1970s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 3)

An ongoing project to survey the best films of individual decades, genres, and filmmakers.
Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
swo17
Bloodthirsty Butcher
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:25 am
Location: SLC, UT

1970s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 3)

#1 Post by swo17 » Tue May 28, 2013 2:12 am

VOTING CLOSED. RESULTS CAN BE FOUND HERE.

If you are reading this sentence, you are eligible to participate in our forum's latest decades lists project exploring the films of the 1970s. If you know anyone adventurous enough--on or off the forum--that you think would also enjoy participating, feel free to invite them as well.

Please PM me your list of what you believe are the top 50 films from the decade toward the end of the project. You may feel that you could compile a list of 50 favorite films from this period much earlier than the deadline, but it's still highly recommended that you engage in the discussions here. Don't keep your favorites a secret, and always be open to suggestions from others!


THE RULES

1) Each individual list is to comprise no more or less than 50 films, ranked in your order of preference (with no ties). If you haven't yet seen 50 films from the decade that you think are genuinely great (or even if you have), please take advantage of the resources listed below and participate in the ongoing discussions to find films that you can be proud to put on your list.

2) Any feature film, documentary, experimental film, short film, music video, TV miniseries, TV movie, or TV special released in the 1970s (1970-1979) is eligible.

3) The date given on IMDb is the relevant date for determining a film's year of release, even when it's clearly wrong (unless a special case is made below). If the film is not on IMDb and you say it was released during the 1970s, I'll take your word for it.

4) In certain cases, it may be appropriate for films that are technically separate to be combined, or for films that are technically combined to be separated. In such cases, you may vote for either a part or the whole, but bear in mind that all votes will be competing against each other (e.g. a vote for Ivan the Terrible Pt. 1 will not count toward the vote for Ivan the Terrible in the final tally). Generally, if multiple films are allowed to be combined for voting purposes, you should probably vote for them that way unless you are strongly opposed to doing so. The most common cases:

• Single-director multi-part films for which each segment was released separately (e.g. Feuillade's serials, Lang's two-part epics) may be considered as a single film. Films included in trilogies may not be combined.

• Variant edits: For films that exist in multiple versions (e.g. Welles' Mr. Arkadin, Rivette's Out 1), all votes that don't specify a "secondary" version will be counted toward the "primary" version.

• Portmanteau films: Each of the individual segments and the film as a whole are all separately eligible.

We may occasionally need to make a special case related to rule 3 or 4. If you are seriously considering including a film on your list that you have a question about in this regard, bring it up in this thread and we'll iron it out.

For more details about rules and procedures, please refer here.


ELIGIBILITY – REMINDERS / SPECIAL CASES

¡Qué viva México! is cited as a 1970s film on IMDb, but we made it eligible for our 1930s list so it is ineligible now.

The Other Side of the Wind is eligible as a 1970s film even though it was technically completed and released decades later.

Ruskin and The Ear are eligible as 1970s films, even though IMDb calls them 1990s films.

The Godfather and The Godfather Part II are two separate films.

The Ascent of Man and Life on Earth are eligible as miniseries, even though IMDb calls them TV series (which would normally be ineligible).

The following are examples of multi-part films that may be voted for as a single film, or each segment as a separate film, if you insist (with all votes competing against each other): The Emigrants/The New Land, Hapax Legomena, Battles Without Honor and Humanity, The Battle of Chile, Lester's Musketeers films

The following films may be cited as 1970s releases in some places, but not on IMDb, and so are not eligible for this list: The Sorrow and the Pity, The Honeymoon Killers, Eros + Massacre, Walden, The Gladiators, Medea, Smoking, Diary of a Shinjuku Thief, The Night of Counting the Years, Kes, Burn!, Poto and Cabengo, My Night at Maud's, Stations of the Elevated, The Falls, New York Portrait II, Confidence, Birds Orphans and Fools, Build a House Plant a Tree, How to Live, By Night with Torch and Spear, The Fog, The Beyond, Winter Wind, Breaker Morant

The following films are cited as 1970s films on IMDb, and so are eligible for this list, regardless of what anyone else might say: The Conformist, A Touch of Zen, The Wild Child, Days and Nights in the Forest, Le Vent d'est, La Rupture, Whity, Case for a Rookie Hangman, Du côté d'Orouët, Apotheosis, Bronco Bullfrog, Kustom Kar Kommandos, Hi Mom!, Adelheid, Gates of Heaven, Siberiade, Grass Labyrinth, King Lear (Kozintsev), Buffet froid, Autumn Marathon, Lucifer Rising, The Kremlin Letter, End of the Road, Les Choses de la vie, Tale of Tales, Two Wondrous Tigers, Gods of the Plague, Moscow Distrusts Tears, A Intrusa, Fruit of Paradise, L'Enfant secret


RESOURCES

Past Forum Discussions
Discussion from the Forum's Prior 1970s Project
Defending of Sad Pandas from the Forum's Prior 1970s Project
Discussion from the Forum's Western List Project
Discussion from the Forum's Musicals List Project
Discussion from the Forum's Horror List Project
Discussion from the Forum's Animation List Project
Discussion from the Forum's Shorts List Project
The Alternate Oscars: Best Picture 1969-Present
100 Russian and Eastern European Classics
Pakula, Coppola, and the 1970s Cinema of Paranoia
Japanese Cinema in the 1970s
Shaw Brothers & the 1970s

Forum Discussions of International DVDs
African / Bulgarian / Chinese / Cuban / Czech / Dutch / Finnish / German / Hungarian / Norwegian / Polish / Romanian / South American / Swedish / Turkish / Ukrainian / Yugoslavian

