The Lists Project

[zedz]

Personally, I'm in favour of limiting ourselves to one list per genre, since too much micromanaging drains all the fun out of the projects and reduces the number of likely participants. Plus, the greater the diversity of the pool of films under consideration, the sparkier the discussions and the more surprising the results - one would hope!

And one of the things I'm most looking forward to with the Horror list is just how variegated it's going to be.

[swo17]

I'd like to start a hopefully civil discussion about the possibility of opening up future lists projects to TV episodes or series, so as to avoid arguments like have been happening in the Western thread over Deadwood and of course to recognize the quality that can often be found in TV programming. Now, I don't want to start seeing something like Seinfeld on a list of the "Best Films of the 1990s" but I honestly don't mind the idea of seeing episodes of The Twilight Zone on a sci-fi list or "Once More with Feeling" on a musicals list. Here are some ideas off the top of my head of how it could work if we started considering TV programming:

- For the genre projects, the "if it gets enough votes it counts" rule could continue to prevail, just extended to TV programming.
- I'd be inclined to have the decade projects continue to only consider films. However, at some point, we could do a separate project/projects specific to TV programming. There could be a list for best individual episodes of self-contained shows, and another for best seasons/series of serialized shows. We may also want to break things out into separate time periods, though probably not too much.

Thoughts?

[Murdoch]

If I can get that Buffy episode on the musicals list I'm all for it

I think it's a great idea but rather difficult to calculate, you'd have to clearly define what can be voted for (and I think your example of dividing up best episodes and best seasons is a good start). For the genre lists it will be the most difficult as some may only want to vote for a single episode, whereas others may want to vote for an entire season or series. For musicals it's fairly simple as the few shows that have done musicals have had it contained to a single episode (I doubt anyone will be voting for Cop Rock, but even then that only ran several episodes). However with something like Sci-Fi then you run into the trouble of someone wanting to vote for the X-Files, and if there is enough interest in the show you get the problem I mentioned. I think it would be best to state clearly for a genre list that you can vote for seasons, but not single episodes, or vice versa, whichever works out easiest for the tallying.

[Steven H]

I'm fine with just sticking with IMDB as we do with the dates in the decade project. If IMDB says "TV series" then I'm not voting for it. Fanny and Alexander: ok. Berlin Alexanderplatz: not ok, etc. This website even relegates TV discussion to the "non-cinema arts" section, so why should TV be included in film lists? I say "aim for consistency" it will lead to less confusion.

[matrixschmatrix]

I don't really see any problem with going the free for all route and letting people vote for individual episodes, seasons, or entire TV shows in whatever context- I mean, what's the worst case scenario there, that nobody agrees on anything? That seems likely enough to happen as it is.

[Murdoch]

I think for whoever is doing the tallying it would be easier to specify what can be voted for. Movies are simpler as you just vote for that single item, but tv shows could get votes for episodes, seasons, series, and that would be hell to tabulate.

[domino harvey]

Episodic/serial TV by season, anthology series by episode? Not that I'm saying TV series should be eligible at all, but

[knives]

I'm fine with just sticking with IMDB as we do with the dates in the decade project. If IMDB says "TV series" then I'm not voting for it. Fanny and Alexander: ok. Berlin Alexanderplatz: not ok, etc. This website even relegates TV discussion to the "non-cinema arts" section, so why should TV be included in film lists? I say "aim for consistency" it will lead to less confusion.

Berlin Alexanderplatz is listed as a mini-series and perfectly eligible.

[zedz]

I don't really see any problem with going the free for all route and letting people vote for individual episodes, seasons, or entire TV shows in whatever context- I mean, what's the worst case scenario there, that nobody agrees on anything? That seems likely enough to happen as it is.

We've had this discussion before, more than once, at length. The issue seems to be that nobody really disputes that there's a fundamental difference between films and episodes of television - until they get their knickers in a twist because they can't vote for one of their pet shows, and they then take it as a personal slight rather than the natural consequence of trying to make manageable what's an arbitrary, ultimately irrelevant and supposedly fun exercise. If people thought they could get away with whining about not being allowed to include their favourite songs and books on one of these lists I'm sure they'd do that as well.

There are a lot of television works that are very cinematic and exist in a kind of grey area between media, and things like Berlin Alexanderplatz or Elephant are clearly auteurist works which have probably been seen by more of us in cinemas than on television.

The practical issue with series television is that it's a huge headache for the list compiler, unless you're going to be extremely and unhelpfully prescriptive about how people can vote for it, since things can look very different if you're looking at entire series, individual seasons or individual episodes (or groups of clearly related episodes), and reconciling those kinds of valid divergent views may not be possible.

