criterionforum.org

There's also a Dutch release of Secret Ceremony which apparently is anamorphic. The same company also released Boom!.

Secret Ceremony also shows up about once a month in its proper AR on the U.S. tv channel Flix. In fact, I believe it's on again either today or tomorrow. (I think you're in Seattle, Dylan, so perhaps this is an option for you.)

I like Secret Ceremony quite a lot, but there are several other Losey's from the 1960s I prefer to it: The Servant, Accident, and especially These Are the Damned. I suspect that Losey would rank higher if Damned (possibly the best sci-fi of the decade) were available or -- dare I say it -- if higher-profile labels than Anchor Bay and HVe had released them. (Similar story with Bava...?) Of course, I guess it doesn't help that Losey afficionados like myself and David don't or didn't contribute lists.

The big mark against Secret Ceremony, in my opinion, is Mitchum's performance. I love Mitchum as an actor and generally lap up his insouciance, but I think his performance works against this movie. It's he and not Taylor in this one who's layering on the irony/hamminess. A much better take on a similar role in a similar film is Bogarde's in Clayton's Our Mother's House.

starmanof51 wrote:47. Black Sunday (Bava) Come on people! Can't you see how much this means to Michael?

You got that right. But you all can redeem yourself by not ignoring Lisa and the Devil for the 70s list.

[quote="pauling"]43. When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (Naruse) – Was I the only one to vote for this? Strange, considering the recent dvd release and relative respect accorded Naruse. This is the only Naruse film I've seen and I'm very much looking forward to exploring more of his films in the future. I was expecting a sort of “weepyâ€

domino harvey wrote:10 La Chinoise (Godard 1967)
Thought this had no chance of charting, my biggest surprise on the final list.

I put this as #3 on my list. It's my favorite 1960s Godard work. It's got everything but the kitchen sink: a discussion of Lumiere vs. Melies, visual puns, sunglasses made of Chinese flags, ideas recycled (and perfected) from previous Godard films, the Egyptians, Johnny Guitar, and French pop songs about "Mao Mao." Godard puts in texts from his early flirtations with Maoism, but then juxtaposes them with texts from French anarchists as well. He expresses his own radical thoughts, then dialectically forces us to confront another completely radical (but completely opposite) idea. I don't think any director has ever exposed himself to such self-criticism within the boundaries of a single cinematic work.

It's also about how your intellectual and moral foundations can be shaken to the core by your first exposure to completely different things. A young person can just easily have their mind blown by their first exposure to reading Karl Marx or watching the movie, Johnny Guitar. And both can be equally as important.

Is SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON that underappreciated (or did I miss it on the list)? I couldnt have included Bava without including Moxey's CITY OF THE DEAD. If we're talking creepy horror and slinging underappreciated Gordons (vs the cc M and M set) THE DEVIL DOLL towers way up high. SO many lost and forgotten beauties-- INCUBUS has some of Connie Hall's finest cinematography and operates as a silent film of fine satanic high art... I love that film, apparently, more than most.

I too, like, david hare, was away (in Bermuda at list close) from my lib but found the whole commission to such a wildly varied decade of work a little too improvisational. Like choosing between your grandparents and your nephew & nieces.

Domino-- could you breathe a little more about THE ELUSIVE CORPORAL? I just cannot groove with this pic, but am receptive to a possible "way in". (CORDELIER, on the other hand, I do really love... I know its '59).

HerrSchreck wrote:Is SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON that underappreciated (or did I miss it on the list)? I couldnt have included Bava without including Moxey's CITY OF THE DEAD. If we're talking creepy horror and slinging underappreciated Gordons (vs the cc M and M set) THE DEVIL DOLL towers way up high. SO many lost and forgotten beauties-- INCUBUS has some of Connie Hall's finest cinematography and operates as a silent film of fine satanic high art... I love that film, apparently, more than most.

HerrSchreck, Bava didn't make the list and with your immeasurable love for the "underappreciated", what is your take on Bava? I'm very curious.

Sorry Mike, I missed this post.

