1970s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 2)

[souvenir]

Being There (Hal Ashby). Where's the love for this odd-ball film?

It was, I believe, number 3 on my list for this decade in the previous poll. I don't think it'll place so high this time around, but it still just barely squeaked onto the final tally in the main list last time.

[HerrSchreck]

Could never understand the roo-ha for Harold & Maude, an utterly forgettable film despite it's tickling premise. And in Being There (and all the rest of his best), Sellers is anything but dead weight. He's so alive to the subext (where H&M fails for me) he levitates. In fact his walking on water at the end of the film is a perfect metaphor for his performance.

[zedz]

I'm afraid I've never been particularly impressed with any Ashby I've seen (though that group doesn't include The Landlord) and even back in high school when Being There was anointed as the hippest of the hip (the film equivalent of Pink Floyd's The Wall - urgh), I found it pompous and tedious.

Ah well, I'm already resigned to this round of voting to be the first in a while where the forum's taste and mine sharply diverges. I bet there'll be at least 10% of the final list that I just can't stand! Which is, of course, part of the fun.

[denti alligator]

But that's the thing, zedz, I think Being There is good despite itself, which is to say that it doesn't really work as a satire and is more effective on a deeper emotional level, something its surface "hipness" doesn't seem to want to acknowledge.

But you like Moses und Aron, right?

[domino harvey]

Is anyone else having trouble getting the Lists Masterlist Thread to work? I've tried three different times to see the old 70s list and it won't load correctly-- no other thread is giving me trouble. Weird.

[HerrSchreck]

re Being There:

the only problem I feel when watching the film today is the sense "the way these people are seeing profundity in Gardner is utterly absurd and unbelievable." Everyone is basically fawning over an idiot, and only a bigger idiot would not be able to note such a thing.

For some reason a paradigm shift has taken place in ME, where, when I saw it as a young man, I didn't feel that way.

Now, feeling the absurdity of it all as the film has dated, and the world goes twirling for American Idol, and in light of the democratic campaign, the "idiocy" of all the players, their desires to project their needs onto this simpleton, is most delicious. I see it today as far more self-reflexive and deliberate in this fashion, and imo to need it to operate as seamless believable melodrama misses the point.

I struggled with the film when returning to it after not seeing it for awhile (for the reasons vs melodrama above), then I found it worked better for me as a more rampant icepick aimed blatantly at the heart of culture.. as opposed to a "making a statement by means of a believeable story". In that sense it can seem rather klunky and contrived.

[Cold Bishop]

It is interesting that Ashby's film doesn't appear to explore this possible dark side of the narrative. Or am I wrong about this?

Isn't the entire paulbearer scene before Chauncey walks on water exactly about this? There's even a prominent Freemason symbol across the tomb.

[colinr0380]

Not to mention that other great empty vessel/front for the Roman Catholic Bank I mean Church, the current pope who manages to outdo himself during the last week by blaming Pedophile Clerics on the "permissiveness" of Society. And in today's news the creep is bemoaning the terrible burden on his soul of growing up under nazism, during which time he was "compelled" to join the fucking Hitler Youth.

Off topic (and bad taste!) but I keep remembering the comment a panel member made on a topical news comedy quiz at the time of the succession - "wouldn't be the first time we've seen a German occupation of formerly Polish territory!"

[Dylan]

A mention for the list, but I haven't seen it for years. Milos Forman's Taking Off. The sensibility is there for the early 70s. Certainly none of his other 70s pics would make the grade for me.

I'd love to see this, but it's been out of circulation since its original release (to my knowledge it was never released on VHS). Anything about it stand out in your memory?

[HerrSchreck]

re Fleischer-- 3 words:

Ten. Rillington. Place.

[zedz]

re Fleischer-- 3 words:

Ten. Rillington. Place.

Yes indeed. Though I don't think it will make my top 50, it's absolutely worth checking out.

I've just looked at how my current list has evolved since the last time, and I'm pleasantly surprised how many films have become available in the past few years. One of the side effects is that those elusive once-seen, never-subsequently-available favourites tend to be slipping down my list as more recently viewed or re-viewed movies push in front. At this stage only two in that category remain in my top 50 (this isn't counting unavailable films like The Phone Box or My Ain Folk which I've managed to see more than once), but I'll name some names in case anybody gets the chance to see them:

Traveller (Kiarostami) - Permanent top ten: an amazingly unsentimental film that presents the dark side of the tenacious, resourceful kids that would populate his post-revolutionary films and scripts. At least this is now available (without English subs) in France.

