Zoom-in Online

Recently I was asked to participate in a list "inspired by" the AFI Top 100 though not, unfortunately, a direct response (it didn't use the same criteria). The idea was to collect a online equivalent or a web based idea of the "100 Greatest Films". I had several concerns about it that I thought could be ironed out with discussion but patience is not an online virtue. So, the list is soon on its way.

I've seen the "nominee pool", 500 or so films, drawn from the preliminary lists all participants sent in (unranked). A title had to be on 3 lists or more to qualify for the finals. The participants would then send in a ranked list drawn from the finals. I've done the math and close to 50% are from the last 16 years. Which is rather deplorable if you stop to consider it. Even film enthusiasts resist screening or truly embracing older films. This changes the meaning of the list from the "greatest" to the "most recent that appeal to young men" I base the new projected meaning on what was eliminated from my individual list: basically anything old and undervalued like Dodsworth (only 24 films from the 30s were on enough lists to qualify for the finals which gives on pause since 1939 alone) or female skewing like Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, Gilda, All That Heaven Allows, Dangerous Liaisons. I'm pretty certain the final product is going to be ghastly and tilting toward the fanboy experience. The finalists are suspect but this certainty comes from one exclusion and one exclusion alone: The Piano Jane Campion's awesomely original and acclaimed 1993 drama --truly one of the greatest films of the last 50 years --didn't make the finals but ninety-nine (99!) other films from its decade were deemed eligible. Now, many of them are fun but come with suspect quality issues: The Crow? Let's be serious here. I kinda loved it in 1994 but it is not quality filmmaking. I watched it again last year for an essay I was writing and was rather embarrassed despite my continuing affection for it. And (sigh) it's better than some of the others on the list. I love genre films (other than horror which I freely admit to not quite "getting") and think they are often given short shrift in "greatetst of all time" list such as these --but this is taking it too far.

Other entries that reveal the median age of the listmakers themselves: Tarantino's entire filmography made the finals. No discernment as to his best. They're all among the 500 best films ever made. Spielbergian efforts both major (understandably) and minor (Catch Me If You Can. Really?) are present. When I first joined up I asked that films from the Aughts not be considered. There's no distance. None of them have settled. It turned out to be a minority opinion and I accept that it's possible to be one of the greatest ever even if you've just arrived --I just don't accept the notion that any moviegoer is prophetic enough to know which will endure the moment the screening ends. But even though I'm grumpy and cynical about the modern tendencies to vote something one has just seen as the best ever even I was surprised that a film from 2007 (Hot Fuzz) was considered one of the 100 best ever by at least three people. It's a funny film but...

Online film enthusiasts skew as contemporary as the stereotype permits. That's one of the reasons new media still struggles with the amateur label. But you have to start cinephilia somewhere.

Silver lining? When it arrives it will be a good reminder that despite all the collective bitching, the AFI list isn't so bad. It casts its net fairly wide. It covers a little bit from every decade. Sure it's frustratingly unadventurous and middlebrow but it does actually read like an overall consensus. Silver lining 2? Maybe the new list will convince a few of its readers to seek out the older films they haven't yet seen. Retrospective discoveries are always worth celebrating in an artistic culture that's always serving the "right here. right now!" audience.

UPDATE: The Final List Has Been Announced