The 1970 Mini-List

[knives]

Gimme Dhelter always stands as a real surprise. As a general rule I don’t like concert films and none of the performers are necessarily exciting to me, yet that intimacy you mention is so powerful that it forces me to feel. Admittedly disturbed feelings, but feelings nonetheless.

[therewillbeblus]

Zabriskie Point has a simple, even silly story and I can't really defend it on the basis of that or on the amateurish nature of the performances in it -- but it's so passionately rendered and I felt all of its oversized, juvenile emotions throughout, and to me its sense of motion and palpable freedom were as profound as any illustration of those concepts as I've seen. I think sometimes maybe it's OK to feel adolescent and very "us versus them" about things again, even if it's a very easy thing to criticize.

I've really come around on this one, and it'll place high on my own list after I've felt compelled to give it several viewings across the last year. I'm not aware of any consensus readings of the film, but how Antonioni sees the merits or access or even actual existence of this "palpable freedom" seems to be the big question it's built around. My writeup from its dedicated thread:

I strongly disliked this when I saw it in my youth, but ten years later I'm joining its cult chorus regarding it as an unsung masterpiece. I don't know what the actual 'intention' was on Antonioni's part, but the film reads to me as incredibly pessimistic and even critical of the counterculture movement's idealism while empathizing with the plight of powerlessness usurping their theoretically valuable ideals. Even if Antonioni is didactically moralizing against capitalist America, the film's cumulative mood crushes any single moment's pandering against the System. The desert sex is a fantastically utopian version of the Flower Power lifestyle, impermanently sublime and incapable of maintaining pleasure against the gravity of 'society' pulling these principals back. Sure, one could argue that the break from the desert and return to face consequences is rooted in these youths' moral compasses, but it seems implicit that they are conditioned to return to familiarity, to conform against their ideals, not only because they feel a helplessly-imposed 'need' to, but ultimately because their vision of a perfect world is impossible to actualize and sustain, even when it's literally happening in real time.

The framing of this narrative, where nothing else is acceptable and yet nothing can match the potency of the imagination, creates a tragic imprisonment for these youth. They are impotent to fulfill their own desires-turned-needs with fragile sensitivity- partially because they cannot brings themselves to compromise (exhibited as a weakness within this milieu rather than a strength), but more disturbingly rooted in their identities being mirage projections of dreams- dreams they are too afraid to engage in or that cannot corporeally match the idea of the dream. Daria Halprin's serene smile post-forecasted-imagination of destruction is simultaneously empathetic and pathetic- she smugly returns to the car after solipsistically satisfying her desire. We may share it, but this will lead to inactive complacency- the kind that is called out at the start of the film, and yet it's also a resilience born from the futility to make dreams come true.

Maybe the best we can do is collectively dream (and for artists like Antonioni here or Tarantino to use the magic of the movies to perversely alter real life) but there's something deeply sad and troubling about that as well. The ending of this film is masterful, though less the explosions than the return to Halprin's delusional heroine, isolated and alone, ripped away from the catharsis, riding off into the sunset to live a life that is going to consist of mostly isolation and loneliness and failure to make her dreams come true, yet smiling all the same. I felt disturbed.. I pitied, resented, and felt compassion for her (and myself and those I know in my life, through all past seasons of development along the spectrum of star-eyed agency to pragmatic inactivity).. and liberated at once, but the magnetic pull grounded me back to the fatalistically melancholic paralysis that would become detrimentally sobering in the 70s, after the promise of change, and would continue to this day through countless zeitgeists and beyond.

[the preacher]

For those who could use the help in searching through the list.

Least popular title on my ballot is Croatian classic Lisice/Handcuffs. Lowest average rating is for The Kremlin Letter (3.0)

[yoshimori]

Least popular title on my ballot is ...

Sex Jack

Lowest average rating is for ...

Emperor Tomato Ketchup (3.2)

[therewillbeblus]

Kicking off the '70s the biggest surprise for me was John G. Avildsen's Joe, kind of a proto-Taxi Driver which I found lean and surprisingly incisive; as unpleasant as the title character is (portrayed very brilliantly by Peter Boyle), it struck me as cogent that he's shown as voicing the secret whims of a more button-down conservative character whose dignified exterior lasts almost to the end of the film.

I didn't like this as much as you did, but I thought Susan Sarandon stole the movie from frame one whenever she was on screen. I was absolutely mesmerized by her performance - perhaps in part because I've never been quite enamored with her as an actress before, so it was pretty shocking to come away thinking her first ever screen acting job was her best! It's no wonder she became a star after this. She takes a small role that does not necessitate depth at all for the rest of the narrative to work, and turns it into something pivotal by which we're acclimated to the chaotic pull of the 1970-specific zeitgeist by her dynamic, multidimensional acting range. Pitted against the myopic conservative resentment of the father and Boyle born from impotence to control or understand the milieu, as well as her equally-purblind beau on the other side of the spectrum, her part elevates the film from something thin to something detailed, even if that atmosphere doesn't go anywhere or hold a candle to the action taken by the fearful deluded zealots.