Mathias Kneissl (Hauff) - By far my favourite Reinhard Hauff film, and one of the best, grimmest of the New German Cinema's anti-Heimat films. At the moment, this even outranks Every Man for Himself and God Against All, though I confess I'm going on very strong sense impressions rather than detailed memories at this distance.

Family Life (Loach) - This completely knocked me for a loop when I first saw it on TV at an impressionable age, featuring some of the rawest, most devastating performances I'd ever seen. Again, the residual impression is one of ruthless anti-sentimentality (do you detect a trend here?) This one is now available on DVD, but I'm almost afraid to revisit it for fear it hasn't stood up.

The Adversary (Ray) - I saw this (on worn 16mm) after I'd already seen a handful of earlier Ray films, and I was seared by its anger and formal experimentation (the use of negative imagery, for example). Suddenly, Ray's cinema, which I thought I had understood and classified, broke open into challenging new territory. Again, after nearly twenty years, it's that internal impression which has lasted rather than the specifics of the film.

Poto and Cabengo (Gorin) - Caught at a Gorin retrospective around the time of My Crasy Life ("Gorin retrospective": like, three films), this is such a fascinating subject, and it's treated with all of Gorin's intellectual curiosity and analytical detachment (which some of you may have got a taste for in his Criterion supplements). Nowadays, this film would take the form of a tabloid exposé, or wannabe-exposé, and the philosophical / philological elements would be collateral damage. Coming, like Omar Sharif in Lawrence of Arabia, from Criterion.

Ceddo (Sembene) - Seen alongside the more feted Xala, but this was much more surprising and haunting, pointedly non-Western where Xala was pointedly (and, I feel, a little pointlessly) Westernised. Great Pasoliniesque use of music.

The Ascent (Sheptiko) - Much straighter than a lot of the Soviet cinema I was most enthusiastic about when I saw this (i.e. Paradzhanov, Tarkovsky, Muratova), but powerfully dramatic and beautifully shot, and its images have stayed lodged in my mind for 15+ years. Roll on, Eclipse box.

[yoshimori]

Family Life (Loach) - ... This one is now available on DVD, but I'm almost afraid to revisit it for fear it hasn't stood up.

Fear not!

[GringoTex]

Poto and Cabengo (Gorin) - Caught at a Gorin retrospective around the time of My Crasy Life ("Gorin retrospective": like, three films), this is such a fascinating subject, and it's treated with all of Gorin's intellectual curiosity and analytical detachment (which some of you may have got a taste for in his Criterion supplements). Nowadays, this film would take the form of a tabloid exposé, or wannabe-exposé, and the philosophical / philological elements would be collateral damage. Coming, like Omar Sharif in Lawrence of Arabia, from Criterion.

My view of this film is that Gorin finally found a subject worthy of his intellect: not Godard, not Mao, not May '68; but two little SoCal girls who managed to escape all American signifiers. Definitely making my 70s list.

[zedz]

Family Life (Loach) - ... This one is now available on DVD, but I'm almost afraid to revisit it for fear it hasn't stood up.

Fear not!

Thankew. It's ordered, so I hope I'll be able to reassess it in time for the vote. And thanks to GringoTex for the Gorin comments. It might at least make the also-rans list at this rate.

[GringoTex]

Innocents With Dirty Hands - I grabbed the Arrow Films Chabrol Part 2 collection with a big sell at Amazon.UK, and it's quickly become my favorite dvd buy of the year. This film is like the cherry in the Shilry Temple Helene Cycle: it may not make my final 70s list, but it solidified the places of Pleasure Party and The Breach. Clouzot would have been proud.

[Awesome Welles]

Poto and Cabengo (Gorin) - Caught at a Gorin retrospective around the time of My Crasy Life ("Gorin retrospective": like, three films), this is such a fascinating subject, and it's treated with all of Gorin's intellectual curiosity and analytical detachment (which some of you may have got a taste for in his Criterion supplements). Nowadays, this film would take the form of a tabloid exposé, or wannabe-exposé, and the philosophical / philological elements would be collateral damage. Coming, like Omar Sharif in Lawrence of Arabia, from Criterion.

Ceddo (Sembene) - Seen alongside the more feted Xala, but this was much more surprising and haunting, pointedly non-Western where Xala was pointedly (and, I feel, a little pointlessly) Westernised. Great Pasoliniesque use of music.

How I wish I could see Poto and Cabengo! Having read about this film very recently it sounds great.

My view of this film is that Gorin finally found a subject worthy of his intellect: not Godard, not Mao, not May '68; but two little SoCal girls who managed to escape all American signifiers. Definitely making my 70s list.

This certainly sounds right and from my reading (can't remember the author's name) seemed pretty much to be their reading as well.

