Take One (Jul 1978)

Who’s who PETER BISKIND is an editor on the staff of Seven Days and a freelance film critic. VINCENT CANBY is the film critic for The New York Times and an occasional novelist. RICHARD CORLISS writes about film for New Times and is Editor of Film Comment. PETER COWIE edits International Film Guide and is the author of books on Scandinavian cinema and general world cinema. JAN DAWSON is a prolific freelance critic and journalist and author of a forthcoming book on new German cinema. STEPHEN FARBER is movie critic for New West and has written for a wide variety of other publications. MICHAEL GOODWIN is a San Franciscobased freelancer, and is an associate editor of Take One. MOLLY HASKELL is film critic for New York and author of From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies. DIANE JACOBS is a freelance critic and author of Hollywood Renaissance. RICHARD T. JAMESON is editor of the Seattle Film Society’s magazine Movietone News and teaches film at the University of Washington. STANLEY KAUFFMAN is film critic for The New Republic and author and editor of numerous books on film. GREIL MARCUS lives in Berkeley, is author of Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n’ Roll Music, writes about books for Rolling Stone, and insists he is not a film critic. JANET MASLIN currently writes about film for The New York Times. GENE MOSKOWITZ, based in Paris, is Variety's ‘‘Mosk.’’ and thus one of the most quoted film critics in the business. FRANK RICH is currently film and television. critic for Time. He previously wrote for the New York Post and New Times. CLAYTON RILEY is a freelance writer and playwright with a wide range of interests, including film. He has written for numerous publications including The New York Times, Black Sports, Amsterdam News. ANDREW SARRIS is film critic for The Village Voice, teaches at Columbia, and is the author of many books on film. RICHARD SCHICKEL writes about film for Time, has produced a television series on movies, and has a novel—A nother I, Another You—just out. DAVID THOMSON teaches film at Dartmouth, is film critic for The Rea/ Paper in Boston and author of the indispensible Biographical Dictionary of Film. FRANCOIS TRUFFAUT describes himself this way: ‘‘Je suis metteur en scéne de cinéma.’’ Truffaut: the most consistent European director. 28 The Godfather—sop of the heap. PETER BISKIND American Films: 1) Godfather I, 2) Jaws, 3) Godfather II, 4) Annie Hall, 5) Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, 6) Klute, 7) Night of the Living Dead, 8) Midnight Cowboy, 9) French Connection I, 10) Chinatown. European Films: 1) Tout va bien, 2) Weekend, 3) The Conformist, 4) Passion of Anna, 5) Swept Away, 6) Wild Child, 7) 1900, 8) The Mattei Affair, 9) WR: Mysteries of the Organism, 10) Middle of the World. Third World Films: 1) The Promised Land, 2) Hour of the Furnaces, 3) Battle of Chile, 4) Ceddo, 5) Lucia. Method of Evaluation: ‘‘Whim.’’ VINCENT CANBY American Films: 1) 2001: A Space Odyssey, 2) Alice’s Restaurant, 3) True Grit, 4) The Wild Bunch, 5) Mean Streets, 6) Nashville, 7) Milestones, 8) Annie Hall, 9) Star Wars, 10) The Godfather. European Films: 1) Stolen Kisses, 2) Claire's Knee, 3) Tristana, 4) The Rise of Louis XIV, 5) Sunday Bloody Sunday, 6) Playtime, 7) Amarcord, 8) Lancelot du Lac, 9) Face to Face, 10) Efft Briest. Third World Films: 1) Memories of Underdevelopment, 2) Distant Thunder, 3) Hour of the Furnaces—Part One, 4) Lucia, 5) Xala. Films are listed in no particular order. RICHARD CORLISS American Films: 1) Petula, 2) Blume in Love, 3) Carnal Knowledge, 4) Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, 5) Badlands, 6) The Parallax