You're listening to the LRB podcast. I'm Malin Hay.

Joining me this week is Michael Wood, an academic and film critic who has been writing the monthly at the movies column for the LRB since 2006

and writing about film, among many other things, since long before that.

Michael, thank you for coming on the podcast.

Welcome. Nice to be here.

Michael's most recent review was of Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander,

which is back in cinemas this month to mark its 40th anniversary,

and we'll talk about that a bit later on the show.

But for now, let's start by talking about a big upset in the film

criticism world recently, which was the release of the site and sound top 100 greatest

films of all time poll, which happens every 10 years. And this year in particular has been

an upset because the top spot, which was previously taken up by Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, is now

occupied by the film Jeanne Diehlman by Chantal Ackerman, which has caused a lot of debate in the film

world, I think. So Michael, as not only a critic, but also somebody who voted on the site and sound poll, maybe you could

just start by talking a little bit about sort of what it means for this particular film to be

placed at the top of this list.

Yes. It's probably a good idea to say something about the actual procedure of the process of the voting,

which is very simple and very plain and extraordinarily open.

I was very taken by it.

They simply, you know, they write to whoever's going to be a judge,

and that is people, film critics, but also people who organise film festivals,

people who look out to films in museums,

...