Comments

When suggesting a list of the ten best films, one should explain his own ‘régle du jeu’. No such list can on its own propose a global vision of the art of cinema. Thinking over and over about my list, I almost find it shameful not to include a film by directors I admire – such as Sjöström, Murnau, Lang, Dreyer, Vertov. Dovjenko, Keaton, Chaplin, Hawks, Ford, Welles, Mizoguchi, Kurosawa, Ghatak, Powell, Rosselini, Bresson, Antonioni, Bergman, Tati, Munk, Rivette, Oshima, Straub, Tarkovski, Paradjanov, Schroeter, Syberberg, Duras, Oliveira, Angelopoulos, Cronenberg, Lynch, Kiarostami – not to have a musical or a Western, or not to have deeply personal choices as Letter from an Unknown Woman (Ophüls), The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (Mankiewicz), Wild River (Kazan), The Spirit of the Beehive (Erice) and so on. Neverthless, between Intolerance and Histoire(s) du cinéma, this list suggest films that I believe we must absolutely consider in trying to understand cinema as an artform, one that represents a worldwide endeavour and the powers of aesthetic imagination.