Spike Lee Shares His NYU Teaching List of Essential Films
openculture.com
openculture.com
Imagine if instead of "women" it was something else. Maybe, "Why didn't you include any Soviet filmmakers?" Or, "What about Alfred Hitchcock?" Or maybe, "You should include some films from the silent era." And imagine Spike Lee took those suggestions and said, you know what, you're right, I should include some films from the silent era, there's some great stuff in there.
Would you be just as upset about Spike Lee bending to his critics instead of sticking to his guns in that case? Or would you see that maybe there is some merit in this sort of back-and-forth? Would you accept a suggestion for "silent films" but rail against a suggestion for "films by female directors"? If so, why is that, exactly? Does the merest suggestion of political correctness shut off your thinking?
> Would you be just as upset
If by "just as upset", you mean "not upset at all, but rather curious", then yes, I would be exactly as upset.
> Would you be just as upset about Spike Lee bending to his critics instead of sticking to his guns in that case?
I would wonder why he changed a list of something entirely personal to him after some people pointed out that he didn't include any films from the silent era. I am equally curious as to why the reply was "oh yeah, here are five films from women", rather than "oh yeah, I forgot a bunch of stuff, some including women". If anything, it sounds a bit patronizing to women filmmakers, that they're included as an afterthought.
A satisfying (to me) reply would be "holy shit guys I had a brain fart and was only thinking of men when compiling the list and completely forgot about my favorite female filmmakers, here they are, sorry about that, wow".
You wonder why he changed a list of something personal to him after people gave him additional food for thought? Are your opinions so set in stone? If you compiled a list of top programming language features, could you not even conceive of adding more entries to it after publishing it and having people make suggestions? Why do people expect this stuff to be carved in stone from the beginning?
Your hypothetical reply looks a lot like his real reply to me.
This isn't a list of "best movies", it's a list of "movies aspiring directors should see". I have to imagine that such a list would strive to show all the diversity that exists in the film-making world, not just the ones held up as empirically "best".
Are people seriously conveying that Lee purposely left out women? Would you purposely leave out female authors if someone asked you to name your favorite 10 books? It's just ridiculous.
It seems to me that people are looking to create issues where there are none. I'm not sure this can even be called "political correctness." It's something even worse.
I don't know if the critics were implying that Lee purposely left out women. But the fact is that he left out women. I assume totally by accident. When this was pointed out, I imagine his reaction was something like "whoops, slipped my mind."
I agree that people are looking to create issues where there are none. It's happening right here with all the people complaining about "PC run amok" and whatnot. A guy released a list, people thought the list was incomplete and suggested changes, the guy sees merit in the suggestion and makes changes. Whoopdie-do. The only reason anti-PC warriors are upset is because the changes involved including women.
I think there'd be a similar response.
The people who've made the response have done so on the view that whatever was on Lee's original list was what he considered the important films (for the purpose of that list), and on the view that if there weren't films that meet some criteria on that list it wasn't because he just didn't consider any films of that sort.
I find this hard to imagine, myself.
[EDIT. I want to add a bit more. A person's list of their important films for aspiring directors is just one tiny part of all their views. A person can think that women have faced a lot of sexism, and that this has prevented many women from directing films -- and that if that sexism hadn't existed we'd have many more excellent films by female directors -- while at the same time thinking that, out of all the films that have been made so far, the ones that they think are most important for aspiring directors to see is this set, which just happens to not include any films directed by females.]
EDIT 2: In response to mikeash's reply, that would be assuming that Lee has a bias against films directed by women. Would you care to explain how you think he managed to overlook those films in the first place? It may well be that he does have such a bias. And if so, that's a shame. But then think what that would mean: it would seem to mean that he has suddenly been able to overcome that bias, and see things fairly - something which, unfortunately, rarely happens.
People are just arbitrarily declaring the original list to be the One True List, and the revised list to be a forced change.
It could just as easily be that the original list was not completely thought out, and the revised list is the true reflection of Spike Lee's views.
Why do people insist on only considering the first possibility? Why assume that this change was forced?
Because he's human?
I'm baffled by the number of people who seem to think any individual, even a talented director, is somehow able to bring to mind all films that meet a particular criteria, with such absolute precision that a film's exclusion from the initial list is a definitive statement that he considers it unworthy.
It shows up all the time in discussions of hiring diversity. A large number of people assume that hiring decisions are done by making a perfect ranking of all candidates by ability, then choosing the one at the top. Any deviation means you're getting someone suboptimal. Thus, any hiring diversity initiative necessarily means a decrease in worker quality.
Same thing here. Spike Lee created an exact, perfect list of films that exceed some threshold. Altering it afterwards means the list is no longer perfect.
Would "films by insert sexual orientation directors" also be a genre? What about "films by left handed directors"? The simpson had a whole episode about discrimination against people with blond hair, so what about "films by blond directors"? I don't think i have ever said that a list of movies should directors with any specific attribute, nor that would I ever say that it shouldn't.
