The 1977 Mini-List

[swo17]

ELIGIBLE TITLES FOR 1977

VOTE THROUGH SEPTEMBER 30

Please post in this thread if you think anything needs to change about the list of eligible titles.

[yoshimori]

I quite like Jissoji's Utamaro: Dreams and Knowledge and will surely vote for it, if that can be added. I highly recommend everyone watch "Wild Night in El Reno" too. Probably my favorite weather music video.

[Rayon Vert]

Is it possible to add Capricorn One?

[swo17]

I've added the Jissoji. I have the Hyams film as 1978. It looks like it was previewed in Japan in December of '77 for whatever reason but didn't open wider than that until the next year. It was also nominated for several Saturn awards as a 1978 film

[Rayon Vert]

Thanks for the clarification swo! I'll make a note of it.

[therewillbeblus]

Can you please add I Never Promised You a Rose Garden?

[swo17]

Added

[therewillbeblus]

Can you please add Damiano Damiani's Io ho paura aka I Am Afraid?

I've been lukewarm on most Italian political dramas from the period, but this one stood out as less esoteric and more engaging than most. The detailed precision at capturing action in real time -from banal mechanics of waiting and meeting to shootouts- is all extremely thrilling. This plays out like a good le Carré novel, and Gian Maria Volonté gives a terrific, complex performance as a bodyguard who wears his perpetual self-preserving fear, moral convictions, and stoic grace in equal measure, without ever allowing the first, primary force to leave our sights - until it does, and then, well, trouble.

[swo17]

Added

[knives]

Can you please add Damiano Damiani's Io ho paura aka I Am Afraid?

I've been lukewarm on most Italian political dramas from the period, but this one stood out as less esoteric and more engaging than most. The detailed precision at capturing action in real time -from banal mechanics of waiting and meeting to shootouts- is all extremely thrilling. This plays out like a good le Carré novel, and Gian Maria Volonté gives a terrific, complex performance as a bodyguard who wears his perpetual self-preserving fear, moral convictions, and stoic grace in equal measure, without ever allowing the first, primary force to leave our sights - until it does, and then, well, trouble.

Incidentally, I hope everyone looking to add a pet favorite or discovery to the list takes note of this post. I hope everyone can muster at least a few short words explaining why you think others might like your movie.

[therewillbeblus]

I was going to do the same with I Never Promised You a Rose Garden but decided it would be more appropriate to build on the strong discussion in the Corman thread instead

[Rayon Vert]

On that note, knives, here was my write-up for Capricorn One in the science fiction list project.

Capricorn One (Hyams 1977). (1st viewing) After viewing this I don’t consider it really having the credentials for this list since it’s about a manned Mars landing that’s faked, and is really more of a post-Watergate malaise conspiracy thriller. A fun film though, that got better as it progressed after some iffy acting in the beginning. The tone is serious but it does sometimes have a lighter edge, including action sequences that have a North by Northwest sort of vibe. Part of that also is Elliot Gould as the investigative reporter with a lousy reputation which is almost a riff on his performance in The Long Goodbye. Brolin, Waterston and OJ are the screwed-over astronauts, plus you get Telly Savalas so it doesn’t get more 70s than this, but in a good way.

Edit: Oops, forgot this was 1978. Well, a month in advance then!

[therewillbeblus]

My John Waters preferences have always been (I suppose, appropriately) bent from the norm, but it wasn’t until this third/fourth revisit that Desperate Living surpassed Multiple Maniacs as my favorite. Contrary to many, I don’t think this film is quite so front-heavy (although the first ten minutes are as funny as ever, I prefer the next ten!) - and I seem to be alone in feeling like this is the most consistently hilarious and engaging of all his works by a country mile. Waters supports this state of fluidity by removing his characters from any real-world hang-ups that might obstruct their lunacy - transporting them into a society of misfits, where the environment is in a constant state of stimulation, peripheral gags firing like Tati on amphetamines even when the central action isn’t in shock mode or set up for a joke. All his films permit unfiltered chaos but rarely this inspired - and I never realized how this film essentially obliterates the creative value of Carpenter’s Escape from New York by overwhelming the myopic imagination of that film tenfold, half a decade before it was produced.

The histrionic behavior -that can grow tired due to formal distancing or dead-spots populating the two-dimensional linearity of the ‘windup’ sections in his other films- is fed with a constant restorative energy by the milieu here. Mink Stole’s hyped-to-11 perf somehow never exhausts itself, but in a clever reflexive in-joke becomes more and more appropriate when responding to triggers to earn such a shrill reaction! Other Waters regulars like Edith Massey also fully inhabit the untapped potential of their roles far better than the drive-by antics in prior efforts. Even the flashbacks work at servicing extraneous skits Waters wants to insert and might’ve forced into the main plot in another film - they seem to succeed at what Quentin Dupieux has been trying and often failing to do with his own off shooting web of mini-narratives throughout his own oeuvre.