View, 7) Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, 8) The Conversation, 9) The Way We Were, 10) Schoolgirl. European Films: 1) Claire's Knee, 2) Aguirre: The Wrath of God, 3) Padre, Padrone, 4) Two English Girls, 5) The Go-Between, 6) Scenes From a Marriage, 7) In the Realm of the Senses, 8) The Mother and the Whore, 9) The Vertical Smile, 10) The Spider's Strategem. PETER COWIE American Films: 1) The Godfather—‘‘The only $70 million-plus film of any lasting value;’’ 2) Five Easy Preces—‘‘The best film about the mood of the declining sixties;’’ 3) 2001—‘‘The best-ever sci / fi movie;’’ 4) De/iverance—‘‘The most terrifying film of the decade;’’ 5) Midnight Cowboy—‘‘The most haunting of all recent films about Manhattan; warmer than Taxi Driver;’’ 6) American Graffiti—‘‘The most engaging and most vulnerable in its feelings, of all the ‘youth movies;’’’ 7) A Woman Under the Influence—‘‘The best ‘experimental-commercial’ movie of the period;’’ 8) Annie Ha//—‘‘The funniest film of the decade;’’ 9) Play Misty for Me—‘‘The most obsessive of Eastwood’s films as star or director;’’ 10) Fat City—‘‘The best film about boxing since The Harder They Fall, and a million times better than Rocky.”’ European Films: 1) Last Tango in Paris— ‘Quite simply the most inspired film of the entire period;’’ 2) The Passenger—‘‘Antonioni’s best film since The Echipse;’’ 3) Scenes from a Marriage—‘‘Bergman’s most sustained achievement of the Seventies;’’ 4) My Night at Maud’s—‘‘The finest conversation piece of the decade;’’ 5) Roma (Original Version!)—‘‘A dazzling tribute to the Italy that Fellini represents for us all;’’ 6) IWlumination—‘‘The most disquieting film made about the clash between science, aft, and mysticism;’’ 7) Everything For Sale—‘‘The best film (since Bergman’s Persona) about the dilemmas of the movie director;’’ 8) Don’t Look Now, 9) If... 10) Day For Night—‘‘Truffaut’s most sparkling movie in years.”’ Third World Films: 1) Days and Nights in the Forest—‘‘The most complex and profound of recent films by the greatest director of the Third World;’’ 2) The Postman, 3) A Touch of Zen, 4) Antonio Das Mortes, 5) The Castle of Purity. Method of Evaluation: ‘‘Priority given to films that are clearly an urgent, personal act of expression by their makers, in however commercial a context that may be.’’ Films are listed in preferential order. JAN DAWSON American Films: 1) McCabe and Mrs. Miller, 2) Mean Streets, 3) David Holzman’s Diary, 4) Zabriskie Point, 5) Annie Hall, 6) The King of Marvin Gardens, 7) Le vieux pays ou Rimbaud est mort, 8) Inserts, 9) Nashville, 10) Night of the Living Dead. European Films: 1) The Ceremony, 2) Last Tango in Paris, 3) Out One Spectre, 4) Wrong Movement, 5) The Sorrow and the Pity, 6) The Mother and the Whore, 7) Performance, 8) The Wild Child, 9) Artistes at the Top of the Big Top: Disorientated, 10) Aguirre: The Wrath of God, 11) Le Diable, probablement. Third World Films: 1) The Adversary, 2) Hour of the Furnaces, 3) Lucia, 4) The Perfumed Nightmare, 5) Emitai. Method of Evaluation: ‘‘purely subjective.’’ Films are listed in no order. STEPHEN FARBER American Films: 1) Petulia, 2) The Wild Bunch, 3) Feve Easy Pieces, 4) Deliverance, 5) American Graffiti, 6) Badlands, 7) The Conversation, 8) Nashville, 9) Dog Day Afternoon, 10) Carrie. European Films: 1) Shame, 2) Performance, 3) This Man Must Die, 4) The Music Lovers, 5) The Conformist, 6) Walkabout, 7) The Sorrow and the Pity, 8) The Emigrants and The New Land, 9) Day For Night, 10) Amarcord. Method of Evaluation: ‘‘! tried to choose films that seemed to have the most historical importance—cultural and aesthetic. There were The Mother and the Whore—right up there.