With regards to Ceddo, the only Sembene film I have ever seen, I certainly found this very interesting and it was delightful to see such a different approach to filmmaking, the very structure of the film, if I remember rightly is a direct contrast to the modes of dominant practice. Yet the film left me a little cold (perhaps because it was the first African film I ever saw?) I got on much better with Night of Truth (Nacro, 2004). I won't go off topic too much here but suffice to say I think this film is something I have to see again and it won't be making my list, even if the soundtrack was fantastic!

[Via_Chicago]

Ceddo (Sembene) - Seen alongside the more feted Xala, but this was much more surprising and haunting, pointedly non-Western where Xala was pointedly (and, I feel, a little pointlessly) Westernised. Great Pasoliniesque use of music.

Ceddo is easily Sembene's wildest and most daring picture, at least stylistically. The structure alone is hardly conventional, but add in all those whacky 70s-style zooms, and you've got the makings of one strange trip. Indeed, it is strange, but compellingly so. Not his best film in my estimation (those would be Black Girl, Emitai, and Camp de Thiaroye), but a fascinating picture nonetheless.

[zedz]

Latest viewing round-up:

Hitler: A Film from Germany

This smell-of-an-oily-rag magnum opus prompted me to think about a shared characteristic of many of my favourite 70s films.

It’s an era when low-budget filmmaking could be extraordinarily ambitious, in scope, scale and – most notably – duration. Hitler is an internalised epic of more than seven hours that was unabashedly shot on a spare-change budget. It assaults German culture and history head on and finds odd and creative ways to substitute representations (puppets, props, projections) for all the stuff it can’t afford to deliver for the camera.

Low-budget filmmakers continue to make artistically ambitious films, of course, but marathon projects with the narrative or conceptual ambition of Jeanne Dielmann, The Travelling Players, La Maman et la putain, Eros plus Massacre or Celine et Julie (not to mention Out 1) are scarce or non-existent. And all of these films take commercial, narrative forms and stretch them almost beyond recognition (as Hitler does to some extent with documentary forms), forcing them into the realm of abstraction or conceptual art.

Syberberg’s Hitler is a fascinating, unique filmic object, a one-off combination of cabinet of curiosities, magic lantern show, carnival, puppet show, biopic, monologue and snowdome. Although live-action, many sequences have the feel of Borowczyk / Lenica collage animation, or the Sgt Pepper cover brought to life. Content-wise, it’s a dazzling feat of collage as well: a bizarre compilation of historical material, analysis, personal reminiscence, rumour and conspiracy theory. It’s a film I’ll be some time processing, and one I’ll need to revisit several times at least, so some episodes (such as the recollections of Hitler’s valet) have much more resonance with me than others.

It’s deliberately overwhelming. A German lecturer of my acquaintance used to say that she could teach an entire course on the history and culture of Germany with this film as the prescribed text, and now I can see just what she means.

The Facets discs are acceptable, I suppose, and I believe they’re ports of Syberberg’s own release. The image is weak, and this is only partly a consequence of the original context of creation. The subtitles, however, are very good, extending even to the parenthetical identification of the sources of the many snatches of historical audio and occasional identification of new characters. The extra – an extract from a film about the New York premiere of the film – is unwatchable: terrible image and unsubtitled, with German voiceover speaking over the top of the mostly English dialogue.

The Ear

A superb Czech political thriller, one of the all-time-best paranoia films. I saw this when it first came out and loved it, but that was during the late-80s rush of great films from Eastern Europe suddenly released after years of suppression (Larks on a String, The Commisar, Traces of the Stones, various Muratovas). I’m very pleased to see how well it’s held up after another couple of decades. The film is appropriately intense and claustrophobic, with a brilliantly disorienting use of shifting first-person camerawork during the flashbacks. It takes its situation and characters into increasingly disturbing territory, and even the supposed release of tension mid-film is so bizarre (the impromptu party) that it just makes us more wary. Somehow, Kachyna manages to wrap up what could have been just a very effective mood piece or psychological study with the perfect ending. SecondRun’s transfer is middling, but they deserve bouquets galore just for getting the film out there.

Days of 36

Like Jansco’s My Way Home, this early feature from Angelopoulos doesn’t quite manifest his mature style in all its magisterial glory, but is nevertheless a brilliant film in its own right. The debt to Jansco’s films, particularly The Round-Up, with which it shares a setting (a rural prison), is extremely apparent, but no less impressive for that. Long, open-air sequence shots like those that top and tail the film (an ill-fated forest rendez-vous, with circling eye-of-god camerawork; the conclusion of a siege, in a courtyard, in the dark, with shadowy figures moving along the rooftops) are impressive whatever their lineage. Visually, the film employs a recurring motif of shots with a central vanishing point (e.g. dirt road, corridor), a more rigidly symmetrical composition than those found in Angelopoulos’ later, no less precisely composed, films.