I need to revisit the vast bulk of Bava on dvd. My last heavy venture into Bava territory was in the vhs age ie 1980s w some of the more obvious titles. I'm actually planning on going thru a bunch of this material since I've about exhausted so much of the available 40's & 50's B's I wanta see in this genre... and lost work like THE WHIP AND... have been recovered. And of course that everything has veen restored and transfered in widescreen when necc. Obviously fantastic sensitivty and aesthetic sense (and a guy who could do it all), a great delicacy missing in so much fantastic film (the kind of sensitivity and delicacy on display in say, LES YEUX SANS VISAGE). For a great discussion on what it was like to work with Bava I'd point you to Image's disc of FLIGHT TO MARS (stay with me here) starring Cameron Mitchell. Theres an extra on the disc featuring a couple of interviews w DelValle from Sinister, where they trace his lineage thru the cinema, starting w DEATH OF A SALESMAN on the NY stage, thru his golden age performances in the big studios, then on thru his sci-horror work.

In all his years and with all the directors Mitchell had worked with, he said that Bava was the best. He bemoaned the fact that he never got a truly great script-- and that if he did, he'd probably have gone down as the greatest director who ever lived. He goes on about his genius with mood, moving the camera (truly ballet-like), and lighting. He recounts working with him where these incredible camera moves are created by Bava sitting with the camera in a little childs red wagon, and the grip pulling him around this old Italian castle. It goes on at some length and I think you'd love it.

I don't know if Image is still doing it, but the packed up this film (FLIGHT) along with INVADERS FROM MARS (incredible, obligatory classic by Menzies) and some 80's schlock called ATTACK FROM MARS. But for the first two and the cheap price it is very worth it.

Neither sad nor panda-like here. No defense. Just a few orphaned 70s recs in case anyone is interested:

Zabriskie Point
Rasputin (made in 1975, but I guess imdb has it as an 80s film, so ...)
Uomini contro ... (Rosi's best chez moi) and Cadaveri eccellenti
Eat the Document (Pennebacker/Dylan experimental "doc")
Welfare (Wiseman)
Sayonara CP (Hara, available on r1)
Mandara and Uta (Jissoji, and pleased to see his Mujo at 59 and the Yoshida at 54, though I prefer Mandara and Yoshida's Heroic Purgatory)

Here are the unloved that I had on my top fifty:

48)- Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven (Fassbinder)- a suitably haunting RWF flick with an unsurpisingly affecting central performance from Brigitte Mira.

38)- The Homecoming (Peter Hall)- This is an unfussy adaptation of Pinter's play with brilliant performances. It would seem on the surface to be little more than a filmed play, but Hall uses the sparse, drab mise-en-scene in tandem with the pacing to effectively exploit the creepiness of the material. There's very little false opening-up, and it's as good as a film version of this great work as can be imagined.

37)- Bananas (Allen)- Absolutely ridiculous, but with more successful gags than it has any right to have. In many ways, this is probably Allen's funniest film, though Sleeper is smarter, perhaps.

36)- Blue Collar (Schrader)- This is the only Shrader film that really impresses me, and though it has moments that aren't entirely successful, it is remarkably nervy and astute. Here are some 70s anti-heroes that really aren't all that likable. For all of the acclaimed 'paranoid' state-of-the-nation American films of the decade, this one feels the most legitimate. Though he was apparently problematic on the set, credit has to also be given to Richard Pryor for doing this role, his very best. It's the only narrative film he was in that really suggested his genius. The other three movies I have here are probably more purely subjective choices, but I'm really surprised that I'm the only one to vote for this one.

Starting with my top 20, progressing to the desperate and dateless.

1. Mirror (Tarkovsky) – I’ve had such a long, intimate and rewarding relationship with this film I couldn’t not put it at the top. If that sounds sort of creepy, maybe it is!

2. The Man Who Left his Will on Film (Oshima) – This film is like 80,000 volts of cinematic originality straight to the chest, but it also rewards the brain and slyly sneaks in some unexpected emotional resonance.

3. The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting (Ruiz) – If anything, this is even more sui generis than the Oshima (which at least falls into / kickstarts a genre of intensely self-reflexive films): film as art historical conspiracy theory, all diagrams and inferences. But the conceit is completely captivating, and its expression gloriously cinematic as well as gloriously pictorial, because, try as you might, a tableau vivant will never be a still, and Sacha Vierney will always come to the party.

