Sight and Sound - 1952 ed.
by Rune_Kreutz | created - 09 Jan 2023 | updated - 09 Jan 2023 | PublicI 1952 inviterte filmmagasinet Sight and Sound 85 filmkritikere til å kåre sine favorittfilmer. 63 svarte og Sight and Sound, som utgis av British Film Institute, har fortsatt med kåringene hvert tiende år, og resultatet av årets kåring, den sjette i rekken kan du se her https://www.imdb.com/list/ls566258618/.
Slik beskrev Sight and Sound den første kåringen i oktober-desember-utgaven 1952:
As a sequel to the Brussels Referendum (featured in the previous issue of Sight & Sound), in which about one hundred film directors were asked to vote for what they considered the Ten Best Films of all time, we decided to ask critics the same question.
Eighty-five critics, from Britain, France, the United States, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, were asked, and 63 responded; the cooperation is much appreciated.
Most critics were unanimous in finding the question unfair. “What an awful idea,” “What a thing to ask,” “I feel simply broken,” “disturbing,” “impossible,” “barbarous,” “silly” and “lousy” were among the comments passed. One pointed out that he had seen about 3,200 films, another that he had seen exactly 5,777.
As with the Brussels Referendum letter, our request was for personal references – “the films that have impressed you most personally” – and many critics were quick and right to answer that the films one thought best (in the history of the cinema, etc.), were not necessarily the films one liked best. Other reservations were that memory plays tricks, and that ten was an unreasonable and arbitrary number. Why not 50? asked one contributor (sending in 15 choices). Why not 2½? suggested another.
Space, unfortunately, does not permit us to include all these interesting, apt and sometimes desperate reservations, nor to publish every individual list. In the space available we have tried to print as representative a selection as possible, bearing in mind nationality, types of critic (daily paper, weekly, magazine, occasional, writer of books, etc.), and the interest of listing as many different films as possible. We apologise for the omissions. [These individual lists are not yet online.]
As can be seen, the top four choices of the critics agree with those of the directors, though in a different order. Bicycle Thieves won easily with 25 out of a possible 63 votes, the two Chaplin films tied with 19 each, and Potemkin followed with 16. After that the number dropped to 12, and the films followed each other very closely, four tying for the last place.
Films in the critics’ and not the directors’ best ten are Louisiana Story, Le Jour se Lève, La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc, Intolerance and La Règle du Jeu. Apart from these, The Grapes of Wrath, The Childhood of Maxim Gorki; Earth, Citizen Kane, Monsieur Verdoux, Que Viva Mexico, Zéro de Conduite and Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne are placed high in the runners-up by critics, and not by directors. Some of the directors’ strongest personal choices, by contrast – Hallelujah!, Foolish Wives, Storm over Asia, Devil in the Flesh, The Threepenny Opera – receive considerably fewer votes in this referendum.
Most appropriate last word, perhaps, from a distracted critic: “Goodness, how hard it was to whittle down!”
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1. Bicycle Thieves (1948)
Not Rated | 89 min | Drama
In post-war Italy, a working-class man's bicycle is stolen, endangering his efforts to find work. He and his son set out to find it.
Director: Vittorio De Sica | Stars: Lamberto Maggiorani, Enzo Staiola, Lianella Carell, Elena Altieri
Votes: 175,238 | Gross: $0.33M
25 stemmer
2. City Lights (1931)
G | 87 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
With the aid of a wealthy erratic tippler, a dewy-eyed tramp who has fallen in love with a sightless flower girl accumulates money to be able to help her medically.
Director: Charles Chaplin | Stars: Charles Chaplin, Virginia Cherrill, Florence Lee, Harry Myers
Votes: 196,128 | Gross: $0.02M
19 stemmer
3. The Gold Rush (1925)
Passed | 95 min | Adventure, Comedy, Drama
A prospector goes to the Klondike during the 1890s gold rush in hopes of making his fortune, and is smitten with a girl he sees in a dance hall.
