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?
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.
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.
>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)
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.
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.
[0]http://www.openculture.com/2014/11/spike-lees-list-of-95-ess...
Also, I suspect spike lee is sensitive about recognizing minority directors (women are a minority among them).
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.