[swo17]

I'm gonna vote for a bunch of Lillian Schwartz shorts this decade. Here is a good one to kick things off.

Also, it's criminal that there's no better way to watch Inhabitants than on YouTube.

And one last recommended 1970 short for now: Malcolm Le Grice's Berlin Horse, which is a trippy manipulation of some old film footage soundtracked by a pre-fame Brian Eno!

[therewillbeblus]

Thanks for those recs- is there a Lillian Schwartz set out there I should be purchasing if I loved Pixillation?

[swo17]

Unfortunately not that I'm aware of, though she's hosting a bunch of her films on her website. There's also a DVD called OHM+: The Early Gurus of Electronic Music that features my favorite one, Mutations (1972)

[ryannichols7]

finally getting back to my long catchup posts, in time for people to actually watch some of the stuff I write about and discuss them! a novel idea...sorry I didn't do it for the awesome years that were 1968 and 1969.

Gimme Shelter - the only revisit so far, everything else is new to me. to me, Midnight Cowboy is the funeral for the 1960s. Gimme Shelter is digging up the coffin and eviscerating it. just an incredible vital, powerful document that shows right through all the nonsense and corruption of the time period, all the while soundtracked by some of the most biblical songs ever. floors me every single time, and is basically essential viewing to anyone doing this project, or interested in the end of the 1960s.

Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion - waited a long time to watch this but was left really cold by it. good performance by Gian Maria Volante but I felt there was no core, no hook to this movie. just empty stylism and loud Italian yelling - as dustybooks said, an exhausting watch.

Deep End - on the other hand, enthralling. my first Skolimowski and it was a great place to jump in (!), with a great performance by Jane Asher. I find these kinds of stories fascinating (A Short Film About Love and Knife in the Water, which of course Skolimowski co-scripted, came to mind) and this one was no different, even if I wasn't fully on board with some choices (such as the ending). Rushmore seems to take a lot from it, and I'll admit that the uncomfortable parts of that movie are my least favorite. in Deep End, the more uncomfortable it got, the more hilarious and better of a movie it was. just love the idea that this 15 year old kid can bag whoever he wants but he's so hooked on Paul McCartney's ex that he'll go to whatever lengths he can for her. a very enjoyable tale of obsession.

two notes:

SpoilerShow

1. I hate these kinds of endings, but I will say I'd rather see this than any giallo movie

2. the sequence with Can's "Mother Sky", a song I have loved for ~15 years but totally forgot what movie it was written for, was a legitimately biblical experience and well worth the price of admission

Diary of a Mad Housewife - while I didn't love The Swimmer I was totally won over by this. Carrie Snodgress was amazing in the lead role, and I thought this was an audaciously great look at the "roles" of postwar US. the idea that the two men are basically the same hilarious, the whole thing engaging and funny, and its impressively progressive in its look at Snodgress' titular character. I felt it was able to be progressive without quickly dating itself and overall felt refreshing. the ending scene bumped it up even more, I can't recommend this one enough.

Reconstruction - despite all my annoying posts on this board demanding labels release Theo Angelopoulos' work, since I'm rather interested in it - this is actually the first one I watched! they've been very hard to track down and that just feels wrong. anyway, his debut very much felt in the vein of Jancso or Tarr, but with that Kiarostami-like metaness of building it all back together (I mean, it's right there in the title). interesting plot, primitive filmmaking, but it dares you to get lost in it as a mood piece, something I suspect will be pretty regular with the director's work.

The Birch Wood - and yet this was a very random choice as my second Wajda, I suspect I will need a lot more context with his work before even trying to make sense of this. it truthfully didn't register at all with me, despite being well made and rather gorgeous looking.

Fruit of Paradise - I've talked about my aversion to Daisies on here a few times, enjoying Chytilova's more understated Something Different a lot more. but Fruit of Paradise is a near masterpiece - this is like the Help! to Daisies being A Hard Day's Night. I just like these stylistic experiments more when they're seriously all the way in, and it helps that I found it far more engaging and exciting than Daisies, which is a lot more annoying (both the actresses and what they do). this is all directorial trickery, but it sustains the energy throughout the entire runtime, from the very experimental opening all the way through that crazy drum scene. I was all in on this fantastic movie - one of those where you just fully surrender to the experience.

Vampir Cuadecuc - a neat concept that left me kinda puzzled, but it's admittedly hilarious to describe to people. I think I should get more context on Pere Portabella, another debutant director on this list.