Forum Discussions of Filmmakers Active During the 1970s
Robert Aldrich / Woody Allen / Theo Angelopoulos / Michelangelo Antonioni / Dario Argento / Mario Bava / Ingmar Bergman / Bernardo Bertolucci / John Boorman / Robert Bresson / Luis Buñuel / John Carpenter / Claude Chabrol / Michael Cimino / Larry Cohen / Stuart Cooper / David Cronenberg / Brian de Palma / Rainer Werner Fassbinder / Federico Fellini / Freddie Francis / Jess Franco / John Frankenheimer / Georges Franju / Terry Gilliam / Jean-Luc Godard / Wojciech Has / Howard Hawks / Monte Hellman / Alfred Hitchcock / Dennis Hopper / John Huston / Shōhei Imamura / Otar Iosseliani / Krzysztof Kieślowski / Alexander Kluge / John Krish / Stanley Kubrick / Akira Kurosawa / David Lean / Sergio Leone / Joseph Losey / Sidney Lumet / David Lynch / Louis Malle / Joseph L. Mankiewicz / Jean-Pierre Melville / Hayao Miyazaki / Kira Muratova / Ermanno Olmi / Nagisa Ōshima / Pier Paolo Pasolini / Sam Peckinpah / Arthur Penn / Roman Polański / Otto Preminger / Satyajit Ray / Alain Resnais / Nicolas Roeg / George Romero / Francesco Rosi / Roberto Rossellini / Raúl Ruiz / John Schlesinger / Martin Scorsese / Ousmane Sembène / Don Siegel / Jerzy Skolimowski / Jan Švankmajer / Andrei Tarkovsky / Jacques Tati / Jan Troell / François Truffaut / Luchino Visconti / Andrzej Wajda / John Waters / Orson Welles / Billy Wilder / Fred Zinnemann / Valerio Zurlini

Forum Discussions of 1970s Films
And Soon the Darkness / Apocalypse Now / The Battle of Chile / The Beast / Big Nights and Small Mornings / Blue Collar / The Brood / The Conformist / Dynamite Chicken / Emperor of the North Pole / Fingers / The Godfather I & II / Hard Times / Hot Tomorrows / Johnny Got His Gun / Last Tango in Paris / Little Murders / The Marcus Nelson Murders / Mikey & Nicky / The Monk / Nashville / Next Stop, Greenwich Village / 1900 / 99 and 44/100% Dead / No Lies… / On the Silver Globe / Orderers / The Other Side of the Wind / The Outfit / The Passenger / Phantasm / Rituals / Rolling Thunder / Some Call It Loving / Stalker / Stop / Suspiria / Taxi Driver / 10 Rillington Place / Thundercrack! / Twilight's Last Gleaming / Vanishing Point / Wake in Fright / The Wedding Trough / The World at War

Guides Within This Thread
Do you feel you have an especially informed opinion about the work during the 1970s from a particular director, country, genre, etc.? Many people here would greatly appreciate your taking the time to prepare a guide for navigating through all that's available. (Though they do not necessarily need to be comprehensive.) Guides are especially welcome for extremely prolific directors/movements, or to summarize availability for films (such as shorts) that are often hidden away on releases for other films or only available on the web. Past examples: Director Guide, Country Guide, Genre Guide, DVD Availability Guide

zedz on the UK
knives on Ashby, Schlesinger, Bava, and Jaglom, Huston, Ritchie, Malle, and Bartel, Jewison, Van Peebles, Cassavetes, and Antonioni, Hill, De Palma, Penn, and Frankenheimer
domino harvey on Cybill Shepherd, Pakula, Bogdanovich
bamwc2 on Pasolini, Altman, Russell, Cronenberg, Carpenter, Cohen
YnEoS on Joseph Kuo Nam Hung, Golden Harvest comedies, Lee Tso Nam, Goldig Films, more Golden Harvest films

AWAITING FURTHER GUIDES

External Resources
A list of films from the 1970s appearing on They Shoot Pictures, Don't They's Top 1000 or Doubling the Canon lists
(This list is by no means comprehensive, but can serve as a good reminder of some of the more prominent films that are eligible from this decade. Conversely, if you love a film that doesn't show up here, that might be a good indicator that it could use an extra push.)
National lists

AWAITING FURTHER SUGGESTIONS

Recommended Reading
Lost Illusions: American Cinema in the Shadow of Watergate and Vietnam, 1970-1979, David A. Cook
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood, Peter Biskind

AWAITING FURTHER SUGGESTIONS


FORUM MEMBER SPOTLIGHTS

Is there a film you love that you fear is under most people's radar? Try shining a light on it! To inaugurate a film into the spotlight section, just follow these three simple steps:

1. Make a post about the film discussing why you find it so exceptional.
2. Clearly indicate that you wish the film to be one of your spotlight titles.
3. Direct others to where the film can be found.

I'll keep track of all the spotlight titles here so that they can be easily referenced. You're welcome to have more than one spotlight title, but try not to have too many more, so it's manageable for everyone to be able to see them all.

Everyone is strongly encouraged to give each of these films the same chance that you would hope others would give your own spotlight titles.

The Place Without Limits (Arturo Ripstein) (knives)
The Maids (Christopher Miles) (knives)
Black Roots (Lionel Rogosin) (knives)
The Dupes (Tewfik Saleh) (thirtyframesasecond)
Sounder (Martin Ritt) (bamwc2)
The Silent Partner (Daryl Duke) (bamwc2)
Family Life (Ken Loach) (zedz)
The Nail of Brightness (Lino Brocka) (Wu.Qinghua)
At Long Last Love (Peter Bogdanovich) (domino harvey)
Wrong Move (Wim Wenders) (domino harvey)
Alex in Wonderland (Paul Mazursky) (life_boy)
The Stone Wedding (Mircea Veroiu & Dan Pița) (swo17)
The Green Wall (Armando Robles Godoy) (the preacher)
Duvidha (Mani Kaul) (swo17)

AWAITING FURTHER SUGGESTIONS


DESPERATELY SEEKING SO AND SO

Is there a film you're dying to see but you've exhausted all possible avenues for finding it and still come up short? List it here and perhaps some kind soul will be able to direct you to a copy by PM. Please limit listings here to only a few films that you're most desperate to see.

