This article is causing some heated debate over at Criterion forum...

[Antares]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/jul/24/worst-best-films-ever-made


And for the record, I think he's dead-on. 

[Antares]

Here's an off-shoot thread on Schindler's List.

http://www.criterionforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=288182#p288182

You might find this interesting Matthias

[Jon]

The man's a pillock!  

First he lays into The Searchers. It is dated, a couple of the characters jar and some of what passes for subversive now was simply Ford and Wayne simply being honest back then, but in the main I absolutely adore it. I'm fascinated by his comments about several characters motivation, which stinks of him simply not understanding what's right in front of him. It's one thing to not like a film, but he's making broad statements to support an argument. Which he also does with the sniffy statement that the AFI have "recently" voted it the greatest Western, as if they've suddenly remembered it! They've always spoken of it in such tones, especially around the time of Unforgiven.

Do I even have to mention Schindler's List? No, I think not! Same for Shawshank. Who is he writing this article for? It is regularly voted "The Greatest Movie", but not, in my experience, by film enthusiasts, who simply enjoy it as a very fine picture. Again, he's projecting hyperbole to support his being wrong!

Night of the Hunter? Much loved, but is it really that highly regarded? It's actually an old favourite of mine, but tends to be forgotten by many. On The Waterfront works precisely because of what he says. I don't get his point. And... hold on... what's this?

"The Blair Witch Project and The Innocents, for example, are much scarier and more innovative than the highly lauded Psycho."

Oh that is priceless! He actually thinks the bloody Blair bloody Witch is better than Psycho? The Innocents has been on my wish-list for ages, as I really want to see it, but whatever. All respect has been jettisoned.

For reasons of balance, I agree with La Dolce Vita and Jules Et Jim, but even people who are clinically nuts get it right occasionally, eh?  

Sorry I couldn't read it in the same spirit, but damn, it was funny!

[Antares]

I knew the Psycho part was going to make you blow a gasket. 

While I agree that a few of his points used to bolster his arguments are a little puerile and naive, for the most part, his take on a lot of those films is correct.

La Dolce Vita and Jules et Jim are bonafide snoozefests. His reasons for The Searchers are comical, yet I have to agree that it is no where near the top spot when it comes to westerns. For me, John Ford has always been a director whose position in the upper tier of film making is a little suspect. The point he makes about the scenes back at the Jorgensen ranch are spot on. It amazes me that Frank Capra was derided by critics for his homespun scenes, and labeled CapraCorn, when Ford plants scenes which are not only hokey, but painfully tedious into the middle of his films.

I also agree with his assessment of Solaris, and Night of the Hunter, sans the Scooby Doo reference. I never understood what everyone sees as so amazing about that film. Sure, Mitchum is great, and the cinematography is outstanding, but as he refrenced David Mamet in the article...

But as David Mamet once observed, if you come out of a film only admiring its cinematography, then you have probably been sitting through a lousy film.

I too, completely disagree with his views on Shawshank.

[Antares]

"The Blair Witch Project and The Innocents, for example, are much scarier and more innovative than the highly lauded Psycho."

Oh that is priceless! He actually thinks the bloody Blair bloody Witch is better than Psycho? The Innocents has been on my wish-list for ages, as I really want to see it, but whatever. All respect has been jettisoned.

Oops, missed this part.

Jon, he's not saying it's better, he's saying it's more innovative and scarier. I myself, can't respond to this, as I've seen neither of the two alternates he mentioned.

[Jon]

Very good observation on Ford and Capra. I could always see the strength in Capra's sentimentality and I see it too in The Searchers. Repeat viewings, especially if compared with other less obvious Ford films like The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, suggest he knew exactly what he was doing.

There's a tangible contrast between the twee and perfect lives of the settlers, versus the savagery of their environment; and they can see it too, so not realistic, but as a metaphor, very powerful. I found their nature made them look so very small and weak as a family unit and it brought home how the racist bastard Uncle Ethan was actually the best equipped. As such, I can't help but find the scene of Ethan grimly surveying the devastated home as one of the most powerful in Westerns. That's why the end scene is so brilliant. He's demonstrated the brutal progress needed to make the land safe, yet he's pushing himself further away.

Drums Along The Mohawk is similar to The Searchers and Henry Fonda plays it almost Forrest Gump stupid! It's a strange effect, but there's an image burned in my mind of an Indian with a flaming torch in a womans bedroom, setting it on fire in broad daylight. Again, it's so clumsy, it had to be on purpose, but the effect works.

I mean to have a Ford marathon one day to make up my mind about him general. Like you, much as I love his films, as a director I can't quite see the reputation. Winchester 73 stands up against almost any of his films, yet who ever talks about Anthony Mann in the same breath? And it has to be said that The Searchers was only a decade or so before Leone and he's generally perceived to have rescued the genre. Why did it need rescuing so soon after the supposed Master had made his greatest film?

Never seen the original Solaris, but perversely I have the Soderbergh one. I like the story and the mood, but I understand the original to be remarkably slower and more pretentious so I have no burning desire to catch it!

I first saw Night of the Hunter as a kid and along with Whistle Down The Wind, saw it very much from the children's perspective, so it took on the persona of a modern-ish and truly scary fairytale and I enjoyed it very much. Plus Charles Laughton did a great job to say it was his only one.

"The Blair Witch Project and The Innocents, for example, are much scarier and more innovative than the highly lauded Psycho."

