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

[Michael Kerpan]

Looks like "Space is the Place" is O/P.

Out of print

;~}

[domino harvey]

Otherwise abbreviated as "OOP" to every other human in this planet

[Wu.Qinghua]

Re Sun Ra. This will either spark off a life-long addiction or kill it stone dead.

Space is the Place? Afrofuturism?! I'm not that fond of the film but I fell for Ra's 'Magic City' indeed. As for the film itself, I've never read Szwed's biography, but I vaguely remember, that, apart from a text I can't remember anymore, I found Nabeel Zuberi's 2004 essay 'Transmolecularization of Black Folk' quite interesting; here's a PDF if you'd want to have a look at it.

Edit: FWIW, I've just remembered, that the other text I found interesting should have been Jerome Langguth's 'Proposing Alter-Destiny. Science Fiction in the Art and Music of Sun Ra' in the 2010 reader 'Sounds of the Future'.

[zedz]

Okay, let's keep Ra and Stock as they are, then. But I think the discussion may not be that much off-topic for this thread. It started with the mentioning of Jodorowsky, and it's quite interesting to see that with the 70s there are at least a handful of filmmakers interested in creating their own private mythologies on film, or exploring old ones in an idiosyncratic way. One might mention Rivette's Duelle and Noroit here, but I also think of Greenaway's Water Wrackets or his invention of the Tulse Luper character, or of some of Jarman's early shorts like A Journey to Avebury or Art of Mirrors. Or, in Germany, the astonishing early films of Ulrike Ottinger, about which I'll post later in detail.

Good lord, another Ottinger fan. One of the most insanely original filmmakers on the planet. I wish her films were actually for sale to normal people.

Good point about 'private mythologies' being something of a common denominator among interesting filmmakers in the 70s. I'd also include early Garrel in there (though later Garrel also plays with a more conventional version of that concept, with greater emphasis on the 'private' than on the 'mythology' part). And Terayama, definitely.

EDIT: Double-checking, I see Ottinger is now offering some films at non-institutional, but still rather punitive, pricing. You need to pay by bank transfer as well, which might be a headache.

[Tommaso]

Great, I really thought I'd be the only Ottinger devotee here. Thank God I've been able to see almost all of her more significant films either on TV or in a cinema retrospective in my hometown not too long ago. And they need to be seen in great quality; some murky age-old avis are a crime given the visual qualities of her films. But yes, the prices she asks for her dvds are completely forbidding, something she shares with Nina Menkes or, again, Stockhausen. Well, expect my eulogy on Madame X and especially Ticket of No Return soon.

Meanwhile, as you mention Garrel: La cicatrice interieure should be seen by anyone mildly interested in far-out filmmaking, or in Velvet Underground's Nico... Not sure what the whole thing means, but Miss Päffgen is simply completely iconic in this one.

[knives]

On the same boat is there a DVD release for The Secret Son and/or Les hautes solitudes?

[zedz]

Great, I really thought I'd be the only Ottinger devotee here. Thank God I've been able to see almost all of her more significant films either on TV or in a cinema retrospective in my hometown not too long ago. And they need to be seen in great quality; some murky age-old avis are a crime given the visual qualities of her films. But yes, the prices she asks for her dvds are completely forbidding, something she shares with Nina Menkes or, again, Stockhausen. Well, expect my eulogy on Madame X and especially Ticket of No Return soon.

My experience of Ottinger has been patchy (four films only), with my favourites - Dorian Gray as Represented in the Popular Press and Joan of Arc of Mongolia - coming from the 1980s, but Ticket of No Return / Portrait of a Woman Drinker contains one of the most cherishable shots of 70s cinema: a woman walking down a completely mirrored hallway, cracking the mirrors with her stiletto heels as she advances.

The other film of hers that I've seen is her ethnographic epic Taiga, which is completely unlike her ultra-stylized fiction films. But a major part of the magic of Joan of Arc of Mongolia is the way it transforms itself from Dorian Gray Ottinger (but even more claustrophobically arch) into Taiga Ottinger halfway through: it's the kind of metamorphosis nobody else could pull off. It's a bit like watching a movie that starts out as Greenaway and ends up as Fred Wiseman.

[Lighthouse]

Ulzana's Raid (Robert Aldrich, 1972): Despite having a strong reputation, Ulzana's Raid struck me as a thoroughly mediocre effort from Aldrich. A very young Bruce Davidson (who loses top billing to Burt Lancaster) stars as a lieutenant in the US Army cavalry who must lead a small band of frontiersmen to stop a war party lead by the Apache Ulzana that is wreaking havoc in the southwest. While the film had all of the elements of a great western, it never really gelled for me. Long stretches of the film felt boring and unnecessary. I couldn't help but feel like there's probably a great 80 minute version of the film that could be culled from this 108 minute director approved edition. It's not a bad film, but also not a particularly good one either.