swo17 is seeking:
Mathias Kneissl (Reinhard Hauff)
La Maison du bois (Maurice Pialat) w/ English subs
Doomed Love (Manoel de Oliveira) w/ English subs
Where Spring Comes Late (Yōji Yamada) w/ English subs

bamwc2 is seeking:
Blanche (Walerian Borowczyk)
The Little Theater of Jean Renoir (Jean Renoir)
Shirley Thompson vs The Aliens (Jim Sharman)
Eadweard Muybridge, Zoopraxographer (Thom Andersen)
Without Anesthesia (Andrzej Wajda)

RobertAltman is seeking:
The Gravy Train (Jack Starrett)
Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street (Samuel Fuller)
The Set-Up (Kathryn Bigelow)

knives is seeking:
Lorsque le bateau de Léon M. descendit la Meuse pour la première fois (Dardenne brothers)
Le chant du rossignol (Dardenne brothers)

***Please PM me if you have any suggestions for additions to/deletions from this first post.***
Last edited by swo17 on Tue Jan 28, 2014 10:24 am, edited 59 times in total.

User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions

#2 Post by knives » Tue May 28, 2013 2:39 am

Looking at my prep list this seems to be for me my most daring decade with lots of experimental and generally odd films. I'll try to get to a few director guides starting Friday. This is already looking to be a pretty great period for discussion. Anyhoot, spotlights:
The Place Without Limits: It's a bit hard to talk about this film beyond how truly shaken it leaves me each time I've seen it. Ripstein does some really horrifying things with tone throughout the film proving the tragedy of camp.

The Maids: Frankenheimer's The Iceman Cometh (more on this one on Friday) may be the most famous film from this theater series, but I find this Genet adaptation by Christopher Miles (who I admit is otherwise unknown to me) to be the best directed from the most daring script. It's very similar to Losey's The Servant, but more naked in terms of the themes of sex and class.

Black Roots: Given how this Rogosin is not available on DVD and the pony from him I backed last time flopped I feel obliged to highlight this one.

User avatar
thirtyframesasecond
Joined: Mon Apr 02, 2007 1:48 pm

Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions

#3 Post by thirtyframesasecond » Tue May 28, 2013 3:24 am

I've got an IMDB watchlist a mile long for this decade. Obviously a lot of those films might be totally unavailable but I'll give it a good go!

This is the first time I've recommended a spotlight film.

The Dupes (Tewfik Saleh, 1973) is a Syrian film that shows the desperate plight of three Palestinian men to find work in Kuwait. I won't give too much away of the plot, but the means by which they try to get from Iraq to Kuwait is particularly harrowing and nailbiting. Shot in stark b&w, Saleh also uses a judicious level of flashback to show how these men have got to the position they find themselves in. It's an incredibly innovative piece of cinema from the developing world and is the first film to address the Palestinian issue.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068899/

I've only seen it for sale on Arabfilm (http://www.arabfilm.com/item/55/), though if anyone is really desperate to see it once they've read up on it, I might see what I can do :)
Last edited by thirtyframesasecond on Tue May 28, 2013 3:36 am, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Cold Bishop
Joined: Tue May 30, 2006 9:45 pm
Location: Portland, OR

Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions

#4 Post by Cold Bishop » Tue May 28, 2013 3:34 am

This is the first time in a long time I actually feel pretty confident I have a grasp on the decade... so I can coast a little. There is no doubt America will be dominating this list.

Any suggestion/discussion on how to approach BBC-style series? Pennies from Heaven and, to a lesser degree, Gangsters could both make my list, but I'll be lying if I wouldn't feel guilty voting for them. And what about Play for Today style stuff?

And after all my 60s write-up projects gathered dust, I will definitely be contributing here... I've even started a somewhat extensive guide on one particular studio I hope to start posting soon. But that will wait...

User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions

#5 Post by knives » Tue May 28, 2013 3:42 am

I imagine the musical list settles any questions with Pennies from Heaven.

User avatar
TMDaines
Joined: Wed Nov 11, 2009 1:01 pm
Location: Stretford, Manchester

Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions

#6 Post by TMDaines » Tue May 28, 2013 5:31 am

It's funny to see just how few films I've seen from this decade - and what I have seen is mainly masterpiece or trashy commedia sexy all'italiana. I think I'll take a different approach to deciding what to watch this time and won't research the established cannon until halfway through. I'm definitely going to start plugging my favourites though.

User avatar
Murdoch
Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 11:59 pm
Location: Upstate NY

Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions

#7 Post by Murdoch » Tue May 28, 2013 7:42 am

I will be very surprised if anything knocks Du côté d'Orouët from my top spot. For years I put Zerkalo as the cream of the 70s crop, but after watching the Rozier film I was far too overcome with joy at its beachfront nouvelle vague Rohmerisms to give it anything but number one. A brilliant display of the ups and downs of vacationing with friends and despite being nearly three hours it feels like 30 minutes.

bamwc2
Joined: Mon Jun 02, 2008 11:54 am

Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions

#8 Post by bamwc2 » Tue May 28, 2013 8:37 am

Here's my "to see" list for the decade, which, like the lists I posted in the 1960s thread, is an amalgam of many other lists and recommendations. There are a few films that I can remove from here, but haven't had time to yet. Pt 1:

1970 Birds, Orphans, and Fools (Juraj Jakubisko), Companeros (Sergio Corbucci), Days and Nights in the Forest (Satyajit Ray), Deadlock (Ronald Kick), Deep End (Jerzy Skolimowski), Diary of a Mad Housewife (Frank Perry), Ere erera baleibu icik subua aruaren (José Antonio Sistiaga), Four Moods (Bei Jingrui and Hu Jinguan), Girly (Freddie Francis), Hope (Yilmaz Güney), I Never Sang for My Father (Gilbert Cates), Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (Elio Petri), Last Known Address (José Giovanni), Leo the Last (John Boorman), The Little Theater of Jean Renoir (Jean Renoir), The Little Things in Life (Claude Sautet), A Man Called Horse (Elliot Silverstein), Mujo (Akio Jissoji), Notes Towards an African Orestes (Pier Paolo Pasolini), One Song a Day Takes Mischief Away (Kresimir Golik), Othon (Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub), Our Daily Bread (Mani Kaul), Puzzle of a Downfall Child (Jerry Schatzberg), Red Peony Gambler: Oryu's Return (Tai Kat), Scream and Scream Again (Gordon Hessler), Soldier Blue (Ralph Nelson), Something For Everyone (Harold Prince),The Spider's Stratagem (Bernardo Bertolucci), A Swedish Love Story (Roy Andersson), There Was a Crooked Man…(Joseph L. Mankiewicz), Two Mules for Sister Sara (Don Siegel), The Vampire Lovers (Roy Ward Baker)