A Case for a Rookie Hangman - much like The Cremator, I expected a far more graphic and morbid story based on the title, and even the title card. instead this is basically as close as the Czechoslovak New Wave has gotten to Alice in Wonderland so far and it rocks. it's kinda literally Gulliver's Travels but it has that Kafka type of Czech surrealism that fits perfectly in with that sort of concept. it's a wild ride and one I will need a second viewing on to really piece together the pieces, but it's a very engaging watch and yet another brilliant film from the endless treasure trove this country (/these countries?) gave us in the 1960s and 70s.

Witchhammer - ....yet they can't all be winners. domino stated in the thread for this title how much this one annoyed him, and I'm sorry to say (much love to our friends at Second Run) that this one did greatly annoy me. I was worried about the torture scenes (I'm super squeamish) but they aren't even remotely close to being the most egregious part of this film, one that rams its points home as if it was made by Stanley Kramer. I've seen just about every possible allegory in Czechoslovak cinema for the communist regime, and I figured a literal witch hunt would be a good comparison but no, this is so appalling in its approach, and also the least cinematic of any of these films I've seen yet. it made me long for Frantisek Vlacil to direct the same material and get more out of it, but it's so endlessly talk-y, it reminds you how good The Passion of Joan of Arc is, not needing dialogue at all. astounding how that bathhouse scene actually ends up being the best scene in the film, and not just for what you see. I tried Kat Ellinger/MichaelB's appreciation piece but even that felt less like appreciation and more like context being provided? still didn't make it good, definitely one of my least favorite Czechoslovak titles, and it's decidedly removed from the Czechoslovak New Wave despite coming out during the time period. it honestly doesn't even necessarily feel like a Czech film, it could interchangably be anything, as I felt there's no real catch that makes it feel like part of their cinema. even Distant Journey, made some time before the "new wave", is decidedly a Czechoslovakian film, from technique to visual sense. I'd like to see more from this Otakar Vávra.

Bartleby - loved seeing London in the raw like this, two fun performances from Paul Scofield and John McEnery. this is kinda like Il Posto but with no romance, and I appreciated the commentary on work life without it becoming too heavy handed. there's something to be said about the economic nature of this film's pacing and the natural ambiguity of its ending rather than walloping you with any silly gut punch. had this taken some sort of cruel irony approach I probably would've hated it, but it's a great exercise in mood and concise storytelling. a shame this director (who obviously had talent) made only this film, and bless Indicator for rescuing it.

Original Cast Album: Company - despite my mother's attempts, I loathe Broadway musicals. never have I felt the disparity between Broadway and cinematic musicals more than I have while watching this. I love D.A. Pennebaker and will watch basically anything he directed, but this was a serious challenge. Stephen Sondheim seems way cooler than any of these people, why did he waste his time doing this? feels like a waste of talent. the first two songs were the best and then I was watching this with the volume down for the rest of the runtime. at 53 minutes it already felt brutal, but then Pennebaker just had to devote the last 10 or so minutes to that godawful "Ladies Who Lunch" song. I wanted to punch a hole in my television. this is what I get for trying to step out of my comfort zone and try something new - can't say I didn't do it, but I despised it. I hate Broadway, the hotshot personalities, the yelling, the ridiculously rough songs. give me Judy Garland or Gene Kelly any day and I'll be OK, but please keep whatever this is as far away from me as possible, sorry to any fans. glad Criterion balled out on this edition though with the two commentaries (Sondheim is insanely sharp at aged 90, I wish I appreciated his art more cause he's a thrill to listen to) and Documentary Now! stuff, worth watching it just for this.

Zabriskie Point - I am an Antonioni fan so it's no surprise I enjoyed this, but it's more surprising just how much I did. pretty sure if you came in not being familiar with the director, this would do a lot less for you. but in a way it felt like he was poking fun at himself, and a lot of the common criticisms of his own films (these two spouting nonsense dialogue is a lot better than whatever Richard Harris does in Red Desert). I like that Antonioni fully went in by casting two literal nobodies that can act, and are given even worse dialogue. it adds to the illusion even moreso and shows how useless such a concept is. I love Two Lane Blacktop (sorry for the 1971 spoiler) and a lot of the dialogue here reminded me of that, despite being decidedly worse. it's meant to capture a feeling of these kids rather than any sort of profound statement. but Antonioni uses them as pawns, not to tell some sort of moral story, but rather to just show how ridiculous the whole counterculture was. I think at heart he agrees with these kids, but has no problem pointing out their apathy and carefree nature and how that is worthy of critique, just as much as Rod Taylor's menacing development executive. but god, do I love Weird California so much - I lived there two years and steeped myself in it, and still constantly read about on wikipedia and elsewhere. he really taps into my fascination perfectly, and sells America's natural beauty way better than almost any movie. it's a celebration of excess and weirdness, showcasing small town American culture just as much as it lets the freak flag fly. any film featuring Jerry Garcia ripping a guitar solo over both an epic flight scene AND an orgy, and "You Got the Silver" sounding absolutely massive is really one for me. I'm sure the flaws will only seem more silly in time - once again another film where you just gotta really surrender to the experience, and what a ride it is. also does more to comment on race and oppression in its opening scene alone than most movies. Easy Rider can kick rocks, we all should be backing this one. and how dare Antonioni already waste Blow-Up as a title already???

