Any attempt to study film history requires the consideration of films, which occur within the categories of excellence, popularity and typicality. They are three very different approaches to film history; 'excellence' covering films recognised as having artistic merit, 'popularity' covering films which have been financially or sociologically successful and 'typicality', films which are classed as mainstream displaying qualities typical of classical Hollywood films. All three categories are used to study aspects of cinema rather than film history, rarely including documentary films and never including home movies, the most common use of the film medium worldwide.

The most common way of studying film history is 'Excellency', grouping together films, which are generally agreed to be of exceptional aesthetic quality. This study, based on artistic merit, relates film study to other art forms such as painting, theatre and music. It is encouraged by the vast amounts of materials regularly reviewing and rating films, including newspapers, magazines and television shows and specific awa

Excellency in film is most commonly measured by a poll conducted among film critics by 'Sight And Sound' magazine every decade since 1952, producing a canon of the best 10 films of all time. The films on the list are all excellent pieces of filmmaking with the regularly occurring films- 'Citizen Kane'(Welles, 1941), 'La Regle Du Jeu'(Renoir, 1939), 'Battleship Potemkin'(Eisenstein,1925)- are all recognised as among the best ever made. Citizen Kane has been placed as the best film of all time since 1962, and is a brilliant piece of filmmaking. It is a technically superb film, well directed with innovative use of deep focus cinematography and unusual narrative structure. The direction, and acting from the cast is magnificent, as is the screenplay, though the characterisation is lacking in depth in places. It is impossible to judge it as the best film of all time as it is incomparable with almost any other film due to its unique subject matter and presentation, This subjectivity is the main flaw in 'excellency' as a basis for inclusion of films in a film history. By creating an elite canon of films to study it is rejecting many other films which many people may regard as infinitely superior. Citizen Kane has suffered adverse effects from being considered the best film of all time with many people disappointed upon viewing. The canon tends to ignore modern films, the most recent on the 1992 list being '2001: A Space Odyssey'(Kubrick, 1968). There are many modern films which can be regarded as of equivalent excellence to those on the canon: I feel that 'Raging Bull'(Scorcese, 1980) and 'La Haine'(M. Kassovitz, 1994) are as good as any film on the canon. Other films and filmmakers are not recognised until years after as being exceptional such as 'L'Atalante'(Jean Vigo, 1934), and the films of the silent comedians Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. It is only when viewed in a historical context that the latter two were seen as having artistic value; they were perceived just as entertainment at the time.

All three categories are a misrepresentative way of studying film history when used only in the context of Hollywood and European cinema. Many documentaries are formally excellent, with a high level of emotional involvement and as such could be classed as excellent films. Yet with the exception of some sporting documentaries, such as 'Hoop Dreams'(James, 1994) and 'When We Were Kings'(Gast, 1996), they get no widespread cinema or video release and are not included within the category of excellent filmmaking.

rds for filmmaking, the most famous being Cannes film festival and the Oscars.

'Excellence' is a more effective means of studying films and film history if used in conjunction with genres to produce outstanding films within that genre: 'Mary Poppins' (Stevenson, 1964) would never be voted as a classic film, but may be included on a list of the best family films ever. The film canon also tends to eschew science fiction, comedy, horror and children's/family films in favour of more realistic, adult films. Any study based exclusively on the canon would immediately omit most films of these genres. With the exception of British, French, and some Japanese and Italian films, it also tends to exclude any world cinema, notably Bollywood films.

Many of the common characteristics of popular films are the opposite to those of the films recognised for their artistic excellence. They are modern films that do not display formal excellence, with little insight or emotional depth. They do not rely on their script or on powerful performances from the actors and the direction does not have to be exceptional for the film to be a success. None of the most popular films are European or art house films whereas many of the films in the canon would have been limited release, art house films with little real box office success. Even the more mainstream films in the canon- 'Citizen Kane' and ''The Searchers'(Ford, 1956)- were

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