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

[thirtyframesasecond]

Maurice Pialat's 'We Won't Grow Old Together' (1972) takes directorial navel-gazing to a whole new level. We're used to directors turning their professional lives into film, but less their personal lives. Pialat's alter-ego Jean is a struggling documentary filmmaker with a wife whom he doesn't live with and barely communicates with, and he has a mistress, Catherine, a much younger woman whom he undermines and turns on whenever his mood feels like it. It's their relationship that's documented in such a torrid and unflattering way (to him) that it'd make Nuri Bilge Ceylan ('Climates') blush. It's an incredibly striking film, and I can't wait to see 'The Mouth Agape' next.

[Mr Sausage]

Hypothesis of a Stolen Painting (Raul Ruiz, 1979). I don't think I've ever seen a filmmaker more happy to destabilize his own narratives than Raul Ruiz. Nowhere is that more explicit than in this, his film about interpretation. Here, bafflement isn't just a technique, its the very subject. The constant, searching, tiring excavation of every little hermeneutic possibility seems to bring reality to a crashing halt as the paintings multiply and crowd out real life. Much of the analysis of the paintings steps quite clearly into over-reading, nowhere more humorously than when the most banal and uneventful of the paintings gets the most extended and dubious interpretation (funny how the one innocent looking painting inspires the greatest amount of suspicion). The paranoid, cultic symbols that run throughout the paintings--greek myths, templars, saracens, ritual sacrifice, baphomet, chess, ect.--inspire prodigious leaps of interpretation to the point where the paintings cease to be representations and become themselves a ritual, containing the power to align themselves with the non-human cycles that create significance in the world. Indeed, towards the end, our exhausted guide proclaims that in the circular gestures that revolve through the sequence, the paintings contain/become the very world itself. And of course all this paranoid interpretation hinges on the black hole of the so-called stolen painting, a hypothesis without which none of the proffered interpretations would be possible. But rather than supplying the meaning, that absence just allows for any meaning to be supplied. So long as the painting does not exist to contradict anyone, any meaning--or just meaning itself, the film suggests--is possible. The film plays with the idea that meaning cannot exist without some gap somewhere, which suggests non-meaning is always yawning right underneath.

And, of course, the ridiculous pile-on of over-determination exhausts itself (and our guide) and meaning is drained away, leaving our guide to assert that all the occult particulars of the art works are not important. It's only the repeated gestures that should be remembered: contextless, abstract, frozen gestures emptied of significance. But of course who wouldn't say that after living among such indeterminacy, with meaning only ever grazing one's finger tips? Anyone would be tempted to just give in to the meaninglessness that's always creeping around the edges. So we get a post-modern examination of our relation to significance, where the pile-up of signifiers suggests an ultimate explanation for everything while simultaneously making significance impossible. The film is also a nice psychological portrait of how this state affects those caught up in the game of interpretation (us included). There's also a ton of other things, like the way the paintings increasingly become cinema as they are interpreted, or the way our narrator and guide offer competing interpretations, contradict each other, ect. It's a weird, rich movie. I liked it.

[knives]

Directors Guide Part 1

Hal Ashby
Being There (1979)-----Warner Blu
Coming Home (1978)--------MGM R1
Bound for Glory (1976)------MGM R1
Shampoo (1975)----------------Sony R1
The Last Detail (1973)--------Sony R1
Harold and Maude (1971)----------Criterion Blu RA
The Landlord (1970)------------Studio Canal R2

