The Lists Project

[Tommaso]

Oops, no, the colour coding wasn't always there if I remember correctly. And it certainly shouldn't be there. The list of films that Lubitsch assembled is a very good one, but the specific highlighting of some films to the detriment of others is problematic and to a degree even arbitrary. Why highlight "Oyster Princess" and "The Doll", but not "I don't want to be a man"? Why should "Ingeborg Holm" be more important than "Terje Vigen"? You can find good reasons for these choices, of course, but they should come up in a discussion and not in an initial post.

In other words, everyone participating in the final list-making should read the whole of the thread and report their own viewing experiences. I've received some good ideas, and discovered some films I hadn't seen before, from the discussion so far already.

[lubitsch]

Well, the colour is just a guideline and suggestion for those who are completely lost beyond Chaplin and Griffith and haven't seen or know much else about this era. This naturally goes for the whole list, it will be only a memory help if you know this stuff well, but few do. And since I tried to compile a rather complete guide, I really don't want people being frustrated with lesser films especially since pre-20s filmstyle can be very tiresome. Looking these films week after week may be daunting and there are some turkeys in the list. I don't know how many people want to participate, but I don't want to loose newbies after a series of ultra-static films. The films in red are strongly recommended by multiple sources as being good (which I don't share in each and every case).
But folks this is just a suggestion which you can feel free to ignore, but then I've chosen the red films this way that you see a bit of everything and since this is a very limited era regarding the scope of big masterpieces compared with later eras, everybody who votes can and should make quite easily the effort at least to view a good sample of the full range of this era, otherwise it makes no sense to vote. At 10 hours per week, you need three weeks for the red films and then you have weeks and weeks to wade through the rest. Admittedly I'm putting a structure on the list, but it's really a very, very loose one.

In the list are the still popular films
Lumiere
Voyage dans la Lune
Great Train Robbery
Chaplin
the three Griffith films

and then a sample of stars, genres and countries
a Russian (Bauer)
a Italian (Cabiria)
a Dane (Christensen)
a French/Serial (Feuillade, I edited the second now out)
a German (Lubitsch, no director more than two films which might be already one too much, except for Griffith and Chaplin because they are still known, in fact it's rather a case of one or the other)
the two great Swedes with a film each, Ingeborg merits a special position for being acknowledged as the first great feature
the two greatest stars, Pickford and Fairbanks, again difficult to decide in Pickford's case because these two run head to head in most evaluations, so pick your film
a Tourneur (making it two is admittedly a personal bias, couldn't decide)
an Animation example and Cohl is considered the founding father
the Griffith biographs for obvious reasons and two counter examples, in order not to let the years 1907-1912 and the shorts of this era being a sole Griffith show, I took an Edison film (Land beyond the Sunset) and a film in the Griffith style (Suspense).
and the early cinema program because it explains nicely the evolution step by step.
I marked Regeneration in red now because the realistic film of this era is índeed underrepresented.

I left out J'Accuse because the response was rather luke-warm, Bordwell's blog post for the best years of 1919 leaves it out and summarizes quite well the evaluation. It might be a mistake to drop DeMille, but the "popular" films are rather silly, especially the best-known cheat, while me and other people's favorite (e.g. Robert birchard) Golden Chance is very obscure, so I dropped DeMille.

If you however still feel I should remove the reds, I'll do so.

[swo17]

I guess I would prefer if the first post merely summarized all the readily available films and how best to find them in different regions (it already does this to some extent, even if it's a little bit jumbled), and all value judgments were relegated to the thread proper. As a relative newbie to films from this era, I can say I don't need my hand held through the established "highlights," and I haven't really found the films I've seen so far any more tiresome in general than those from any other period.

[Gregory]

If you however still feel I should remove the reds, I'll do so.

Well, I still believe we should not have anything highlighted in red. The project is really about participants deciding for themselves which ones are the turkeys and which are the gems, and pointing them toward certain choices at the beginning is problematic for the reasons I argued before as well as what others added after my previous post.
As for the concern about frustration, if anyone is finding extremely little interest or enjoyment in a variety of films they've chosen to watch, and discussion in the thread fails to help them get another perspective on what they've watched, then I think the best thing is for them not to try to make a list of their favorites, perhaps instead getting started on viewing later silents for the next round. And if no one appears to be having this experience, then let's not worry about it.

In some ways, I really agree with lubitsch's own sentiment from earlier:

throw out any ideas you might have about the era and just watch films

[domino harvey]

Are we round-robin-ing the list-tallyer duties? I'd like to put in for the 50s List

[domino harvey]

Would there be any interest in doing some genre lists concurrent with the decade lists? I was thinking Noirs or Westerns to start out with?

[knives]

That sounds like a great deal of fun, but maybe you should finish your Oscar thing first, otherwise I'd imagine people would get overloaded. Also how do you plan to divide the genres? Would Film noir be separate from thrillers separate from horror for example?

[domino harvey]

I do need to set an end date for the Oscars list (eventually, etc), but are enough people participating in that for it to really be considered a distraction?

My thinking for this project would be we tackle one genre at a time, do the thread/list thing and then move on to the next genre when finished-- so not like a dozen different genre lists at once!

Also how do you plan to divide the genres? Would Film noir be separate from thrillers separate from horror for example?

Yeah, I guess it would. I actually have a very simple method in mind for noir films whose noir credentials are in dispute: If enough people vote for it and it makes the list, it's a noir

[Mr Sausage]

Let's not forget the inestimable benefit of Domino's suggestion: all the recommendations for genre films one otherwise did not know about or intend to see.