got some revisits coming up and a pile of Fassbinder. hoping to get to: Wanda, Tristana, Connecting Rooms, Hoffman, This Transient Life, The Landlord, Adelheid, The Ear, and Brewster McCloud. also I didn't revisit Donkey Skin but I like it more than the two previous Demy musicals, which I'm sure is sacreligious. major props to Second Run and Indicator for absolutely killing it with the 1970 selections. has anyone seen The People Next Door? might eBay in a copy (EDIT: just realized it's the same director as I Start Counting! so I'm in). I'll try and be back with more capsules before the 28th!

[swo17]

I'd like to see more from this Otakar Vávra

He's not really a New Wave director, his best films I've seen being from the '30s and '40s (The Light Penetrates the Dark, an extra on Second Run's edition of Witchhammer, and Krakatit, a paranoid nuclear thriller

[ryannichols7]

I'd like to see more from this Otakar Vávra

He's not really a New Wave director, his best films I've seen being from the '30s and '40s (The Light Penetrates the Dark, an extra on Second Run's edition of Witchhammer, and Krakatit, a paranoid nuclear thriller

the short I liked better than the feature! at least that had a cool visual sense. Krakatit seems more up my alley than Witchhammer, was interested in Předtucha since it stars Rudolf Hrušínský. I'll be on the lookout for others, but I find it interesting Witchhammer has the praise it does. I can only imagine people expecting a horror film being disappointed - at least The Cremator (which still kinda is) and Case for a Rookie Hangman will both enthrall a surprised viewer. this, I'd be impressed if it did

[therewillbeblus]

I don't remember much about Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, other than the Morricone score giving something relatively banal a degree of stimulation it would never reach otherwise and doesn't necessarily deserve. I'll revisit it some day

has anyone seen The People Next Door?

Yes, come join me in its empty thread

[MichaelB]

I'd like to see more from this Otakar Vávra

He's not really a New Wave director, his best films I've seen being from the '30s and '40s (The Light Penetrates the Dark, an extra on Second Run's edition of Witchhammer, and Krakatit, a paranoid nuclear thriller

This is all true, but omits Vávra’s importance as the man who taught much of the New Wave generation in the first place. They were the first generation of Czechoslovak filmmakers to emerge from FAMU rather than working their way up through the industry - and it was Vávra who played a major role in setting FAMU up in the first place after WWII, after which he taught there for half a century. Much like Jerzy Kawalerowicz in Poland, he’d still be a pivotally important figure in Czech film history even if he’d never personally directed a film himself.

[therewillbeblus]

I'll make a plug for some potential orphans in the off chance mentioning them inspires last-minute viewings:

Pratidwandi (aka The Adversary): Satyajit Ray's works are hit-or-miss for me, but this is my favorite of his films that I've seen. It's at careful study of a man suffering through the developmental stage of emerging adulthood, where Ray's technical skills behind the camera are sharply manipulated to inform the acute experience of the lead. There's a lot of relatability to be found for younger western audiences who have been immersed in the consequences of boomerang culture, including the struggle of thwarted belongingness, isolated insecurities around skills-deficits, and the burden of navigating and formulating one's identity when given many options "freed" from the narrow but supportive ideological constructs past generations were afforded (this would make an interesting double-bill with The Worst Person in the World). I came away from a second viewing with the same initial impressions, so here they are:

The Adversary was stellar. Not really because it was “tough,” though the brashness in circumstance was emphasized well by the jagged technique. I just loved the way Ray portrayed the experience of the life of someone who finds themselves in a bland middle space of no clear aspirations and passionate interests, and suffers as a result without membership to any social outlet or cause. The natural state of healthy consideration and identity development following a crisis is a burden internally and externally, and the only escape seems to be in retreating into blurred fantasy and memory which are used beautifully to contrast the more rugged expressionism. Even when his friend tries to entertain a hedonistic side, he can’t play ball, wrestling with a moral compass and fragments of a concrete identity that are too nebulous to leave the scene with confidence, or resign ideals and consummate the id.

I identified a lot with the lead, and found the idea of being indirectly consequenced for taking a grey route in life, or taking pause to engage in freethinking outside of ideology, to be fascinating in its specific portrayal here which allowed for universal appeal in not sacrificing the character’s honest depiction of behavior. The lead actor rightfully underplays his part on the surface with a sour disposition frozen on his face, and intermediate energy that cares enough to participate but exhausts and gives up without hope or support. And yet he elicits a surging internal definition of self that is hurting and confused. With a different actor this may not have worked so well, but ultimately this is an auteurist case for me, where Ray’s versatile technique is primarily responsible for how a familiar and potentially overcooked narrative completely succeeds with a combination of realistic bluntness and dreamy empathy.