Let's take Twin Peaks as an example. Maybe you love the pilot or the final episode but detest almost all of the second season? Maybe you love the whole thing? Maybe you specifically love the first season and detest the final episode? Maybe there's only one particular episode you want to single out for praise? Does the compiler count all of these things as a vote for the entity "Twin Peaks", or try to split them up according to individual seasons or episodes? If you decide to go by individual episodes, does a vote for "the first season" get split however many ways? If you only count votes as relating to the series as a whole, should people who think season one is one of the all-time greatest stretches of television and hate season two not vote for it at all?

In the Deadwood example, if I'm not mistaken, Nothing suggested that any vote for the show should automatically count for the stretch of episodes he nominates as the best / most representative. Well, what if another Deadwood booster disagrees with his assessment? (And, let's be honest, series with the kind of consistent standard of Deadwood or The Wire represent a miniscule minority of what's out there.)

Getting down to comedy, it's even more of a grab-bag, since "the best" almost always boils down to individual episodes, and there's probably even less consensus about them. And how about sketch comedy, where "the best" could be five sublime minutes surrounded by twenty mediocre ones?

I'd be happy to do some kind of television list in the future, but the number of procedural issues that would need to be ironed out beforehand is daunting, and possibly insurmountable to any general level of satisfaction. It's certainly not something we should just randomly adopt halfway through the last lap of a project.

And, believe it or not, excluding Deadwood from a tiny internet poll will have no real impact on its greatness (or not) as a western.

[swo17]

I'm not wanting to impinge too much on domino's turf, nor to open the floodgates to TV in future lists, but just trying to think of ways to avoid confusion and unnecessary arguments in future lists. (After all, it's not only Nothing intending to vote for Deadwood.) domino suggested a compromise related to Deadwood, and it's as good as anything I could come up with, but wherever that show ends up placing (if it does) on the final list is not going to be that meaningful since a) some people won't have even seen it because it never occurred to them it might be eligible, and b) some people adore the show but are leaving it off their lists not because they don't think it qualifies as a Western, but because they don't think TV series should be voted for. For the tabulated results to be meaningful, we all have to be on the same page about what is eligible or not (genre fuzziness notwithstanding).

Now generally, I agree with the no TV rule, and would be perfectly happy never putting a TV show on one of my lists, but as they say, rules are there to be broken. This is just another idea, and perhaps it will be accused of being joyless, but how about:

1. Generally we keep the same rules as we always have about excluding TV, but...
2. During the first 3 months of a lists project, if anyone feels strongly about voting for something in the realm of TV, they can propose that it be eligible.
3. If at least one other person speaks up for this exception to be eligible and the list moderator approves it, then it is considered eligible without further argument.

[zedz]

But the problem with this solution is that this official declaration of eligibility thus obliges every other participator to take it into account. I like Deadwood and think that, as an artistic whole, it's better than a lot of films that are on my list, but I won't be voting for it regardless since it's a different kettle of fish to those films, which means that we get into the awkward situation of people not voting for certain things for reasons other than merit. If a film is a film is a film and boundaries of eligibility are clearly defined as they are in the decades lists, we can be pretty sure that somebody isn't voting for a given film because they either haven't seen it or they have and don't think it's good enough. (This is, of course, an ongoing peril with the 'genre' lists, where boundaries are fuzzier, but I don't see that as an argument for adding even more fuzz to the exercise.)

However, I think domino's solution in this instance is a pragmatic one, though it's regrettable that he even had to come up with one at this late stage of the process.

But you know what would be a good outcome of all this? Discussion of the merits of Deadwood in its dedicated thread, since discussion is supposed to be the upside of this whole project, not surrendering to our OCD Hokey-Cokey impulses.

[swo17]

Okay, all valid points. I guess I don't have much more to add other than the fact that I can see how someone who may not have participated in the lists projects before might not have thought that there was anything wrong with including something like Deadwood on the Western list, and that it is probably easier for someone to accept the no-TV or any other eligibility rule before they have gotten their heart set on including a contested title on their list. To this end, there should perhaps be a big fat disclaimer at the start of the musicals list to the effect that music videos, which are usually eligible in these lists, are not in this case. Or is someone going to make the argument that they should be? Debate!

[domino harvey]

Oh God, I hadn't even thought about that. Huge "No" vote here

[Mr Sausage]

If you're running the list it's your decision in the end.

[Murdoch]

Since the last time I watched a music video was high school no for me as well, mostly because I already have too many musicals to see without adding them to the pile.

[knives]

I was going to bring this up in the actual musical thread, but what separates a musical film from a musical? Like if I wanted to vote for Stop Making Sense would that count even if it's not really a musical in the traditional sense. Same situation for stuff like The Wall and Scorpio Rising. They all have music and singing that plays an integral part in how the story is told and moved forward to the extant that the film couldn't work without them like in a musical, but it's not traditionally designed.

