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

[swo17]

"A River Called Titas". Those who've already seen it might start discussing it...

Not that anyone can prove it, but I was actually going to guess Ghatak! Titas is pretty amazing visually though I found it a tad overlong.

[Tommaso]

Thanks, swo and knives. Yes, The Chess Players is also on my list, even against the advice of one of my best cinema-phile friends who will certainly hand in a list (if he has already done so, I guess it's he who has the 37 orphans), even though he almost never posts here (but is very active in the backchannels, to his credit).

Okay, as everyone is plugging their favourites, let me mention again Ulrike Ottinger's astonishing 1979 Bildnis einer Trinkerin. I know I promised half a year ago to write something more about this astonishing filmmaker, but somehow completely forgot about it and now it's probably too late. So very briefly: I can't think of anything more stylish in the 70s and early 80s than the films of this feminist filmmaker who got herself into serious trouble with the feminists of the time for unashamedly exposing fetishism, fashion, and (dominant) female beauty in her films, which are rich with allusions to cinema history and simply transport you into a realm of myth and performance that might have only been equalled by directors like Jarman or Greenaway, but only much later. Extremely artificial and alluring at the same time. It also makes you see the city of Berlin in a way you hardly imagined it before (this is even more true for her next film "Freak Orlando", but that is for the next list). Notoriously difficult to see, but the backchannels have a brand new digital TV recording of this film, unfortunately unsubbed (and a bad-looking old VHS rip, which is subbed, but it really doesn't do any justice to the film's astonishing images). Better looking is a subbed VHS-derived DVD of Ottinger's feature debut Madame X, in which a mysterious woman assembles a bunch of like-minded females to form a group of modern pirates. It's not as good as Bildnis, but still on my list, as I think Ottinger is really someone who finally should get some recognition. Your chance, you've still got three days to go

[swo17]

you've still got three days to go

Six days by my watch.

[zedz]

Is no one willing to watch a full-length movie on YouTube?

I tend to avoid watching movies on computer altogether, and I doubt I could handle a whole feature on YouTube. Unless it was a feature about adorable pussycats doing crazy stuff.

My kevyip gives me sufficient padding that I'm happy to wait to see really, really great films in decent presentations.

Tommaso, I would love to include Ottinger on my list, but there's no way I can squeeze her in. She will make my eighties list, by hook or by crook, for Dorian Gray. If I were compiling a reel of the greatest sequences of 70s cinema, that walk down the mirrored corridor from Bildnis einer Trinkerin would make a great closer.*

* Following directly on from the climactic 'mirror' shot from the central section of Riddles of the Sphinx. [/covert plug]

[FerdinandGriffon]

My kevyip gives me sufficient padding that I'm happy to wait to see really, really great films in decent presentations.

To connect the two main strains of dialogue at the moment: Apparently there are no surviving circulating prints of most of Pelechian's films. Even when he himself presents them at schools or festivals he has to show them from the same crappy DVDs as the rest of us, so no one should walk away from this great filmmaker because of the quality of the rips on youtube and filetrackers, as you'll likely never get a chance to see his work in better quality.

[Tommaso]

Tommaso, I would love to include Ottinger on my list, but there's no way I can squeeze her in. She will make my eighties list, by hook or by crook, for Dorian Gray. If I were compiling a reel of the greatest sequences of 70s cinema, that walk down the mirrored corridor from Bildnis einer Trinkerin would make a great closer.*

Oh, damn it, I was counting on you! I see her orphaned now unless someone can be convinced to watch Bildnis at the last minute. And yes, the walk down the corridor alone would be worth it. On my provisional 80s list, "Dorian Gray" currently features on #2, right after Kurosawa's "Ran" (and okay, I'm already hiding from the club with which Michael Kerpan is likely going to hit me over the head with...)

[swo17]

To connect even more strains of dialogue, I watched Bildnis in the English-friendly version a few weeks ago but it looked too much like a YouTube video to register.

[domino harvey]

I feel like watching all those sub-par Chabrol releases back when I was first getting into film prepared me for all the third and fourth generation transfers we sometimes have to endure to see some overlooked films. I remember my girlfriend trying to watch one of the ~1000000 slashers I was viewing for the Horror Project with me and she couldn't even process visually what was happening on screen since it was a YouTube rip of a VHS copy of a VHS copy and so I had to narrate the action for a couple minutes before she gave up. Amateurs!

