Friday

Sight and Sound over the years...

The Sight & Sound Top Ten Poll: 1952
Critics' Poll
1. Bicycle Thieves (De Sica)
2. City Lights (Chaplin)
2. The Gold Rush (Chaplin)
4. Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein)
5. Intolerance (Griffith)
5. Louisiana Story (Flaherty)
7. Greed (von Stroheim)
7. Le Jour se lève (Carné)
7. The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer)
10. Brief Encounter (Lean)
10. La Règle du jeu (Renoir)

The Sight & Sound Top Ten Poll: 1962
Critics' Poll
1. Citizen Kane (Welles)
2. L'avventura (Antonioni)
3. La Règle du jeu (Renoir)
4. Greed (von Stroheim)
4. Ugetsu Monogatari (Mizoguchi)
6. Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein)
7. Bicycle Thieves (De Sica)
7. Ivan the Terrible (Eisenstein)
9. La terra trema (Visconti)
10. L'Atalante (Vigo)

The Sight & Sound Top Ten Poll: 1972
Critics' Poll
1. Citizen Kane (Welles)
2. La Règle du jeu (Renoir)
3. Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein)
4. 8 1/2 (Fellini)
5. L'avventura (Antonioni)
5. Persona (Bergman)
7. The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer)
8. The General (Keaton)
8. The Magnificent Ambersons (Welles)
10. Ugetsu Monogatari (Mizoguchi)
10. Wild Strawberries (Bergman)

The Sight & Sound Top Ten Poll: 1982
Critics' Poll
1. Citizen Kane (Welles)
2. La Règle du jeu (Renoir)
3. Seven Samurai (Kurosawa)
3. Singin' in the Rain (Kelly, Donen)
5. 8 1/2 (Fellini)
6. Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein)
7. L'avventura (Antonioni)
7. The Magnificent Ambersons (Welles)
7. Vertigo (Hitchcock)
10. The General (Keaton)
10. The Searchers (Ford)

The Sight & Sound Top Ten Poll: 1992
Critics' Poll
1. Citizen Kane (Welles)
2. La Regle du Jeu (Renoir)
3. Tokyo Story (Ozu)
4. Vertigo (Hitchcock)
5. The Searchers (Ford)
6. L'Atalante (Vigo)
6. The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer)
6. Pather Panchali (Ray)
6. Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein)
10. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)

It seems that Renoir's Rules of the Game and Welles's Citizen Kane are the most consistent amongst critics.

4 comments:

Erik Westlund said...

It is odd how Keaton's The General shows up on the poll from 1982. I wonder what brought this work to everyone's attention when it appears to be less significant earlier.

Mark said...

I've searched around and haven't found an explanation. I wondered if they had done a retrospective or video releases but I couldn't find anything on it.

It's interesting how artists can go from obscurity to the canon. Sometimes it takes a prominent champion or a movement to bring these works out. The french critics of the 1960's were great for championing film noir, Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock, offering a fresh criticism that elevated their status.

Mark said...

You can read Busters autobiography at archive.org

http://www.archive.org/details/mywonderfulworld010536mbp

Anonymous said...

You can watch The Passion of Joan of Arc at MaidOfHeaven.com free

Watch The Passion of Joan of Arc here Free