In May 24, and in order to celebrate 82 years from its first release, Time Magazine announced the 100 all time movies, starting from year 1923 when the magazine was first established. The selected movies were chosen by Time’s movie critics Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel.
Most of them (at least 50) were not made by American directors, although many of them were filmed and produced in Hollywood. So European cinefils should be proud of their most prestigious and largely admired directors, who made it to the top. Contemporary films also seemed to struggle for recognition, as only 20 movies of the last two decades are included in the top-100 list.
In this issue we will focus only on European film-makers, in the next one hopefully we will present the rest of the list, including American, Asian and Latin American ones. And the winners are: the British and the Italians share the first place, with 9 films in the list each, by 8 directors and 5 directors accordingly, the Germans follow with 8 films in the list, by 7 directors, then the French (8, 7), the Austrians (4, 3), the Polish (3), the Greeks (3, 2), the Swedish (2, 1), the Spanish (2), the Chechs (2) and the Hungarians (1). And no Russians, I am not surprised, it’s an american’s magazine list anyway.
The British are represented by Charlie Chaplin and his “City Lights” (1931), James Whale and “Bride of Frankenstein” (1935), Robert Hamer with “Kind Hearts and Coronets” (1949), Alfred Hitchcock, with two of his most well-known movies, “Notorious” (1946) and “Psycho” (1960), David Lean and his infamous“Lawrence of Arabia” (1962), Sir Ridley Scott with “Blade Runner” (1982) and Jon Amiel, with “The Singing Detective” (1986). Finally, an american with Scotish origins, Alexander Mackendrick with the “Sweet Smell of Success” (1957).
Italy is represented mostly by Americans with Italian origins: Martin Scorsese, the only director with 3 movies in the list: ‘Taxi Driver’ (1976), ‘Raging Bull (1980)’ and ‘Goodfellas’ (1990); then Francis Ford Copolla, with the first two parts of ‘The Godfather’ trilogy, (1972, 1974), Frank Capra, with a Hollywood, top-class movie, “It’s a Wonderful life” (1946), one of the all-time American favourites. Also two Italian Spaghetti movies made it to the top-100 list “The Good, The Bad and the Ugly” (1966) and “Once upon a Time in the West” (1968) directed by the master of the genre, Sergio Leone. Finally - and what a shame! - Italian neo-realism is represented by only two directors, Federico Fellini and Vittorio De Sica, and their films “8 ½” (1963) and “Umberto D” (1952), respectively.
Germany on the other hand is represented by Wim Wenders with “Wings of Desire” (1987), Rainer Werner Fassbinder with “Berlin Alexanderplatz” (1980), a series of TV films, Werner Herzog with “Aguirre: the Wrath of God” (1972), Ernst Lubitsch with two american movies “Ninotchka” (1939) and “The Shop Around the Corner” (1940), William Wyler with 1936’s “Dodsworth”, F.W. Murnau, with “Sunrise” (1927). I left last, by not least, Leni Riefenstahl, the only woman film-maker in the list (died age 101), with her two-part documentary of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, “Olympia, Parts 1 and 2” (1938). What a shame again! This is too much of a man’s world…
Tres chique France, with some of the best film-makers worldwide, made it to the top-100 list represented by my favourite Francois Truffaut with two movies, “The 400 Blows” (1959) and “Day for Night” (1973); then by Jean-Luc Godard and “Bande a part” (1964), Jean Renoir with “The Crime of Monsieur Lange” (1936), Marcel Carne and “Children of Paradise” (1945), Jacques Tourneur with “Out of the Past” (1947), located and shot in the US, Robert Bresson with “Mouchette” (1967) and Alain Resnais with “Mon oncle d’Amerique” (1980).
Austrians also seem to have big success in Hollywood, as Fritz Lang’s classic “Metropolis” (1927) was included in TIME’s list as also best movie of the 20’s. Austria was further represented by Josef von Sternberg with “The Last Command” (1928) and finally by Billy Wilder (who didn’t speak English when he first arrived in Hollywood) with “Double Indemnity” (1944) and “Some Like it Hot” (1959).
From Poland, we have Polish-French Roman Polanski with his famous “Chinatown” (1974), which was also selected as the best movie of the 70’s, Krzysztof Kieslowski’s “The Decalogue” (1989) (10 masterpieces, 1-hour each, made originally for the Polish TV) and finally Dziga Vertov’s “The Man With a Camera” (1929), a documentary on early 20th century urban Russia.
Greece made it to the top-100 with Elia Kazan (born in Instanbul by Greek parents and originally named Kazanjoglous), who moved to Hollywood to direct two of Marlon Brando’s infamous appearances in “A Streetcar Named Desire” (1951) and “On the Waterfront” (1954). Regarding modern film-makers, Teo Angelopoulos made Greeks proud with his “Ulysses’ Gaze” (1995), not only being included in the list, but also climbing up among the top-10 movies of readers’ All Time best films.
The Swedish must be celebrating as well, since two Ingmar Bergman movies are in TIME’s list: “Smiles of a Summer Night” (1955) and “Persona” (1966), which was also selected as the best movie of the 60’s. Please forgive me if I doubt whether is it better than Fellini’s 8 ½, however.
The Spanish are parcipating with two of the most representative film-makers of different eras, Luis Bunuel with “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” (1972) and Pedro Almodovar with “Talk to Her” (2002), which was also voted as best movie of the 2000 decade so far.
The Chechs are represented by Edgar G. Ulmer’s Hollywood hit, “Detour” (1945), and one of the best Chech movies ever “Closely Watched Trains” (1966) by Jiri Menzel.
And finally, an all time classic, a movie that everyone has seen, “Casablanca” (1942) by Michael Curtiz (American with Hungarian origins) offered Hungary a place in the top-100 list.
While no Belgian director or film was included in TIME magazine’s list, we should not forget however the Dardenne brothers, who won the 2005 Palm d’Or in Cannes with their movie “L’ Enfant”.
Now, you have a list with some of the most successful films in history, so… go and see them!
Vote your Top-10 movies of all times!!!