As I mentioned earlier in the thread I genuinely feel that the ultimate feeling as seen through cinema of the decade is Ashby. Part of this is probably motivated by his early end, but also because he looked so thoroughly at a wide variety of the social aspects present during the period. At the same time it's hard to talk about him independently as more often than not Ashby was working as a conductor for other talents with one other person having their personality flourish under him. At the same time, as his first two films strongly evidence, he really does have a personality all his own with several ideas appearing again and again. For The Landlord he's conducting Bill Gunn who would go on to make his own cinematic masterpiece soon after. The look of the film with it's contrasts between the high and low is so powerful that it almost reduces the text of the film to subtext and leaves the humour always unexpected. Harold and Maude's fairly similar though it's less specific in its politics simply celebrating any spirit of rebellion. The Last Detail is strongly the reverse and similar soberly tackling issues of authority in the most authoritative context yet through humour and a laid back attitude divorcing it from the war going on. Beyond inspiring the laziest blackspoitation name Shampoo doesn't offer much with no strong personality to really fill things out. Bound for Glory is possibly the best capital B biopic ever with Haskell Wexler practically remaking Wagon Master in his empathetic stedi-cam shots.Its a bit strange to watch Coming Home with nearly forty years of hindsight, but in spite of Voight craziness or imaginary rivalries the film remains a shocking slow burn with so many isolated moments that just explode upon the screen it's easy to find the movie as too much (especially a certain scene featuring air). After that the relative lightness of Being There seems absolutely necessary. Yet in an instant the film becomes Ashby's most emotional experience with Sellers' performance capturing almost a magical quality of isolation and emptiness that goes beyond anything else I've ever seen from screen acting. The satire is funny and still relevant, but everything ultimately goes back to Chance.

John Schlesinger
Yanks (1979)----------Universal R1
Marathon Man (1976)-----------Paramount R1 (OOP)
The Day of the Locust (1975)------Paramount R1 (OOP)
Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971)------Criterion Blu RA

After owning American cinema at the end of the '60s it only makes sense for Schlesinger to go back to Britain and crawl entirely in his own mind. despite this incredibly personal nature I find Sunday Bloody Sunday to be an amazingly universal film (though as I get older and older I find my life being a duplicate of Finch's in this film so perhaps I am not a good judge of the film's universality). It's a stripped down beautiful ode to all the small things that makes life a frustration. Admittedly I love The Day of the Locust as much as I do for the scene where Sutherland finally loses his marbles on that kid, but even beyond that it's a masterpiece of bad taste with garish costumes, garish colours, and garish characters. It's be an absolutely miserable experience if it weren't for how strange and heightened the experience becomes. Marathon Man's probably the first major step down for Schlesinger who seems to not have had any energy left in him afterward, but it's still a great film that makes a great double feature with The Boys From Brazil if you want a night of classy Nazispoitation pulp. Yanks can't run on the same sort of charisma that powered Marathon Man and more of it's seems show, but Gere is pleasant enough and the film acquits those flaws in the face of some of the other WWII nostalgia pieces that popped up at the same time. As a side note I'll be covering Visions of Eight when I get to Arthur Penn.

Mario Bava
Schock (1977)-------Blue Underground R1
Rabid Dogs (1974)-------Anchor Bay R1 (OOP)
Lisa and the Devil(1974)------Anchor Bay R1 (OOP)/ Arrow Blu RB
Four Times That Night (1972)------Kino Blu RA
Baron Blood (1972)-----Kino Blu RA
A Bay of Blood (1971)-----Arrow Blu R0
Roy Colt e Winchester Jack (1970)-----Anchor Bay R1 (OOP)
Hatchet for the Honeymoon (1970)----Kino Blu RA
5 Dolls for an August Moon (1970)-------Anchor Bay R1 (OOP)

Bava's highly uneven career comes to a highly uneven end with a decade filled with some of his worst and some of his best films. 5 Dolls for an August Moon is an okay film, but totally unmemorable outside of a few choice shots. His run from fame, Hatchet for the Honeymoon, is far better with easily his best humour and a marvelous group of set pieces to build tension out of. Alternatively I feel rather guilty over how much I enjoy Roy Colt and Winchester Jack which isn't a good movie, but is a very fun one (at least to me). A Bay of Blood isn't even the best name for this murderous La Ronde so I don't understand why it is the one to stick. It's also probably his cheapest looking film (because it is) with none of the usual benefits his movies usually have. Baron Blood probably would be a better film with Vincent Price in the lead role, but as is it has a lot of good elements going on even if no particular part jumps out as particularly inspired. Inspired is even further away from Four Times That Night which is a movie and that's about it for descriptors. This is all worth it for Lisa and the Devil; a film where every component comes together for the most perfect end result. Just in the cinematography of the thing one's breath stops in amazement. That the script and performances are also ace examples of why Bava has his reputation is simply icing on the cake. Despite the stink his son leaves on the last two movies Bava directed both films end up being pretty fun experiences. Rabid Dogs can't sustain the energy of it's beginning and is too cruel by a shade, but otherwise stands up reasonably. Schock's the complete opposite starting off on a few sour notes, but tricking itself into late end greatness that border on some of Bava's best work.