Actually there is a great 111 min version of Ulzana's Raid. Unofficial and only in German.

[bamwc2]

Thanks for all of the information on Sun Ra. He was definitely a talent that I need to explore further. I do feel a bit guilty for enjoying someone that was very likely mentally disturbed, but he was so damn charming in the movie.

[Gregory]

Mentally disturbed? I'd say definitely not. Eccentric, sure, but by all accounts still stable, lucid, motivated, able to take care of business, and led a long, creative live. Quite a contrast to musicians who turned to heroin, alcohol, and cocaine as coping mechanisms, and many who, at least during some intervals, suffered from various debilitating mental health problems (e.g., Powell, Monk, Mingus, Davis etc.).

More on-topic, this was an incredible decade for mind-blowing film music: Don Cherry's score for the aforementioned Holy Mountain (long impossible to obtain but which Anchor Bay so wisely included on CD in the Jodorowsky set), The Conversation, Hancock's music for Death Wish (far better than it deserved), the totally mysterious Jack Johnson. And that's just the "jazz" musicians. The list could go on and on. Bernard Herrmann's last bow, Taxi Driver, is beautiful.

[knives]

Obsession came after Taxi Driver as did several other titles.

[domino harvey]

Obsession, which has every likelihood of making my Top 10 this decade, is still the best score I've ever heard-- I like Rosenbaum's notion of Bernard Herrmann being the true auteur at work in De Palma's film!

[Gregory]

Obsession came after Taxi Driver as did several other titles.

Where are you getting that order and what several others do you have in mind? Obsession was released after Taxi Driver, but Herrmann didn't live to see either one. He had also recently finished It's Alive (great, great film, by the way). He died within hours of the last session for Taxi Driver.

Obsession is excellent, but I much prefer the earlier Sisters, which places high on my list for this decade. And that was the film for which De Palma lured Herrmann out of semi-retirement to do major scoring projects again, and it was De Palma who suggested that Scorsese use him. Sisters was such an inventive, effective Herrmann score. Really brilliant instrumentation, including his use of analog synths for the first time.

[Michael Kerpan]

Otherwise abbreviated as "OOP" to every other human in this planet

Are you suggesting that I too am a space alien?

[knives]

I was thinking of the It's Alive sequel which features his music and credits him as composer. That said for all the merits his Cohen and De Palma work has I've always felt Taxi Driver as his worst score thundering home each and every emotional point like he was Phillip Glass or something. The music isolated from the film is great, but as applied to the images it strikes me as overwrought and inappropriate. I don't like being told how to feel.

[Gregory]

Oh boy. Since Herrmann, Rota et al. are dead, I think it's safe to say they've composed their last scores, even though people still use and credit their music.

[knives]

What does that have to do with him composing the Cohen sequel?

[Gregory]

It was material that Herrmann created for the first It's Alive film, before he completed Taxi Driver, as I explained. Maybe he worked on much of the material at the same time. Is it worth debating? Taxi Driver is widely referred to as his last work. He died immediately after finishing it, and Scorsese dedicated the picture to him. I'm not insisting that everyone else think of Taxi Driver as his final work, but I believe it was, and it's hardly a controversial statement.

[knives]

I didn't know that Hermann had died so long before the sequel which I've always seen credited to him. My mistake (though personally I still find the Taxi Driver score problematic).

[MichaelB]

Obsession is excellent, but I much prefer the earlier Sisters, which places high on my list for this decade. And that was the film for which De Palma lured Herrmann out of semi-retirement to do major scoring projects again, and it was De Palma who suggested that Scorsese use him. Sisters was such an inventive, effective Herrmann score. Really brilliant instrumentation, including his use of analog synths for the first time.

De Palma intended to work with him again on Carrie, but fate intervened. I suspect that's why Pino Donaggio's scores for De Palma generally sound so Herrmanesque - I doubt it's a coincidence,

And yes, you're absolutely right about Taxi Driver definitively being Herrmann's last score: I wasn't aware that there was any controversy about this.

[bamwc2]

Viewing Log:

The Big Bird Cage (Jack Hill, 1972): In this Roger Corman produced women in prison [WIP] exploitation film, Terry (played by Anitra Ford) is a socialite on an unnamed south Asian island who is mistaken for a revolutionary after being kidnapped by grindhouse greats Sid Haig and Pam Greer. She's placed behind bars in a jungle prison without trial and must survive the sadistic sexual treatment of the male warden along with her other (mostly American?) fellow captives. There are some problematic elements in here, including distasteful rape jokes and homophobic stereotypes, but it was nevertheless a pretty fun film. Hill certainly knew how to entertain his intended audience, and this one does not disappoint.