The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun: I already posted my rave on the first page, and no one took me up on my offer, so I guess it's up to Tarantino to start up his blu-ray label if this is to evade its unfortunate fate of orphanhood by the decade project's end. A third viewing didn't change any feelings: This is a blast, propelling the tried and true Hitchcockian 'wrong man' narrative strategy and technical economy into an age of polarities in raw paranoia and thematically-mellowed grindhouse cinema. I'm now convinced that De Palma was inspired by an extravagant (yet humorously superfluous) setpiece in this film for his fireworks climax in Blow Out. The rug-ripping subversive joke of the finale still kicks, but its overwhelming merit is a supremely entertaining junk-food vibe, and another reminder that Samantha Eggar should have been a star.

In the Folds of the Flesh: Hopefully people get around to watching their Mondo discs- I don't know if revisiting this film can ever replicate the carnivalesque revolving door of narrative pivots and genre-blending a first watch rewards, but it's a lot of fun and about as great as a schlocky B-grade giallo movie from this era can be - in part because it's trying and succeeding to be so much more, bleeding the exact right amount of sloppiness fated by its absurdly ambitious plan.

Stop!: If you've been able to get your hands on this and haven't watched it yet, I don't really know what to say other than Run, Don't Walk. An absolutely stirring, palpable deconstruction of relationship dynamics, where freedom and trappings come hand in hand and are inescapable, be they ideological or natural. We are impotent to understand, resolve, or control our emotional needs, but we sure can fucking feel them. Linda Marsh gives an all-timer leading perf, and the shoddy video quality perfectly reflects the nebulous haze these characters are confined in, as the mind disintegrates before our eyes while the soul remains corporeally awake in static hell.

[DarkImbecile]

A few more write-ups before lists are due:

The Ear / Ucho (Kachyňa) — This would be memorable enough if it was merely a potent political thriller oozing with paranoia and almost unbelievably brazen in its criticism of post-1968 Czechoslovakian totalitarianism. What makes it great is that it’s just as intensely frank in its depiction of a grimly dysfunctional marriage — grounded in intensely specific, raw performances by Jirina Bohdalová and Radoslav Brzobohatý — and inextricably intertwines the political and personal malaise on display.

Over the course of one evening through the early morning of the next day, Karel Kachyňa expertly gets inside the head of Ludvík, a deputy minister in the Czech government, as he finds unsettling signs that the security services have been in his house while he and his wife, Anna, have been at a party for high-level government officials. After discovering at the event that his boss and some colleagues have been arrested for crossing the party leaders, Ludvík tries to minimize his own risk even as Anna flouts her defiance of The Ear, the assumed omnipresence of the security service’s surveillance systems.

Cutting back and forth between the shadowy confines of their powerless house and flashbacks to the bright, sometimes glaringly overlit party sequences, we watch Ludvík weigh the likelihood of his exposure, even as the initially petty squabbles with his wife become more vicious. By the morning, as we begin to understand more about how Ludvík rose to his current position, it becomes apparent that the film is an indictment not only of a state that terrorizes its citizens but also the character of those who manage to survive and succeed under such a system.

Gimme Shelter (Maysles, Zwerin, Maysles) — Would be one of the best concert films I’ve ever seen if it was only made up of the musical performances. That it’s also an important piece of journalism, a gripping historical document, and infused with the metatextual reactions of the band watching the film themselves only makes its greatness unimpeachable.

The pre-Altamont performances are so often a joy, from Jagger’s strutting delivery of “Satisfaction” to Tina Turner orgasmically working a mic stand. The crowd footage is fascinating as well, documenting a time and culture that was so foundational to my parents’ generation but always seems to me, born barely more than a decade later, to be unreachably distant, lost and shrouded in myth.

The sense of impending menace builds throughout the haphazard preparations for the giant free concert in Northern California until the violence and disorder at Altamont feels inevitable, even as those sequences — especially once night falls and the Stones take the stage — remain deeply stressful and unsettling. The long shot of a man behind a performing Jagger clearly high out of his mind and slowly beginning to disrobe before being thrown from the stage by a Hell’s Angel will stick with me as long as the more sensational and famous footage.

The Confession / L'aveu (Costa-Gavras) — Much of Costa-Gavras’ follow up to Z is an extremely effective procedural of repression, focused on the Kafkaesque details used by Communist Czechoslovakia and their Soviet advisors to grind down the resistance of Yves Montand’s Artur to false accusations — as well as his belief in the infallibility of the ideological system to which he’s devoted his life.