Director: Charles Chaplin | Stars: Charles Chaplin, Mack Swain, Tom Murray, Henry Bergman
Votes: 118,692 | Gross: $5.45M
19 stemmer
4. Battleship Potemkin (1925)
Not Rated | 66 min | Drama, History, Thriller
In the midst of the Russian Revolution of 1905, the crew of the battleship Potemkin mutiny against the brutal, tyrannical regime of the vessel's officers. The resulting street demonstration in Odessa brings on a police massacre.
Director: Sergei Eisenstein | Stars: Aleksandr Antonov, Vladimir Barskiy, Grigoriy Aleksandrov, Ivan Bobrov
Votes: 61,467 | Gross: $0.05M
16 stemmer
5. Intolerance (1916)
Passed | 163 min | Drama, History
The story of a poor young woman separated by prejudice from her husband and baby is interwoven with tales of intolerance from throughout history.
Director: D.W. Griffith | Stars: Lillian Gish, Robert Harron, Mae Marsh, F.A. Turner
Votes: 16,727 | Gross: $2.18M
12 stemmer
6. Louisiana Story (1948)
Approved | 78 min | Adventure, Drama
The idyllic life of a young Cajun boy and his pet raccoon is disrupted when the tranquility of the bayou is broken by an oil well drilling near his home.
Director: Robert J. Flaherty | Stars: Joseph Boudreaux, Lionel Le Blanc, E. Bienvenu, Frank Hardy
Votes: 2,152
12 stemmer
7. Greed (1924)
Not Rated | 140 min | Drama, Thriller, Western
The sudden fortune won from a lottery fans such destructive greed that it ruins the lives of the three people involved.
Director: Erich von Stroheim | Stars: Gibson Gowland, Zasu Pitts, Jean Hersholt, Dale Fuller
Votes: 10,766 | Gross: $0.16M
11 stemmer
8. Le Jour Se Leve (1939)
Not Rated | 93 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
After committing a murder, a man locks himself in his apartment and recollects the events that led him to the killing.
Director: Marcel Carné | Stars: Jean Gabin, Jacqueline Laurent, Arletty, Jules Berry
Votes: 8,275 | Gross: $0.03M
11 stemmer
9. The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
Passed | 114 min | Biography, Drama, History
In 1431, Jeanne d'Arc is placed on trial on charges of heresy. The ecclesiastical jurists attempt to force Jeanne to recant her claims of holy visions.
Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer | Stars: Maria Falconetti, Eugene Silvain, André Berley, Maurice Schutz
Votes: 60,702 | Gross: $0.02M
11 stemmer
10. Brief Encounter (1945)
Not Rated | 86 min | Drama, Romance
Meeting a stranger in a railway station, a woman is tempted to cheat on her husband.
Director: David Lean | Stars: Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway, Joyce Carey
Votes: 44,259
10 stemmer
11. Le Million (1931)
Not Rated | 91 min | Comedy, Musical
An impoverished painter and his rival engage in a race across Paris to recover a jacket concealing a winning lottery ticket.
Director: René Clair | Stars: Annabella, René Lefèvre, Jean-Louis Allibert, Paul Ollivier
Votes: 3,844
10 stemmer
12. The Rules of the Game (1939)
Not Rated | 110 min | Comedy, Drama
A bourgeois life in France at the onset of World War II, as the rich and their poor servants meet up at a French chateau.
Director: Jean Renoir | Stars: Marcel Dalio, Nora Gregor, Paulette Dubost, Mila Parély
Votes: 31,341
10 stemmer
13. Citizen Kane (1941)
PG | 119 min | Drama, Mystery
Following the death of publishing tycoon Charles Foster Kane, reporters scramble to uncover the meaning of his final utterance: 'Rosebud.'