[domino harvey]

Vote For It rule there, I'd say

[zedz]

Personally, I think musicals would probably be the easiest genre to define (e.g. "a narrative feature film in which several songs are performed onscreen by major characters"). Not that this wouldn't leave plenty of wiggle room (e.g. film vs. mini-series, how many is several, who's a major character) or allow for weird examples (such as Night of the Hunter) which meet the criteria but don't strike anybody as musicals, but it would clearly exclude films with only one or two musical numbers (e.g. Ball of Fire), concert movies (e.g. Gimme Shelter), music videos and films with lots of un-sung pop songs on the soundtrack (dial-a-Scorsese, Under the Cherry Moon). And surely everybody knows in their heart of hearts that those things are distinct from musicals.

[swo17]

They need to be singing and dancing numbers, which rules out NOTH. Also, there need to be enough of them that if they were sex scenes, the film would be considered pornography.

[knives]

I would say Night of the Hunter is a musical at least in the second half, as is A Treaties on Japanese Bawdy Songs, for just the reason you stated. That might have to do with my definition of a musical being where the songs advance the story in a significant manner, but even by you definition something like The Wall would count since the singing is performed by the lead character even if it's basically a narration with the exception of songs like The Trial which are given a face. This is actually the hardest genre for me to define yet.

[zedz]

They need to be singing and dancing numbers, which rules out NOTH. Also, there need to be enough of them that if they were sex scenes, the film would be considered pornography.

I think you're on shaky ground with the dancing as essential. I'll have to think about it, but I'm sure there are classic MGM examples stuffed with non-dancers (maybe the collected works of Mario Lanza is a good place to look?).

That second part sounds like a neat (but messy) solution, but it's a bit dubious too, since a single sex scene, if it's explicit enough, can make a film pornographic by most legal and working definitions.

EDIT: knives, I'd love to help you out with The Wall, but unfortunately that would require me to watch The Wall again, and I'm all booked up for the next hundred years.

[domino harvey]

Anyone serious about the question of "What is a musical?" is advised to read Rick Altman's epic work, the American Film Musical. He tackles the definition dilemma in far more space than I could even begin to encapsulate, but he gives five semantic elements of the musical corpus:

Format Narrative (thus excluding concert films not because they're documentaries, but because they're not narratives. This excludes revue films too, which Altman respects and refers to, but insists must be considered as second cousins to the genre, like shorts or cartoons)

Length Extended (Must be feature-length)

Characters Romantic couple in society (Every musical concerns a romance)

Acting Combination of rhythmic movement and realism (not just a focus on the stage performance, for instance-- he uses the example of Oscar Levant's hammy piano playing breaking a performance out of its normal parameters-- ie not something we might see on PBS at 3AM)

Sound Mixture of diagetic music and dialog (Must have musical AND non-musical exchanges-- therefore, Umbrellas of Cherbourg is disqualified, because there's nothing to compare the musical moments to)

He's very very specific and I obviously pulled the book out to look at this, so if anyone's curious for more, let me know or, in Reading Rainbow style, the answer is at your local library.

EDIT: As Listmaster (Isn't that the Macaulay Culkin movie?), I'm not swearing by his methodology 100% with respect to this list (it's hard for me to argue with someone putting Umbrellas of Cherbourg on their list, for example-- though it won't be on mine for other reasons), but feature-length narrative at the very least seems a necessary requirement, even in the realm of Vote For It.

[knives]

Wouldn't the last one exclude Operas which are sort of the definitive musical genre? Also I can't take the romance thing very seriously because most films have a romantic element as an arbitrary thing. Sometimes even last minute just to have it. That said I can get onto narrative to a point. I see the reason for discounting concert films, but if a piece of experimental cinema were to have singing would that be discounted for the lack of normative narrative?

[domino harvey]

Also I can't take the romance thing very seriously because most films have a romantic element as an arbitrary thing.

It is much more specific in Altman's book, if you are actually curious, but there is a very complex romantic structure to musicals charted within. Re: Operas, he would not consider a static filmed performance a musical, no, but filmic adaptations within the musical structure are fine. Re: experimental cinema: I'd say no offhandedly, if it's not a narrative. Singing does not a musical make.

[domino harvey]

I feel like we need to embrace the spirit of the list more with the next round. To give a personal example, when teaching musicals last year, I finished the unit with Billy Wilder's Irma La Douce, which of course is a Broadway musical adaptation with all the music numbers excised. We examined how it remained a musical in all ways, stylistically, narratively, &c but one, and it to my eyes is a musical. But at the same time, I can't in good conscience make the argument here that it's a musical and should be eligible, regardless of my personal affinity for the film. Yeah, you could try to shoehorn in Mulholland Dr or something because there's a singing scene, but why are you? That seems to be almost willfully missing the point of a musical list. I still more or less abide by the Vote For It rule, but I wonder if we can't all just agree to take a few personal hits from our contestable favorites at the service of a more stable list-making and discussion process?