4. Traveller (Kiarostami) – First darling (to my great surprise – I’m impressed that the above two made the final cut). This pre-revolutionary masterpiece takes the ‘resourceful kid’ trope of much later Iranian cinema and turns it inside out. Our hero is nothing if not resourceful, but the consequences are disastrous. The end of the film has such an air of desperation and despair (maybe much more than the situation warrants): all those bridges burnt, and for what? For me, it’s one of the most powerful movie climaxes I can think of.

5. Celine and Julie Go Boating (Rivette) – Sheer delight, and another one-of-a-kind movie, if you don’t count other Rivettes.

6. A Walk through H (Greenaway) – Darling number two. As far as I’m concerned, when Greenaway started making features, he rapidly lost my interest, but his early shorts are wonderfully inventive. This rich, strange film (views of works in an exhibition) is a cousin of the Ruiz in terms of its conspiracy-fuelled art criticism, and it’s one that gets weirder and more disorienting as it progresses. Given the simplicity of its means, it’s a great testament to the power of narrative – all of the magic is in our minds.

7. My Ain Folk (Douglas) – Number three. Only one other vote was received for the Bill Douglas Trilogy, and it was for the same part of it. If this was collusion, it didn’t really work, but the two of us have the inner satisfaction of knowing that, come the BFI release, a whole lot of you will probably be slapping your foreheads. Quite simply one of the all-time great British films.

8. The Travelling Players (Angelopoulos) – This also did far better than I’d expected, especially considering its relative inaccessibility. I’ve raved at length about it already.

9. La Maison du bois (Pialat) – I was the only lonely voice for any Pialat this time around (and I was also sorely tempted to add Passe ton bac d’abord to my 50). I think Rohmer identified this as Pialat’s greatest work. I don’t think I’d go quite that far, but it’s nevertheless magnificent: one of the greatest, most oblique war films I’ve ever seen, infected with death and disaster despite its idyllic setting. I’m getting shivers just thinking about the final episode.

10. The Hired Hand (Fonda) – My boosting seems to have got this a couple of other votes, but not enough to get it in the charts. I still think this is a much more interesting film than so much other ‘New Hollywood’ material, and as autumnal eye candy it leaves even Days of Heaven for dead.

11. The Ossuary (Svankmajer) – Incredible editing, showing that Svankmajer is so much more than just a master animator, and probably my favourite score of all time, courtesy the genius of Zdenek Liska.

12. Jeanne Dielman. . . (Akerman) – What an alacritous fall! All the big Akerman fans got their votes in early, but then the well almost completely dried up. Another of those wonderful 70s films that reinvents cinema, if only in the subjunctive.

13. 3 Women (Altman) – I think the domination of the vote by Altman is well deserved. He had a pretty amazing decade, and made probably the best long-term use of the fluke freedoms of that time in Hollywood. Case in point – could this film have been made there at any other time by any other director?

14. Fontane Effi Briest (Fassbinder) – Already pre-defended. Clinging forlornly to the last rung of the ladder. One of Fassbinder’s superficially most traditional but actually most radical films.

15. Mujo (Jissoji) – Or, how to get an unknown masterpiece onto a best-of list. This has to be seen to be believed. First time through it seemed heavily indebted to Yoshida, but now it’s breathing its own rarefied air.

16. Nashville (Altman) – Another early contender whose votes sort of dried up. The best of his rambling ensemble pieces (just as 3 Women was the best of his wacko experimental pieces, and The Long Goodbye is probably the best of his genre updates).

17. Walkabout (Roeg) – By far my favourite Roeg. Didn’t have room for Don’t Look Now this time around.

18. Spirit of the Beehive (Erice) – Ultimately could not withstand the Hollywood tide, but miles ahead for the first half of the voting. Availability is 80% of this game.

19. Mes Petites Amoureuses (Eustache) – Some healthy respect for The Mother and the Whore, but no love for this superb, deceptively casual memory piece.

20. The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes (Brakhage) – Like Salo, it’s not a film I can claim to like, but I can’t deny its transfixing, transformative power.