Director: Orson Welles | Stars: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore, Agnes Moorehead
Votes: 466,141 | Gross: $1.59M
Runner up med 9 stemmer
14. The Grand Illusion (1937)
Not Rated | 113 min | Drama, War
During WWI, two French soldiers are captured and imprisoned in a German P.O.W. camp. Several escape attempts follow until they are eventually sent to a seemingly inescapable fortress.
Director: Jean Renoir | Stars: Jean Gabin, Dita Parlo, Pierre Fresnay, Erich von Stroheim
Votes: 38,870 | Gross: $0.17M
Runner up med 9 stemmer
15. The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
Passed | 129 min | Drama
An Oklahoma family, driven off their farm by the poverty and hopelessness of the Dust Bowl, joins the westward migration to California, suffering the misfortunes of the homeless in the Great Depression.
Director: John Ford | Stars: Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine, Charley Grapewin
Votes: 100,002 | Gross: $0.06M
Runner up med 9 stemmer
16. Gorky 1: The Childhood of Maxim Gorky (1938)
98 min | Biography, Drama
A drama reveals the great writer's inauspicious early years as an orphan raised by conniving relatives.
Director: Mark Donskoy | Stars: Aleksei Lyarsky, Varvara Massalitinova, Mikhail Troyanovskiy, Elizaveta Alekseeva
Votes: 779
Runner up med 8 stemmer
17. Monsieur Verdoux (1947)
Passed | 124 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
A suave but cynical man supports his family by marrying and murdering rich women for their money, but the job has some occupational hazards.
Director: Charles Chaplin | Stars: Charles Chaplin, Mady Correll, Allison Roddan, Robert Lewis
Votes: 19,138 | Gross: $0.33M
Runner up med 8 stemmer
18. ¡Que viva Mexico! (1932)
Not Rated | 88 min | History
Having revolutionized film editing through such masterworks of montage as Potemkin and Strike, Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein emigrated west in hopes of testing the capabilities of the American film industry.
Directors: Grigoriy Aleksandrov, Sergei Eisenstein | Stars: Félix Balderas, Sara García, Martín Hernández, David Liceága
Runner up med 8 stemmer
19. Earth (1930)
Unrated | 75 min | Drama
In the peaceful countryside, Vassily opposes the rich kulaks over the coming of collective farming.
Director: Aleksandr Dovzhenko | Stars: Stepan Shkurat, Semyon Svashenko, Yuliya Solntseva, Yelena Maksimova
Votes: 6,405
Runner up med 7 stemmer
20. Zero for Conduct (1933)
Not Rated | 47 min | Drama
In a repressive boarding school with rigid rules of behavior, four boys decide to rebel against the direction on a celebration day.
Director: Jean Vigo | Stars: Jean Dasté, Robert le Flon, Louis Lefebvre, Du Verron
Votes: 9,368
Runner up med 7 stemmer
21. Broken Blossoms or the Yellow Man and the Girl (1919)
Not Rated | 90 min | Drama, Romance
A frail waif, abused by her brutal boxer father in London's seedy Limehouse District, is befriended by a sensitive Chinese immigrant with tragic consequences.
Director: D.W. Griffith | Stars: Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, Donald Crisp, Arthur Howard
Votes: 11,064
Runner up med 6 stemmer
22. The Ladies of the Bois de Boulogne (1945)
Not Rated | 86 min | Drama, Romance
A society lady engineers a marriage between her lover and a cabaret dancer who is essentially a prostitute.
Director: Robert Bresson | Stars: Paul Bernard, María Casares, Elina Labourdette, Lucienne Bogaert
Votes: 4,839
Runner up med 6 stemmer
23. Hallelujah (1929)
Passed | 109 min | Drama, Musical
A sharecropper decides to become a preacher after falling for a vamp from the city.
Director: King Vidor | Stars: Daniel L. Haynes, Nina Mae McKinney, William Fountaine, Harry Gray
Votes: 2,000
Runner up med 6 stemmer
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