That's all I have to say after my son John posts — on Facebook — a link to "'Jeanne Dielman' Tops Sight & Sound’s 2022 Poll of the Best Films of All Time."
The Sight & Sound poll results are much anticipated — every 10 years. I've been noticing this thing since the 1970s, so I'm familiar with what normally ends up at or near the top. Favorites come and go. But I've never seen the #1 position go to something I've never even heard of:
Directed by Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman and released in 1975, “Jeanne Dielman” is a three-hour, 20-minute film following the title character (Delphine Seyrig), a single mother and prostitute, as she carries out a monotonous daily routine that slowly breaks apart and collapses. Since its premiere, the film has been highly acclaimed as a landmark of feminist cinema.
What's going on here? And do I need to watch a 3-hour, 20-minute monotonous movie to have an opinion? A movie about a prostitute — but feminist. Keep watching, because she will break apart and collapse, and we're told it's feminist.
I've had my own feminist opinion about the overrepresentation of prostitutes in the movies, and I've had it for a long time — for many cycles of Sight & Sound polls. So I don't need these critics trying to make up for all their past decades of boosting the work of male film directors... if that's what's going on here.
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ha ha ha
Young Althouse, Episcopalian
"I respect authority because I was raised in the Church of England, US division, and we are the church that respects government authority the most, it's not even close, I am so respectful of authority!"
Middle-Aged Althouse, Atheist, Agnostic, and Former Episcopalian and Feminist and Humanist Law Professor Who Does't Take Shit From Anybody, Cruel and Neutral, You Better Believe It, I Am a Rock Star, Ask My Students, Bitch
"Okay, I have seen with my own eyes how the sausage is made and boy oh boy I am starting to lose my respect for authority."
Altouse Today
"Sight & Sound, another of my favorite authority figures, you are in trouble! Big trouble! Damn if I'm wasting 3 hours on your sorry recommendation! Who the hell is making this recommendation, anyway? I want the names and addresses of the voters. This is Sausage Shit 101!"
A movie about a prostitute — but feminist. Keep watching, because she will break apart and collapse, and we're told it's feminist.I've had my own feminist opinion about the overrepresentation of prostitutes in the movies, and I've had it for a long time — for many cycles of Sight & Sound polls. So I don't need these critics trying to make up for all their past decades of boosting the work of male film directors... if that's what's going on here.
One of my priests, love her, big-time feminist...
She shall remain nameless, but she is awesome...
When I was taking the Confirmation Class at Christ Church (again, because when I took it at 6 I didn't understand a damn thing), when she was teaching our class she took the opportunity to share her theory that the Bible was wrong and Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute.
I mean, she was just furious that all those males who followed Jesus and shut out the women would make stuff up about Mary Magdalene, the rock star disciple. And she was all, "She is not a prostitute!" Very passionate.
And I raised my hand...
(everybody go, "uh-oh")
And I said, "I really like the story of her being a prostitute and finding redemption from all her sins. It speaks to me. Because I got sins. So she's one of my favorites, because she found redemption. Kind of like Paul, who was a murderer, his bad stuff wound up in the Bible, too."
And a beautiful woman in the Confirmation class, no idea who she was, never saw her before or since, she said, "Yeah!"
That was fun.
I didn't do it on purpose, you understand. It was a genuine question and I was trying to learn. But I also I get a (Satanic? Evil? Stupid?) thrill out of intellectual combat and winning an argument. God gave me the personality of a fighter and unlike a lot of fighters gave me a boatload of internal doubts as well.
a landmark of feminist cinema.
enough said.. Right There.
NOT a landmark of cinema. NOT a landmark of great cinema. NOT a landmark of even. good cinema.
a landmark of feminist cinema.
Are prostitutes “over-represented” in movies?
Whoring looks to me to be the major pre-occupation of a very large percentage of young women.
Looks to me to be everywhere. Porn, chat rooms, online dating, pickup and “Get Lucky” culture.