[therewillbeblus]

I don't think it's a Great Movie, like many of his earlier 70s hits, but The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover is bold in a subtler manner than Cohen is used to - Here he produces Hoover's biography as a series of historical accounts that's cheekily cartoonish masked as sincere drama, and the tone seems to have fooled a lot of the politicians it was screened for, even if they didn't like it all that much. I wanted this to be more fun, but its animated vibe of "comic strip" (hat-tip to Kehr) economy is effective at investing the audience in both its informational goals and the entertainment factor of its leisurely vehicle- and easier to appreciate when looking back now on a dated work. The cast is inspired, and (again, thanks to hindsight) I couldn't stop smiling every time Michael Parks showed up as RFK because WTF

[therewillbeblus]

Like the above Cohen, Rollercoaster works due to its all-star cast, though it's far better because these players are given a lot of breathing room to vitalize the typically-routine thriller skeleton. In another world, this would be a 90-minute rush-job of stripped-down action beats, but instead it's two full hours of a carefully-constructed procedural peppered with rich moments of character quirks, that manages to feel appropriately loose without losing its grip on the established tonal economy. Segal gives a versatile performance - his introduction is all the more hysterical for not priming us to the scene's stimulus, and from there he seamlessly pivots across all kinds of sardonic and sincere shades of personality that feel both authentic and stratified for cathartic popcorn movie zingers. I also love how the film subverted predictable and hackneyed narrative beats - i.e. Segal's calm diffusion of a stake-raising set-up for involving his family in the climax. Moments like these ground the film to a place in step with its central character - attentive, smart, regulated, patchy yet honest. Segal is a man who is "capable" in a real manner most film-protagonists aren't portrayed as: A guy who wants to quit smoking, exhibits both resilience and dips in will power fumbling around in non-flashy ways, but succeeds; sometimes due to skills and sometimes luck, messily and eventually without a reason - giving the least ostentatious result possible, in an ending somewhat-resembling California Split's intangible ennui!

[knives]

Which cut of Angelopoulos‘ The Hunters is the preferred one?

[swo17]

I think it's only out on DVD in one compromised cut but still worth watching that way?

[knives]

I have both cuts available to me. I’m curious which people recommend for the short time we have for the list.

[knives]

A few more obscure recs.

This feeling of conflict Abar, the First Black Superman provides is what I love about blaxsploitation. This is a low budget, poorly acted, incompetent film whose Troma like aesthetic almost beg to be teased. It doesn't help that the actor playing Dr. Kincade looks and sounds exactly like Ben Carson. Yet despite all of this I can't help but call this film good for the audacity of its politics. This is a movie that opens with a man monologging to the screen about the failures of reality to live up to Dr. King's speech specifically calling out the mountain top part of the speech and the film doesn't relent from there. Most of the film plays like a what if on the aftermath of Raisin in the Sun changing the hopeful end into a pessimistic despair. Even the bizarre flashback reveals a disappointment that is hard to dismiss on account of the filmmaking. Maybe if there were more Do the Right Things, with its great filmmaking and more considered politics, films like this wouldn't retain their necessary shock value and cultural worth. We're not there and this film is great for its aggressive social view if not its filmmaking. That said some of the dialogue is beautiful with a real sense of poetry like the definition of blackness given and other times just plain cool like the verbal beatdown the doctor gives to the politician in the scene before hand. Really that whole run of scenes culminating with the reprisal of Dr. King is touching in a very sincere and great manner.

Jankovics’ TheStruggle is a pretty classic short format. Most shorts, especially ones this short, are an extended setup for a mild punchline. Where this becomes more than that is how the setup is delivered and how chilling the effect is.

Fun with Dick and Jane feels weirdly contemporary. Even its trans joke is all about how terrible Dick is and treats the trans individual as a human worth respect. Pretty hilarious to boot.

[knives]

Got in a pair of Italian flicks. Fulci’s The Psychic was nothing to write home about even if I appreciate him working in a different mold as almost no on screen violence occurs.

Far more exciting Monicelli’s masterwork Un Borghese Piccolo Piccolo. I guess this is one that’s never going to be released in the UK. The opening sets quite the tone as Sordi with son catches a fish and proceeds to smash its skull in while discussing the son’s future. It was a disturbing shock that sets the tone for what is easily the best film I’ve seen from Monicelli.

Sordi in a performance reserved far beyond what I’ve ever seen from him is a rather pathetic government worker who sees his small life as the cornerstone of society. That blindness to his own worth extends to his son who seems too aloof to be an accountant. So, the film spends much of its runtime as Sordi spends every ounce of dignity to help this empty child accomplish the mundane task of being a worker drone.

The film reminded me of a friend who would joke that the scariest thing to him would be to become an accountant because that would mean never thinking again. Perhaps Monicelli had a similar suspicion. In any case I was never really sure where the film was going or aiming for as it seemed to be aiming at an easy target, but when it does finally reveal its hand it makes the jump to greatness and awe. There’s no need to speak from beyond this point though.

[Shrew]

Sorry if this was brought up in one of the other meta threads on the list project, but it looks like Alan Clarke's Scum is listed in both 77 and 79. I know it was censored and not released until 79, but are there actually different versions that would justify both years? Is it just a vote for whichever you think is right? Or an oversight?

[Matt]

The 1977 version would be the TV version made for BBC’s “Play for Today” but which was never aired until 1991. The 1979 version would be the remade film version.

For physical media, the BFI released the 1977 version in their essential Dissent & Disruption: Alan Clarke at the BBC 1969-1989 set. Indicator in the UK and Kino in the US have released the 1979 film version on Blu-ray. Both versions were available on DVD in the US in Blue Underground’s Alan Clarke Collection.

[the preacher]

Could you add the following titles?
Povestea dragostei (A Story of Love)
Operation Ganymed
Taxi Driver (Citizen I) - actually 'Thongpoon Kokpo Ratsadorn Tem Khan' (The Citizen)
Kung mangarap ka't magising (Moments in a Stolen Dream)
Chuquiago
Mort d'un pourri (Death of a Corrupt Man)

Not sure about Turkish classic 'Selvi Boylum Al Yazmalim' (The Girl with the Red Scarf). It was released in 1978, but apparently shown in 1977 in a film festival.

[swo17]

I've added all of those now though I already had the Yılmaz film as 1978

[Solaris]

Missing Anima persa by Dino Risi