Richard asked: Why this worldwide obsession with lists? Are we supposed to
be engaging in considered responses to cinema and the issues it raises or
are we compiling ephemera?
One, lists are fun. Flat-out fun. Two, lists trigger further, deeper
discussions better than any other tool I know of. Three, you can't fight
'em: They're here to stay, like the weather. Four: They provide an entryway
into considering an entire year, or an entire body of work, or a country, or
a genre, or a form, or a decade, or a century. Five: They're a snapshot, but
not the whole picture, and I think that nobody who plays in the list sandbox
thinks otherwise. Six: They're telling. Sight and Sound's recent listings
re-confirmed that critics are, on whole, far more adventurous in their
tastes than filmmakers, whose selections were generally far more
conservative and canonical than critics. (Exceptions included Haneke and
Scorsese, whose own best-of-'90s list on Roger Ebert's show at the end of
that decade put Ebert to shame for its originality and freshness. Scorsese,
if I recall, named at least one film by Hou, who I venture to guess Ebert
hadn't even seen at that point, as well as ``Eyes Wide Shut.'')
Robert Koehler
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