1971 10 Rillington Place (Richard Fleischer), The Abominable Dr. Phibes (Robert Fuest), Basic Training (Frederick Wiseman), Bay of Blood (Mario Bava), Blanche (Walerian Borowczyk), The Boy Friend (Ken Russell), Carriage Trade (Warren Sonbert), Cuadecuc, vampir (Pere Portabella), Daughters of Darkness (Harry Kümel), The Death of Maria Malibran (Werner Schroeter), Deux fois (Jackie Raynal), Dirty Harry (Don Siegel), Du côté d'Orouët (Jacques Rozier), Duel (Steven Spielberg), Emitai (Ousmane Sembène), The Emigrants (Jan Troell), Family Life (Ken Loach), Fiddler on the Roof (Norman Jewison), Four Nights of a Dreamer (Robert Bresson), The Hired Hand (Peter Fonda), Kotch (Jack Lemmon), The Last Movie (Dennis Hopper), Little by Little (Jean Rouch), Maison des bois (Maurice Pialat), The Moon and the Sledgehammer (Philip Trevelyan), Numéro zero (Jean Eustache), Out 1 (Jacques Rivette), Quick Billy (Bruce Baillie), Red Psalm (Miklós Jancsó), Sanrizuka: Heta Village (Ogawa Shinsuke), Short Night of Glass Dolls (Aldo Lado), Taking Off (Milos Forman), Ten Days Wonder (Claude Chabrol), The Third Part of the Night (Andrzej Zulawski), Throw Away Your Books, Rally In the Streets (Shûji Terayama), The Touch (Ingmar Bergman), A Town Called Hell (Robert Parrish), Viva Didou! (Mohamed Zinet), Wake in Fright (Ted Kotcheff), The Working Class Goes to Heaven (Elio Petri)

1972 Arcana (Giulio Questi), Behind the Green Door (Jim and Artie Mitchell), Buck and the Preacher (Sidney Poitier), The Culpepper Cattle Co. (Dick Richards), The Daughter-In-Law (Hadzhakuli Narliev), Dirty Little Billy (Stan Dragoti), Eight Deadly Shots (Mikko Niskanen), Essene (Frederick Wiseman), Female Convict Scorpion Jailhouse 41 (Shunya Ito), Un Flic (Jean-Pierre Melville), History Lessons (Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub), Indian Summer (Valerio Zurlini), Jeremiah Johnson (Sydney Pollack), Junior Bonner (Sam Peckinpah), J.W. Coop (Cliff Robertson), The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (John Huston), Ludwig (Luchino Visconti), Minamata: The Victims and their World (Tsuchimoto Noriaki), Morgiana (Juraj Herz), My Childhood (Bill Douglas), Out 1: Spectre (Jacques Rivette), Past and Poem (Akio Jissoji), Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania (Jonas Mekas), Sambizanga (Sara Maldoror), Sayanora CP (Kazuo Hara), The Score (Radley Metzger), Shirley Thompson vs The Aliens (Jim Sharman), The Stone Tape (Peter Sasdy), Straight on Til Morning (Peter Collinson), Sword of Vengeance I (Kenji Misumi), Szindbád (Zoltán Huszárik), Tombs of the Blind Dead (Amando de Ossorio), Ulzana's Raid (Robert Aldrich), Walter Defends Sarajevo (Hajrudin Krvavac)

1973 Allonsanfan (Paolo and Vittorio Taviani), Anna and the Wolves (Carlos Saura), Battles Without Honor & Humanity (Kinji Fukasaku), Blood Brothers (Cheh Chang), Charley Varrick (Don Siegel), Coup D’etat (Yoshishige Yoshida), Death Line (Gary Sherman), Distant Thunder (Satyajit Ray), Ganja & Hess (Bill Gunn), High Plains Drifter (Clint Eastwood), The Homecoming (Peter Hall), The Iron Rose (Jean Rollins), Juvenile Court (Frederick Wiseman), Love and Anarchy (Lina Wertmüller), The Mongols (Parvis Kimiavi), The Mother and the Whore (Jean Eustache), My Ain Folk (Bill Douglas), Narita: Heta Village (Shinsuke Ogawa), Palomita Blanca (Raul Ruiz), A River Called Titas (Ritwik Ghatak), Salome (Carmelo Bene), A Simple Event (Sohrab Shahid-Saless), The Society of the Spectacle (Guy Debord), Some Call it Loving (James B. Harris), State of Siege (Costa-Gravas), Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams (Gilbert Cates), Sylvie (Klaus Lemke), Theatre of Blood (Douglas Hickox), The Traitors (Raymundo Gleyzer), Turkish Delight (Paul Verhoeven), Ukuaru (Leida Laius), Wedding in Blood (Claude Chabrol)