Henry Jaglom
Tracks (1977)------Paramount R1 (OOP)
A Safe Place (1971)--------Criterion Blu RA

Jaglom's a bit of a joke with a weird style that frankly is very off putting, yet I can't help but be fascinated every time he puts out a film. His first decade isn't entirely representative of his style though that feeling is present throughout. A Safe Place is an utter mess filled with bad performances and an extraordinarily stupid story telling style. The same goes for Tracks which seems to be trying to summarize the era with a Shanghai Express pastiche. The film is actually probably the best of his career with the actors throwing so much of their own baggage onto the movie that you can't help but scratch your head at how Dean Stockwell and Dennis Hopper interact for example. The real reason to see these films though is the commentaries. What Jaglom lacks as a director he more than makes up for as a great orator.

[swo17]

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.

How would one go about seeing this?

[knives]

It aired on TCM recently and will probably be on Milestone's next Rogosin set. Until then nothing.

[Mr Sausage]

The Suspended Vocation (Raul Ruiz, 1978): Seems redundant to call this one baffling, but what else can one say? As best I can tell, two different factions within the Catholic church are warring against each other in the way rogue political factions might war with each other, or so it seems at first. The exact nature of the doctrinal spat remains obscure. It seems to have something to do with a conflict between patriarchal and matriarchal values, with the one side declaring that the "virile mode" is responsible for trade, and therefore the proletariat, and therefore revolution, and therefore sodomy (figure that one out). This side seems to venerate a heretical(?) figure they call the "weeping woman," who might also be the Virgin Mary, I don't know. I'm not sure what the faction opposing them stands for, but it can't be orthodox Catholicism as they've given themselves an obscure name. Now comes the confusing bit: there are two stories here running in parallel with each other, both featuring the same characters and the same basic plot, with events from one story influencing the other. One of the stories is shot in B&W, the other colour. The lead character in each story has the same name and follows the same plot trajectory in the same locations, but is played by two different actors. Sometimes both stories lead into and out from each other, sometimes they run parallel, with each character having a similar conversation with the same person. I haven't the slightest clue what the relation between the two stories is supposed to be. Each character floats through his narrative on the same quest to resolve the dispute between the two factions, although the two are some of the most passive questers you'll meet and nothing gets resolved. Half-way through, the two become the pawns of a (what else?) obscure conspiratorial organization within the church. One part I liked was how most of the doctrinal arguments in the film centre on art, be it the ideological values underpinning a fresco in the midst of being painted, or a son ordering statues of the weeping woman, much to his father's chagrin, or nuns recreating old news photographs of injured holy people. There are snatches of sense to be had here and there, but mostly the movie's a baffling mess. I'm fascinated, however, by religious and theological discussions and debates, even baffling ones, so the movie had no trouble holding my attention. But this one is bound to bore just about everyone else. It makes no sense and Ruiz holds back on his customary visual extravagance, favouring understated camera movements instead. There's little that's conventionally pleasurable about the movie. It somewhat resembles Bresson or late-period Dreyer, actually. I thought it was interesting, but I wouldn't know who to recommend it to. Would be good fodder for a Religious Film genre project.

[Forrest Taft]

Robert Altman's greatest, of about half a dozen 70s films, is, for me, California Split, and I hope
most people will see it, even though the DVD is slightly compromised and out-of-print.

You can this for a very affordable price on Amazon now (via third party seller).

[bamwc2]

Viewing Log:

Buck and the Preacher (Sidney Poitier, 1972): Having only seen Silver Streak and Ghost Dad prior to this, I didn't have a very high opinion of Sidney Poitier's ability as a director. While Buck and the Preacher was significantly better than either of those films, it doesn't exactly stand out as a one of the decade's many interesting westerns. The film focuses on the battle of Buck, a principled outlaw, and Preacher, a scoundrel who is...well preacher, to safely escort a group of freed slaves across hostile territory. Both Poitier and Harry Belafonte do a decent job in their roles, but there is very little about this film that I think will stick with me in the long run.

