Paul Schrader Says ‘Jeanne Dielman’ Topped Sight and Sound Poll Due to a ‘Rigged Ballot’
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It’s been eight months since the latest Sight and Sound Best Films of All Time poll was released, and Paul Schrader is still annoyed by how quickly “Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles” ascended to the top spot on the list.
In a new interview with Sight and Sound, Schrader once again voiced his discomfort with Chantal Akerman’s 1975 film being named the greatest film of all time. While the “Master Gardener” has not taken issue with the quality of the film, he sees its prominent spot on the list as the result of an insincere attempt to highlight more female filmmakers.
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“They did two things to rig the ballot, and a third thing happened societally,” Schrader said of the latest poll. “The first was that they vastly expanded the contributors. You’ve got people who are not actual film critics weighing in on a critical poll, and the voting list goes from 500 or 600 to 2,000. That’s a big change. The second is that they’ve counted each film as equal. And then you had the #MeToo movement, which meant that everyone thought there should be a female a director on their list.”
Ultimately, Schrader said that he wants to see critics take the process of canonizing films more seriously. He explained that he would rather see institutions like Sight and Sound prioritize objective quality over accessibility when attempting to identify the greatest films of all time.
“It gets back to this whole issue of the canon and its standards,” he said. “I remember speaking at my alma mater, and a student made a comment about the importance of not being elitist. I said to him, ‘What the heck do you think you’re doing in college? The whole idea is elitist. It’s about getting more knowledge, it’s not about being like everybody else.’ There’s nothing wrong with being elitist. There is a modern myth that you can be an elitist and a common man at the same time. You can thank Quentin [Tarantino] for some of this. He’d say, ”Killer Car Girls’ is one of the great films.’ But ‘Killer Car Girls’ is not one of the great films. No matter how many times Quentin says stuff like that, it still doesn’t make it a great film.”
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