[swo17]

Apparently there are no surviving circulating prints of most of Pelechian's films. Even when he himself presents them at schools or festivals he has to show them from the same crappy DVDs as the rest of us

I wasn't aware of any DVDs of his work. Are there any commercially available?

[zedz]

My kevyip gives me sufficient padding that I'm happy to wait to see really, really great films in decent presentations.

To connect the two main strains of dialogue at the moment: Apparently there are no surviving circulating prints of most of Pelechian's films. Even when he himself presents them at schools or festivals he has to show them from the same crappy DVDs as the rest of us, so no one should walk away from this great filmmaker because of the quality of the rips on youtube and filetrackers, as you'll likely never get a chance to see his work in better quality.

I can handle a short like Inhabitants on YouTube - but only barely, and the damage wrought on that film in particular, specifically when the montage gets rapid or the imagery in a frame gets complex (as when birds take flight), is catastrophic. It's a great film, but I can't vote for it in good conscience, because I'm really only guessing at the film Pelechian made after seeing that YouTube rendition. Obviously this is more of an issue with a film like that than one that's more narrative based and less visually hyperactive. For instance, the DVD of Duvidha had persistent shudder from a shoddy standards conversion, but that was fairly straightforward to mentally compensate for.

[FerdinandGriffon]

I wasn't aware of any DVDs of his work. Are there any commercially available?

I believe there was a Portuguese release at one time or another, and that that's the source for most of the stuff you can find online. But obviously it's of subpar quality, and I've noticed that it breaks the individual films up wrong, so the end of one film has sometimes been stolen by the beginning of another. Zedz is of course right that there's a lot of guesswork involved here, but the Pelechian I've seen is one I adore, whether real or imagined.

[Tommaso]

To connect even more strains of dialogue, I watched Bildnis in the English-friendly version a few weeks ago but it looked too much like a YouTube video to register.

Argh. You can hardly be blamed, of course, as these films surely only can find expression in a good-looking transfer, and best of all in the cinema (I had the pleasure to see many of Ottinger's films in a recent retrospective in my hometown). The narrative surely isn't the most important aspect of them. Still, I've seen so many ultra-bad looking films from the earlier years of cinema recently that I'd say you just need to find a way to adapt, and let your imagination provide you with what the films in their available state don't allow you to. And if you need to see the English-friendly version of the film first, I'd still recommend to watch or sample the unsubbed version afterwards, if only to get an idea of how it really looks.

[Yojimbo]

Apparently there are no surviving circulating prints of most of Pelechian's films. Even when he himself presents them at schools or festivals he has to show them from the same crappy DVDs as the rest of us

I wasn't aware of any DVDs of his work. Are there any commercially available?

I never even heard of him.......

[swo17]

I've seen so many ultra-bad looking films from the earlier years of cinema recently that I'd say you just need to find a way to adapt, and let your imagination provide you with what the films in their available state don't allow you to.

Yes, I have too. For a film that interests me, I'd much rather see it in less than optimal conditions than not at all. (And I've never seen such a film in pristine condition later and wished that I had waited to see it that way the first time. If anything, it makes the subsequent viewing an even more ecstatic experience.) I often have a sufficient imagination to fill in the gaps (for example, last decade with The Night of Counting the Years) though there's no denying that a really poor transfer can be a significant hurdle to have to overcome. I'm sure I've seen plenty of films that were made "just for me" but where this didn't manage to come through given the unfortunate viewing circumstances. I would never write off a film that I saw this way that didn't initially grab me. Though my imagination can only reach so far.

[knives]

The good news on Peleshian was that last I heard a group of investors are planning on restoring his films. WCF if I remember correctly so expect it from MOC and Crit in a decade.

Edit: Yep.

[swo17]

That's great news, although I believe the World Cinema Fund is a different entity from Scorsese's World Cinema Foundation.

[knives]

Derp, but these films getting restored by anyone is good even if in this case a Blu in RA land is reduced in chances.

[zedz]

I've seen so many ultra-bad looking films from the earlier years of cinema recently that I'd say you just need to find a way to adapt, and let your imagination provide you with what the films in their available state don't allow you to.

Yes, I have too. For a film that interests me, I'd much rather see it in less than optimal conditions than not at all. (And I've never seen such a film in pristine condition later and wished that I had waited to see it that way the first time. If anything, it makes the subsequent viewing an even more ecstatic experience.) I often have a sufficient imagination to fill in the gaps (for example, last decade with The Night of Counting the Years) though there's no denying that a really poor transfer can be a significant hurdle to have to overcome. I'm sure I've seen plenty of films that were made "just for me" but where this didn't manage to come through given the unfortunate viewing circumstances. I would never write off a film that I saw this way that didn't initially grab me. Though my imagination can only reach so far.