The Castle of Sand (Yoshitaro Nomura, 1974): The Castle of Sand was the second film that I've seen by Nomura (quickly followed by another discussed below), and I have to say that I was quite impressed with it. Starting slowly before picking up momentum, the film tells the story of a pair of police detectives (played skillfully by Tetsurô Tanba and Kensaku Morita) on the search for the killer of a retired police officer. While the procedural aspect of the film was good enough to earn it a solid recommendation, Nomura's use of silent flashbacks detailing the childhood of Eiryo Waga as he played the piano stood out as an especially solid bit of film making. I doubt that I'll have room for this one on my final list, but it is certainly worth checking out on Hulu.

The Ceremony (Nagisa Ôshima, 1971): I've yet to see a bad film from Ôshima, and The Ceremony is no exception. The film concerns the travails of Masuo, who we see as both a child and adult (played alternately by Ryuichi Tsubaki and Kenzô Kawarasaki), as he attempts to survive life under the shadow of his family's terrifying and controlling patriarch Kazuomi. Incest, insanity, and murder run deep throughout this clan, and by the end almost everyone has suffered at the hands of Kazuomi. Although Ôshima was never one for contrite or happy endings, The Ceremony sticks out as one of the most depressing works that I've ever seen. The ending was truly devastating.

The Homecoming (Peter Hall, 1973): Based on the Harold Pinter play of the same name, The Homecoming tells the story of a reunion between an abusive father, a doddering uncle, three emotionally damaged brothers and one of their wives. Two of the brothers, the dim failed boxer Joey and the serpentine pimp Lenny (played frighteningly by the always wonderful Ian Holm), live with the two older men after their mother's death. The only successful family member, Teddy (a philosophy professor from a time when we philosophy PhDs could actually find jobs), also proves to be weak willed as he allows his family to torture his wife. Like the other adaptations of Pinter's work that I've seen (The Go-Between, The Servant, Sleuth, etc.) this film does a wonderful job evoking a time and a place that I am unfamiliar with, though by the end, with the exception of Ruth, the characters are all so flawed and unpleasant that I'm unsure it's a journey that I'd ever be willing to take again.

Mahler (Ken Russell, 1974): Ken Russell was the master of acid-trip biography with films like Savage Messiah and Lisztomania, and his biography of Gustav Mahler certainly fits into this mold as well. For those of you familiar with this unique brand of biography, you know that there is no easy way to synopsize it or describe what Russell puts on screen. What we do get is a train ride with the composer and his wife as he recounts their lives in unique dreamlike quality and genre defying musical numbers. I enjoyed it quite a bit as I had other films by Russell, though I can certainly understand how this might not be someone's cup of tea.

Once Upon A Girl (Don Jurwich and Jack Conrad, 1976): While I could have discussed this entry in the animation list, I'll put it here. The film is a trio of three X-rated animated shorts with a live action trial of Mother Goose acting as book ends to these bawdy reimaginings. Someday I'll be smart enough to stop watching after protracted bestiality jokes involving frogs and voyeurism. Unfortunately, that was a lesson that I had to learn while sitting through this piece of shit. The film did look quite nice after a restoration from Severin, but there is that famous aphorism about polishing turds... My advice: avoid at all costs.

Sandakan no. 8 (Kei Kumai, 1974): Having never heard of Kei Kumai before watching this gem, I had no idea what to expect heading in. What I found was an emotionally rich and wonderfully rewarding story of the bond formed between two generations of Japanese women as the elder recounted he experience as a sex slave in Borneo and the rejection that she faced upon returning to Japan (a theme very similar to the experiences of Masuo's mother in The Ceremony). The melodrama is layered very thickly here, but all three of the film's main actresses do a superb job bringing humanity to their roles and preventing the film's message from ever devolving into utter sap. The end result is better than any individual components of it, and strikes me as a terrifically moving experience. For a diametrically opposed take, see Janet Maslin's scathing review.

The Scandalous Adventures of Buraikan (Masahiro Shinoda, 1970): This was another mid-level Shinoda for me. While there are some very interesting and entertaining portions of the movie, I have to admit that I had a hard time following everything going on. Perhaps it was my fault, but the narrative often seemed confusing and jumbled. The film finds a group of peasants plotting revolt against a hidebound provincial lord whose moralizing leads him to outlaw numerous vices and innocent fair that irritated him. I suspect that my opinion would go up on a repeat viewing, but I really don't know when that might be.

