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

[DeVaca]

Ah, thanks for pointing it out. Ctrl + F failed me.

[chaddoli]

Yes, this is one of our most interesting lists. I haven't even seen forty-eight of these and most of the others I didn't vote for. It's very intriguing, though, and Chinatown (a perfect film) is a surprising #1.

The most surprising omission, I suppose, is Cabaret.

Since it barely broke in at #90, my placement of Carnal Knowledge as #2 clearly provided some leverage. Who else voted for it?

No Interiors, of course (my #6).

I look forward to seeing this Celine and Julie whenever New Yorker releases their DVD (unless it screen theatrically in Seattle - I have no access to multi-region players).

Carnal Knowledge was #3 for me. It looks like Dylan and I might have significantly bumped up it's significance. Interiors came in at #31.

The big missing entries as far as I'm concerned were OUT 1 (no one's seen it), and Lenny, which is as good as All That Jazz. I should have tried to drum up some support for it.

[zedz]

Because of the scale of the voting, even a film that topped two separate lists wouldn't have made it to the final hundred (not that this was the case in any instance: Akerman's Les Rendez-vous d'Anna, Norstein's Hedgehog in the Fog and Kiarostami's Traveller came closest, all appearing in two top tens and that was it). So films on the final list needed at least three supporters to make it, and some films could be on lots of lists and still not make it. This decade's Dubious Achievement Award goes to Zabriskie Point, which topped one list and featured on four more, but still didn't reach the threshold.

Which is a roundabout way of saying that an awful lot of really interesting, passionately supported films ended up on the cutting room floor. Here it that floor. Top films (a two-way tie) got 100 votes; bottom films (another two-way, but a much weirder one) got 6.

Il caso Mattei
Monty Python & the Holy Grail
Zabriskie Point
Coup d'etat
Dawn of the Dead
Les Rendez-vous d'Anna (Akerman)
Two English Girls
The Devils
Love & Death
Family Life
Frenzy
Hedgehog in the Fog (Norstein)
Kings of the Road
The Merchant of Four Seasons
Traveller (Kiarostami)
My Ain Folk (Douglas)
Tout va bien
Deep End
The Hired Hand
Life of Brian
Being There
Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid
Red Psalm
A Grin without a Cat
Husbands
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Deep Red
California Split
Murmur of the Heart
Providence
The Holy Mountain
Un Flic
Lacombe, Lucien
Wrong Move
Casanova (Fellini)
The Story of Adele H
Alice in the Cities
The Ascent
The Wicker Man
The Ear (Kachyna)
Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41
Female Trouble
Harlan County USA
Interiors
Bed & Board
Klute
Je Tu Il Elle (Akerman)
Duelle
Fantastic Planet
Illustrious Corpses
Lenny
News from Home (Akerman)
Assault on Precinct 13
Gates of Heaven
King of Marvin Gardens
The Ossuary (Svankmajer)
The Honeymoon Killers
Macbeth (Polanski)
Pastoral: To Die in the Country (Terayama)
Tale of Tales (Norstein)
Le Boucher
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
The Last Detail
Salo
The Tin Drum
Avanti!
Cabaret
MASH
THX-1138
El Topo
Vertical Features Remake
Brewster McCloud
The Brood
Hitler: a Film from Germany
The Man Who Would Be King
Shivers
Real Life
Bad Company
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders
The Ballad of Cable Hogue
Moses und Aron
A Walk through H (Greenaway)
High Plains Drifter
Images
Martin
Sayonara CP (Hara)
Star Wars
Throw Away Your Books. . . (Terayama)
Martha (Fassbinder)
India Song
Five Easy Pieces
Jaws
La Rupture
The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner
The American Friend
The Last Waltz
Night Moves
Sleeper
The Tree of Wooden Clogs
Uta (Jissoji)
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
Camera Buff
Face to Face
Fata Morgana
Ma nuit chez Maud
Scum
A Swedish Love Story (Andersson)
One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
Christ Stopped at Eboli
The Third Part of the Night (Zulawski)
The Heartbreak Kid
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Duck, You Sucker!
Eureka (Gehr)
Tess
Ulzana's Raid
Wanda (Loden)
Fat City
Serpico
Autumn Sonata
Gimme Shelter
Junior Bonner
Daisy Miller
Heart of Glass
Land of Silence and Darkness
Get Carter
Phantasm
Pink Flamingos

Go on, defend your darlings - if you can!

