My
occasional Twitter pal Richard Brody has a
nice post up in regards to the Sight & Sound poll, remarking on the
fact that many films are by directors with complete control of the camera as
opposed to looser filmmakers. He writes:
The
prominence of films by of Stanley Kubrick (“2001” at number six), Francis Ford
Coppola and Andrei Tarkovsky (three each), and Akira Kurosawa (two); the
relative absence of Italian neo-realism (“Bicycle Thieves” at thirty-three,
“Voyage to Italy”—if that counts—at forty-one); and, in general, the lack of
movies where the strings seem looser (e.g. John Cassavetes, Elaine May)
indicates that directorial control freaks have a higher standing among the
voters than those whose movies reflect heads-up curiosity, spontaneity, and
responsiveness to unexpected discovery.
Richard is certainly right – Vertigo is dominated by Hitchcock’s precision
in every frame, as is The Searchers
and Tokyo Story and 2001 – and I too lament the absent of Rio Bravo, or anything by Howard Hawks
for that matter. But I think to call these films lacking in unexpected
discoveries might be a little too mischievous. Part of this might be due to the
fact that Richard is a better critic than I’ll ever be – nothing misses his
eyes or ears, while sometimes I need repeat viewings to fully take in some
films. That’s what happened when I re-watched Vertigo two weeks ago, and I noticed, on my tenth viewing of the
film, that Scottie is not the real name of Jimmy Stewart’s character, but instead
it is Johnny (or “Johnny-O” as Midge calls him, which reminded me of Roger O.
Thornhill – The O stands for nothing, he tells us – in North by Northwest).