The Shadow Within (Yoshitaro Nomura, 1970): This was the third of the three films by Nomura that I watched this past week, and I have to say that with this he’s become quite the happy discovery. In all three films he’s proven himself to be a master of criminal paranoia. Here the philandering lead fears that the six-year-old son of his lover is out to kill him. We learn the shocking truth of why he believes this at the films end, in a sequence that unifies and makes sense of a number of mystifying flashbacks seen throughout the film. The explanation is as natural as it is horrifying. I really hope that more of his films pop up on the Hulu channel this summer.

[bamwc2]

I also just finished Alien while putting together my son's bike. Am I the last member of the forum to see this? I'll say more about the film when I do my next log, but jeez what a terrifying experience.

[Michael Kerpan]

There were aspects of Castle of Sand (really _bowls_ not castle, btw) I liked -- but I found this the least satisfying of the Nomura films I've seen. The book (called Inspector Imanishi Investigates in English, for some reason) was much more satisfying. My favorite Nomura so far is Harikomi (The Stakeout) -- but that came in the 60s. Yamada's Flag in the Mist / Kiri no hata (English novel is called Pro Bono) is as at least good as Harikomi -- but also came out in the 60s.

The parts of Kumai's Sandakan no. 8 that featured Kinuyo Tanaka were fabulous, but I found all the other parts of the film comparatively crude and dull. It was as if she energized and inspired the whole team when she on hand. Worth seeing in order to see Tanaka in one of her last roles.

I also found Buraikan only intermittently entertaining.

[bamwc2]

Michael, thanks for the Nomura recommendations. When I'm done with the 70s viewings, I hope to go back and check out a lot of films that I missed by joining the 60s view list so late. These will be included.

Yes, also agree that the great Kinuyo Tanaka elevated every scene she was in, but I also found the flashback sequences quite effective (though predicable) as well. In particular the scenes with Osaki's failed love interest were very moving.

[knives]

Joe
This one caught me by surprise mostly because deep and subtly made satire is not one of the things a person thinks of when Avildsen is evoked. The style of the film on the whole is fairly clearly him with his usual attempt at a mundane realism being more successful than I've seen anywhere else. This makes the early part with the junkies a bit too much like dealing with a bunch of strung out smack addicts, but the boredom and frustration seems a necessary evil to building up the confused and idiotic state the father is in for the majority of the movie. The DVD summary does a quick comparison to Easy Rider, but the film functions more as a proto-Taxi Driver right down to Peter Boyle as a racist conductor of violencein what is also probably his best performance. Like much of the movie he is very underplayed with his mundane generically Nixonian working class vibe only making the burn of the film more disturbing. I wouldn't really call this a flaw, but it is interesting how despite it being clear that Joe is supposed to be this very vile man and his ideology to be looked at in horror we really don't get to know the other side which is exclusively characterized by junkies and dumb hippies. Perhaps this is just to further get into the father's headspace as the mundane nature of Joe shows his confused sense about Boyle's ideas. It's a tough tactic for the political points, but for the most part it seems to succeed.

[Gregory]

I only wish it had been a satire, though even then I don't think it would have been deep or subtly made. The stereotype of blue collar America it presents is cynical and insulting. It could have been a film about a flesh-and-blood character who is drunken, loutish, prone to outbreaks of violence, ranting about the blacks etc., who happens to be blue collar, it could have been more interesting. Instead we get a really obvious stereotype that pretends to have something important to say. The main reason I suppose that some still point to it as a "relevant" film is because it so blatantly presents itself as a film "of its times" about America, the generation gap, and so on.
Taking Off, more intentionally absurd, gets much closer to the mark, and is far more enjoyable. I always wished I could've found Joe to be a great film, or even a good one, as an old friend of mine had a supporting part in it.

[knives]

I thought the point was that it is only Joe who thinks he has anything of interest to say with even the father just using him as a safety blanket until things do get out of hand.

[swo17]

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 somehow convinced myself that you were talking about this and almost mistakenly bought it. I gather that this set is the way to go?