[domino harvey]

So no one voted for Little Murders (my #2 pick) or Sleuth but me?

[tavernier]

Hey, don't feel so bad: none of my top four (The Lacemaker, The Judge and the Assassin, The Emigrants and The New Land) made the also-rans either.

[Michael]

So I was the only one who voted for Lisa and the Devil. Not even the recent release of the Anchor Bay sets and Tim Lucas' masterpiece of a book could change anything. Thanks a lot!

[domino harvey]

I really wonder if I wouldn't have been better served placing films on my list that aren't necessarily my favorites but were more likely to appear on the final list .

[denti alligator]

So I was the only one who voted for Lisa and the Devil. Not even the recent release of the Anchor Bay sets and Tim Lucas' masterpiece of a book could change anything. Thanks a lot!

That does it, Michael, I'm watching it tonight! One less kevyip!

Kiarostami's Traveller came closest, all appearing in two top tens and that was it)

I hope my vote for the same film, but misspelled #-o, counted.

[mikeohhh]

So no one voted for Little Murders (my #2 pick) or Sleuth but me?

Little Murders almost made my list (hell, should have), not that it would have really helped things out much.

[GringoTex]

The darling I want to defend is one I didn't even vote for because I watched it after submiting my list: Chabrol's Le Boucher. While most Chabrol films unsettle you from the opening scene, Le Boucher takes great pains to make you feel at ease. It's set in an idyllic French village (ala Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt) and Chabrol cast the real villagers in most of the smaller roles. You love the setting and the characters and Chabrol uses long, graceful tracking shots through the village streets to reveal all of its charm, and you never want it to end. Which makes the tragedy you know is coming all the more devastating. Jean Yanne gives an amazing performance, one of the very best I've ever seen. This would probably have made my top 5 had I seen it in time.

[domino harvey]

I can't believe no one else voted for



Just joking, I knew that one was a suicide mission but as far as I'm concerned, the Number 50 spot is born for crazy movies no one else was going to mention.

[Cold Bishop]

Was a mistake made in calculating the Female Prisoner Scorpion films? because I voted for Jailhouse 41, not #401, as I'm certain Michael did also.

[Tom Hagen]

The 1970s List

31. Cries and Whispers (Bergman)

Really, guys? Wow, that one hurts! I am also quite surprised that only one of the four Coppola films cracked the top ten. All hand wringing aside, I wish that I had been a member of the forum earlier so that I could have taken part in the project. I will do my penance by delving head-in to the '80s.

[zedz]

Was a mistake made in calculating the Female Prisoner Scorpion films? because I voted for Jailhouse 41, not #401, as I'm certain Michael did also.

Sorry, didn't look hard enough when entering votes. Jailhouse 41 was the one that got two votes and made the also rans. I'll correct it above.

Kiarostami's Traveller came closest, all appearing in two top tens and that was it)

I hope my vote for the same film, but misspelled #-o, counted.

I may be dumb, but I'm not that dumb! (And I think the spelling is just an American / British variation)

Clearly, availability is an enormous factor with the non-common-as-muck films. I'm sure Spirit of the Beehive would have continued to languish without Criterion (and didn't Celine and Julie improve its position as well, post-BFI?), and I'm sure this amazing film would have made the list if it was available in subbed form. It made my top five on the strength of a single searing encounter about 15 years ago, and when I saw it then, it struck me as the kind of film that could have been as canonical as the early neorealism films if only fate and history had given another roll to their dice.

