Who's Afraid of the A.F.I.?
The American Film Institute's Latest Product Tie-In-- History!!
by Dave Harrison
Three weeks ago,
halfway through a phone conversation with my mother,
she asked me the damnedest question.
"Dave (pause), What's Film Noir?"
I muttered something about high-contrast interiors and femme fatales and
whiskeys-on-the-rocks, but she wasn't able to grasp it. After a while,when she asked if Meet Me In St. Louis, counted, I said yes and quickly shifted the discussion to my sister's new, much-older boyfriend. In another, better culture, I wouldn't have to tell my mom about film noir. In FRANCE, my mother would know who Gloria Grahame is.
In an America that truly understands its cinematic treasures, my mother would have known that Judy Garland never made a film noir.
Last winter, President Clinton, Larry King and 1,500 other film "experts" were handed a list of the 400 "Greatest" movies of all time, and they were tasked by the American Film Institute with choosing their favorites.
I haven't seen the President's ballot, but I do know Larry voted for The Godfather and The Best Years Of Our Lives as his faves. Maybe he would've chosen Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill but it wasn't on the ballot. Maybe he would have chosen The King Of Comedy or Sweet Smell Of Success, but they weren't on the ballot, either.
In the last month, the media and public have embraced AFI's subsequent Top 100 as the first definitive best-of for American movies. What's so confounding isn't that there are so many dumb choices (Forrest Gump #71; The Jazz Singer #90; Platoon #83) as the dumb-ness of the criteria itself. While the list is touted as "the Best," the compilers actually were ordered to picked based on the following basis
p "Formal commendation in print," i.e., did Bosley Crowther or Rex Reed or Siskel-Ebert inc. like it?
p "Recognition from competitive events including awards from organizations in the film community and major film festivals." That means extra points for Oscars, which must be how Rocky made #78.
p "Popularity over time, including figures for box office adjusted for inflation, television broadcasts and syndication, and home video sales and rentals." That's why Gone With The Wind, a laughably bloated, anti-historical bore, hit #4.
p "Historical significance, such as a film's mark on the history of the moving image through technical innovation." That explains The Jazz
Singer.
p "Cultural impact a film's mark on American society in matters of style
and substance." So why isn't KISS Meets The Phantom Of The Opera on the list?
I acknowledge the subjectivity of any list, but passing on America's most popular movies as its "Greatest" or it's "Top" is just one more reason to move to WORLD CUP- CHAMPION France. Not only did the French provide a home for ace director Radley Metzger (0 films in the Top 400), but they love our low-budget treasures, independent features and cult genre flicks more than our own movie historians.
In both American music and literature, time has generally allowed commerically underappreciated works to gain more recognition (I'm thinking Slim Gaillard, Charles Ives, Velvet Underground and Big Star in music; Alice Bewicke Little, Jim Thompson, Elmore Leonard and even Ishmail Reed in literature) while dreck like Grand Funk Railroad (who sold out Shea Stadium just like the Beatles-- who cares about them now?) and "Peyton Place" get tossed in thedumpster. But the stodginess of film historians-- and we can look to the AFI as the culprits-- prevents underappreciated works like Sweet Smell Of Success from supplanting such dated tripe as From Here To Eternity (#52) even as it attempts to take the high road by championing hoary Oscar winners like Dr. Zhivago and Guess Whose Coming to Dinner"- well intentioned taboo breakers and "grand subject" epics that are average at best when seen through today's eyes.
The above-listed criteria for the list are a perfect reason why. Even the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, for all its flaws, did a better job of eschewing popularity for its Top 100 Songs list, even if the choices did reinforce a certain "Rolling Stone" history of events.
We should also remember that this A.F.I. list is as much a commercial venture as anything else. There are tie-ins with Blockbuster Video, a CBS-TV special that sold commercials, a TBS film fest with more commercials, and there's an entire special edition of Newsweek devoted to it. Actually, AFI's marketing concept was brilliant poll Larry King and other dilettantes, then get competitive video distributers to cooperate on a mass promotion of as it turns out household names like Amadeus (#53)" and Schindler's List (#9).
True, the commercialized aspects are intended to raise money for the AFI
and its ongoing film preservation efforts, but folks, they're not gonna be preserving Teenage Gang Debs. . . which, the last time I saw it had a mighty washed out print.
