The Decade of Film
I participated in Sight & Sound's once-a-decade poll of the greatest films of all time. I included at least two African films: "Borom Sarrett" and "Mapantsula." Hopefully, they make the cut.
Ali la Pointe, the lead character in 'Battle of Algiers' (1966), one of the first narratives on screen or in print to put Algerians at the center.
Today, in London, the film magazine Sight & Sound, which is published by the British Film Institute, will announce its once-in-a-decade poll of the greatest films of all time. The poll is often described as “perhaps the most recognized poll of its kind in the world.” It was first conducted in 1952. Earlier this year, Sight & Sound asked about 800 critics, programmers, academics, and curators from around the world to submit their lists to be considered for the poll. I also made the cut. Below I’ve copied and pasted my list. Not surprisingly, I included one film with a sports theme: the Martin Scorsese-directed Raging Bull.
My ten films (in no particular order) are:
3. The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On
4. Raging Bull
5. Casablanca
7. Borom Sarret
9. Mapantsula
10. The Birds
As part of the exercise, you had to write a short motivation to accompany the films you chose. I chose these ten largely because they had had the biggest impact on my own view of cinema.
Battle of Algiers stands alone as a piece of fictional documentary.
I like both Emile de Antonio’s 1968 documentary “In The Year of the Pig” (1968) and Peter Davis’s “Hearts and Minds” as definitive pieces of work on Vietnam (I think Davis used some of de Antonio’s footage).
Filmmakers as diverse as Michael Moore and Errol Morris swear by “The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On,” about a Japanese World War II veteran.
“Casablanca” (a film set in Africa with hardly any Africans in it), Hitchcock’s “The Birds,” “The Godfather (I)” and “Raging Bull” are all classic films for their cinematic technique.
Finally, I picked two African films knowing full well those won’t probably make it far in the poll, but I feel strongly about their value as cinema: “Borom Sarret” (The Wagoner), an 18-minute film set in newly independent Senegal by Ousmane Sembene. The film, from 1966, is considered the first directed by a black African. I also decided on including “Mapantsula,” a 1988 film about a gangster-activist. The film was the first antiapartheid film with a black protagonist as the focus of the story. It does not have a buddy element between a white liberal and a radical black (think “Cry Freedom” or “A Dry White Season.” The film was a joint effort by the black-white South Africa duo of Thomas Mogotlane and Oliver Schmitz. I consider it the definitive film on Apartheid.
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