On Tuesday night, the American Film Institute announced the
10 greatest movies in 10 classic American film genres during a three-hour
special TV event on the CBS Television Network.
The jury, composed of 1,500 film artists, critics and
historians declared the following films as the very best in their category: 2001:
A Space Odyssey (Science Fiction), City Lights (Romantic Comedy), The Godfather
(Gangster), Lawrence of Arabia (Epic), Raging Bull (Sports), The Searchers
(Western), Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs (Animation), To Kill a Mockingbird
(Courtroom Drama), Vertigo (Mystery) and The Wizard of Oz (Fantasy).
Each category had its own host as follows: Jessica Alba for
Romantic Comedy, Sean Astin for Fantasy, Gabriel Byrne for Mystery, Kirk
Douglas for Epic, Clint Eastwood for Westerns, Cuba Gooding, Jr. for Sports,
Jennifer Love Hewitt for Animation, Quentin Tarantino for Gangster, Sigourney
Weaver for Sci-Fi and James Woods for Courtroom Drama.
Many voices showed irritation and aggravation with the jury’s
way of compiling the list of genres and classifying the films. They chose
Sports as a category omitting the cinematography milestone Horror. The most
proximate the lists come to Horror is Mystery (which contains movies like Vertigo
and Rear Window) and Science Fiction (with Alien and Invasion of The Body
Snatchers).
Even more, Chaplin’s City Lights from 1931, one of the two
silent films to make the list, topped in its category – Romantic Category. Betraying
the frustration in their voice, some asked how that could happen. Romantic comedies
are impossible without word.
When winners in categories like Western, Sports and Fantasy
were announced, the feedback was of the same kind showing utter lack of
confidence in the jury’s ability to assess the true whole value of American
films. Another discontent raised by the AFI’s 10 in Top 10 was that very few or
none of the recent worthy cinematography creations found themselves on the
lists.
Actors, filmmakers, critics and others in Hollywood chose the champions from tallies
that included 50 nominees in each genre.