Can a male director make a "film by female director"? if not, then its not a genre. female directed and male directed style of movies could become a genre, and then we would see female directors make male directed styled movies, and male directors make female directed styled movies. The question is how we would define that style, specially if we want to avoid sexist generalization.
Bollywood genre is categorized by a movie with a lot of songs and dances, love triangles, comedy and dare-devil thrills are all mixed up in a three-hour extravaganza with an intermission. Bollywood plots have tended to be melodramatic.
How would you describe the female directed genre as?
Taking the sex of the director, or writer, or lighting tech, into account weakens the list because you're introducing noise into your criteria.
Everyone loves to assume the worst, here. The original list was apparently perfect, and any change is an adulteration. I wonder why?
Firstly, I'm not offended by the original list, and I don't think many people were. Most people arguing here are offended by the reaction to the additions.
But more importantly, I don't think someone has to be biased to simply not think of particular films when compiling his list, nor do I think one has to be "not taking it seriously" in order to do so.
No, the list is of "must watch" films for aspiring artists. Certainly quality will be a factor, but artistic diversity is far more important. A crappy film that demonstrates a unique style of direction is far more important than more high quality examples of common styles.
And when seeking artistic diversity, it's not unreasonable to suggest that lack of diversity of artists might indicate oversights.
> Nearly the whole conversation here is about how
> terrible it was to update the list to include some
> women.
I just flag these stories and hope others do the same.
Does that mean that he saw movies that he felt were worthy of being on the list and (perhaps subconsciously) decided not to list them? Or did he end up listing some movies that he didn't feel were as good as the others, just to meet the quota?
>Does that mean that he saw movies that he felt were worthy of being on the list and (perhaps subconsciously) decided not to list them? Or did he end up listing some movies that he didn't feel were as good as the others, just to meet the quota?
The charitable interpretation would be statistics: if 90+% of recognised films have been directed by men - and I'd expect more men to have directed films in, say, the 1950s than the present day - it's not terribly unlikely that a list would feature only men through chance alone.
Given that such lists are going to be loosely defined - I imagine Lee could come up with several, different, lists on any one day - I don't see why including women directors would be to the detriment of a list and only to meet a "quota."
Obviously women aren't a detriment to the list in and of themselves. It's the fact that Mr. Lee made a list of must see movies, was critcized, then went back and changed the list based on the criticism.
So which is the list of must see movies? What movies were "must-see" pre-criticism, that were no longer worthy post-criticism? PC run amok.
He added to the list; no films were removed.
>So which is the list of must see movies? What movies were "must-see" pre-criticism, that were no longer worthy post-criticism?
The current list. And none.
>PC run amok.
I can't write a sensible comment to this.
Lee revamped the list to include eight movies by five female directors, bringing the total to 95.
The Piano– Jane Campion (1993)
Daughters of the Dust– Julie Dash (1991)
The Hurt Locker– Kathryn Bigelow (2008)
Sugar Cane Alley – Euzhan Palcy (1983)
The Seduction of Mimi– Lina Wertmuller (1972)
Love and Anarchy – Lina Wertmuller (1973)
Swept Away – Lina Wertmuller (1974)
Seven Beauties – Lina Wertmuller (1975)
http://www.openculture.com/2014/11/spike-lees-list-of-95-ess...
> As The Fall Semester Nears At NYU Grad, We Thought We Would Reprint My Revised Essential Film List (With Women Directors). Many Of You Informed Me Of That Omission.
> Thank You For That Coat Pulling.
> Peace And Love,
> Spike
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spikelee/the-newest-hot...
Just as I can't write a sensible comment responding to someone-- just one guy remember -- making a "top list" of movies, then having to update it based on a silly criticism.
He picked his top movies. Do you think he deliberately left films by female directors off his list? Then who cares.
>The current list
Thankfully we have the PC crowd around to tell Mr. Lee what movies are his actual top films.
He didn't have to update it. He chose to update it.
>Thankfully we have the PC crowd around to tell Mr. Lee what movies are his actual top films.
Or you know, we just infer that his most recent statement of his opinion is most likely to be representative?
I prefer to assume people are telling the truth about their opinions until shown evidence to the contrary.
[0] EDIT: Which, incidentally, was never asserted to be complete, and indeed solicited suggestions for improvement.
Why is it clear that he "overrode" his original judgement by adding films, rather than simply being reminded of some he hadn't considered?
The films that he was "reminded of" all happened to be directed by women, after a bit of a public hand-slap about that exact subject?
Possible, but not probable.
Again, what the hell does the director gender even have to do with this? What sort of person reads Spike Lee's List of Movies that Every Aspiring Director Should See and says, "Boy, I hope everyone is equally represented here!". The fact that it was even a "thing" is ridiculous, and yes, Political Correctness gone overboard.
