Ebert's Bests by Roger Ebert

Author:Roger Ebert [Ebert, Roger]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
Published: 2013-01-03T16:00:00+00:00

The Best—Some Introductory Words

Movie critics are required by unwritten law to create a list of the ten best films of every year, and although I avoid “best” lists whenever possible, this is a duty I fulfill. Because ranking films is silly and pointless, but gathering a list of good ones is useful, I wish it were possible to make the lists alphabetical. Well, actually, it is, but doesn’t it seem like cheating?

Looking over my lists of the best films, I find an occasional tendency to place what I now consider the year’s best film in second place, perhaps because I was trying to make some kind of point with my top pick. For example: In 1968, I should have ranked 2001 above The Battle of Algiers. In 1971, McCabe and Mrs. Miller was better than The Last Picture Show. In 1974, Chinatown was probably better, in a different way, than Scenes from a Marriage. In 1976, how could I rank Small Change above Taxi Driver? In 1978, I would put Days of Heaven above An Unmarried Woman. And in 1980, of course, Raging Bull was a better film than The Black Stallion.

That I always ranked those years’ best films second, instead of placing them further down the list, is curious; it’s as if I knew they were best, but had some perverse reason for not admitting it. Trying to remember my reasoning, I think that in 1968, a year of political upheaval. Battle of Algiers seemed more urgent than 2001 (which after all is timeless). The Last Picture Show was so emotionally involving and felt so new that I undervalued what I now see as the perfection of McCabe. Small Change was a heart-warmer, but I completely fail to understand why I thought it outranked Taxi Driver. And although I later chose Raging Bull as the best film of the entire decade of the 1980s, it was only the second-best film of 1980.

Readers often ask, “Do you ever change your mind about a film?” Yes. The question itself is pointless. Am I the same person I was in 1968, 1971, or 1980? I hope not. Have I learned something in the meantime? I hope so. But to read what I wrote then, rather than what I might write today, provides a reflection of the way the movies and the years reflected each other.

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