They don't make 'em like that anymore. That's the clear message from the poll by the influential journal Cahiers du Cinema, which invited 78 French critics and film historians to choose the all-time 100 best movies. All of the top 14 films on the chart were made before the 1960s.
An enduring critical favourite, Orson Welles's Citizen Kane, tops the poll. Among the surprises is Charles Laughton's powerful The Night of the Hunterin second place, tied with Jean Renoir's La Règle du Jeu. Completing the top 10 are FW Murnau's Sunrise, Jean Vigo's L'Atalante, Fritz Lang's M, Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly's Singin' in the Rain, Alfred Hitchock's Vertigoand, in a tie for ninth place, Marcel Carné's Les Enfants du Paradis, John Ford's The Searchersand Erich von Stroheim's Greed.
A separate chart ranks directors by total votes cast for their films. All the 40 highest rated directors are dead, with the exceptions of Jean-Luc Godard (now 77) in 11th place and Alain Resnais (86) at 19th. The top 10 directors are, in order, Renoir, Hitchcock, Lang, Charles Chaplin, Ford, Welles, Ingmar Bergman, Luis Buñuel, Murnau and Howard Hawks.
Two films partly shot in Ireland are on the top 100: John Huston's The Deadand Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon.
Full details (with film titles in French) are at www.cahiersducinema.com/ article1337.html
Distributor definitely a contender
New independent London-based distribution companies have proliferated in recent years. Without the buying power of the Hollywood studios or larger independent distributors, they are still managing to acquire a limited number of movies to release in the UK and Irish markets.
Contender Films has been in business for three years, putting out mostly action and horror movies. Some opened in Ireland ( Seven Swords, Ju-On: The Grudge 2, Initial D: Drift Racer) while others ( Battle for Haditha, Air Guitar Nation) went directly to DVD here.
So full marks, and surely a well-earned bonus, to the savvy Contender buyer who took the initiative to acquire the UK and Irish rights on Twilight, which topped the US box-office last weekend, making $70 million in three days. It's now poised to overwhelm all the more expensive Christmas releases when it opens here on December 19th.
Sheehan and Cage go the devil
Rising Irish actor Robert Sheehan (20), who is from Portlaoise, Co Laois, has joined Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman in Season of the Witch, a 14th century fantasy-thriller involving witchcraft and the Black Plague. Directed by Dominic Sena ( Gone in 60 Seconds, Swordfish), the movie is now shooting in Hungary.
Sheehan played the lead in the 1967-set Irish coming-of- age picture Summer of the Flying Saucer, released earlier this year. He will be seen next in Cherrybomb, with Rupert Grint, and in the Red Ridingtrilogy with Sean Bean, Paddy Considine and Peter Mullan.
Stars in for latest Solondz downer
Charlotte Rampling, Allison Janney, Paris Hilton and Ciaran Hinds are among the intriguing cast assembled by US writer-director Todd Solondz for his new movie, now shooting in Puerto Rico. The film, formerly known as Life During Wartime, is now untitled. Paul Reubens (aka Pee-wee Herman) is in it, too, along with Shirley Henderson, Renee Taylor, Michael Kenneth Williams and Michael Lerner.
The film is described as a "part sequel, part variation" to Solondz's provocative and controversial Happiness(1998), one of the definitive dysfunctional family dramas.
New film from younger Cuarón
Mexican director Jonás Cuarón will introduce a preview of his film Year of the Nail/Año Uñaat Dublin's Light House Cinema at 7pm tonight, and will discuss it with the audience afterwards. Formed entirely in still photographs, the film observes a love story involving a Mexican teen (Diego Cantaño) and an older American college student (Eireann Harper). Its executive producer is the director's father, Alfonso Cuarón, whose own movies include Children of Menand Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. www.lighthousecinema.ie
Go to the Goethe
Alexander Kluge, one of the driving forces behind the New German Cinema movement of the 1960s, is the subject of a season at the Goethe-Institut in Dublin. Kluge was one of many directors contributing to Germany in Autumn(showing next Monday), which deals with the Baader-Meinhof gang. His The Patriot(December 11th) blends documentary and fiction in its view of German history. Admission to all screenings is free. www.goethe.de/dublin
mdwyer@irish-times.ie
