czechnewwaver commented on…
Jonathan Rosenbaum - Alternative 100 Top American Films
What is he trying to prove? — 3 years ago
It seems more like a 100 Favorites list to me. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but after getting so stuffy about the AFI’s list he shouldn’t submit his own severely flawed “100 best” list. Anyway, only 25 of the AFI’s films would be on his list? I’d love to know what those 25 would be…the AFI list was deeply flawed of course, but it achieved its goal, which was to get people interested in film history. At the time I was a teenage film buff who’s interest in seeing classic films had waned in recent years (I was getting into music at the time). The AFI list re-kindled my flame and since then I’ve barely looked back.
Comments
Have you even read his essay??
He’s not trying to “prove” anything…he’s simply stating that the AFI’s list, which “achieved its goal”, merely celebrates hollywood mediocrity and commercialism. Of course it sparked people’s interest in classic film, for which it is to be applauded but it points the audience towards the already most successful films (some of them barely above banal: “To Kill A Mockingbird” on a top 100?!?) of the hollywood canon. He wants you to get interested in film history, just not the one already charted and mapped out for you by the studio system. He wants people to go to the movies for the same reason that he and his many esteemed colleagues do which, for lack of a better explanation, is artistic merit and emotional sustenance. I enjoy how you remark it as a “severely flawed” list also when in the title he offers you crystal clear explanation for such an attack: “ALTERNATIVE”! He wants people to be open to see films they might not have heard of or would have ever seen…films that moved him more than the films that everyone already knows they should see anyway.
I’d love to see your top 100 sometime.
czechnewwaver