[Hopscotch]

Whoever voted for The Tree of Wooden Clogs can be my friend.
That's if the film's as beautiful as I remember it being.

[toiletduck!]

I'm a little amazed, but probably shouldn't be, that the Jodorowskys fared so poorly.

Alas, yet another reason I should really participate...

-Toilet Dcuk

[HerrSchreck]

I'm a little amazed, but probably shouldn't be, that the Jodorowskys fared so poorly.

Alas, yet another reason I should really participate.

Another poster who stole words right from my mouth... was thinking the very same thing (including the guilt for not participating), particularly re The Holy Mountain. Thought that this would have been a shoe-in for somewhere at least within the Top 50.

[zedz]

Whoever voted for The Tree of Wooden Clogs can be my friend.
That's if the film's as beautiful as I remember it being.

You have two friends - one of them's me. I saw it last year and it's still lovely.

I'm a little amazed, but probably shouldn't be, that the Jodorowskys fared so poorly.

I'm just as surprised, but I'm no fan. I was actually expecting a large number of films I really don't like to rate highly this time around (the non-show of Star Wars was an even bigger surprise).

Don't forget we have a dedicated thread for darling defending, which I see has already commenced. There are some films I'd love to know more about. One of the most interesting lists submitted was probably the most heavily US-dominated one, but with films rarely mentioned in the vote by others, so I hope the submitter will spread the news about them.

[essrog]

I didn't vote, but I applaud the forum's taste in Altman -- though I would've liked seeing Nashville higher (it was #2 last time), I loved seeing The Long Goodbye move from 76 to 14, and didn't mind MASH, which I find to be overrated, fall off completely.

[Mr Sheldrake]

I put Clogs at #21 on my list. Beautiful movie. I think Region 1 DVD availability has a great impact on these types of lists. My #1, The Mother and the Whore, would place higher if people could only see it. Wender's Alice in the Cities and Kings of the Road should also rise in estimation.

I'm surprised with the Chinatown showing even though I see I made it my #1 Hollywood movie. In all honesty, I would put the whole Fassbinder 70s output as #1. For some reason I've never figured out, his movies mean more to me than any other director's. I have to keep coming back to them.

[Floyd]

The shame in forgetting to submit my list on time. My top 5 in order included Edvard Munch, Gates of Heaven, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, Noroit and The Brood. At least a few made it.

[Awesome Welles]

One of the most interesting lists submitted was probably the most heavily US-dominated one, but with films rarely mentioned in the vote by others, so I hope the submitter will spread the news about them.

They won't know it's them unless you say. What were the titles? I think I had one obscure film but want to check my notes on it before I defend it in the darlings thread.

[zedz]

One of the most interesting lists submitted was probably the most heavily US-dominated one, but with films rarely mentioned in the vote by others, so I hope the submitter will spread the news about them.

They won't know it's them unless you say. What were the titles? I think I had one obscure film but want to check my notes on it before I defend it in the darlings thread.

He's already posted in the darlings thread (Perkins Cobb, take a bow): more than 60% American, but 22 of his nominations were unseconded and a further 14 didn't make the final 100, so it's quite a different take on the decade from a Hollywood perspective than we got otherwise.

[Perkins Cobb]

Yes, I seem to have halted the conversation in that other thread rather ably. A 60s or an 80s list would undoubtedly reverse the geographical ratio, but that's what the 70s is all about: heroic termite efforts from the margins of New Hollywood (or off-Hollywood) rattling around in the dustbin of obscurity.

Hence my forum handle, incidentally.

[souvenir]

Yes, I seem to have halted the conversation in that other thread rather ably.

Well, it's a defend your darlings thread and you just listed yours. It's difficult to determine why you chose what you did (and therefore discuss the picks) simply by reading the titles.