[Tommaso]

Two I've seen recently:

La faute de l'abbé Mouret (Georges Franju, 1970): an adaptation of a Zola story, this film is set in the early 19th century and deals with the tribulations of a young priest in the French countryside who falls for the foster child of an atheist freethinker who raised the girl in a secluded woodland area called the 'Paradou', which is obviously a stand-in for the Garden of Eden and perhaps for the 'real' spirituality/paganism as opposed to the dogmas of the Church. This actually works quite well with Franju crafting some truly lyrical images in the central part of the story, but unfortunately the whole thing suffers from largely mediocre actors, with the exception of the impressive André Lacombe as a bigot priest who leaves quite an impression. What's worse, especially the young girl for whom Mouret falls looks terribly flower-power-style and certainly not like anyone from the period the film is set in (I have a similar problem with Polanski's "Macbeth"), and the semi- early-Scott-Walker-on-a-bad-day orchestral music by Jean Wiener isn't better, either. In other words: a somewhat comparable set-up like this was conveyed much more convincingly by Powell and Pressburger in "Gone to Earth" twenty years earlier (and that one's certainly not among the duo's most significant films, even though I love it). Still I liked this decidedly minor Franju for its purely visual qualities.

Days and Nights in the Forest (Satyajit Ray, 1970): this is probably not among Ray's most immediately effective films (at least for a Western viewer), but thinking of it now I'd say it may well be one of his best of this period. Four arrogant and rich young men go to the countryside for a holiday where they get increasingly aware (or at least the viewer does) that their 'metropolitan' behaviour is strangely ineffective. The film is one of Ray's rare comedies, or better, satires, but in a way that distinctly reminded me of Renoir's countryside pieces. That is, Ray doesn't judge the characters at all, even displays some sympathies for them, but it quickly becomes clear that their stances are shallow and that the ladies they meet and have affairs with are all in a much more superior position in various ways. It's a quiet film, and I'm sure I didn't understand all the subtexts that I guess are in it, but it's as finely crafted as anything by Ray; wonderful actors, wonderful cinematography. This might well end up on my list.

[zedz]

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 somehow convinced myself that you were talking about this and almost mistakenly bought it. I gather that this set is the way to go?

Yes, the latter (though the former is, I hope every bit as surreally awful as it appears). The Potter set probably counts as an essential purchase for this project, and it's sometimes quite cheap.

[zedz]

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 somehow convinced myself that you were talking about this and almost mistakenly bought it. I gather that this set is the way to go?

Yes, the latter (though the former is, I hope every bit as surreally awful as it appears). The Potter set probably counts as an essential purchase for this project, and it's sometimes quite cheap.

[thirtyframesasecond]

I love this film and it will almost certainly feature in my top ten. It was actually one of the first Ray's I saw - a double bill with The Goddess. The memory game segement is one of my favourite scenes in all cinema.

Days and Nights in the Forest[/b] (Satyajit Ray, 1970): this is probably not among Ray's most immediately effective films (at least for a Western viewer), but thinking of it now I'd say it may well be one of his best of this period. Four arrogant and rich young men go to the countryside for a holiday where they get increasingly aware (or at least the viewer does) that their 'metropolitan' behaviour is strangely ineffective. The film is one of Ray's rare comedies, or better, satires, but in a way that distinctly reminded me of Renoir's countryside pieces. That is, Ray doesn't judge the characters at all, even displays some sympathies for them, but it quickly becomes clear that their stances are shallow and that the ladies they meet and have affairs with are all in a much more superior position in various ways. It's a quiet film, and I'm sure I didn't understand all the subtexts that I guess are in it, but it's as finely crafted as anything by Ray; wonderful actors, wonderful cinematography. This might well end up on my list.

[Tommaso]

The memory game sequence is great, but also a good example for a moment where a Western viewer might miss something. It seems the names they pick are indicators for their personality, and while I can make connections to Napoleon and Cleopatra, I unsurprisingly get lost when it comes to the Indian persons that they mention.

