BBC Four: The list isn't hugely different from the 1992 one. Were there any surprises for you?
Edward Lawrenson: I was a little bit surprised - but pleased - by the high ranking of the Godfather films. I was also surprised to see two silent films, and again I was very pleased because silent movies are such a neglected area of cinema, so hopefully the poll might encourage people to seek out silent movies.
BBC Four: Some people might look at the list and criticise it for not being modern enough. The most recent films on there are the Godfather films which are nearly 30 years old.
EL: There has been that criticism. It's not that the critics that we polled didn't vote for more recent movies it's just that there was less agreement about what the great films of recent times were. Most people polled included movies from the 80s and 90s. For instance the Iranian film director Kiarostami ranked quite highly and there were a lot of votes for Scorsese. But I think that there is so much modern cinema that it is harder for a consensus to develop. Maybe it's easier once there's been a passing of time for the really outstanding movies to become apparent.
BBC Four: Did any of the selections that you received surprise you?
EL: Some critics used the list as an opportunity to polemicise. One critic, Hamid Dabashi, who's a New York-based academic and specialises in Middle Eastern film, only chose movies from the Middle East. In his note he said his guess was that western cinema would be over represented - and he was right. There was also one critic who included a British Airways advert; someone else put in a Tex Avery cartoon.
BBC Four: I noticed that one director [Anurag Mehta] chose Superman and Back to the Future....
EL: With filmmakers the choices were a little bit more personal. With the critics I think there's the obligation to make your selection as considered and well thought out as possible. The filmmakers chose films that were instrumental in making them become filmmakers. Ronald Neame, the veteran British film director, chose Battleship Potemkin because he remembers seeing it when it was first released in the 30s in Britain. The day he saw it he started working as a runner at a studio. So there are sweet anecdotal reasons.
BBC Four: Do you think this list is better than the ones that poll public opinion?
EL: They probably serve different purposes. You're not going to get a lot of box office failures on a public poll whereas with our critics poll we have the more obscure titles on there. Hopefully that might encourage people to see movies that perhaps they otherwise wouldn't.
BBC Four: What do you think the list will look like in 10 years time when it is next published?
