We Just Watched "The Greatest Movie of All Time"

 February 23, 2023

   It took us three nights to do it, but we finally finished the "Greatest Movie of All Time." Here's a couple hints: it wasn't "Citizen Kane" and it wasn't "Vertigo," and it wasn't "The Searchers" or "The Godfather." Frankly, I had never heard of the film before. Perhaps you might recognize this scene?

Jeanne Dielman peels potatoes

   Now, do you recognize the movie? She peels all those potatoes, by the way, with no dialogue and no cuts. Earlier—in the three-hours-and-twenty-minute film—she does this:

Jeanne Dielman shines two shoes

   Jeanne also makes a meatloaf for three-and-a-half minutes with no cuts (to the film). According to the British magazine Sight and Sound, the greatest movie of all time is "Jeanne Dielman, 23, Qual du Commerce, 1080 Buxelles". They should know, because they have been publishing a list of the greatest movies, once a decade, for the past 70 years. And, yes, for fifty of those years, "Citizen Kane" was at the top of the heap, and plenty of other movies you would recognize, showed up prominently, like "Breathless," "Apocalypse Now," "The Godfather," "Taxi Driver," "Seven Samurai," "The Searchers," "Chinatown," "Rio Bravo," "Lawrence of Arabia," "The Wild Bunch," "Once Upon A Time In The West," oh, and, "Goodfellows," of course.

   Two things happened that changed everything. One is, in 2012, the magazine expanded the number of respondents from 63 to 846, and two, a whole bunch of those new voters became turned off by the "male gaze" and the men who produced films about "sexist" subjects. 

   Meatloaf, anyone?

"When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everyone will respect you."

—Lao Tzi