Well yes that's my point? I'm saying that on seeing that comment he thinks "Films by women? Oh that reminds me of X, Y and Z! They should be on the list too!"
You must get conned by a lot of politicians.
Why assume the worst?
Who is assuming the worst? I'm not the one who's claiming that the guy deliberately left women off the list. I'm assuming he sat down, thought of a bunch of movies and made a list. It probably never crossed his mind that there were no women.
And, honestly, I have no idea why it even matters. Had it not been pointed out to me, I'd have never even thought about the gender (am I allowed to say that word?) of the directors. It seems irrelevant to the subject matter.
We all do things like this. It says nothing about us, other than that we're human. Our character is shown by how we deal with it, not by whether we do it at all.
Then why do I call that 'worse'? Because its actually harder to change when you don't realize you need to change.
Which is the right way to do things? Which techniques were "the right way" pre-criticism, and are no longer the right way post-criticism?
PC run amok, or a natural give-and-take that comes from exposing your ideas to other people?
In the programming world, we don't expect our first attempts to be perfect. Why would we expect that here?
It's changing the list post-facto that suggests that he added those extra movies just to meet the quota -- i.g. they were not the ones that he first thought as best.
Can we get a statistician here, stat?
We have a jar with 9000 blue marbles and 1000 white marbles. We reach in, blindly, 87 times. What is the expectation that we have drawn 87 blue marbles?
We expect this one time in ten thousand. When we observe this in real life, we ordinarily suspect that the procedure is flawed in some way, rather than pure luck.
.93^87 = 0.0018
However, what's the ratio among films not just directors? (can't find)
How about women among top grossing films of all time? http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/domestic.htm vs. http://www.thewrap.com/15-highest-grossing-movies-directed-b... So: Frozen, Shrek, Twilight, Kung Fu Panda 2
.96^ 87 = 2.9%
Looking at the top grossing list for women you see a lot of chick flicks and kids films. Arguably that's bias, but not vs. the director.
>We expect this one time in ten thousand. When we observe this in real life, we ordinarily suspect that the procedure is flawed in some way, rather than pure luck.
Doesn't that presume equal distribution?
What if all the white marbles are at the bottom of the jar? Or stacked on one side?
Just like me wondering about how many woman directed films in the 1950s, I think that there may be painful numbers of skews and presumptions that'd affect the final result.
(although - mea culpa - yeah I was very lazy with that original comment)
It seems more likely that when he thought about the criticism, he thought about whom he might've overlooked and remembered Lina Wertmüller. Come to think of it, I'll watch something by her.
If you read his lists, either the original or the amended versions, you'll see that they are really lists of his favorite filmmakers, grouped by the filmmakers' best or most representative works. It's obvious, by the way the list is categorized, that Lee was thinking of it that way.
And then you have some other films on the list which are there because they're noteworthy, regardless of the director. So it's sort of a hybrid.
A lot of filmmakers, critics and film buffs, when asked to list the best films of all time, will start from the perspective of their favorite filmmakers and then work backwards from there. (The general public takes the opposite approach.) Similarly, if you ask a music critic or musician to list his favorite songs, he'll often start with favorite albums and then back into songs. Or maybe favorite artists -> albums -> songs. They're used to thinking about an individual work in the broader perspective of its creator's entire catalog.
This can be a useful perspective to consider. Especially since there are some filmmakers (or authors, or artists, or bands) whose career output is highly influential, but whose individual works never really crack the Best of All Time list. Scorsese is a good example. Arguably none of his films, individually considered, ranks as a Best of All Time contender. But when you consider his entire output, you can't deny his influence on the technique of modern storytelling. I'd say the same thing about Milos Forman, for instance, though One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest does stand on its own merits on many people's lists. You could also make this argument for Steven Spielberg, controversial though he may be to film snobs. He hasn't made any given work as singularly brilliant as many of the movies listed here, but you can't deny that Spielberg has basically been synonymous with popular American cinema for the better part of an entire era. From the late 70s through the mid 2000s, he basically is the pop movie industry. And like Scorsese, he has had an outsized impact on the way people tell stories through the medium.
In general, including women is not about giving them some unfair advantage, it's about removing an unfair disadvantage.
I fear the effect is not to help remove the discrimination and bias (that certainly exists) against women in many areas of society. The effect is more likely feeding a backlash against this kind of unnecessary thing, by providing another example of what many people will just label as "PC gone wild". The net effect, it hurts the cause of trying to increase diversity, instead of helping it overall.
Provide scholarships. Encourage girls to enter film programs. Put quotas in film schools even! That's the way a woman will direct the Godfather of the future, not shaming people into including diversity into every single thing.
Anyone that cannot identify with someone as a role model just because s/he has a different sex, is incredibly sexist and doesn't deserve to be accomodated in any way.
> when female directors don't win awards, it reinforces the idea that women are allowed to enter the industry, but they can never really thrive and succeed in the same way a man can
IMO, it just reinforces the idea that women need to try harder to become better.