I'm on board with all that (and you should have seen some of the ropey 16mm prints I swooned over back in the 80s and 90s), but I started being a bit more brutal when I tried watching that old rip of Out 1 (you know the one), a film I'd been anticipating for decades. I gave up after fifteen minutes, figuring that if I'd already waited that long, I could wait another five or ten years for an experience that wasn't going to be so counterproductive. In the meantime, I haven't run out of great films to watch that are, you know, actually watchable.

[swo17]

Fair enough, though it bears mentioning that old Rivette rips set the bar rather dreadfully low, and the YouTube copies of the films we've been talking about recently are a fair bit more watchable.

[YnEoS]

I've been working on a guide for Golden Harvest kung fu and wuxia for this decade, but it appears I've ran out of time. So here are some reviews of the main Golden Harvest wuxia and kung fu films I was going to highlight, that no one will have time to track down and watch.

The Blade Spares None (Teddy Yip, 1971) - in 1971 before Bruce Lee and Angela Made made Kung Fu the most wildly popular genre, Golden Harvest's two biggest stars were James Tien and Nora Miao who starred in a number of wuxia films. Here they co-star together playing up Miao's ruthlessness against Tien's playfulness as they both fight over Patrick Tse who is basically just a blank pretty face here. It's got a wonderful intrigue storyline with lots of nice weapon lore, and a really terrifying villain. Basically all the elements needed to make a hell of fun early 70s wuxia. For further watching Miao and Tien also did wonderful solo efforts the same year, The Comet Strikes and The Chase, respectively.

None But the Brave (Lo Wei, 1973) - Lo Wei directs Cheng Pei Pei in her only Kung Fu film from this period, and in my mind it's by far the best example of the genre from the early 70s period. It's set during the Japanese Occupation, but instead of the usual cartoonish Japanese villains with an annoying comedic Chinese collaborator sidekick, they are given a much more serious portrayal and Jo Shishido is even cast as the main villain. The storyline focuses more on espionage tactics, and features some nice suspense sequences instead of endless scenes showing how evil the Japanese can be. Cheng Pei Pei and co-star James Tien give really great performances and lend some really nice fight scenes to the film as well.

The Himalayan (Huang Feng, 1976) - The most hard hitting kung fu films of this era came from director Huang Feng thanks primarily to star Angela Mao's Peking Opera training mixed with Sammo Hung's unmatched fight choreography. These films often showcased some sort of exotic foreign martial art style, like Hap Ki Do, in the film of the same name, and Thai boxing in The Tournament. The Himalayan was shot in Tibet and Nepal and Huang Feng is at his most xenophilic as it showcases lots of traditional music and buddhist tradition from the area. The first half runs like the elaborate wuxia intrigues being made by Chor Yuen at the time, but instead of playing out like a murder mystery, the film is presented from the villain's point of view. We get to enjoy Chang Sing be the most sinister scheming man alive as he plays everyone Richard III style. Then the film shifts gears into more of a shaolin training type film, which plays really well after building up Ching Sing's villain character, because it really pushes the anticipation of the final fight scene. And super kicker Dorian Tan is cast as Angela Mao's co-star, so the action doesn't really get much better from this era. Other really fun Huang Fang films worth checking out are: Bandits from Shantung, The Tournament, and The Shaolin Plot

Last Hurrah For Chivalry (John Woo, 1979) - This is my favorite John Woo film. It doesn't have the crazy gunplay of his later films, but I think the storyline is really strong here, and I think it's the best example of the strong male bonding that pervades most of his films. The elaborate swordplay and shapes style kung fu also makes a perfectly fine stand in for the action scenes.

[life_boy]

...though I actually like my other spotlight title even more. Is no one willing to watch a full-length movie on YouTube? Did I not drop the names Tarr and Pasolini loudly enough?

I'm glad you mentioned it again because I had completely missed that rec.