In adapting a memoir of a survivor of the Eastern bloc purges of the early 1950s, Costa-Gavras renders most of the details regarding Artur's place in the system and the accusations against him incidental to the mechanics of surveillance, arrest, interrogation, and prosecution. Little touches — like the guards wrapping their boots in cloth so the prisoners can’t hear them coming, or Artur’s struggle to comprehend the passage of time through glimpses at watches — communicate as much about the machine in which he’s caught as the more foregrounded and repeated tools of torture and terror.

For me, the most effective of those details were the illustrations of how psychologically dependent Artur becomes on his captors despite their relentless application of torture and deprivation: by rewarding small steps toward submission to their fictitious narratives with minuscule kindnesses, Artur’s torturers gradually ingratiate themselves to their victim until he begins to put on his own blindfold. When the interrogators suddenly disappear after the verdicts in the mass trial are handed down, the panic amongst the accused is palpable — more so than when verdicts of death or life imprisonment are announced.

Perhaps the most sneakily powerful moment of the whole film came as one of the accused officials testifies in court and his trousers fall from around his waist — one presumes because his clothes no longer fit after nearly two years in a cell — and the entire courtroom collapses into uncontrollable laughter. The reaction of prisoners, guards, and judges makes clear how little seriousness any of them invest in the show trials as anything but a performance, despite the lethality of the consequences for many involved.

The film’s largely straightforward retelling makes the stylistic flourishes particularly successful, like the editing and sound design communicating how Artur’s confused exhaustion results in the blending of memory and reality. There are a few elements that contribute to the film feeling overlong, primarily the scenes taking place in the ‘60s as Artur discusses his release and writes his memoirs, but these diversions do ultimately pay off as the still-devoted communist heads home just in time to witness the crushing of the Prague Spring under the treads of Soviet tanks.

A worthy follow-up to Z, and indicative of Costa-Gavras’ filmmaking facility beyond mere polemical power.

[knives]

Hopefully not my final viewing for the list, but if so Jancso’s The Pacifist would be a great exemplar of all the good and difficult of this period with its high minded style and in depth politics failing to withstand the test of time.

This, my first Jancso from outside Hungary, is such a frustrating experience as theoretically it’s such a beautiful film full of depth and interest. Unfortunately it’s a bit of a dud in reality as none of the pieces fully congeal to a successful feature.

One of the most interesting of the failures is the adaptation to narrative needs the film presents. By this point Jancso had developed a unique and powerful way to tell a story that was unquestionably a part with a certain type of socialist thinking. Here not only does he have to adapt to Italy’s narrative approach, but also working in the star system with one of Italy’s greatest stars. This results in something like Antonioni with Godard’s sense of humour (an early moment recalls Weekend). There’s these long shots taking claustrophobicly barren enclosures as one or two foregrounded characters move around and we hear their inner monologues. Actual spoken dialogue is pretty rare which covers up and renders enigmatic the otherwise conventional story of a reporter thrown into radical leftist politics (more than once this reminded me of The Passenger). As the film slides along it becomes more clear and character centered perhaps reflecting the clarity Vitti achieves.

I’m in love with all I just described and wish I could end there, but the film is a bit clumsy in its adaptation and too frustrating as a finished product for that love of the idea of The Pacifist to translate into an actual love of the movie.

[swo17]

This is a side note but I'm fascinated by how Gimme Shelter gives a real-life glimpse of Melvin Belli, who many probably know from Brian Cox's character in Zodiac

[ryannichols7]

I'd like to see more from this Otakar Vávra

He's not really a New Wave director, his best films I've seen being from the '30s and '40s (The Light Penetrates the Dark, an extra on Second Run's edition of Witchhammer, and Krakatit, a paranoid nuclear thriller

This is all true, but omits Vávra’s importance as the man who taught much of the New Wave generation in the first place. They were the first generation of Czechoslovak filmmakers to emerge from FAMU rather than working their way up through the industry - and it was Vávra who played a major role in setting FAMU up in the first place after WWII, after which he taught there for half a century. Much like Jerzy Kawalerowicz in Poland, he’d still be a pivotally important figure in Czech film history even if he’d never personally directed a film himself.

if this was in you and Kat's appreciation I'll admit I must've dozed off for that moment, because while it did go through some of Vavra's other work I don't remember this being touched on - a very valuable piece of information. admittedly that well done piece was watched what, a week ago so my memory may be foggy. thank you for clearing it up!

I don't remember much about Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, other than the Morricone score giving something relatively banal a degree of stimulation it would never reach otherwise and doesn't necessarily deserve. I'll revisit it some day

has anyone seen The People Next Door?

Yes, come join me in its empty thread

it was honestly pretty forgettable, something I hope The Working Class Goes to Heaven isn't. but it clearly has its fans, including the Academy!!

