Paul Thomas: Recapturing the magic of cinema

Last week I argued that movies ain't what they used to be. My love affair with cinema began to cool around 1980 and within a few years we were just good friends. Come the nineties, we were officially estranged. When we bumped into one other, we'd be perfectly civil but we were just going through the motions. Once the magic goes, it's difficult to recapture.

Those who disagree with my thesis would probably argue that it says more about me than about the movies. They might even label me out-of-date and delusional, like the faded silent movie queen Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard.

"You used to be big," someone tells her. "I am big," she replies. "It's the pictures that got small."

In the spirit of getting my retaliation in first, I decided to put some meat on the bones of my argument. Where better to start than the heavyweight British film magazine Sight And Sound.

Every 10 years since 1952 Sight And Sound has asked critics around the world to nominate what they consider to be the 10 best films of all time. In 2002, as well as polling 145 critics, the magazine separately polled 108 directors whose tastes, predictably, proved to be more mainstream.

It needs to be said that everyone involved in this exercise takes cinema extremely seriously. Those who go to movies out of habit or treat them as an extension of TV, something to chill out in front of while guzzling popcorn, will find very little that rings a bell.

Having failed to make the cut in 1952, Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1941) has topped every poll since. While the casual viewer might regard Kane as a powerful melodrama on a well-worn theme (man gains world, loses soul, true love etc in process), film buffs adore its array of technical innovations, notably deep focus photography.

By making the background as clear as the foreground, deep focus enabled a new way of storytelling. For instance, in the same shot an unfaithful wife and her lover can be exchanging suggestive whispers on the dance-floor while her husband watches from the far end of the ballroom, murderous intent written all over his face.

The most recent film in the critics' Top 10 is The Godfather, part two of which came out in 1974. Only one post-1980 film made their top 45 - 1982's Blade Runner.

The directors are marginally less inclined to fossick around in the mists of time - both The Godfather and Raging Bull (1980) make their Top 10 - and they also find room for two other relatively accessible movies: Lawrence Of Arabia and the end-of-the-world satire Dr Strangelove.

I could claim resounding vindication and leave it at that but that wouldn't be in the festive spirit or in keeping with this column's strenuous pretensions to being at the socio-cultural cutting edge. Besides, for all their merits, revolting Russian sailors (Battleship Potemkin, 1925) and post-war Italian neo-realism (Bicycle Thieves, 1948) don't really do the trick on those nights when we hanker for the aesthetic equivalent of red meat.

Therefore in case the golden summer we crave doesn't eventuate and in the hope that readers have access to an excellent video shop, here are my choice of the best 40 films of the last 40 years.

The Sixties: The Battle Of Algiers; Blow-Up; Bonnie And Clyde; Stolen Kisses; Bullitt; Z; Once Upon A Time In The West; The Conformist; Fellini's Satyricon; The Wild Bunch; MASH.

The Seventies: Claire's Knee; Investigation Of A Citizen Above Suspicion; Dirty Harry; A Clockwork Orange; The French Connection; The Godfather Parts 1 and 2; Just Before Night; Last Tango In Paris; Don't Look Now; Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid; The Conversation; Chinatown; The Man Who Would Be King; Nashville; Taxi Driver; Cross Of Iron; Apocalypse Now.

The Eighties: Raging Bull; Blade Runner; Betty Blue.

The Nineties: Miller's Crossing; Barton Fink; Unforgiven; Pulp Fiction; The Usual Suspects; Heat; The Big Lebowski.

So far this century: Mulholland Drive.

Not surprisingly, this list bolsters my case; indeed 25 of the 40 films came out between 1965 and 1975.

As is inevitable, there are glaring omissions, the most notable probably being 2001: A Space Odyssey which came in at number six on the critics' all-time list.

My take on 2001 is that it's a classic example of how once something has been deemed profound by a sector of the critical fraternity, many people will repeat the mantra rather than admit that they can't make head or tail of it. I could add that it does a good job of conveying the paralysing boredom of space travel.

Another notable omission is Jane Campion's lavishly praised The Piano. I'm sure I'm in the minority but it will be interesting to see which side posterity comes down on.

The nineties outperform the eighties largely because of the contribution of Joel and Ethan Coen who, with due acknowledgement to Quentin Tarantino, are the most talented and original film-makers of their generation. '

If you haven't seen a Coen Brothers movie, I urge you to do so.

Perhaps, though, you should make their acquaintance via something other than The Big Lebowski.