Of course, now those goddamn petulant PC white men want all the spaces in the list, even AFTER he has acknowledged his bias inherent in the original list. If they'd ONLY choose to be objective and stop being selfish about the goddamn unconscious bias they are favored with. But nooo, in this ridiculous age of political correctness and 'everyones view is correct', they get do goddamn complain that they didn't get 100% of his opinion. These people are pretty much Hitlers to free speech : /
PS: BTW, what's the politically correct term for a 'petulant white man-child"? I've gotten some sideeye once in a while by one of those radicals when I've used the term in public.
The assumption behind this statement is that the list from the article is "Spike Lee's Top Films"
This list isn't about movie quality, it's about forming the minds of young directors.
Spike Lee speaks his mind. Nobody tells him what to say.
If he updated his list, it was because he felt the new list would do a better job helping new directors grow in their craft.
It's not an assumption. Watch the video where Spike Lee says, "On this list is what I consider the greatest films ever made..."
Isn't that demonstrated to be false here. He spoke his mind and then he was told that he shouldn't have said what he did so he revised it and made his "speech" more acceptable to those who complained.
Also, I suspect spike lee is sensitive about recognizing minority directors (women are a minority among them).
Is it not far more likely that he added films as sufficiently important ones occurred to him, and at some point decided the list was fairly comprehensive and stopped?
Then subsequently, someone pointed out that there weren't many films by female directors, and this prompt made him think of a bunch of other films worth adding?
It's really amazing the degree to which many of us white dudes, over-represented in intellectual compendiums everywhere, react when we feel the slightest, feeblest threat.
Let's say he put up a list of favorite foods. Then someone notices there are no lamb dishes and he adds lamb to it. Or there is no vegetarian dish and adds vegetarian dishes.
It's not a big deal either way but people read "undue influence to change personal preferences"
If there's no lamb dishes, I request reminders, someone points out a lamb dish, and I add lamb, it's not healthy or reasonable to propose that I am being unduly influenced by the lamb lobby.
It's within the realm of possibility, sure, but to bring it up reflects paranoia, scepticism towards lamb dishes, and possibly a persecution complex due to overexposure to lamb-related GitHub drama.
It is a big deal, by the way. It makes HackerNews look like ReturnOfKings.
The thing is, it's not a list of his personal "favourite" films, it's a list of "must watch" films.
The latter is a more authoritative statement, and moreover it is a list in which diversity of art is to be expected. So it's not unreasonable to suggest a lack of diversity in artists might indicate some oversights.
In any event, for me it's neither here nor there. He's free to put up a biased or unbiased list of his choosing or anyone else's. If I dont like his list I can add my favorites, maybe they'll all be Easter European and African with no western European or Asian films.
He has imprimatur. Sure, but in the end it's an unscientific list. It's a starting point, it has a local cultural bias. If he had grown up in HK would his list be the same? No, and that's okay.
Are we (the internet) actually simultaneously angry at a person for being un-politically correct and politically correct?
And that's kind of the problem.
That's not what the parent asked.
This question ignores the possibility that their worthiness was simply never considered at all in the creation of the initial list.
EDIT: It's possible the parent didn't intend those options as a dichotomy but nonetheless, that's what is implied.
And why would their worthiness not be considered at all in the creation of the initial list? The whole point of the initial (and the second) list was to list worthy films for filmmakers to see.
Obviously, either a film comes to your mind when you're creating a list of what you consider the best films, or it doesn't. Whether the director was a woman doesn't come into play in this, unless you're a misogynist purposefully avoiding to list film by women filmmakers.
Since (I assume) Lee is not the latter, here's what seems is the case.
When Spike Lee thinks (on his own) of what the best films are, the first list is what comes to his mind.
But after he was questioned about it, and to appease the "crowds", he subsequently added some films by women to balance the list. In other words he added them to meet some quota (regardless of the films inherent quality, which after is all is not to be judged by Spike Lee only. E.g. the might be masterpieces too -- just not Lee's original masterpieces, but some that he had to be nudged to list).
Secondly, whether a film "came to mind" is only somewhat related to whether he thinks it's worth inclusion in his list. Is it inconceivable to you that there could be films that did not initially occur to him, that he nonetheless considers worthy additions when he is reminded of them? Or do you suppose that Spike is a superhuman able to instantly recall all important films without fail?
Not, it's very conceivable. What it's not conceivable is that those would only be films by women directors. Clearly the latter is just the response of the pressure to add some women's films.
He could be perfectly satisfied giving people the first list (which is exactly what he did) if it wasn't for people calling him out on that.
So, it's not like he suddenly realized he missed some. Of course he missed tons -- one always does in such a list. But having all the misses be women's films, means none of these he thought strong enough about to add it to his list -- and he had 70+ chances to do so.
Missing ALL of them (while coming up with 70 other films) shows that's not just a case of forgetting them, -- and that he did a conscious effort to come up with some women's films to add.