Most of my "friends" still say the list is worthwhile because it's been a jumping off point for debate. That's like saying stupid people are good to have around because it's easier to yell at them than smart people.
The only movie in the Top 10 that's watchable for reasons other than sentimentality is Citizen Kane. But The Graduate (#7) is pathetically dated and much less hip than James Coburn's 60s spy flicks, to say nothing of the far-superior Blonde On A Bum Trip from the same year; On The Waterfront (#9) represents the worst of Hollywood circa 1954, a deadly serious script with 100% dramatic predictability built around a single social issue. And Brando is a complete joke.
The only other movie in the Top 20 I really enjoy watching is All About Eve (#16), but that's mainly because George Sanders is the greatest actor of the 20th century.
But I digress.
When there are lists of movies as ripe for the pickings as these, why waste time talking about Rex Reed. Or Ishmail Reed. God forbid, my mother should ask me about them.
--Dave Harrison
(In Grip #16, we reported that the 100 Movies list was to be commemerated in Time Magazine.
Actually it's Newsweek.-- sausage ed.)
Unjustly Ignored
The A.F.I. compiled a Top-400 ballot for their votegivers to choose from, and MANY undeniably historical, arguably great, perhaps definitive films (see list below), never got the chance to make that final, flawed Top 100 list. To access this ballot &
the final A.F.I. Top 100, log onto http//afi.100movies.com
Thirteen Women (1932)
The Informant (1935)
Libelled Lady (1937)
Detour (1944)
Louisiana Story (1947)
Monsieur Verdoux (1947)
The Accused (1948)
Angel Face (1952)
The Naked Spur (1953)
The Big Heat (1953)
Night and the City (1954)
Baby Doll (1956)
Bad Day at Black Rock (1956)
The Strange One (1957)
Sweet Smell Of Success (1958)
The Innocents (1961)
The Trial (1963)
Faster Pussycat, Kill Kill (1967)
Riot On Sunset Strip (1967)
Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls (1970)
Sweet Sweetback's Badassssss Song (1971)
Thieves Like Us (1975)
Three Women (1978)
Being There (1981)
King of Comedy (1983)
Dead Ringers (1988)
Drugstore Cowboy (1991)
----Dave Harrison / Don Harrison
Not Worthy
Forget the great films that are missing...
consider the duds of the American Film Institute's Top 100 Films list
#50 Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid (1969) A huge money-maker, and an even bigger career-kicker for Robert Redford. But not even a good. movie.
#65 The Silence of the Lambs (1991) A tense thriller with memorable performances, but surely not worthy of being with the best of all time. . .
#71 Forrest Gump (1994) This inventive, but uneven, serio-comic fantasy netted Tom Hanks his second Oscar. Is anyone prepared to make a case for it being the 71st "Greatest" film of all time? Why not reward the movie that it ripped off for its best gimmick -- Woody Allen's Zelig ?
#88 Easy Rider (1969) It must be here because, historically, it caused a lot of stoned bizzers to make movies in Hollywood. Plus Jack Nicholson got his first big break on it. You gotta figure it's history 'cause this movie isn't very watchable today. (For this slot, substitute Monte Hellman's enigmatic The Shooting, co-starring Nicholson-- one of the great art films (-westerns) of the '60's, or Faster Pussycat Kill Kill or Shaft if you want countercultural signposts with lasting power.
--- Don Harrison
A Sampling Of Some of The AFI's
Top 400 Entries
The Greatest Show On Earth
Jerry McGuire
Breakfast At Tiffany's
The Joy Luck Club
The Jazz Singer
GoneWith The Wind
Wuthering Heights
Pretty Woman
How Green Was My Valley
A Place In The Sun
From Here To Eternity
Oklahoma!
Giant
It's A Mad, Mad, Mad World
Ten Commandments
Raisin In The Sun
Forrest Gump
The Sound Of Music
Guess Who's Coming To Dinner
The Producers
Easy Rider
Sleepless In Seattle
Love Story
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Rocky
Saturday Night Fever
Sophie's Choice
Braveheart
Return Of The Jedi
Hannah And Her Sisters
Platoon
Lethal Weapon
Born On The 4th Of July
Field Of Dreams
Sense and Sensibility