[domino harvey]

Struck out on my first viewing for the project, as Silver Bears (Ivan Passer 1978), a caper-y bit of nothing, is unlikely to grace anyone's final list. Made about fifteen years past the sell-by date for international piffle productions like this, there are occasional moments where the logy levity works-- the opening where Martin Balsam's gangster holds a meeting inside his hot tub, forcing seven or eight sixty-something men to disrobe in full view of the camera makes a nice commentary on an audience's desire for skin in flicks like these, but those sort of touches are few and far between. The only thing propelling this amiable fluff through to the finish line is its suitably ragtag group of stars-- Michael Caine and Louis Jordan, sure, they were born into movies like this, but Tom Smothers? Jay Leno? And of course second-billed Cybill Shepherd, who is in the film for probably five minutes total but manages to do her Cybill Shepherd thing, looking every bit the prototype for the Urban Outfitters catalog model:



In Defense of Cybill Shepherd

Cybill Shepherd gets a bad rap, but her track record is pretty dynamite this decade: In addition to her films with Bogdanovich, she's essential to the success of Elaine May's squirm-inducing, wholly list-worthy the Heartbreak Kid (1972) (This is on everyone's list already, right? It should be) and a welcome presence in Taxi Driver (1976) as the understandably appealing object of affection for both De Niro and Albert Brooks.

I'm not sure I'll have room for Bogdanovich's Daisy Miller (1974), as it's a problematic film, but Cybill Shepherd's titular performance is reason enough to make time for consideration. Shepherd's is a brave performance considering that an audience member unfamiliar with the source may think her approach out of place amongst the costume drama respectabilities. Shepherd is rarely shown on screen in Daisy Miller without words coming out of her mouth. Shepherd's inane chatter fills the polite pauses left by all those who occupy a space with her. It's not that she's a strong woman who imparts her mark on every situation, it's simply that she doesn't know any better. Her rampantly independent behavior only furthers the impression that her trashy American lady is likely no lady at all. That the negative response Shepherd garners from many characters in the film was quickly reflected and shared by critics and audiences alike upon the film's release in 1974 is highly ironic.

Shepherd's embodiment of Daisy Miller feels out of place among her stiff surroundings because the character of Miller is out of place among her surroundings. Anyone familiar with the text of James' short story should recognize how brilliantly Bogdanovich was able to exploit Shepherd's "girl in a woman's body" persona to his advantage. Whether unprepared viewers were unwilling to accept such fidelity to the source, or just wrote her performance off as unintentionally transparent (merely playing the persona of "Cybill," not Daisy), is hard to say. But nearly forty years later, the performance is startling in its modernity.

Shepherd's childlike enthusiasm about nothing at all is given a special energy by Bogdanovich, who surrounds Shepherd with a cast of regulars who sleepwalk through the film, so as to never remove focus from the titular heroine. Unfortunately, this strategy results in the entire movie hinging on Shepherd's shoulders-- anyone going into this film hating Shepherd is going to walk out carrying more ammo, not an armistice. But Shepherd gives one of the sharpest portraits of shallowness ever captured on film, and both Cybill Shepherd and Daisy Miller deserve reevaluation, even from the skeptical.

[bamwc2]

I agree that Cybill Shepherd had a fantastic first half of the decade, but made some very poor choices in the second half.

Domino, if you look at my first post in this thread, then you'll see that Daisy Miller was the first film that I watched for the project. I think that my reaction was similar to yours in that Shepherd, who's normally the scapegoat sacrificed for the film's failure, does a fine job in her role. You say that you find the film to be "deeply flawed". If not Shepherd, then to what do you attribute its ultimate failure?

[domino harvey]

I think the same fidelity that led to Shepherd's great success also leads to Barry Brown's negative space as the male lead, and the film is as narratively inert as the source novella-- Bogdanovich's reverence for the material and his leading lady help and hurt the film as a film in equal measure. Bogdanovich of course originally wanted to cast himself in the lead role, which explains a lot! There's a wonderful People article about the couple from before this film's release where Bogdanovich is completely unchecked in his effusive praise for Shepherd and says something like "James wrote this part for Cybill!" with no sarcasm or awareness at all. Great stuff! </wrote my thesis on this shit>

[bamwc2]

Viewing Log:

Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979): For some reason I used to catch the final scene from Alien every once in awhile on Cinemax when I was a kid. Now that I've seen the entire thing, I have to say that this is probably Scott's best film. The claustrophobic terror aboard the Nostradomo was palpable, with the xenomorph being one of the most menacing movie monsters that I think I've ever seen. Special praise deserves to go out to the visual designers on this film, who did an extraordinary job realizing both the ship and monster. Oh, and what an amazing cast! It's very rare that a film can assemble such a talented cast and the script made great use of every member. This was nothing short of a masterpiece of horror.