The Big Doll House (Jack Hill, 1971): Another WIP exploitation classic from Jack Hill. Here Collier (played by Judith Brown) is newly incarcerated after killing her husband in self-defense. She's thrown into a cell with five other women. Some are kind to her while others are vicious (including an Pam Greer playing against type as a lesbian drug pusher). Like the aforementioned film it was enjoyable on the level of exploitation, but the rape jokes were an unnecessary and distasteful distraction. The nudity in here is also strangely less gratuitous than The Big Bird Cage with only topless scenes from the main actresses. I wonder why. It's not great art, nor is it even great 70s exploitation, but it was fun enough to give it a mild recommendation.

J.W. Coop (Cliff Robertson, 1971): Cliff Roberston co-wrote, directed, and starred in this tale of a former rodeo cowboy trying to reenter the profession and reestablish his old life after spending nearly a decade in prison. While I appreciate the work that Robertson put into the project I found it to be mostly boring, punctuated only by a few interesting scenes. I think that part of it has to do with the fact that I find rodeos to be simultaneously uninteresting and barbaric. Robertson did an effective job of making Coop a sympathetic character that I couldn't help but root for, but it struck me as a mediocre product at best.

The Third Part of the Night (Andrzej Zulawski, 1971): This was my third film by Zulawski (the others being Possession and Szamanka). While I felt lukewarm to his other work, this one blew me away. Michal (played by Leszek Teleszynski) witnesses his wife and son's murders at the hands of the Nazis. He joins the underground, but is seriously wounded during his first mission. He then helps a woman give birth to a son and dedicates his life to her. By the end of the film we find out that

Spoiler

he has been dead all along after finding his own corpse in the hospital that he works at. Everything after being shot was imagined a la An Occurrence at Owl Creek as he was dying.

While this conceit might spoil a lesser film, it worked well amidst the insanity of the Nazi occupation. I honestly cannot think of a single weakness in the film. It's likely going to be in my final list and now I desperately want to see The Devil and That Most Important Thing: Love before voting is over.

Twilight's Last Gleaming (Robert Aldrich, 1977): After the disappointing Ulzana's Raid I wasn't expecting to like this one as much as I did. Aldrich had a very uneven decade, making both the dreadful The Choirboys and the masterful Emperor of the North. Thankfully, like Emperor of the North, this was Aldrich firing on all cylinders. Burt Lancaster leads an all-star cast as an ex-Air Force general who leads a group of prison escapees in an attempt to seize control of nine nuclear missiles pointed at the Soviet Union. Calling himself a patriot, he plans to launch them unless the president gives in to his demand to release a security brief from the previous administration concerning the known sacrifice of American lives in Vietnam. The film takes a very cynical look at American politics, one that might not have been quite as effective were it not for the events of the last twelve years (to say nothing of the last month), but it felt right to me. The film's performances were top notch all around and it even made good use of split screen (even quadruple screen!) with overlapping dialogue--a feet that is very difficult to pull off. My only qualm has to do with the plot itself. If Gen. Dell is the patriot that he claims to be and only wants the American people to know about the governmental duplicity, then why is he willing to effectively wide out humanity? The film shows that he isn't bluffing in his willingness to launch the missiles. But...why?

[zedz]

Obsession came after Taxi Driver as did several other titles.

Where are you getting that order and what several others do you have in mind? Obsession was released after Taxi Driver, but Herrmann didn't live to see either one. He had also recently finished It's Alive (great, great film, by the way). He died within hours of the last session for Taxi Driver.

Just enough time to knock off another score for De Palma!

My all-time favourite film score also comes from the 70s: Liska's extraordinary vocal setting of Prevert in The Ossuary. And let's not forget Herzog's collaborations with Popol Vuh. Or 'Mother Sky' in Deep End.

[Gregory]

I was just listening to Superfly again—the strings in "Freddie's Dead" are killer—and then dug out the Soul Jazz 2CD Can You Dig It? The Music and Politics of Black Action Films, which is a great primer for anyone looking for one. It comes with a hundred-page book that's a great single-sitting overview of the subgenre.

[knives]

Speaking of that sort of score Black Caesar deserves some applause. James Brown has rarely been better which says a lot for those sweet grooves. Too bad they wouldn't let him come back for the sequel.

[Gregory]

Yeah, he came back with another score but Cohen rejected it, so Brown released it as The Payback. Cohen reportedly said, "It's not funky enough, babe. I need something more James Brownish, babe." The Payback not funky enough? What?! Maybe he was just pissed at Brown for endorsing Nixon or something.
Edit: Oh, I just read in the Can You Dig It? book that part of the reason for giving Brown the brush-off was that American International Pictures was trying to build closer ties with Motown and so they tapped Edwin Starr for the soundtrack.