The magazine, issued by the British Film Institute, conducts the poll every decade, asking critics and film professionals from around the world what they believe to be the greatest movies of all. It's considered a major barometer for the global canon of cinema. This year, however, after a more inclusive polling process, the number-one spot went to a surprising choice: a three-hour-long Belgian film from 1975 titled Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles.
“It’s not for most people, but if you surrender to it it’s pretty extraordinary,” says Rodriguez of the film by the late Chantal Akerman. From a conventional moviegoer's standpoint, it's true that not much happens in Jeanne Dielman. The titular single mother Jeanne (Delphine Seyrig, one of the major actors of the French new wave) is shown going through her daily routine, cooking, doing chores, conversing with her son after school, and prostituting herself to an unnamed man. Many would say the ordinariness of the film is the point, and its depiction of dull domesticity forms the core of its feminist argument, especially as Jeanne's careful routine begins to unravel. In life and in the cinema, men get to do all the exciting things — go to space, ride the open range, seduce the beautiful femme fatale — while women are stuck at home, peeling potatoes.
Much ink has been spilled online about Jeanne Dielman taking number one, the first time a film by a female director has made it to the top. First Reformed director Paul Schrader argued that the film's placement "undermines the S&S poll’s credibility" and called the expanded voting pool "a politically correct rejiggering." Others have called the new poll a reaction to the Marvel-ized contemporary movie landscape from critics in favor of an older, slower, artier conception of cinema.
“They wanted it to be more inclusive, rightly so," Rodriguez says of the poll. “I’m kind of more annoyed that The Godfather dropped out than Jeanne Dielman joining the list.”
Whatever feelings Rodriguez has about the poll, he's taken it as an opportunity to share the updated canon with Miami. He's programming a series showing the Sight and Sound poll's top ten at UM's Bill Cosford Cinema, which recently reopened after a lengthy pandemic-induced pause under Rodriguez's management. The weekly series began with Jeanne Dielman on January 29 and resumes this Sunday, February 5, with the Hitchcock classic Vertigo, the previous number one. Other films in the series include Citizen Kane, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Beau Travail, another controversial addition from a female filmmaker, Claire Denis.
Tickets for individual films in the series are only $5, and a series pass is available for $40. That's nine movies for approximately the same cost as two first-run films. UM students can also get in for free with their student ID. Rodriguez says the series is a great chance to see the classics on the big screen, as they were meant to be watched, for a great deal.
Such as series feels especially important now, as cinema spaces throughout Miami are under threat. The shuttering this month of the Regal Cinemas Miami Beach multiplex on Lincoln Road has robbed the Miami Film Festival of crucial exhibition space. Rodriguez says the Cosford will be acting as an emergency replacement venue in March. More controversially, the city commission's shocking decision late last year to terminate Miami Dade College's lease on the Tower Theater, one of the last noncommercial movie theaters within the city, sparked protests and calls for Commissioner Joe Carollo, whose feud with nearby Ball & Chain is well-documented, to resign.
"To see that decision being made, it just broke my heart,” says Rodriguez, who remembers seeing second-run movies in Spanish at the theater when he was a child. "[MDC] have done such a great job of cultivating an audience... it’s a huge loss to Miami.”
Find a schedule for the entire Sight and Sound series below and buy tickets here.
- February 5: Vertigo (1958, dir. Alfred Hitchcock)
- February 12: Citizen Kane (1941, dir. Orson Welles)
- February 19: Tokyo Story (1953, dir. Yasujiro Ozu)
- February 26: In the Mood for Love (2000, dir. Wong Kar-Wai)
- March 19: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, dir. Stanley Kubrick)
- March 26: Beau Travail (1999, dir. Claire Denis)
- April 2: Mulholland Drive (2000, dir. David Lynch)
- April 9: Man with a Movie Camera (1929, dir. Dziga Vertov)
- April 16: Singin' in the Rain (1951, dir. Stanley Donen)