Anatomy of a Relationship (Luc Moullet, 1976): This was the first film of Moullet's that I have ever seen and I have to say that it was a great introduction to his work. The film details the rocky relationship between Him & Her, a pair of frustrated Parisian intellectuals. Without a plot (itself a plot point after the film "ends") the film could have easily lost me in its plodding. However, the relationship was interesting enough to sustain my attention. I know that this doesn't sound like a strong recommendation, but it really is worth viewing.

Animals Are Beautiful People (Jamie Uys, 1974): Jamie Uys, best known for making The Gods Must Be Crazy and its sequel, directed this anthropomorphizing documentary (although the extent of how much of it is documentary and how much of it was staged appears to be an open question) that would touch on the same regions and peoples of his later films. Although it was a pleasant enough experience, the "awww, aren't they just like us" attitude toward non-human animals irritates me to no end. While this might work in Disney films, it does not cohere with reality and we do nature a disservice by trying to understand it in human terms.

Christ Stopped at Eboli (Francesco Rosi, 1979): Rosi's film tells the story of a doctor in Mussolini's Italy who is exiled to a small Italian village as punishment for his anti-fascist activities. Once there the doctor, played by Gian Maria Volonté, learns about the simpler ways of the peasants and uses their inspiration to overcome his own difficulties. While there are any number of films about the big city hotshot learning to appreciate the simpler things in a small town, this was probably the best of the genre that I've ever encountered. Perhaps it’s the power of the source material (which I must admit being entirely unfamiliar with), Rosi's directorial skill, the quality of the performances, or some amalgam of all these options, but the film easily transcends the limitations of the tepid and formulaic trappings.

From Beyond the Grave (Kevin Connor, 1974): I watched this one on a recommendation from the horror genre list, and on the whole it was a decent, though unremarkable flick. Fitting nicely into the horror anthology genre of the decade, the film tells four tales of supernatural revenge that befall anyone who swindles an elderly antique shop owner, played by the esteemed Peter Cushing. It's not a particularly effective horror film since there are no real scares in it, but the stories all work in the campy spirit of Tales from the Crypt. It's an easy recommendation, but don't expect anything too profound.

Genesis of a Meal (Luc Moullet, 1979): This documentary was the second feature of the Moullet disc that I received from Netflix (actually I put the disc on my queue for this film, not Anatomy of a Relationship), and it was a major discovery for me. The documentary traces the origins of the food that Moullet and his wife have for a meal (tuna, bananas, etc.) and finds the unfair labor practices and environmental degradation that is belied by the pretty packaging in the supermarket. As I've mentioned here before, I sometimes have the privilege of teaching environmental ethics and this is precisely the sort of information that I want my students to reflect on. While much of the information in here is out of date, the message behind it is timeless. I think that I speak for the majority of forum members when I say that you'd be aghast to find out what's in your food and who suffered to bring it to you.

My Childhood (Bill Douglas, 1972): This was the first film of Bill Douglas's that I've seen, and it was another major discovery for this project. The story, told with minimal dialogue and almost no plot, focuses on Jamie, a stand-in for Douglas, who escapes the horrors of small town postwar Scotland in the cinema. The simplicity of the story belies the profundity of the experience. This slow, meditative film is an extraordinary experience.

My Ain Folk (Bill Douglas, 1973): Douglas's followup to My Childhood continues the adventure of Jamie and his older brother. With changes in his family life, things only get worse for the young lad as poverty and abuse combine to make his life miserable. The film, like its predecessor, was shot in gorgeous black and white and tells its story in austere terms. There are no fancy camera shots or tricky editing. Instead we get raw emotion told without sentimentality or perversion. I cannot wait to see part three.

[domino harvey]

At some point you should definitely go back and rent Brigitte and Brigitte (or just pick up the Region Free French Moullet box, the disc you got is a direct port) and trawl YouTube for some of his shorts, many of which star Moullet himself