I'll hit that Indicator title tonight, I did indeed eBay an LE of it in (next day delivery at a great price - how all OOP buys should be). that said, I'll go over one Second Run title and one Indicator, who as I noted above, both had some massive contributions to my watches this year

The Ear - hey kids, did you ever wonder what La Notte would be like if it had a gloriously paranoid slant? that's what this was, a genuine surprise coming off Kachyna's Coach to Vienna and It's Not Always Cloudy. the uneven visuals aside (I had no idea what was intentional and what was the result of source materials), I was quickly blown away by just how (as DarkImbecile puts perfectly above) direct it is with its anti-government messaging. all of the other Czechoslovak films I've watched have of course come up with their various allegories and interpretations of how to take aim at their common target, but this was curiously direct, and a lot more like an Alan J. Pakula film than anything else I've seen from Czechoslovakia. it's a lot more effective than Klute, that's for sure, and a really good film that I think I want to spend a little more time with before factoring in my final poll.

Hoffman - this would be a great double bill with Deep End, and also answers the question of what Quilty and Lolita's relationship looked like in Kubrick's film. any Peter Sellers fan should see this immediately, even though Sinéad Cusack goes toe to toe with him in this fascinating film. I do think it could stand to be a bit more taut around 90 minutes or so, but I think Rakoff was deliberate in building the heightened tension and atmosphere of this film, leaving you questioning where it would end up. I found the finale rather fascinating once it arrived...

(spoiler for The Lady Vanishes included, of all things)

SpoilerShow

as it really took me a second to realize just WHY Ms. Smith felt her fiancee and his mother were worth leaving again. in Hitchcock's film, as well as several screwballs of the era, you see a party leave their significant other at the end of the film due to the more quality time spent with the new partner. in Hoffman, you deliberately see, however subtle, how self centered and self serving Tom and his mom are. I don't know where I expected the film to end up but I thought that was a rather surprising and intriguing thing to comment on and tie into the ending. is Ms. Smith smart with her ultimate divulsion at the end? who knows, but I thought the last shot was a rather brilliant way to tie things up

make that two Indicator films this month that I took a chance on and really enjoyed. both films had me wondering where exactly they'd end up, and I was satisfied by both tonally as well as their respective conclusions.

I still have quite a list to hit before the deadline but I hope to knock 'em all out. dustybooks enjoyed The Honeymoon Killers so I now have to add that in, and I wanna catch the Ray title TWBB

[ryannichols7]

Donkey Skin - couldn't resist showing it to my girlfriend. I take it all back, this is Demy's best film period, not just his best musical. if only for the fact that Deneuve, Marais, and Seyrig are all in the same ludicrous movie. I think I support musicals way more when the songs are extremely hilarious/over the top (subjects include how incest is bad and baking a cake) and the characterization is blown over the top. on top of this, the songs are pretty fantastic themselves. while in Rochefort I enjoyed them, the songs in Donkey Skin are downright earworms in the best ways. love all the Cocteau references with Marais being here - much like Gene Kelly appearing in Rochefort, you really get a sense of Demy's reverence towards these icon and how much he respected them. I love the fairy tale qualities as much as I do in Valerie and Her Week of Wonders and think it's just on the border between charming and creepy in the right way. the ending is maybe the hardest I laugh in any movie. I love this, it's truly such a joy, and I greatly undersold it the first time I watched it.

The People Next Door - in full agreement with TWBB here and I think my enjoyment of I Start Counting! had me on the right foot with this. like Diary of a Mad Housewife I found myself surprisingly accepting of the somewhat over the top characterization of everyone here. the initial scene of the daughter being caught on a "bad trip" and the aftermath was a bit melodramatic but I found myself taken with how David Greene presents both sides pretty well. as much as I can't stand the Westchester County socialites this film portrays, Greene is able to turn a sympathetic eye to them and give them a lot of basis. in many of these movies, it's solely about the Kids Suffering Against Their Parents and the whole Drugs are Bad Man thing but this is impressively evenhanded. the music isn't that great, there's a few choices that border on television drama, but Greene keeps it impressively cinematic and after the first few scenes its overall really well acted. for some reason I feel like Sofia Coppola would really like this movie, as she's another director who does a good job of showing both sides of some group of "issue" people, making sure we see the ridiculousness of both without favoring one or the other. the ending was pretty brilliant and just about the only place I felt this could end up. Indicator remains on a roll this month, I'm voting for every single title of theirs I've watched for this project!