The Stone Wedding (Dan Pita & Mircea Veroiu, 1973)
This is a tiny miracle. The film is basically a diptych, with two separate stories set in the same tiny Romanian village. The first is a haunting meditation of death and the drudgery of survival; the second, a lighter meditation on accidental attraction and injustice. They seem so simple and yet there is an emotional weight and power to them juxtaposed. Marked by a beautiful use of folksongs and some stirring cinematography. In the first part, I was haunted by those images of the older woman as she worked, the way she walked. Even her horse seemed as sad as she was. Slowly, the reasons for her sadness are revealed through her conversations with a few different townsfolk. Nothing is wasted here. When we spend time following her as she tries to get her pay, we also follow her as that money is paid back out, primarily for candles for her dead loved ones. Then, when she gives up the horse it is heartbreaking when we find out why.

The second part I liked just as much, if not more, than the first. It does take a lighter tone in some parts but the slowly building tension of the bride's unusual interest (and the musician's reciprocated interest) is masterful. The end feels at the same time surreal and inevitable. The most astonishing aspect of this work is the use of music, which folds over the images so beautifully. In the first, the folk song refrain working as a narrator. In the second, most of the music is performed on-screen -- yet we get that haunting song played over top of those last images, working as a spiritual climax to whole film. I will definitely be squeezing this one into my crowded list.

[swo17]

A few more lists in and we already have ourselves a top 100! One of the directors that I initially said had three films in the top 20 has only gotten one measly vote since, and as a result now has zero films there. Two films polling strongly (currently at #4 and #7) were absent from the prior vote entirely.

[Tommaso]

I'm on board with all that (and you should have seen some of the ropey 16mm prints I swooned over back in the 80s and 90s), but I started being a bit more brutal when I tried watching that old rip of Out 1 (you know the one), a film I'd been anticipating for decades. I gave up after fifteen minutes [...]

Well, I hope you've now seen the good-looking dvd . I once sat through the whole thing in that avi version, actually, and the frustration was there, certainly. But I guess it ultimately had less to do with the bad quality than with the fact that basically nothing happens in the first two episodes at least, and it took some persistance to adapt to Rivette's slow speed and take the film for what it is: a fascinating portrait of the intellectual scene and of the Paris of the time, with all the usual Rivette themes of conspiracies and paranoia mixed in. Somehow the whole thing is a big mess, but I find it absolutely fascinating and unique in its way, especially as Rivette's direction and the actors are on the usual level you expect from this filmmaker. While I meanwhile purchased the official absolut medien edition, of course, I only managed to watch the shorter "Spectre" version so far, and while I found it more coherent than the long version, I also thought it inferior in the sense that it doesn't allow you to delve as deep into the characters and the details of the 'plot'. It's still fascinating, of course, but I really missed those very long sequences of the theatre groups practicing their performances, which I found mighty impressive (and from today's point-of-view, pretty weird) even in that bad-looking avi version.

Talking about films which throw a light on some aspects of the early 70s, here's one final recommendation: Veruschka, poesie di una donna (Franco Rubartelli, 1971): this film stars fashion model Veruschka von Lehndorff as herself (well, more or less) in a fictional story which clearly probes the illusionary character of the jet set world and shows the heroine as a vulnerable woman not at all at ease with her status and public image. Admittedly, the director -himself a fashion photographer in his main business - tries a little too hard to be Antonioni in places, but he still manages to make a very impressive and partly also experimental film in which various dream sequences with outstanding cinematography deserve special mention. I must be the only person who doesn't like Morricone's easy-listening style soundtrack, but that still doesn't stop me from seriously considering to put the film onto my list. In a way, it's pretty unique, and well, Miss Lehndorff is iconic, to put it mildly.

[Gropius]

Oh, damn it, I was counting on you! I see her orphaned now unless someone can be convinced to watch Bildnis at the last minute.

I am actually a big fan of Ottinger too, but unfortunately still haven't seen Bildnis, and am waiting to see it in a decent version.* I seem to have drifted away and lost track of the deadlines for the last few rounds of the list (missed the 50s and 60s, I think), but if I knock one together in time, Madame X will definitely be in the top half of it. The short Die Betörung die blauen Matrosen, the other 70s one I've seen, is also a possible contender: 'minor', perhaps, but I increasingly prefer lists stuffed with minor curios.

In similar 'minor in place of major' fashion, I'll have to make do with Syberberg's Ludwig (excellent in its way) rather than Hitler, which I have a feeling I may never actually see (and said the same five years ago).

*As if by magic, a one-off London screening has just been announced for next month, just out of reach.

[knives]

Are there any decent releaes of the Syberbergs? It seems only Karl May is still in print of the US releases.