As I previously reported, according to Sight & Sound’s latest poll, the greatest film of all time is Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, directed by Chantal Akerman and released in 1975. The selection has received very mixed reaction and I am one of those that strongly disagree with the poll. Jeanne Dielman is a 201-minute-long drama starring Delphine Seyrig, which has been established as a cult classic since 1975 and holds an impressive 97% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes. Jeanne Dielman’s triumph is defended by Sight & Sound in regard to its groundbreaking feminist themes, a well-deserved representation of female filmmakers on the coveted list, and importance as an “under-appreciated gem” that defies the “established order. It has received critical acclaim as “a feminist masterpiece”. Jeanne Dielman is also unique in that 25-year-old Akerman worked with an all-female crew over the course of only five weeks on a $120,000 budget.
The film has never been in the top 10 since the inception of the poll. In 2002 it was ranked 73rd. A decade ago, in the last poll, Jeanne Dielman jumped up to number 36 on Sight & Sound’s list after it had just been added to the much-desired Criterion Collection in 2009, thus introducing it to a new wave of critics and film buffs. Director Chantal Akerman related that when her movie was first screened at Cannes, she sat in the back of the theater listening to the seats banging as the audience walked out. But “the next day fifty people invited the film to their festivals, and I traveled with it all over the world.”
To create the list, Sight and Sound editors and associates asked more than 1,600 critics, scholars, distributors, curators, archivists and others to select what they considered to be the 10 greatest films of all time, with the definition of “greatness” left to the respondent’s discretion. The lists were unranked — each of the 10 films received one vote. The submitted films are then ranked by the total number of votes each received. The number of films on the list directed by women rose from two to eleven. Likewise wherein the 2012 poll contained no films made in the previous decade, this year four films released in the last decade were added. As the New York Times reporting points out “… the new arrivals mean some notable demotions. This time, a handful of long-heralded landmarks, including David Lean’s “Lawrence of Arabia” (1962), Sam Peckinpah’s “The Wild Bunch” (1969) and Roman Polanski’s “Chinatown” (1974) dropped out.” They are no longer in the poll’s top 100.
Some interesting positive articles on how and why Jeanne Dielman jumped 36 spots to the top can be found the websites of Collider and ScreenRant. On the other side of the coin famed Director and Writer Paul Schrader slams the selection as “Distorted Woke Reappraisal”. In my opinion, among the primary reasons that the film has made such big jumps is a combination of the type and background of the critics along with modern film’s failure to accurately depict the struggles of women in the vivid painful way of Jeanne Dielman. Exposure through streaming channels has also helped the film gain more attention.
Although I was aware of the film from film theory classes and some articles, I had never seen it before last weekend. After barely resisting the urge to turn it off despite its worthy messages, I can say with complete sincerity that the film would never have made my top 10. The same film in the hands of Célene Sciamma, however, would have been conveyed the same messages so much more powerfully and worthy of a top billing. (Sciamma’s “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” entered the list at No. 30.)
WHAT WOULD BE YOUR TOP 10 FILMS OF ALL TIME? Post your list in the comments.
The film is available on The Criterion Channel, HBOMax, Amazon Prime, Vudu and AppleTV.
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