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TM2YC said:I don't think the BFI's 2012 'Sight & Sound' magazine poll did 'Vertigo' any favours by declaring it the official "greatest film ever made" because it's just not, it's not even Alfred Hitchcock's best film. This is the 4th or 5th time I've watched it but I'm still not getting why it's considered the greatest.
Totally with you on everything you said. I've been digging in to the S&S lists recently, and various film critics' takes on them. Roger Ebert wrote a piece the year when Vertigo displaced Kane where he commented on it. He too said Vertigo wasn't even Hitch's greatest: he favored Notorious. However, he said his mind was changed that year when he selected Vertigo for his famous Ebert Interruptus festival. After going over the film frame by frame with an audience, he was convinced it was the better film.
I haven't watched it that way and honestly don't have the desire to. Film is ultimately subjective and I find I disagree with the conventional critical take 90% of the time, so what's the point? Maybe the best takeaway from critical standings is to view them as Ebert said he used to make them: to purposely put in films that he didn't think were objectively the best, but that he wanted to get stirring up conversation around. Saying Vertigo is better than Kane or even Rear Window certainly does that.