1974 Animals are Beautiful People (Jamie Uys), Behindert (Stephen Dwoskin), Benilde or the Virgin Mother (Manoel de Oliveira), Daisy Miller (Peter Bogdanovich), Eadweard Muybridge, Zoopraxographer (Thom Andersen), Femmes, Femmes (Paul Vecchiali), The Fierce One (Tolomush Okeyev), From Beyond the Grave (Kevin Connor), The Front Page (Billy Wilder), Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner (Werner Herzog), Les hautes solitude (Philippe Garrel), Italianamerican (Martin Scorsese), It’s Alive (Larry Cohen), Made in the USA and Germany (Rudolf Thome), Mes Petites Amoureuses (Jean Eustache), Moses and Aaron (Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub), The Occasional Work of a Female Slave (Alexander Kluge), Ordres (Michel Brault), Penthesilea (Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen), The Perfume of the Lady in Black (Francesco Barilli), Phase IV (Saul Bass), Primate (Frederick Wiseman), Rabid Dogs (Mario Bava), Reason, Debate, and a Tale (Ritwik Ghatak), Scent of a Woman (Dino Risi), Space is the Place (John Coney), Stavisky... (Alain Resnais), The Stranger and the Gunfighter (Antonio Margheriti), That's Entertainment! (Jack Haley Jr.), Three, Two, One (Lino Brocka), Three Wishes for Cinderella (Václav Vorlícek), We All Loved Each Other So Much (Ettore Scola)

bamwc2
Joined: Mon Jun 02, 2008 11:54 am

Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions

#9 Post by bamwc2 » Tue May 28, 2013 8:41 am

Pt. 2:

1975 Anatomy of a Relationship (Luc Moullet), Anna (Alberto Grifi and Massimo Sarchielli), At Long Last Love (Peter Bogdanovich), The Battle of Chile: Part 1 (Patricio Guzmán), Boss Nigger (Jack Arnold), The Day of the Locust (John Schlesinger), Dolemite (D’Urville Martin), Farewell, My Lovely (Dick Richards), Fear Over the City (Henri Verneuil), Graveyard of Honor (Kinji Fukasaku), India Song (Marguerite Duras), Keetje Tippel (Paul Verhoeven), Manila: in the Claws of the Neon (Lino Brocka), Milestones (Robert Kramer), Numero Deux (Jean-Luc Godard), The Old Gun (Robert Enrico), Le orme (Luigi Bazzoni), Red Snowball Tree (Vasili Shukshin), Reign of Naples (Werner Schroeter), That Most Important Thing: Love (Andrzej Zulawski), Torre Bela (Thomas Harlan), The Traveling Players (Theo Angelopoulos), Trilogy of Terror (Dar Curtis), Welfare (Frederick Wiseman), Winstanley (Kevin Brownlow), Xala (Ousmane Sembene)

1976 11 x 14 (James Benning), Barocco (Andre Techine), The Battle of Chile: Part 2 (Patricio Guzmán), Le berceau de cristal (Philippe Garrel), A Child in the Crowd (Gérard Blain), The Disenchantment (Jaime Chávarri), Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands (Bruno Barreto), Everyday Life in a Syrian Village (Omar Amiralay), Harvest: 3,000 Years (Haile Gerima), Hollywood Boulevard (Allan Arkush and Joe Dante), How Yukong Moved the Mountains (Joris Ivens and Marceline Loridan Ivens), I Only Want You To Love Me (Rainer Werner Fassbinder), Iracema (Jorge Bodanzky/Orlando Senna), Keoma (Enzo G. Castellari), Kings of the Road (Wim Wenders), The Last Woman (Marco Ferreri), The Last Supper (Tomás Gutiérrez Alea), Lost, Lost, Lost (Jonas Mekas), The Man on the Roof (Bo Widerberg), The Marquise of O (Eric Rohmer), Master of the Flying Guillotine (Jimmy Wang), Meat (Frederick Wiseman), The Memory of Justice (Marcel Ophüls), The Omen (Richard Donner), Perfumed Nightmare (Kidlat Tahimik), Personel (Krzysztof Kieslowski), Return of a Man Called Horse (Irvin Kershner), The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (Herbert Ross), Slow Summer (Michael Pilz), Son nom de Venise dans Calcutta désert (Marguerite Duras), Ugly, Dirty and Bad (Ettore Scola), The Wedding Suit (Abbas Kiarostami), Who Can Kill a Child (Narciso Ibáñez Serrador)

1977 Amar Akbar Anthony (Manmohan Desai), Le camion (Marguerite Duras), Ceddo (Ousmane Sembene), A Dirty Story (Jean Eustache), Fortini/Cani (Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub), In the Name of the Pope King (Luigi Magni), Iodo (Kim Ki-young), Last Chance for a Slow Dance (Jon Jost), The Left-Handed Woman (Peter Handke), Local Color (Mark Rappaport), News From Home (Chantal Akerman), One Way Boogie Woogie (James Benning), Passing Through (Larry Clark), The Perfumed Nightmare (Kidlat Tahimik), Providence (Alain Resnais), Puika (Aivars Freimanis), Rolling Thunder (John Flynn), Saturday Night Fever (John Badham), Le Théâtre des matières (Jean-Claude Biette), Three Years Without God (Mario O'Hara), Twilight's Last Gleaming (Robert Aldrich), Unfinished Piece for the Player Piano (Nikita Mikhalkov), The Water Carrier Has Died (Salah Abu Seif)

1978 American Hot Wax (Floyd Mutrux), The Battle of Chile: Part 3 (Patricio Guzmán), The Buddy Holly Story (Steve Rash), Le Dossier 51 (Michel Deville), Filming Othello (Orson Welles), Five Deadly Venoms (Cheh Chang), France/tour/detour/deux/enfants (Jean-Luc Godard and Anne-Marie Miéville), From the Cloud to the Resistance (Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub), Germany in Autumn (Alf Brustellin, et al.), Geschichte der Nacht (Clemens Klopfenstein), The Herd (Zeki Ökten and Yilmaz Güney), It Lives Again (Larry Cohen), Knife in the Head (Reinhard Hauff), Meetings with Anna (Chantal Akerman), Norma Rae (Martin Ritt), The Origins of a Meal (Luc Moullet), Remember My Name (Alan Rudolph), The Scar (Cherd Songsri), The Scenic Route (Mark Rappaport), The Stud Farm (András Kovács), Vertical Features Remake (Peter Greenaway), Violanta (Daniel Schmid), Vivir en Sevilla (Gonzalo García Pelayo), We Spin Around the Night Consumed by the Fire (Guy Debord)