Not that he thinks those women's films are bad -- he could find them very good.
But he clearly he's not that obsessed/connected with them enough to include them in a list of 70+ films he considers best WITHOUT someone telling him to explicitly add women's films
>Or do you suppose that Spike is a superhuman able to instantly recall all important films without fail?
You present a bogus strawman (that "it's inconceivable to me that he missed some and thus I seem to think of him as a superhuman with instant recall") -- when I never said either of these things. I guess the intention is to make my argument look silly -- only that isn't my argument at all.
I don't expect any such list to include "all important films". Heck I don't even expect it to include the full list of "most important films" of the person compiling it.
But I fully believe that if something didn't make it on a list of one's most important 70+ items, then it's probably not something they regard highly and think often of.
People seem to love to assume that everything can be perfectly ranked and compared.
Because he's doing it in his role of NYU professor! If Donald Knuth released a list of "CS papers every professional should read," I would fully expect it to be his comprehensive judgement of all papers ever. Do you think that he may have missed one? Do you think Spike may have? In both cases it's their professional environment, and I would expect that it would have been discussed in their professional environments. To imply that they missed something important is to imply that their close colleagues missed it too. It could happen, of course, but not something that you think about when you read a list like that.
Until you see that he missed "Captain Ron." Then all bets are off.
Sure he's a professor, but he only has so much time in the day. At some point he has to say "Right, I think that covers everything important" and get on with teaching.
Not to mention, according to a quote in this thread Spike himself disagrees with you:
>He also asks backers to send in their suggestions for the list "because of course there's going to be stuff I left out."
[0] Although I might just about expect such a thing from Knuth...
That would be comprehensive. As I said in a sister answer, I would expect a little tweaking of the list after criticism and feedback, but I wouldn't expect large changes to it. If Jim Shepard published a list of essential reading for literary fiction writers, I would expect it to be his best idea about what aspiring fiction writers should read to learn from. Writers who could emulate (or whatever writers do) the authors in that list would be well on their way to being good writers.
It doesn't mean he has to have read every lit fic short story or novel out there. It does mean that these works form a comprehensive display of whatever it is that makes good fiction.
Knuth leaving out an important CS paper may do grave disservice to a huge chunk of the field (Edit: I mean disservice to the readers who intend to learn from the list). Science and technology builds on prior work. The arts, not so much. If I ignore the lessons taught by "The Godfather", the film I'm making may be weak in some aspects, as judged by some people. If I ignore the lessons taught by Turing's works on computability, my software (or research paper) could potentially be stillborn.
Why? I would expect the top of the line people in the arts to be as professional as in any other field. I would expect that great directors (and actors for that matter) have a notebook (or something) of great scenes and why they are great. I would expect artists to have their equivalent.
I mean, goddamn, if you are a great director and you say you have a list of essential viewing, then, yeah, I would assume that according to you the list would be at least very nearly complete. If may evolve a bit over time after review and discussion, but I wouldn't expect a 30% change in the list.
[0]http://www.openculture.com/2014/11/spike-lees-list-of-95-ess...
The list on its own is just a list of films to watch that someone enjoyed...and everyone would most likely have a different list.
You could ask for context from any university reading list... http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/offerholders/... ...they're of passing interest to people looking to be 'well read', but are provided mainly for the students, and the context is the course.
But that's not what it is. It's a list that one of the top living film directors on the planet thinks that directing students at one of the leading film schools in the world should watch.
That's a different thing entirely.
Each one of these films has things directors can learn from by just watching them. Film being a visual medium and all.
Sure, some lectures can provide context, but the movies themselves are the actual content.
I very much doubt the list, and the act of watching them is the whole lesson Spike is trying to impart. The lecture series would complete the educational message.
It's interesting to see that people that label themselves anti discrimination actually not only live perfectly fine with positive discrimination, but they actually come to expect it as a standard policy and take offense when it doesn't happen.
You are not supposed to force just women, just men, or just any other person from some sub-group into being included in some achievement that you want to atribute to the best overall individuals.
I believe that is very clearly not the message of feminism and if it is, then feminism would be clearly broken.
Nothing to do with intrinsic potential.
By the way, read this http://www.theguardian.com/women-in-leadership/2013/oct/14/b... and tell me again that women are not handicapped simply by being women. Or maybe women on average simply do not make an effort to succeed unless they can somehow hide that they are women?
The market sets wages of jobs based on the value that they produce. A petroleum engineer earns more than a sociologist. This is not due to discrimination, it's due to market value of the degree. That women choose the lower paying degrees is a mark of a society where women can choose what they really want. If you look at countries like Iran and Pakistan you see more women in engineering than in Sweden and the Netherlands. Arguing that this is because of discrimination is ridiculous. It is out of economic necessity. The more wealthy and equal a society becomes, the more women choose professions they like and men choose professions they like. The criterion for succes should not be equal representation, but equal opportunity. The problem is that you have a fact-free branch of feminism that has completely taken over the political discourse. We need to listen to feminists like Christina Hoff Sommers who care about science and about the actual well being of women, instead of an ideological narrative.