The narrative of the film is much less oblique than that of The Travelling Players. It’s practically linear, with each scene generally following directly on from the one before it, though the nature of that linear connection may not always be immediately apparent, and the hostage-taking set up in the first ten minutes provides the narrative core for the rest of the film (even though we spend no time inside the cell with hostage and abductor). The Greek disc has a great transfer, with English subtitles.

Mujo

Revisited, just to see where it fitted alongside the other late New Wave films on my list, and it’s even more impressive. First time around, I pegged the extremely creative framing as heavily indebted to Yoshida, but Jissoji’s asymmetries are less radical, even though he’s clearly influenced. The film’s formal audacity (foregrounded, arbitrary tracking shots, decentred compositions, de facto masking, disjunctive decoupage) this time took on a kind of musical role. Visually, the film has a coherent identity and rhythm independent of the narrative and characters, and the two strands (visual and narrative) weave around one another in an eccentric counterpoint – two kinds of fugue rolled into one. Maybe I was just brainwashed by the baroque-inflected score for strings and harpsichord. Some of the best examples of this fascinating form / text relationship can be found in the two extended conversations between Ogino and Masao (at approximately the one and two hour marks). It’s hard to envisage more creative and unusual ways of representing extended dialogue sequences.

Narrative-wise, the film reveals itself to be far more intricately constructed than I remembered. There are nine characters, six of whom resolve themselves into five sexual couplings (and one offscreen threesome), each one of which is transgressive in a different way: brother / sister; servant / daughter of employer; employee / employer’s wife; stepmother / stepson; husband / daughter-age wife; and that threesome. Onto this already complex ‘la ronde’ structure are a series of voyeuristic relationships. Six of the nine characters are lovers; five are voyeurs; and two are secondary voyeurs (i.e. they spy on somebody who’s spying on somebody else). Five of the characters fill two of these roles, but nobody embodies all three (and Yuri and Masao’s father, the most isolated character, is neither lover nor voyeur, at least in the course of the film). What this scheme does is facilitate a very fluid understanding of the characters and their roles, proposing potentially illuminating comparisons and readings. Reiko and Yuri never meet, but they’re united as the only lovers who aren’t also voyeurs. Similarly, the dramatically opposed Masao and Ogino, the two secondary voyeurs, may have more in common than they think.

It’s just a great film, formally and dramatically compelling (the two reaching one of many mutual climaxes in the creepy masked seduction / assault sequence), morally stark, even grim, but full of beauty. I am still bewildered by the pop song at the end, however. Is there some rich irony I’m missing?

Peau d'ane
This is sort of magnificent and sort of lame, and it's probably the point where Demy and I begin to part company (haven't seen Model Shop or many of the later films, though). When he took after Donen in Les Demoiselles de Rochefort he managed to expand upon and personalize his model, and the result was a triumph, but here, aping Cocteau and Grimault, he falls well short of both of them. The most successful sequences for me were the ones where he's most strictly emulating Cocteau (those slow-motion effects, for instance). There's something of a dilemma in the use of colour, as well: it seems all wrong for Cocteau, but the Grimault homage is unthinkable without it. Too much of the film seemed to me underegged and under-imagined, like a cheesy after-school TV special. And the comedy helicopter intervention would be much better done by Jansco in Elektreia. Oh well!

Wanda Gosciminska - Weaver, The Primer, Foreman on a Farm - Wojciech Wiszniewski is my major new discovery and one or all of these incredible films will find their way onto my list. I waffle on about them at length here.

[Dylan]

Do we send the lists to you once again this time, Zedz? Also, deadline is midnight tomorrow, correct?

[zedz]

Do we send the lists to you once again this time, Zedz? Also, deadline is midnight tomorrow, correct?

Yikes! That gave me a shock! No, it's the end of May. PM your lists to me as usual. I'll forewarn everyone that I'm likely to be a little disrupted at the end of the month, so the collation may take a bit longer than usual.

[zedz]

Two and a half weeks to go - a handful of lists already in, but I haven't started collating them. At the moment it looks extremely diverse. I'm trying to frantically tick off a couple of necessary reassessments between other obligations (including the long-form Eros + Massacre, which arrived yesterday but which I doubt I'll find the time to tackle in the next couple of weeks).