Wanda - could not have worked for me less. the positives are that I loved all the grainy 16mm captures of Scranton, PA malls and department stores, and the (seemingly) unintentional hilarity of Michael Higgins' Mr. Dennis. the problem here is that Mr. Dennis has far more depth than our titular character, and even he is a bit of a comic charicature. Barbara Loden intended to write Wanda as a character representing the suffering of the Alpha Male or whatever in the 1970s and I totally understand that ideal and am fully on board with it, but she couldn't have written herself to be more wafer thin and downright annoying as she did. there are many films I enjoy (The Life of Oharu is a good example) where this ideal is explored in a much better manner, and even a film I consider a masterpiece (Nights of Cabiria), but I think this film doesn't even remotely hold a candle. the movie it ultimately reminded me most of was Varda's Vagabond, a film I ultimately think more fondly about as time goes on. I think Sandrine Bonnaire was given so much to work with by Varda - to me that's a role with a lot of nuance and even though we ultimately don't learn that much about Mona, Varda gives us everything we need to know. we know nothing about Wanda, and Loden plays her as annoyingly as possible. she's like a ghost floating from scene to scene, with absolutely zero hook. my girlfriend (who I encourage to post her thoughts, maybe she will do it) and I impressively finished it but we were constantly checking the runtime. an aimless bore, but it clearly has its fans. just watch Diary of a Mad Housewife instead

Brewster McCloud - despite being a big Altman fan and I'm sure I have numerous posts pre-WAC BD era on this forum requesting this particular film, this was my first time seeing it. it is more daring than Nashville but way messier and with less of a defined ideal. too much crude humor for me and the ending is supremely ludicrous but as usual for the director, there's plenty to enjoy. Shelley Duvall obviously steals the show here in her debut, and if there was ever a reason to see this movie it's obviously her. Altman knew very early on that she was The One and it really shows. like Wanda above, this is scenery porn to the max for me, except I like Houston way more as a city than I do Scranton or even Nashville. a shame the city has since torn down much of what remains of what's on camera. anyway, it's obviously hilarious at times, very anti-cop which is great, but overall I just couldn't get a grip on Bud Cort's titular character. a weird curio though many love it, but I do ultimately like it more than MASH. glad this very same director will bounce back big time next month...

[swo17]

Reconstruction vs. Reconstruction
It's always fascinating to me when two of the same films happen to come out about the same time (e.g. the two Zodiacs, the two Mr. Rogers movies, the other pairings of those four films ). Never mind that one of these films might actually be titled Reenactment and have a disputed release year. I've already gotten this far into a comparison and called Mr. Rogers the Zodiac killer--there's no turning back.

Anyway, Angelopoulos's film is more concerned with the mystery of an unknowable (real-life) tragedy. Not even the audience gets to see it. The only witnesses (perpetrators?) don't present a clear picture, leaving everyone else in their small village to have to construct the crime in their minds. Or actually, they don't have to do that. They could just mind their own business and go on with their lives. But they can't resist the urge. (Though I suppose if there's a murderer on the loose, this impulse is somewhat in the public interest.) And wouldn't you know it, people don't need to have seen something happen to firmly make up their minds about it and to confidently condemn others for the wrongs they think they probably committed. I think there's also something gained here by establishing the setting as a dying ancient city. Old habits die hard, but there's more work required for each surviving member of the current generation to keep the old ways alive. And with more work comes greater fervor. An austere and accomplished debut.

The Pintilie film in contrast is kind of a riot in the vein of Němec's Party and the Guests. Here a much smaller-scale but still real-life event (a drunken fight breaking out between friends) catches the eye of the local government (who I hear were very competent and well-respected at the time) who deem this incident worth turning into a teaching moment via the filming of a PSA. As a result we get to see the event reenacted numerous times, but the film doesn't drag because there are subtle variations in each iteration, such as the willingness and motivation of the players to reenact the fight each time. The original inciting event is no more knowable than in Angelopoulos's film, but it can make us feel less powerless if we feign control over the situation in the way this film attempts. But having control is an illusion--after filming eventually wraps and the crew have finally left the scene, things really spin out of control. No lessons have been learned but the government can at least say it did its job, even though if they were really paying attention, they would have realized that a sequel was in order!

Both of these films put the audience's remove front and center, but of course there is always a remove in cinema between authentic and creative influences, the transformation of these influences into a film treatment, the act of actually making the film, and the final product that we pull off our shelves, putting us right there in muddy, oppressive Eastern Europe which I watch on my couch

[TMDaines]

I expected the deadline to be today, but is it tomorrow? Was about to ask for a cheeky 24-hour extension as I have a wife- and child-free day tomorrow to tackle a final couple of films.

[swo17]

Deadlines are the end of the month now but you are still free to treat them like the last Sunday of the month, and then every day beyond that as an extension if you need it

[therewillbeblus]

It's also worth noting that since the year mini lists aren't restrictive to the final decade list, the stakes to extend your own viewing habits outside of the identified window are non-existent. I've come back through these threads to write up films I watched after-the-fact, and I personally have a few more 1970 films that I won't get to today but probably will tomorrow. If I'm passionate enough about any of them as *woulda-been* list-makers, I'll champion them a day late and hope others'll get to them later and add them to my own long-term ballot regardless

[swo17]

My shortlist of films I really want to include is currently sitting at like 35. This is going to be brutal

[knives]

I managed to vote easily enough even though some of the choices were comically arbitrary.