Good for you, but that wasn't really the point of that example. The point was that there is no good reason to assume that the same dynamic that caused women to loose auditions before blind auditions, doesn't apply in all kinds of other fields. How do you propose we deal with in occupations where we can't have the equivalent of blind auditions?
The problem is that the criterion for success cannot be a 50-50 split between men and women in every profession.
That's a red herring. No one here is arguing for that. Even Spike Lee only added a handful of women to his list of 80 directors.
That ignores that there are gender differences, and pushing for that goes against personal freedom and well being.
The problem with that argument is that it could have been made at any point during the last 200 years to argue that we had at that particular point in time reached the pinnacle of gender equality. In fact I'm certain that it has been used both for arguing against voting rights for women and against women working at all.
It doesn't matter whether the number you're enforcing is 50-50 or another number. The whole principle is wrong. It's anti equality. The whole point of feminism used to be that we shouldn't care about gender where it's not relevant, and instead treat people as people.
It's utter nonsense that you could use the same argument against women's voting rights. Not having voting rights for women is completely opposite because you're discriminating based on gender. My whole point here is that we shouldn't discriminate based on gender. Another problem with this world view is that virtually nobody ever cares about the fact that men are overrepresented as garbage collectors and enforcing gender quotas in those areas. It's plain old sexism masquerading as justice, and it's doing a disservice to both women and men.
I propose we agree to acknowledge that unconscious sexist bias exists and that it works against women, and that we should stop kidding our selves that the blind hand of the market will somehow fix this problem. If the market worked like that, there would be no reason for blind auditions in the first place. I am not arguing for quotas, certainly not as a general solution. But I can certainly sympathise with the idea, especially where the alternative is the status quo. I also think quotas are a bit of a red herring in context of the discussion about Spike Lee and his list of directors. We can of course not know Spike Lee's mind, but I think it's fair to assume that Spike Lee didn't include women directors simply because they were women, but because he had failed to even consider them in the first place because of unconscious biases he harboured like everyone else.
It's utter nonsense that you could use the same argument against women's voting rights.
Your mixing the arguments up. The argument I was referring to was your argument that things are the way they are because of unspecified gender differences. That has been argued always. As a society, we've constantly had to make short term sacrifices to further equality. For example having women be part of the work force has necessitated that we make it illegal to fire someone for being pregnant. That is a reduction of the liberties of employers. And paid maternative leave is in principle unfair to working men. But the result of those sacrifices is that the whole pie has grown and we as a society are wealthier.
I agree that gender bias is a problem, I just disagree that more discrimination is the way to fix it. It's also a problem the other way around. In STEM fields equally qualified women have an absolutely massive hiring advantage. That kind of bias is fuelled partially by the idea that you have to reach some kind of 50-50 situation or else society is sexist. This is also not good for women because it creates the idea that the reason she was hired was because she's a woman and therefore may be less competent than somebody who had to pass more a more stringent hiring bar, even though she might be very competent.
The market is actually a lot more fair than you think. If there is systematic bias against any group then somebody can make a lot of money by starting their own company and hiring those people.
In your last paragraph you're arguing against a strawman again. Not being able to fire somebody for being pregnant (or at home because of illness for that matter) is a good thing. Paid maternity leave is unfair to men if men don't get it, and then that's bad. I don't understand why people think it's okay to discriminate against men but not against women. It's plain old sexism. Both genders should get it.
The most important thing about maternity leave is that it should be paid for by the government, or there should be some system where if either the father or mother doesn't want it then he or she gets an equivalent amount of money. Else you make it a disadvantage for a company to hire somebody who is likely to take maternity leave (probably women), so you're creating discrimination.
I believe that some discrimination applied intelligently is often less bad than no solution at all. If better solutions can be found, then by all means lets try those first, but in absence of those, it is frankly sexist to take the absolutist position that no solution at all is better than a little postive discrimination. That amounts to saying that the problem is not important enough to be worth making any sacrifice over.
The market is actually a lot more fair than you think. If there is systematic bias against any group then somebody can make a lot of money by starting their own company and hiring those people.
I know this line of reasoning. It isn't supported by the evidence. I refer you again to the example with the symphony orchestra.
I agree mostly with what you wrote in your last 2 paragraphs.
The problem with this kind of discrimination, apart from it being discrimination, is that it has all kinds of side consequences and it's often applied unidirectionally. When you have a 2 to 1 hiring advantage in STEM that's a huge problem caused by this kind of thinking, yet it's not seen as a problem because women are supposedly the oppressed class. Meanwhile this policy is making it rational to believe that women working in STEM jobs are less qualified, which is a big disservice to the brilliant women who got there on merit. (note that I personally score some victimology points, and I HATE the quotum policies and special grants etc.) Instead we should decide what the situation is that we want to reach and aim directly for that. In my opinion that situation is one where gender does not matter in situations where it doesn't matter and everyone has equal opportunity. The goal should not be a situation where we're enforcing quotas because that's a situation where people are not doing what they want to do.