If anything, it looks to me like whoring by women is under-represented in movies designed to appeal to egghead, artsy audiences. Most of the prostitution is incredibly cheesy and cheap. I think that the prof lives in a rarified culture of intellectual and artistic engagement that is non-existent outside her circle. On the trailer park and welfare single mom level, whoring is omnipresent.
This wholesale whoring is probably one of the factors that explains why marriage is becoming uncommon among the young. The majority of women are so whored out that men don’t consider them fit to be wives.
Feminist art always makes me wonder if Judy Chicago washed her own dishes.
If you see so much of that Thomas perhaps you should stop and think about all the places you go to see that concentration of depravity. You sound like a very sick creepy old man.
My brother recommended the Marilyn Monroe biopic "Blonde" for all of the old LA locations, architecture and interiors. It was a fabulous work of art great acting and dialogue with aspects of surrealism and cubism that was horribly painful to sit through. I suppose the nearest painting that I get the same reaction to is Woman by DeKooning.
Sounds riveting.
uh
it's supposed to be "Ask my students, Bitch!" like Althouse is talking street talk to a critic.
not
"Bitch" as if that is one of her many titles
just for clarification, my grammar sucks and sometimes, I use, too many, commas.
This is my first comment, after lurking since the blog's inception. All I can say is MY GOD I LOVE THIS FILM. My wife, who grew up in Paris and loves (almost) everything French, disagrees. Perhaps because it's Belgian French. FWIW, I didn't know until now that it is a feminist film, much less a landmark.
Shouting T says, "The majority of women are so whored out that men don’t consider them fit to be wives."
But some are whored out just right, like Gov Newsom's wife. Show biz . . . Weinstein . . transactional
I predict that "Jaws: The Revenge" will top the Sight & Sound 2032 poll of the Best Films of All Time.
The absence of “Lives of Others” from the list renders the entire list a joke.
I am always astounded that Lucas’ greatest film, “American Graffiti” gets so little respect.
AMDG: good call on both movies. American Graffiti was actually filmed in Petaluma to simulate Modesto. Either way, it's another homage to old school California culture that is dead and gone. Those old small downtowns look the same.
"This wholesale whoring is probably one of the factors that explains why marriage is becoming uncommon among the young. The majority of women are so whored out that men don’t consider them fit to be wives."
Or too many women are finding there are too few men fit to be husbands.
"I am always astounded that Lucas’ greatest film, “American Graffiti” gets so little respect."
Not only his greatest--and it is great!--but also his last good film.
Three hours and twenty minutes?!
If you're David Lean, or Akira Kurosawa, fine. Adapting Tolkein, fine. Otherwise, no.
somehow lost an "h" at 4 in the morning.
The old scrappy but pretty prostitute with “a heart of gold” premise but with a dystopian entropic plot line. Hard pass! I feel for Althouse. Like feminist the word conservative gets used and abused in ways that imply a definition wholly unrelated to the conservatism I live and observe in the people around me. Hell, Achilles claimed Hunter’s Hooker and I are not conservatives anymore. Wrong on both counts IMO and I agree with most stuff she’s written. My recent disagreements are a tiny bit of our history.
Learned of this film because it appears on lists, but when also learnee how long it is recoiled, although I have been known to binge watch that much of a series. Seems different somehow. Maybe because foreign.
Maybe during the intermission they could show 'The Godfather' or 'Tootsie' or some other movie people really want to watch...
I'd rather watch Irma La Douce.
01. “Vertigo” (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
02. “Citizen Kane” (Orson Welles, 1941)
03. “Tokyo Story” (Ozu Yasujiro, 1953)
04. “In the Mood for Love, Wong Kar-wai, 2001)
05. “Mulholland Dr.” (David Lynch, 2001)
06. “Singin’ in the Rain” (Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, 1951)
07. “Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans” (F.W. Murnau, 1927)
08. “The Godfather” (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
09. “La Règle du Jeu” (Jean Renoir, 1939)
10. “Seven Samurai” (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
Those are pretty good choices in the Top 20. A lot of the others films are just politically driven or the usual film critic oddball behavior. Its bizarre that "Apocolypse Now" is now a critic favorite, some of these oddball critics even think Brando gave a great performance!