[Dr Amicus]

Count me as another vote in favour of genre lists / discussions.

I also like Domino's genre classification theory - much less messy than trying for a more historically accurate purist approach. And starting with either noir or westerns is good by me as well.

It also brings up something that I was thinking about on the chronological lists - and hasn't really been approached since the last 50s list, and that's secondary sources, especially books. Clearly there's a large potential library out there, both physical and on-line, and a few recommendations wouldn't be a bad idea. Now I know we have a "Best Books" thread, but it's getting a bit unwieldy for a project such as these. Do we want a separate book / article / website thread? And if so, for each list / discussion? Or do we want to include them in the list thread itself?

[Matt]

I think a set of genre lists sounds like a great idea. I think there will obviously be people who will want to do both the genre lists and the decades lists, but the genre lists will probably attract more participants because, well, it sounds easier to participate in and it hasn't been done before on the forum. I'd vote for Westerns to start, but that's mainly because I'm noired out. I'd really prefer a horror list, though, but that might attract an unsavory element to the project.

[Titus]

The Genre List idea is so good that I'm a little surprised that it's never been done before. Beyond the benefit of recommendations for lesser known titles, it would also allow for a much more detailed, concentrated discussion of each genre than this forum has seen before. I think it'd be a blast.

[domino harvey]

I was thinking Noirs to start with, especially with all the great Noir releases this year from Sony and the forthcoming Warners set. It also strikes me as the genre most likely to garner the biggest response out of the gate. But I wouldn't mind doing Westerns either-- I mean, eventually they'd all be tackled... horror, musicals, etc. What says the rest of the board? Someone convince me one way or the other and I'll start it up shortly

[reno dakota]

Sounds like a great idea to me. I'm currently working on the Oscars and 1920s lists, but I'll do my best to participate. Were you thinking of doing these genre lists in the same way as the period lists (i.e, a final list of 100 titles, compiled from users' lists of 50 titles)? Or would you be willing to scale it down a bit, say to a final list of 50, compiled from users' lists of 25? I'm wondering if a smaller approach might be more interesting and force more tough choices as to what gets on each user's list. I'm happy to go about this in whatever way you decide, domino, but I would be happy to hear what other think about this.

[domino harvey]

I was thinking the same rules (50 individual, 100 total) but I guess we could debate that as well. Personally, I've definitely seen way more than 50 genre titles that I'd want to vote for, and narrowing 25 would be torture and/or eliminate the fun fringe choices that always pop up in the second tier an provide great shocks in the final tally

We can sort out the full tallying details as we go along, but in the meantime I'm going to just decide the first genre like this: post your preference between Noir and Westerns (keeping in mind that the "loser" will just be next in line when this one is done) in this thread or via PM. First choice to get five votes I'm going with. Keep in mind there's already a vote for Noir from me and a vote for Westerns by Matt

[Murdoch]

I'm for noir. It would be a great genre to tackle first - especially since I just bought a bunch.

For these genre lists should there be a list of standards that are used to determine if a film fits? I'm thinking mostly with noir since it's a pretty hotly disputed definition. I'm assuming the list will be classic noir only.

[Titus]

Reducing the number of entries seems counter-productive to me -- one of the greatest features of the lists project, as sausage noted, is the attention that often-overlooked films receive. If we are only compiling lists of 25 films, there's a possibility that the canon just gets reinforced and there aren't as many obscure discoveries.

Noir would be my pick for a starting place, as well. It feels conducive to an exhaustive exercise like this. There's a seemingly endless repository of forgotten, low-budget noir gems, but it's also a fairly narrow, concentrated genre (mostly taking place in Hollywood over a 20-year span) -- allowing us to wade further into its depths.

[domino harvey]

For these genre lists should there be a list of standards that are used to determine if a film fits? I'm thinking mostly with noir since it's a pretty hotly disputed definition. I'm assuming the list will be classic noir only.

I addressed this concern on the last page but my thinking is that if you feel strongly for it, lobby for its inclusion and vote for it. If others vote and it places on the final list, then it's a noir all right!

[Matt]

For these genre lists should there be a list of standards that are used to determine if a film fits? I'm thinking mostly with noir since it's a pretty hotly disputed definition. I'm assuming the list will be classic noir only.

I think getting into the definition of each genre would be a big turn-off to potential participants. I like domino's rationale: if it shows up on the final list, it's a noir (or Western, or horror film, etc.) Everyone can have their own definition of the genre, but the the way votes are tallied means that total fringe choices probably won't make the final list and the films with the most agreement on both quality and genre fit will rise to the top.

The discussions over genre definition are going to happen anyway when people lobby for particular films, and that's probably a better way of going about it than by imposing a definition on the project.

[Murdoch]

Domino's is the best idea definitely - sorry, didn't see it last page - I'd hate to see this tied up going over minute genre details. Look forward to the discussions.

[domino harvey]

Another vote for noir via PM. Anyone want to top this off for noir, or can the Westerns mount a last-minute rally?

[Matt]

Come on, Westerns, gee-up! Yahhh!

[antnield]

Personally, I'd find the Westerns discussion more interesting --- so Westerns for me, ta.

[domino harvey]

And there's the bell-- one more vote via PM for noirs. Sorry Westerns, you'll be back in the saddle before you know it!

[denti alligator]

A vote for a horror list.