1979 Alien (Ridley Scott), Angi Vera (Pál Gábor), Bloody Kiss (Stephen Frears), Camera Buff (Krzysztof Kieslowski), Christ Stopped at Eboli (Francesco Rosi), Cold Cuts (Bertrand Blier), Csontváry (Zoltán Huszárik), Dirty Ho (Kar-leung Lau), Doomed Love (Manoel de Oliveira), La drôlesse (Jacques Doillon), L’enfant secret (Philippe Garrel), From the Clouds to the Resistance (Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub), Grass Labyrinth (Shûji Terayama), Head Over Heels (Joan Micklin Silver), Perceval (Eric Rohmer), Saint Jack (Peter Bogdanovich), Salem’s Lot (Tobe Hooper), Serie noir (Alain Corneau), Sympathy for a Sinner (George Kuchar), Ticket of No Return (Ulrike Ottinger), The Wanderers (Philip Kaufman), Without Anesthesia (Andrzej Wajda)

User avatar
NABOB OF NOWHERE
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2005 12:30 pm
Location: Brandywine River

Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions

#10 Post by NABOB OF NOWHERE » Tue May 28, 2013 8:51 am

Cold Bishop wrote: Any suggestion/discussion on how to approach BBC-style series? Pennies from Heaven and, to a lesser degree, Gangsters could both make my list, but I'll be lying if I wouldn't feel guilty voting for them. And what about Play for Today style stuff?
The decade of 'interventionist' drama at the BBC which would eventually gain momentum under Thatcherism and be at the sharp end of its ire. Very broadly speaking dominated by the Davids (Hare/ Edgar/Mercer and Rudkin) and the Alans - Bennett / Clarke / and honorary member Resnais for Mercer scripted Providence).
There are quite a varied selection of compilations with whole BBC boxes devoted to Bennett (for which 'Sunset over the Bay' would be a standout) and of course Loach whose WW1 series 'Days of Hope' is a must.
Rudkin's 'Pendas Fen' shot by Clarke is another essential but not sure where to find it, also mentioned in despatches is' Dinner at the Sporting Club' starring John Thaw.
There are of course myriad other noteworthy writers like Ian McEwan, Snoo Wilson, Howard Brenton and Wally K Daly that are not as sulphuric as Edgar and Clarke or as mythic and psycho-analytic as Rudkin but offer shades of whimsy, humour and absurdism along the way.

Finally the reason I started this post, before the rambling set in, was to draw attention to the Peter McDougall 5DVD collection for those bold enough to grapple with the Glaswegian accent.
Just another Saturday Night dealing with sectarian violence is still unsettling and features a fresh faced Billy Connolly.

User avatar
swo17
Bloodthirsty Butcher
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:25 am
Location: SLC, UT

Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions

#11 Post by swo17 » Tue May 28, 2013 10:31 am

Cold Bishop wrote:Any suggestion/discussion on how to approach BBC-style series? Pennies from Heaven and, to a lesser degree, Gangsters could both make my list, but I'll be lying if I wouldn't feel guilty voting for them. And what about Play for Today style stuff?
The rules wrote:Any feature film, documentary, experimental film, short film, music video, TV miniseries, TV movie, or TV special released in the 1970s (1970-1979) is eligible.
Pennies from Heaven is eligible as a miniseries, Gangsters is not eligible as a TV series, and individual episodes of Play for Today are eligible as TV specials.
bamwc2 wrote:1970 Birds, Orphans, and Fools (Juraj Jakubisko)
A '60s film, per IMDb, and therefore ineligible.

User avatar
antnield
Joined: Tue Jun 28, 2005 1:59 pm
Location: Cheltenham, England

Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions

#12 Post by antnield » Tue May 28, 2013 10:37 am

swo17 wrote:Pennies from Heaven is eligible as a miniseries, Gangsters is not eligible as a TV series, and individual episodes of Play for Today are eligible as TV specials.
Just to confuse matters, Gangsters began life as a one-off Play for Today.

User avatar
swo17
Bloodthirsty Butcher
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:25 am
Location: SLC, UT

Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions

#13 Post by swo17 » Tue May 28, 2013 10:40 am

Well, that one-off episode is eligible.
Last edited by swo17 on Mon Jan 20, 2014 12:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

bamwc2
Joined: Mon Jun 02, 2008 11:54 am

Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions

#14 Post by bamwc2 » Tue May 28, 2013 11:13 am

I had planned to make Shûji Terayama's enigmatic dream of a film, Pastoral: To Die in the Country (available here in less than ideal shape) one of my spotlights, but since I now see that it received ample attention in the last 1970s thread, I'll go with a pair of films that received zero votes in the previous list.

Sounder: Martin Ritt's Sounder is my favorite family film of the decade (though Carroll Ballard's The Black Stallion comes very close). Telling a moving story of a family of poor black sharecroppers in the South struggling to survive during the depression, the film could easily veer off into sappy melodrama under a less skilled hand. Instead, the film earns every tear that it might elicit, with a group of characters (including the titular canine) that we genuinely care about and want to see make it through the adversities. While its all too common to see stories of irony (in that loose and ill-defined sense) and dysfunction in our family dramas today, this traditional story of a tightly knit family that truly loves each other always feels just right to me. I hope to someday share this with my son when he's old enough to process the emotions on screen.

Availability: A 2006 release from Koch Media is available from Amazon and Netflix.

The Silent Partner: Daryl Duke's The Silent Partner is as tight of a psychological thriller as was ever made. Eliot Gould stars a bank employee who accidentally uncovers a plot to rob his branch. In anticipation of this, Gould's character steals $50,000 of his own that day figuring that it will go unnoticed in the larger theft. So it does, until the thief, played by the wonderful Christopher Plummer, figures out what happened and decides that he's due a share of the money. There's nary of unnecessary scene or piece of dialogue in Curtis Hanson's script. Gould's attempts to outwit his adversary are met with shocking violence by Plummer and culminate a truly unforgettable ending.