Family Life - Thanks to Yoshimori for prompting me to pick this up. Seeing this on TV in the mid-eighties was a seminal film-watching experience for me. I stumbled across it by chance, with no conception of what "a Kenneth Loach film" signified, and it opened up all sorts of possibilities about cinema that I hadn't previously acknowledged. The film carried huge emotional power (and still does), but what resonated most with me was the extremely naturalistic mode of performance. This was some of the most effective film acting I'd ever seen, partly because it was so un-filmic. In terms of naturalism, it was several dimensions closer to my own experience than other supposedly 'realist' modes of performance I'd seen (e.g. neorealism). The only point of comparison I had (and this is still a gold standard acting performance for me in many respects) was Bernard Hill's incredible turn in the 'Yosser's Story' episode of Boys from the Blackstuff, but that was far more theatrical - an obvious Big Role.

I've since had a mixed relationship with Loach's other work, finding some of his work too obviously diagrammatic. I also tend to resist his tendency to indulge / romanticise his 'good' characters, and this throws me out of the films at times. On the other hand, the right actor in the right place can do wonders in that kind of environment (Chrissie Rock in Ladybird, Ladybird springs to mind).

So, how does Family Life stand up? Pretty bloody well, I must say. Although Janice is clearly the victim (of her family, of society, of the medical profession), Loach is much more evenhanded in his treatment of the forces aligned against her than in many of his later films. Her parents are clearly part of the problem, but they're understandable figures with good, if misguided intentions, completely unprepared for dealing with incipient mental illness. Of course, they're also completely unprepared for dealing with any kind of emotional need, but that's hardly unusual for their generation, and that's what makes this such a great film about good old-fashioned parental mindfuckery.

Sandy Ratcliff is heartbreaking as Janice: her descent into schizophrenia is terrifying to watch (and, from my limited personal experience, spot on). Bill Dean is terrific as the father, particularly in the scene where he's trying desperately not to talk about his sex life, but the acting honours have to go to Grace Cave as the prim, reactionary mother. According to imdb, this is her sole acting performance, and it's a doozy. Every twitch and intonation is revealing and horribly familiar. She's a character I've seen all throughout my life but hardly ever seen on film, where monstrous mothers always seem to be mellowed out or evilled up to play into the melodrama. The driving force of Cave's character is nothing more or less sinister than a different worldview, but it nevertheless becomes the engine for tragedy.

Obvious points of reference are A Woman under the Influence and various Pialats (particularly in the extended family gathering that descends into bitter recrimination), but this film is much more muted than the Cassavetes, and, if anything, even more pessimistic. The chilling final scene is completely unexpected, exposing the tragedy by relocating it to an entirely new sphere and self-reflexively throwing the film's thesis open to the audience: "Any questions?"

The UK disc features the lovely Studio Canal transfer which preserves one-time Godard collaborator Charles Stewart's exquisite colour chiaroscuro. The colour scheme is carefully muted and shadows rather than hues become the most important means of expression. The effect throughout is of natural light, but the compositions are so nuanced I'm sure it took a lot of skill and artifice to achieve the film's look.

[colinr0380]

Fantastic piece zedz (though I always find your posts extremely well written and interesting to read), I haven't seen Family Life for a while but I remember finding it extremely powerful (I'll have to dig out my videotape of it now!). Ladybird, Ladybird has been my absolute favourite Loach film for quite a while now - powerful and desperately sad while also never making the main characters 'saintly' figures who can do no wrong (I spent the film groaning as the main character had kid after kid and after seeing Dancer In The Dark I thought Selma's line late in that film "I just wanted to hold the little baby" was perfectly applicable to Ladybird, Ladybird as another heartbreaking example of someone whose short term needs overwhelm the knowledge that their children will have medical problems or who will be immediately taken away. It doesn't mitigate their actions but it certainly packs a powerful punch and makes you wish the world reacted to them with more sensitivity rather than compounding their actions as being totally negative). I did hear something about Channel 4 being banned from showing the film on British television again after they premiered it in 1996, perhaps because it was too bleakly powerful in its filmmaking (I don't know whether this is true or not but Channel 4 certainly haven't shown it on terrestrial television since!) but I'll save discussion on that for the 90s list!

To go back to La Rupture for a moment, I found this interesting article on the film.

[sidehacker]

I haven't participated in one of these yet so uhm, what's the format? Like ten films, twenty films, 1000 films?

[domino harvey]

I haven't participated in one of these yet so uhm, what's the format? Like ten films, twenty films, 1000 films?

50

[souvenir]

I haven't participated in one of these yet so uhm, what's the format? Like ten films, twenty films, 1000 films?

50 films ranked in order using IMDb years for qualification purposes