We can do this just like we did the 100 best of 1930s.
I have a feeling that this might even move quicker than the 1930s list, but let me lay down some ground rules:
-"Best" is interchangeable with "most influential". We all understand the importance of films like Birth of a Nation and including them on this list will not automatically mean that we think you love the film.
-There are no date limits, this list goes from the inception of Film (celluloid) to modern day. This means precursors to motion pictures such as Edward Muybridge's Horse Photos are ineleigible because they were not shot on celluloid.
-The films must have no sync sound, some exceptions may apply such a Modern Times (1937) which does technically have a sync sound soundtrack, but the film must be silent in spirit.
-Short films are perfectly legitimate choices as most great works up to the 1920s were less than an hour in length, but you must defend the film's inclusion on the list.
- And finally since we are dealing with the birth of film as an art form, experimental films are fair game which leads me to my first choice.
1. The Kuleshov Experiment. (1910~1920)
Okay, I admit that i'm breaking the rules a bit because no account can agree on when Kuleshov's experimental short film was made and there even might have been multiple short films. Nobody even knows what exactly what the short film contained, but they all can agree on the idea behind it.
The Kuleshov short film is a seminal work in figuring out the power of the cut, how an editor can convey ideas and emotions to an audience by juxtaposing two different shots. It is what was behind the Russian Montage movement and has influenced every film made since. According to Kuleshov, the film took a shot of a starving man and then a shot of a bowl of soup. He then took a shot of a prisoner and a shot of an open cell door. He then switched the shots so that the starving man was looking at the open cell door and the prisoner was looking at a bowl of soup.
An associate of Kuleshov said the experimental film consisted of the same shot of the face of an expressionless actor and juxtaposed it with a bowl of soup, a girl in a coffin, and woman. What the experiment exactly showed doesn't matter, its the idea behind it that mattered. When this films was shown to the audience the audience automatically assigned a mood or emotion to the actor, not based on how he looked, but based on what he was looking at.
Wikipedia puts it better: "The implication is that viewers brought their own emotional reactions to this sequence of images, and then moreover attributed those reactions to the actor, investing his impassive face with their own feelings."
Yes there was editing before the experiments but Kuleshov's little film cemented the importance of the edit and how much of art of film depends on it.
There are many videos on youtube claiming to be Kuleshov's film and demonstrating it's point. I'm basically spoiled for choice on what to embed so I'm going with Hitchcock.
Edited by Tim K - 11/9/11 at 5:33pm