Fun fact. No film has been in the top 10 in every poll. Of course most of cinema history follows the initial 1952 poll.
Robert Cook, the blind squirrel, found an acorn! Women rate only the top 10% to 20% of men as "above average" so they do indeed find most men NOT to be marriage material. And they throw themselves at the top 20% of men with amazing abandon, hoping to be married to "above average" men. Meanwhile, those men have found that a cow need not be owned, with all the liability that entails, to enjoy free milk. And the other 80% of "below average" men find it hard to find women for relationships, short or long term. The result is Tinder statistics.
How Delphine Seyrig went from the mysterious pomp and luxury of Last Year at Marienbad to the depressing life of Jeanne Dielman, etc., etc. would make a more interesting movie. Or how she ended up in Buñuel's The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, the ferociously anti-American Mr. Freedom, and Kerouac and Ginsburg's short Pull My Daisy. She must have had a very interesting life and crossed paths with many of the greats.
"And do I need to watch a 3-hour, 20-minute monotonous movie to have an opinion?"
No, everyone is allowed to have an opinion. Although you may not be allowed to post it on twitter.
John makes a good point in his Facebook post. How does a 50 year-old movie go from #36 on the list to #1? Something changed, and it isn't the movie. Either the movie has gotten some press lately or the process for compiling the list has changed.
Collective "Best Films" lists rarely pan out. A "Best Films" list by an individual critic is usually more consistent. I've been working my way through John Nolte's list.
“ This is my first comment, after lurking since the blog's inception. All I can say is MY GOD I LOVE THIS FILM.”
Thanks for reading and for finally commenting.
On your recommendation I will try to watch this film.
Randomizer: Thanks, news to me. Good list, but he's more of an idiosyncratic Charlton Heston epic fan than me!
The dark irony of masculinism served by feminism. It's not about women. It's not about men. Most men and women subscribe to the philosophy of equal in rights and complementary in Nature/nature, then reconcile as humans do.
A 14 minute film in 16th place? Perfect double feature with #1?
One person's monotonous is another's slow cinema. I didn't know there was such a thing as slow cinema until I found it used to describe other recent movies I have watched, such as An Elephant Sitting Still (3 hours and 50 minutes).
Dielman is okay and held my interest, but it's not one the best, and certainly not the best. This is just the latest example of using something other than merit in choosing work to be recognized.
Ackerman's best film is:
Histoires d'Amérique: Food, Family and Philosophy
1989
About Jewish immigrants in New York City. I wonder why this isn't NO. 1 film?
great, great, great slow cinema
Ozu
Jarmusch
I don't have the link but you can go to EBert's 2012 Sound sight vote to see how these voters pick their films. As Ebert explains it, part of it emotional and part of it is "propaganda". that is they want to get some good film/director some publicity so they put them on their list.
The emotional factor includes politics, since 99 percent of film critics are leftists either moderate or extreme. And since the left is now driven by identity politics, we must have x number of explicitly Gay, or Jewish, or muslim, or 3rd world, or Feminist, or black films and film directors on the list. To not do so would be homophobic, antisemtic, xenophobic, msygogist, colonalist, racist, or bigoted.
So you get a list with a lot of great films and a lot of crap.
Exampe of S&S taste in directors:
Akerman films -2
Godard films - 4
Kubrick - 3
John Ford -1 (the seachers because it deals with racism)
Welles - 1
Bergman - 1
Powell & pressburger - 2
Kurosawa - 2
David Lean - 0
Capra 0
Lubistch 0
Huston 0
Harold Lloyd -0
Anne Fletcher directed The Proposal (2009) which was pretty good. Ryan Reynolds Sandra Bullock
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