Oh that is priceless! He actually thinks the bloody Blair bloody Witch is better than Psycho? The Innocents has been on my wish-list for ages, as I really want to see it, but whatever. All respect has been jettisoned.

Oops, missed this part.

Jon, he's not saying it's better, he's saying it's more innovative and scarier. I myself, can't respond to this, as I've seen neither of the two alternates he mentioned.

I felt by him saying more innovative and scarier, he meant better, or at least as important. Blair Witch in its own way is good enough and can be credited with a reputation, but as a watchable, scary film, it's weak. It is after all a students coursework!

[Kathy]

I saw the Blair Witch Project in the theater and thought it was terrible. It didn't scare me at all. In fact, the only thing it did was bore me. This was one of the few films I would not recommend to people.

[Jimmy]

It's scary and sad because those poor kids died while making this documentary

[Dragonfire]

Blair Witch Project did freak me out when I watched it..though I did watch it alone in the middle of the night for some reason.
It is entertaining...though I don't think I would consider it better than Psycho.  Psycho freaked me out when I first saw it too.

[Kathy]

All I could think of was "I could have made this movie"!

As far as the ending goes - I was glad to get rid of them!

[Critter]

Blair Witch Project did freak me out when I watched it..though I did watch it alone in the middle of the night for some reason.
It is entertaining...though I don't think I would consider it better than Psycho.  Psycho freaked me out when I first saw it too.

I'm sure most of you by now understand my aversion to almost all horror films on account of being a complete and utter wimp. I still haven't seen Psycho but I have seen Blair Witch. I think to shed some light on just how bad I am with horror films I could tell you the situation in which I found Blair Witch terrifying. Marie said she watched it in the middle of the night and alone and found it scary. Let's just say if I watched it in the middle of the night...and alone, I probably wouldn't have come out alive.

I watched Blair Witch with two friends, on a tiny Laptop screen, in a huge big bright room, in the middle of the day...at the beach. We could actually hear the waves crashing and children playing in the water from where we were. Even in THIS situation, I still found Blair Witch terrifying. Yes I am just that bad with horror films.

[goodguy]

Reminds me of a similar article I read recently about the most overrated directors - with Hitchcock as No 1. It's a typical pseudo-controversial traffic piece. Of course, I'm gleefully happy that he slanders Spielberg and I'm outraged by the comments on Truffaut or Tarkovsky - that's how these things work. Although not even the selection of movies makes much sense here.

Thanks for the link to the Criterion forum, although I haven't read it yet. I admit that I'm mostly tired of discussions of this particular film.

[Antares]

Very good observation on Ford and Capra.

Thank you

I could always see the strength in Capra's sentimentality and I see it too in The Searchers. Repeat viewings, especially if compared with other less obvious Ford films like The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, suggest he knew exactly what he was doing.

I understand too why he did it, unfortunately, by this time in his career, it had become so annoying that it destroys the pacing of the film. He had been doing it for years, in almost every film he had made, and with each successive film, it becomes mind-numbing.

Just last week, I popped in Fort Apache. I hadn't seen this film in close to twenty years, and it had been one of my favorite westerns when I was younger. Now, after several years and the discovery of other westerns from other directors, I couldn't believe what a truly hokey, poorly written and technically terrible film this really is.

Winchester 73 stands up against almost any of his films, yet who ever talks about Anthony Mann in the same breath?

Or Budd Boetticher, who made better westerns on probably ¼ the budgets Ford was given.

I also feel that Mann is only given the kudos by film fans whose favorite genre is the western. I think it may be due to the fact that Ford had Wayne, whose was iconic-ally associated with sagebrush cinema. Mann had Jimmy Stewart, who, while being the more versatile actor, to me, just never looked right in that role. I always considered his westerns, the angry Jimmy Stewart, and while he was good (Winchester '73 & The Naked Spur), it could at times, look forced.

I think Mann's films would have been just a bit better with Fonda as his leading man. What do you think?

And it has to be said that The Searchers was only a decade or so before Leone and he's generally perceived to have rescued the genre. Why did it need rescuing so soon after the supposed Master had made his greatest film?

The western had been done to death by not only the film studios but by the television networks by 1965. I'm pretty sure I read an article that had a breakdown of television programming in 1959 having westerns occupying almost 35% of the prime time programming. That's a lot!


And if you ask me which westerns are better than The Searchers, then I have to say the following...

Once Upon a Time in the West
Shane
Red River
The Ox-Bow Incident
Winchester '73
High Noon
The Outlaw Josey Wales

I've just always felt that if you remove Monument Valley from The Searchers, it's an average film.

[lovemunkey187]

Shane

Now this, I consider to be an over-rated film.

[Jon]

Me too. I rate a lot in Antares' list very highly, but I rate The Searchers so high as well that it's too close to call. Along with The Searchers, I do consider OUATITW one of my absolute favourites, same with Josey, Winchester and Red River.

Ox-Bow I haven't seen, but Shane just downright annoys me. That bloody kid! "SHAAAAAAAANE. SHAAAAAAAANE. SH..."[rifle shot]"...urgh!" is how I would have ended it. 

High Noon was a very political film and I do like it, but I'm more inclined to Hawk's and Wayne's more optimistic and entertaining answer in Rio Bravo. Though if we dig a little deeper, does that mean I would have supported the blacklist and hunted down Pinkos?