Availability: Another bare bones release available for purchase on Amazon and rent on Netflix.

bamwc2
Joined: Mon Jun 02, 2008 11:54 am

Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions

#15 Post by bamwc2 » Tue May 28, 2013 11:15 am

swo17 wrote:
bamwc2 wrote:1970 Birds, Orphans, and Fools (Juraj Jakubisko)
A '60s film, per IMDb, and therefore ineligible.
I just went by the dates in wherever I picked this up from. It's moot anyway since I haven't a clue where to find it.

User avatar
the preacher
Joined: Thu Nov 25, 2010 12:07 pm
Location: Spain

Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions

#16 Post by the preacher » Tue May 28, 2013 11:40 am

Very promising: 3 of the 6 spotlights are on my first draft (Ripstein, Saleh and Duke)!

bamwc2
Joined: Mon Jun 02, 2008 11:54 am

Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions

#17 Post by bamwc2 » Tue May 28, 2013 12:34 pm

I'll try and keep up with my viewing log for the project as much as my time allows. Here's round one for me:

Behind Convent Walls (Walerian Borowczyk, 1978): While I thought that this was my introduction to the "nunsploitation" genre, Wikipedia informs me that it was actually Mother Joan of Angels :-k. That being said, Borowczyk's work has certainly grown on me since I saw The Beast about a decade ago. Like his other live action films, this one revels in the eroticism of the female form, with one rather explicit masturbation scene and wall-to-wall nudity, but it never seems to have been made purely to titillate. The film is rife with symbolism and takes an interesting look at the divisions between chastity and promiscuity. It's definitely a title that I can recommend, but not one that will find its way on to my list.

Compañeros (Sergio Corbucci, 1970): I had never heard of this film before coming across it in the Westerns list, and my God, what a fun discovery it was! Franco Nero and Tomas Milian star as a pair of amoral rapscallions who find a cause (or least the promise of money) in transporting the pacifistic/revolutionary Professor Xantos (played by the incomparable Fernando Rey) back to his homeland over the objection of the the local strongman. I have to admit that my knowledge of Spaghetti Westerns begins and ends with Sergio Leone, but title made me want to jump headfirst into the genre.

Daisy Miller (Peter Bogdanovich, 1974): Daisy Miller is frequently cited as a misfire from Bogdanovch's career, and while I had mixed feelings toward it, I didn't find it to be the fiasco that some claim it is. In particular I thought that Cybil Shepard, who is frequently cited as the film's weakest link, did a fine job playing a scatterbrain. I say this without having ever read the Henry James novel on which this was based, so I can't say how faithful her performance actually was. My main complaint about the film was simply my inability to connect with or care about any of the characters. There was something about this comedy of manners that I just couldn't get in to.

The Demon (Yoshitaro Nomura, 1978): I've decided to go through all of Criterion's Hulu titles from the 70s that I'm unfamiliar with for the list. This title was my first, and quite an exciting discovery. The story covers a man who suddenly finds himself saddled with a trio of children that he conceived in an affair. Thanks to the urging of his wife, who in no small way reminded me of Lady Macbeth, he seeks to divest himself of them. While the children themselves do an excellent job in their roles, the star of the film is undoubtedly Ken Ogata who was only a year away from his career defining role in Vengeance is Mine when he played the conflicted patriarch, Sokichi. He portrays the character perfectly and allows us to understand his motivation at the end of the film even if the police cannot.

Oh, My Son (Keisuke Kinoshita, 1979): Based on true events, Kinoshita's tales of one man's attempt to make sense of his son's random murder started out strong, but lost me somewhere after the halfway point. The film's protagonist, played ably by Tomisaburô Wakayama, focuses his rage over the murder's lenient sentence into a quest to provide compensation for the family of murder victims. While Kinoshita handles the early scenes of the family's grief wonderfully with non-linear storytelling, the film felt like it dragged on long passed its 130 minute run time by the time the credits rolled.
Last edited by bamwc2 on Thu Jun 06, 2013 9:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
MichaelB
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
Location: Worthing
Contact:

Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions

#18 Post by MichaelB » Tue May 28, 2013 1:15 pm

bamwc2 wrote:I'll try and keep up with my viewing log for the project as much as my time allows. Here's round one for me:

Behind Convent Walls (Walerian Borowczyk, 1978): While I thought that this was my introduction to the "nunsploitation" genre, Wikipedia informs me that it was actually Mother Joan of Angels :-k. That being said, Borowczyk's work has certainly grown on me since I saw The Beast about a decade ago. Like his other live action films, this one revels in the eroticism of the female form, with one rather explicit masturbation scene and wall-to-wall nudity, but it never seems to have been made purely to titillate. The film is rife with symbolism and takes an interesting look at the divisions between chastity and promiscuity. It's definitely a title that I can recommend, but not one that will find its way on to my list.
Blanche is far and away the best of Borowczyk's 1970s films, and I doubt that's an eccentric minority opinion.

bamwc2
Joined: Mon Jun 02, 2008 11:54 am

Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions

#19 Post by bamwc2 » Tue May 28, 2013 2:11 pm

MichaelB wrote:Blanche is far and away the best of Borowczyk's 1970s films, and I doubt that's an eccentric minority opinion.
Any idea where I can find a copy? I'd love to see it.

Edit: I see that there's a French import, but without English subtitles I'm lost.
Edit 2: I also see that Swo has added Blanche to first post as a title that I need help finding. Here are a few others that I can't seem to track down anywhere. Any help would be very much appreciated:

The Little Theater of Jean Renoir (Jean Renoir)
Shirley Thompson vs The Aliens (Jim Sharman)
Eadweard Muybridge, Zoopraxographer (Thom Andersen)
Without Anesthesia (Andrzej Wajda)

User avatar
TMDaines
Joined: Wed Nov 11, 2009 1:01 pm
Location: Stretford, Manchester

Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions

#20 Post by TMDaines » Tue May 28, 2013 4:07 pm

bamwc2 wrote:
MichaelB wrote:Blanche is far and away the best of Borowczyk's 1970s films, and I doubt that's an eccentric minority opinion.
Any idea where I can find a copy? I'd love to see it.