The orchestra is a good example where it did work. They started to use blind evaluations to hire the best players. They didn't implement gender quotas (as far as I know, and if they did I disagree that that's the solution).
That said, I don't think I stated that it was my personal opinion that positive discrimination was the best way to solve this problem. I don't think I would rule it out in all cases, but I much prefer a solution like the blind auditions. But obviously this is not a universal solution.
For instance, using your example, you could and should create the conditions for old people to feel less difficulty in accessing certain areas, but it would be ridiculous to put old people running against the 100m last olympic champion and then in the end by some argument claim some old person did the same time as the former champion and declare them both champions.
This is the point.
As the example with the symphony orchestras showed, it is entirely possible that the achievements of women get discounted simply because they are women.
I'm not saying that it is necessarily always the case, but since it demonstrably is in some cases, you should at least concede that it is an entirely reasonable position to have that women should be discriminated positively against to balance this bias, even if you don't share the position.
Can you walk me through this?
A pensioner is a millionaire, say, and gets a free bus pass (OAPs in the UK are entitle to a travel pass regardless of their financial position). A school child wants to get to school but can't afford the bus so has to walk 2.9 miles each way to school.
How is it not ageism that based only on age the pensioner gets a bus pass and the child doesn't? You can argue that the ageism is justified as the general principle is sound (for example) but it's still ageism - discrimination based solely on the age of the subjects.
The child could be disabled, they still wouldn't necessarily qualify for a bus pass.
PS: If you don't defend your argument, I am going to assume you already conceded defeat.
[Aside: where we are the closest suitable [high] school must be more than 3miles away in order for you to get a free pass.]
Read the last sentence in my post: It is understood that being old is in many ways a handicap, and by discriminating positively, we seek to lessen that handicap.
You wrote:
but it's still ageism - discrimination based solely on the age of the subjects.
I disagree with this definition of ageism. Ageism is not simply discrimination based on age. If it were, then requiring people to be of a certain age to vote, drive a car etc. would also be ageist. Ageism implies injustice.
(well it is, alphabetically by the director's name)
(Although a quick check on !KAT shows limited numbers of seeds for many of these)
If one wants to see "all the great films", I suggest focusing on specific genres/languages/formats one at a time rather than an uncategorized "top 10/20/87/100...".
Would you revise your list to be sure the lead developer on each program made a certain distribution amongst different characteristics sex/age/location/first-language? Should a Uni degree including dev ensure that amongst the programs/theorems/languages studied that some were from a particular group/sex/ethnicity/whatever?
Netflix is doing it with their movie suggestion (ie. Strong female lead) and I'm sure they're not worried about being too "PC", though I'm sure some, somewhere have intimated at it.
The former is simply the best film ever made, the second interesting as a gritty example of lowish budget success in a completely different genre from that which the (very famous) director became known for (and is a successful remake of a film from his student days), and the latter proves once and for all the power of cinema regardless of conventional plot.
[0] https://torcache.net/torrent/CC4B99AC6FE2EA3D23173F05C95F9CD...
[1] https://torcache.net/torrent/B138110324E5F7D8AF381E553BCE0AF...
[2] https://torcache.net/torrent/447F5AA67047731AD64F10653CBEEA7...
In his original list, "City of Gods" (which he didn't even spell correctly-- the english title is "City of God") is the only film made in the last 2 decades.
His updated list, which was supposed to be more inclusive to women, adds Apocalypto, District 9, Kung Fu Hustle, and Dirty Pretty Things, all of which are directed by men-- and he even removed "City of Gods", one of the few movies from the original list that had a female (co)director.
In fact, the entire list reads like a giant insult to all of Lee's contemporaries. Does he want every aspiring filmmaker to enter the business with antiquated sensibilities about cinematography?
He's coming across like the smug high-schooler who just discovered Led Zeppelin and declares that they're the greatest band of all time, and all modern music is crap.
"http://ax.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSearch.woa/wa/search?term="&A1
I could think of 5 (each) Russian, Chinese, French, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Australian films would be before "Bad Lieutenant" (a film I like a lot - esp with the original Schooly D soundtrack)
For women - Maya Deren for historical purposes and no Chantal Ackerman or Pilar Nair?
I am not a film buff even - this is just a crap list.
Including the film makes a lot more sense when you see the context: http://www.jgballard.ca/media/2002_feb3_BBC4_radio.html
Ballard says this about the film: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/mar/04/fiction.film
But yeah, this is basically a Film Studies 101 primer list.
I overuse a half learned Nietzsche quote from the beginnings of "The use and abuse of history..." - actually I think a requote of Goethe - along the lines of 'I hate that which merely instructs me without increasing my vitality...'
