a teenager. I’m not surprised, however, by the absence of a couple of my kookier choices. The American Soldier, for instance, is one of Fassbinder’s earlier efforts, and I’ve always had a soft spot for its goofy take on film noir—especially the hilariously sustained slow-motion climax—much more so than some of Fassbinder’s grimmer efforts. (That’s true of Godard for me too—I’d much rather rewatch A Woman Is a Woman much more than, say, Vivre sa Vie or La Chinoise. But that's true for most people, isn't it?) And while I don’t know if I could defend A Chinese Ghost Story as a towering work of cinematic art—I feel a little self-conscious about including it over a classic like Tokyo Story—it was one of the first Hong Kong pictures I ever saw, and catching it on the big screen with an enthusiastic audience at the Princess Theatre in Edmonton remains one of my all-time favourite moviegoing experiences.
You can find a selection of other critics’ lists at Jim Emerson's
Scanners blog—it’s fascinating to see where people’s tastes diverge and where they unexpectedly line up.
I’m also curious to see which film will come out on top in Edward’s poll. I’m not sure there’s a foreign equivalent to Citizen Kane or The Godfather—a title that you know is guaranteed to come out on top on pretty much any poll you conduct. Titles like Tokyo Story, Seven Samurai, Rules of the Game and 8 1/2 are likely to perform well, but can those older titles still count on the kind of widespread popular support enjoyed by more recent nominees like Amélie, City of God, Run Lola Run and Cinema Paradiso?
You’ve got until September 16 to make your voice heard, either dubbed or subtitled, so go to Edward’s site and send him your ballot.
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