Edit: I see that there's a French import, but without English subtitles I'm lost.
Edit 2: I also see that Swo has added Blanche to first post as a title that I need help finding. Here are a few others that I can't seem to track down anywhere. Any help would be very much appreciated:

The Little Theater of Jean Renoir (Jean Renoir)
Shirley Thompson vs The Aliens (Jim Sharman)
Eadweard Muybridge, Zoopraxographer (Thom Andersen)
Without Anesthesia (Andrzej Wajda)
All of these, bar the Sharman, are available on certain private trackers (with English subtitles if necessary).

bamwc2
Joined: Mon Jun 02, 2008 11:54 am

Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions

#21 Post by bamwc2 » Tue May 28, 2013 4:20 pm

Please pardon my ignorance, but what is a "private tracker"?

User avatar
swo17
Bloodthirsty Butcher
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:25 am
Location: SLC, UT

Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions

#22 Post by swo17 » Tue May 28, 2013 4:24 pm

It's the kind of thing best discussed by PM.

User avatar
TMDaines
Joined: Wed Nov 11, 2009 1:01 pm
Location: Stretford, Manchester

Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions

#23 Post by TMDaines » Tue May 28, 2013 4:27 pm

Which I just did ;).

User avatar
Forrest Taft
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2007 8:34 pm
Location: Stavanger, Norway

Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions

#24 Post by Forrest Taft » Tue May 28, 2013 4:53 pm

Any help in tracking down any of these three would be much appreciated:
The Gravy Train (Jack Starrett, 1974)
Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street (Samuel Fuller, 1973) (Perhaps this one actually gets released before the project deadline?)
The Set-Up (Kathryn Bigelow, 1978)

User avatar
zedz
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm

Re: 1970s List Discussion and Suggestions

#25 Post by zedz » Tue May 28, 2013 4:56 pm

Cold Bishop wrote:Any suggestion/discussion on how to approach BBC-style series? Pennies from Heaven and, to a lesser degree, Gangsters could both make my list, but I'll be lying if I wouldn't feel guilty voting for them. And what about Play for Today style stuff?
Last time around, I voted for / seriously considered voting for Abigail's Party, Blue Remembered Hills and Potter's Casanova series. If you're checking out Fellini's Casanova for this decade, do yourself a favour and see this version as well. It's much more complex and really ingeniously structured (and I actually like the Fellini).

I had only one UK film on my 60s list (Gladwell's experimental An Untitled Film), and even though the seventies starts to become a bit of a wasteland for British commercial feature filmmaking, I see it as an immeasurably stronger decade in other ways, and there will be a lot of films vying for a place on my list.

So much goodness when you look away from the mainstream:

BFI (or other government department)-supported, uncommercial shorts, features and half-features:
- The Bill Douglas Trilogy is a phenomenal piece of work (I'll be singling out the second part, My Ain Folk). The magnificent Terence Davies trilogy kicks off with Children this decade, but it's the most tentative of the three films, so I'll probably give it a miss.
- All those early Greenaway shorts, which in my opinion he's never really outdone (or even really superceded - most of his preoccupations have remained the same, but have just got rehashed in more baroque form) - A Walk through H is my top pick here, a film like no other.
- Brownlow and Mollo's Winstanley - if you can get past the really very bad lead performance, this is an utter masterpiece.
- The Criterion-sanctioned Overlord

The Golden Age of TV drama:
- Mike Leigh's best work
- Dennis Potter's best work
- The beginning of Alan Clarke's mighty run (though it's in the 80s where he really pushes the boundaries of television drama beyond their natural limits)
- Plenty of great one-off plays by the likes of Frears (e.g. A Day Out)

Mainstream Malcontents:
Some great directors functioning on the margins of mainstream filmmaking, and frequently slipping back into their home territories (television, theatre, shorts) or having to leave the country to get films made:
- Ken Loach: The devastating Family Life is an absolute must-see. I might as well make it a spotlight title, actually. I can take or leave Loach at any stage of his career, but this is one of the most terrifying films I've ever seen. When we did the Horror list project, I was very tempted to ignore traditional genre markers and just stick this in the top slot anyway.
- Lindsay Anderson: It's almost as if Anderson knew that he'd only get to make one theatrical feature this decade, so he went right ahead and made the comet-across-the-sky freak of nature O Lucky Man!.
- Derek Jarman: I'm more likely to vote for something like The Garden of Luxor, but his early features are all worth a look, with The Tempest the best of the bunch.
- Peter Watkins: Appropriately enough, he spends the seventies outside the country. Punishment Park is probably the lightning rod title, but Edvard Munch is the masterwork, a film you end up living inside.


Experimental Film:
British experimental filmmaking seems to step up a notch this decade. Having started out in amateur-ville in the early sixties, we've now got lots of fully-fledged artists creating solid and continuous bodies of work. Some places to start:
- Chris Welsby's astonishing Seven Days (on the BFI's excellent career overview DVD)
- Guy Sherwin's At the Academy (on Lux's indispensible Optical Sound Films collection)
- Lis Rhodes' Light Music (there's a disc of her films available from Lux as well, but I haven't checked it out yet)
- Richard Woolley (more narrative focussed, with a comprehensive DVD set from the BFI)

Plus all those weird, unexpected wonders in the documentary and industrial field, like Apaches or Geoffrey Jones' Locomotion, and the many rediscoveries of recent years (Nighthawks, various Flipside titles)

And in the commercial field, don't forget Nic Roeg, who had what might be the most amazing run of any director this decade. I don't love Performance, Walkabout, Don't Look Now and The Man Who Fell to Earth equally, but there are no duds there, and I can't think of any other English language feature filmmaker of the seventies working with that range and ambition. And there are also tourists like Jerzy Skolimowski, who began and ended the decade with great British films (Deep End and The Shout), and Joseph Losey, who's sort of winding down as an arthouse powerhouse at this point, but his 1970 films (Figures in a Landscape and The Go-Between) are both well worth a look.

I'm not a fan of Ken Russell's bombastic 70s work, but knock yourselves out.

Post Reply