ne would need look no further than the still seething reaction to Sight and Sound’s latest Greatest Films of All Time poll to see just how many people seem to believe that cinema’s greatest days are well behind us. Three years into a pandemic and with movie theaters still on the ropes, Tom Cruise’s long-deferred rescue act aside, even we admit that the scope of cinephilia’s uphill battle does seem insurmountable. Then we remember that not one, not two, but three Hong Sang-soo films were released in the U.S. in 2022 and all seems well again.
No, movies aren’t dead. They merely remain in a state of, to borrow from Jonathan Rosenbaum, mutation. Chiefly mutation in terms of distribution, promotion, and profit margin, but, yes, also in regard to the role that they play in pop culture. When one Sight and Sound voter, sharing their ballot on Twitter, suggested just how close they might have come to including Kojima Hideo’s Metal Gear Solid 2, we felt the cognitive dissonance on an almost existential level.
Read Full Article »