Butchered I am sure but I think that is the gist.
There is literally nothing new on this list.
Again - I am not a film buff - but I have seen movies in the past 3 months that are better than many movies on this list.
Glengarry Glen Ross comes to mind. Slate article is dead on about the omission of Ozu and Ackermann. What about documantaries like "Once were kings" or Errol Morris or for historical purposes, Leni Riefenstahl
I see things like this as an indictment of a dangerous lack of imagination in liberal US. Its killing us.
Thanks, I'll stick with the original list. Given the small number of female filmmakers in Hollywood an only-male list is not unlikely. Political Correctness is a bitch.
You know you have a great movie when you can turn the sound off and you're still captivated by the story.
Lots of people think you can treat a movie like a book. They forget that cinematics are far more important for movie storytelling than narrative.
If you want to write a book, then write a book. Don't make a movie if what you want is a book. Movies are different from books, and should be treated as such.
It depends a lot on the book/plot/style. If your book is about self-introspection, for sure it's going to be difficult to make a movie out of it. But there are many books out there which can be translated reasonably well into movies. An extreme example, but the Odyssey from Homer antiquity had absolutely no comments on how the characters felt and all, and merely describes a series of adventures.
One of the most captivating movies I have ever watched.
http://deadline.com/2014/03/mel-gibson-career-hollywood-dese...
In short, the man has had his share of troubles including alcoholism, and he had some extremely inappropriate outbursts in response to the negative criticism he received after making Passion of the Christ. But while a more savvy public figure would respond by going on a highly-publicized "apology tour" to repair his public image, he chose to address his problems privately and tried to make amends for his actions without bringing a film crew to capture every moment. Just because you weren't invited along for the spectacle doesn't mean it didn't happen.
For comparison: filmmaker Woody Allen, who does a great job of publicly portraying himself as a lovably bumbling and nervous little guy, has been repeatedly accused by Mia Farrow's daughter of raping her when she was 13. He also cheated on Mia Farrow with her own adopted daughter, who was 21 at the time. Mike Tyson, as the article mentions, is a convicted rapist. Yet these men have done a better job than Gibson at repairing their public image, but this says nothing about what goes on in their hearts and minds. Everybody knows Roman Polanski is a child rapist, and that's why he fled the country. But Jack Nicholson was clearly involved in that incident as well, and even if he didn't rape a child, it's clear that at the very least he knew what was happening and in some capacity shared some responsibility. Again, he's one of the most beloved actors of our time.
I'm not saying that just because those men got away with bad things that Mel Gibson should also be given a free pass. But you can't call him an anti-semite just because he was blackout drunk and said some nasty things about the jews at at time when his life was in the dumps.
If the world was privy to every nasty and embarrassing thing you've ever said or done, what would we think of you?
For conformity reasons I'm well aware I am supposed to socially signal hatred of the guy, but as a movie I thought it was kinda impressive.
No Psycho by Hitchcock but 3 other movies by him?
Updated list completely different from the first list?
Not like my opinion matters (nor does Mr. Lee's, in the grand scheme of things), but Psycho probably isn't in my top 3 Hitchcock films, either.
Vertigo, The Birds, Rear Window for me. Consider Notorious, North by Northwest, Strangers on a Train, Dial M for Murder...there are quite a few permutations, taste dependent.
http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/film-techniques-used-fil...
It shouldn't be a list of good movies, but movies that were responsible for paradigm shifts.
If you start like that, then there's no Chinese cinema either (and there would be certainly a few worth mentioning). I'd take such a list as being mainly made of Hollywood movies, as well as whatever is appealing to Hollywood directors.
The following films are on Lee's list and are French:
Les 400 coups (400 Blows), Truffaut
La Nuit américaine (Day for Night), Truffaut
A bout du souffle (Breathless), Godard
Paris brûle-t-il? (Is Paris Burning?), Clément
Platoon
Wall street
Three days of the condor
Chinatown
Sunset Boulevard
The Stranger(actually all of Orson Wells movies)
Any Andy Griffith episode
Bicycle thieves 1948
Niagara
Double indemnity (actually most billy wilder films)
The Misfits (last film for Marilyn and Rhett Butler--forgot his name.)
Giant
Rebal without a cause
Leaving Las Vegas
Blow out (all three)
Saturday night fever
Yes, even Urban Cowboy
One flew over the cocos nest
Deliverance
Hanna and her sisters
East of Eden
Dr. Strange love
Back to the future
Jaws
In cold blood(with Robert Blake)
In cold blood (with Eric Roberts, and forget his name)
The asphalt jungle 1948?
All about eve
The hot rock
Little Haus Big Halsey (Redford said it was his worst movie. Yes, it's masagonistic. Yes, he plays a jerk. But the movie captures the 70's I recall as a kid. The filming is great. His side kick in the movie did a great job playing a sweet, innocent, country teen.)
A lot of foreign films I have yet to see.