AFI's New 100 Years...100 Movies List

I am a huge supporter of the American Film Institutes 100 Years lists. They generally provide some excitement about really good movies in June (when sometimes it's hard to get excited about the endless sequels and retreads brought out by the movie studios). And, apart from the rather disastrous 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes list (which was torpedoed by the abysmal list of nominated quotes that the voters could choose from), the lists tend to be pretty good.

Not that there aren't some problems with this year's list. And it's not just because I disagree with some of the rankings. Like Roger Ebert wrote about the lists, some movie critics may personally think that some films are overrated, and still understand why they rank on the list. (For Ebert, it is High Noon -- which you would think the sentimental coot would like; for me, it's 2001: A Space Odyssey which ranks as the most boring film I've ever sat through -- well that's a lie, it took me three sittings to finally watch all of the movie -- but others see as a classic.)

Also, it's hard to argue with the top of the list too much, given that it includes such films as Citizen Kane, The Godfather, Casablanca, Singin' in the Rain, Gone with the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia, and The Wizard of Oz. (I love Martin Scorcese, Steven Spielberg, and especially Alfred Hitchcock, but the other films in the Top 10 are probably a little overranked.)

But there are certainly ideological problems with the list, starting with #100: Ben-Hur. Now, I don't say this just because Ben-Hur ranks within my personal Top 5 -- without question, Ben-Hur is one of the 20 greatest American films. But here it ranks as #100. Why? I think the answer is fairly obvious -- many of the voters are uncomfortable with the film's overtly Christian subject matter. And other voters are uncomfortable with the leading actor who went on to become president of the NRA.

Of course, this is not the only religious film to make the list, but the other emphasizes the political correctness evident in the list. D. W. Griffith's Intolerance, a classic silent film with four inter-woven storylines, makes the list at #49. Interestingly, the story of Jesus is one of these storylines. This would seem to suggest that overtly religious stories might not affect these rankings, except that Intolerance is present in the list because of the voters' complete inability to put Griffith's undisputed masterpiece in the rankings: Birth of a Nation. On any list, this is one of the greatest American films ever; in fact, statistics suggest that it was, per capita, the most seen film in movie theaters in American history. But our voters can't put it high on this list because of the inherent racism of the movie, particularly it's lionizing of the KKK. One day, we might be able to move past this -- hopefully people will soon recognize that the racism of the movie was the product of a racist society, however uncomfortable this realization will be for them. Until then, we have lists that can't honor movies that are too Christian or too extreme or with divisive actors.

But these are small quibbles with the list. There are notable inclusions on this list -- an updating of the list from 10 years ago: including Buster Keaton's classic The General, the drama All the President's Men (which inexplicably didn't make the previous list), and Toy Story. And the little film that could, The Shawshank Redemption, whose reputation continues to blossom the older it gets, also made the cut, at #72.