Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius.

Film obsessives, buffs, cineastes and inveterate pseuds will be aware, and ordinary movie goers (a very distinct minority) may be aware that, starting in 1952, the movie magazine Sight And Sound has published a series of polls, at 10 year intervals, of the "best" films ever, and that in the most recent poll, in 2022, of some 3946 film critics, the 1975 French/Belgian film "Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels" topped the Critics’ Poll for the very first time, toppling Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 necrophiliac/obsessive masterpiece "Vertigo" from it's place of pre-eminence. A place which that dreamlike masterful masterpiece had only ten years earlier succeeded in gaining at the expense of the 1940 film, Orson Welles's Citizen Kane, which had previously been at the top of the Critics' Poll for as long as anyone could remember. 

The Director's Poll, by (some might say) definition a more reliable or accurate guide to that which is more genuinely watchable or objectively valuable, which canvassed the views of some 943 eminent film directors, more sensibly had Stanley Kubrick's immaculate “2001, A Space Odyssey” at the top of it's list, with Citizen Kane coming in at number 2, the obscure Belgian oddity that had topped the critics' list coming in at a distant number 4.

Now, as a film obsessive, buff, cineaste, inveterate pseud and ordinary movie goer, sometime writer on the subject of films which mean something to me personally myself, it both pains and thrills me to admit that not only had I never seen the critics' top choice "Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels", I'd never, until the publication of the latest poll, even heard of it either. It had, in a nutshell, passed me by entirely. And, I exaggerate not, that also goes for something like 50% of the so-called greatest films of all time as listed in said Critics' Poll. And if that applies to a self-described film obsessive, buff, cineaste, inveterate pseud and ordinary movie goer, sometime writer on the subject of films which mean something to me personally, what price the relevance of such a list to Joe Public, or anyone, even, not a professional critic, anyone, that is, with a mere passing or even all consuming interest in the gloriously immersive experience of communal cinematic participation? 

Those who know me best might also know, or guess, probably, that my attitude to professional film critics or academics generally has echoes, in spirit if not in actual bloody intent, of that of the da facto leader of the 1st Albigensian Crusade, Arnaud Amalric, the 13th Century Cistercian abbot and Papal legate who led the Catholic forces during the initial phase of Pope Innocent III's Crusade against the heretical Cathars in the area known then, and still known today, as the Languedoc. That ruthless cleric, when asked by his crusading underlings on 22nd July 1209 which of the cowering men, women and children in the city of Beziers, to which they were laying seige (all suspected of abominable heresy and all likely, on realising they were about to die, to pretend after all to be Catholics) they should kill, was said to have uttered the deathless phrase "Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius" (in the original Latin, for this was in a period in which Papal Legates did indeed converse in Latin, bizarre or even unbelievable as that might seem to 21st or even 20th century sensibilities). 

For the benefit therefore of those whose Latin isn't as up to scratch as they'd like it to be, the above phrase is usually colloquially translated as "Kill them all, and let God sort them out", although literally it is rendered as "Kill them all. God will recognise his own". There is no general agreement among scholars of the period that those were in fact the actual words used, but overwhelming consensus among said scholars that they nonetheless sum up perfectly the actual mood of the zealous crusaders, who were out for heretical blood at any price. 

Either way, the same applies, in spirit if not in actual bloody intent, to professional film critics and their lists of "best" films ever. More broadly, one might say, it applies in the same non-literal spirit to list makers and their lists in general. And those who insist upon ranking artistic endeavours according to ostensibly objective, but in reality utterly subjective, criteria. Even when the very notion of competition among the artefacts of artistic expression is a logical nonsense. Which, beyond any doubt, it is, of course. 

In spirit, as I say. For the benefit of ultra-literal readers, let me be clear that it would, of course, be preposterous, and appalling, and quite categorically wrong to call for the wholesale culling of professional film critics or list-makers or rankers. But equally one should keep an open mind, one feels, where a mental culling of their works is concerned. Read those reviews, lists and bests of, absorb them and then forget them. Mentally dismiss them, consigning them to the dustbin of history. For life is indeed way too short to waste any time in fretting about not having heard of, let alone having actually watched, an obscure French/Belgian 1975 film that a consensus of film critics have pronounced the best of all time. 

For the record, a brief scan of its synopsis reveals that "Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels" concerns a widowed single mother who, attempting to make ends meet, goes on the game while her young son is at school. Attention to the minutiae of her daily routine forms the backbone of the film, which is mostly filmed in static shots, over a whopping 3 hours 20 minutes. Spoiler: it ends badly, or it doesn't. Whether it does or not will depend upon the over-riding moral or ethical attitude of the individual viewer. It actually seems, from the synopsis, as though it might be worth 3 hours and 20 minutes of anyone's hard won spare time, but best film of all time? Of all TIME!?! Well, maybe, but the probability is that that status is an expression merely, no more nor less, of the peculiar collective psyche of professional film critics who, by definition, spend an unhealthily large portion of their waking hours in darkened rooms staring at the shadows on the walls of metaphorical caves, as outlined by Plato in his matephorical description of the nature of reality. And therefore removed, to a quite significant degree, from a tethering sense of proportion that a life spent more in the bright daylight might bestow on them. 

Those of us who love movies but who don't thus spend a large portion of our time are apt to have very different lists. Personally, I find it hard to take seriously a list that cannot find places in its top 100 for Duel (Spielberg), Eraserhead (Lynch) or Rumblefish (Coppola) all of which would, probably, be in my top ten, never mind top one hundred. Or a list that, predictably, has Barry Lyndon as Kubrick's best, after 2001. Yes, we all know about the exquisite framing and real lighting, using specialised lenses, that makes the film seem like a series of animated paintings by the old masters, but it's interminable. It goes on and on and on. And then it goes on some more. But that's film critics for you. The longer something lasts, the more drawn out the narrative arc, the better, it often seems where these stout artisans are concerned.

For the rest of us, and despite Stephen King's objections, The Shining is indisputably the greater work. It just is. But that's just me. Or you. Or us. Or anyone who isn't a professional film critic or professional list maker or ranker of the best of things that aren't even, in strict terms, or at all in real terms, in competition with each other. Let God, or a facsimile therof, sort the lists out for the sake of all of us. For His sake. For a compulsive list-making culture is a culture, one suspects, on the skids, a catastrophically insecure culture not at peace, or a facsimile therof, with itself. But we know that already, don't we? If one could make a list of the multiple ways in which western civilisation is slowly committing suicide, we'd be here all day. All day and all of the night. And that would be the worst of all things. This much we know to be true.