#1
Posted: 12/4/06 at 1:44pm
I guess some of the movies that regularly feature on "best of all time lists" are logical targets, as well as films who are highly rated during an era but won't or haven't stood the test of time. Being "overrated" is not the same thing as being "bad" in my book. Even a great movie can be overrated. I will personally have to think this over and perhaps see some movies before i post my full list but here are some spontaneous suggestions, which I might greatly regret after having seen the m again. They are all good or great movies by the way:
Citizen Kane
Since it is regarly put forward as the best movie of all time it should be practically faultless and I feel it isn't. I felt for instance that the mock documentary start in the beginning wore thin after some minutes and it lasted much to long. Having seen the documentary about William Randolph Hearst and Orson Welles i felt that both mens lifes were more intersting than the film.
Million Dollar Baby
This one is not as highly rated as the others but having won the Oscar for both best picture and director it belongs to an exclusive group of very highly rated movies. Now the perspective with a female boxer and a sad ending, was refreshing for a boxing movie, but hardly genius. However the characters felt stereotypical in many cases, which is a problem if the movie is intended as a drama. The most extreme stereotypes were the relatives to the boxer, the mother in particular.
Apocalypse Now
In many ways a great movie with individual scenes that have become part of cultural history (especially the wagner scene). But the individual scenes sometimes feel as they don't fit together as they should and it doesn't really feel as the serious comment on the Vietnam war that it pretends to be.
Ok two movies with a Swedish connection:
Casablanca
This movie is also often in the top ten on best of all time lists and therefore should be practically faultless in order to not be overrated. I think the best with this movie is the icons in it: Bogart, Bergman and Armstrong together with the famous tune, the scene were it is played and the "we will always have Paris" ending scene. But the manuscript is hardly among the best of all time. Now granted a movie consist of several parts and having icons in it at their prime is a great plus.
The seventh seal
Ok, i don't think it's considered as one of Bergmans best films today but it's still higly rated. To me it feels a bit satirical and cliche ridden which i don't think was the intention of Ingmar Bergman (at least not to the present degree).
A final thought. It might be unfair to judge old movies with todays standards. Often it is the popularity of a groundbreaking directing method that makes it a cliché. Comedy is probably aging particularly fast. If a movie comedy made everyone laugh in the 20's but few today, should it then be considered a good or a bad movie, or something in between? I can't say I laugh that much at Chaplins silent movies for instance. Some say that the sign of a great piece of art is that it ages well but is that obviously so? Think of a movie which contains a very advanced commentary on today's society with several subtle messages which only very knowledgable people of today can appreciate. These subtle meanings will not be understood to the same degree by knowledgable people in a hundred years and not at all by ordinary people and the movie will therefore not work as well as it dit in it's time. However a movie from today that deals with the so called eternal subjects of love, aging and the meaning life, will probably age better. I suspect that many critics rate movies from the 30's and 40's highly, partly with this in mind and because they covered new ground in those days and were highly influential, while still being good or great movies today, but perhaps not the all-time best with todays standards.
Citizen Kane
Since it is regarly put forward as the best movie of all time it should be practically faultless and I feel it isn't. I felt for instance that the mock documentary start in the beginning wore thin after some minutes and it lasted much to long. Having seen the documentary about William Randolph Hearst and Orson Welles i felt that both mens lifes were more intersting than the film.
Million Dollar Baby
This one is not as highly rated as the others but having won the Oscar for both best picture and director it belongs to an exclusive group of very highly rated movies. Now the perspective with a female boxer and a sad ending, was refreshing for a boxing movie, but hardly genius. However the characters felt stereotypical in many cases, which is a problem if the movie is intended as a drama. The most extreme stereotypes were the relatives to the boxer, the mother in particular.
Apocalypse Now
In many ways a great movie with individual scenes that have become part of cultural history (especially the wagner scene). But the individual scenes sometimes feel as they don't fit together as they should and it doesn't really feel as the serious comment on the Vietnam war that it pretends to be.
Ok two movies with a Swedish connection:
Casablanca
This movie is also often in the top ten on best of all time lists and therefore should be practically faultless in order to not be overrated. I think the best with this movie is the icons in it: Bogart, Bergman and Armstrong together with the famous tune, the scene were it is played and the "we will always have Paris" ending scene. But the manuscript is hardly among the best of all time. Now granted a movie consist of several parts and having icons in it at their prime is a great plus.
The seventh seal
Ok, i don't think it's considered as one of Bergmans best films today but it's still higly rated. To me it feels a bit satirical and cliche ridden which i don't think was the intention of Ingmar Bergman (at least not to the present degree).
A final thought. It might be unfair to judge old movies with todays standards. Often it is the popularity of a groundbreaking directing method that makes it a cliché. Comedy is probably aging particularly fast. If a movie comedy made everyone laugh in the 20's but few today, should it then be considered a good or a bad movie, or something in between? I can't say I laugh that much at Chaplins silent movies for instance. Some say that the sign of a great piece of art is that it ages well but is that obviously so? Think of a movie which contains a very advanced commentary on today's society with several subtle messages which only very knowledgable people of today can appreciate. These subtle meanings will not be understood to the same degree by knowledgable people in a hundred years and not at all by ordinary people and the movie will therefore not work as well as it dit in it's time. However a movie from today that deals with the so called eternal subjects of love, aging and the meaning life, will probably age better. I suspect that many critics rate movies from the 30's and 40's highly, partly with this in mind and because they covered new ground in those days and were highly influential, while still being good or great movies today, but perhaps not the all-time best with todays standards.