The Abandoned and Unloved

I’ve just realised that almost all the rest of my list is darlings, so this will take some time (pour yourself a stiff drink, maybe). When I was compiling I was thrilled to see supporting votes for lots of these, but hardly any made the threshold for the final list.

21. La Gueule ouverte (Pialat) – As pitiless an exploration of dying as the Brakhage above is of death, which would probably be enough, but it also has one of the greatest music scenes in cinema and one of the greatest camera movements (in terms of actually embodying the emotional requirements of the shot, rather than empty Kubrickian technical sizzle).

22. American Boy (Scorsese) – I’d much rather spend time with the unhinged Stephen Prince than any of Scorsese’s fiction features of the 70s, good as they are.

25. Abigail's Party (Leigh) – British film was pretty conspicuously ignored. No other Leigh got a mention. This is cinematically probably his least interesting 70s work (unlike most of the other films, it’s studio-bound, TV-style shooting), but it’s excruciatingly funny and flawlessly acted. So, do you think we can listen to Demis Roussos?

26. Kings of the Road (Wenders) – I’m flabbergasted. No Wenders made the cut? (I guess somebody had to make way for all those Woody Allen movies ) As far as I’m concerned, Wenders' is one of the defining bodies of work of the decade, more impressive than Herzog’s and with fewer misfires than Fassbinder’s (though obviously there are economies of scale in that regard!) This came closest, but not close enough.

28. Salo (Pasolini) – Also something of a surprise, given its notoriety. Again, it’s not a film I like, but I can’t help being engaged by it.

30. Mathias Kneissl (Hauff) – My sense impressions of the film are at this distance much stronger than my specific memories, but that says something for its brooding atmosphere, at least.

31. Elektreia (Jancso) – If I’d jumped into bed with Red Psalm, at least some Jancso would have made the list. He certainly deserves it, for taking his aesthetic to such extremes in the 1970s. It may be stunt filmmaking, but what a stunt!

32. The Phone Box (Mercero) – A perfect short film, practically wordless, initially comic but progressively creepy. Like almost all of its admirers, I saw this film unannounced on late night TV and have never been able to forget it, try as I might (and you really do want to forget it when you get into a phone booth).

34. A Swedish Love Story (Andersson) – Such a great film, but it’s sort of in limbo. You can’t really recommend it to Bergman fans (the obvious point of reference for Swedish cinema of the period) and you can’t really recommend it to Andersson fans, since it’s about as far as it’s possible to get from Songs from the Second Floor or You, the Living. And describing it doesn’t convey its brilliance. So I’m afraid you’ll just have to trust me and pay through the nose for the excellent Swedish disc (fully Englished, even the commentary), or live on in blissful ignorance.

35. Coup d'etat (Yoshida) – This and Eros Plus Massacre were sort of flip-flopping in their positions, but I saw Eros last and it came out on top.

37. Melody (Averty) – Long-form music video for the entire Histoire de Melody Nelson album, one of the greatest albums of the 70s (if you don’t agree, you haven’t heard it). The album itself suggests Ligeti collaborating with Pink Floyd on a porn soundtrack, but this film is a phantasmagoric orgy of early video effects (bluescreens, layer upon layer of superimposition), with Gainsbourg and Birkin acting out the vestigial storyline in a series of impossible spaces.

38. Wanda Gosciminska – Weaver (Wiszniewski) – A last-minute discovery, and another sui generis, almost indescribable film. See PWA thread for more incoherent babbling.

40. Hello Skinny (Whifler) – Extremely creepy video for an extremely creepy song, sort of like John Heartfield out-Lynching David Lynch.

41. Fata Morgana (Herzog) – The first time I saw this (washed out 16mm) I didn’t like it much, but then I saw it in a decent 35mm print. It’s a film that completely depends on that kind of visual intensity: the DVD is an interesting souvenir, I suppose, but it doesn’t compare.

42. Days of 36 (Angelopoulos) – It’s a much less ambitious film than The Travelling Players, but it’s still mighty impressive, and makes me keen to see his other films from the period.

43. Tree of Wooden Clogs (Olmi) – There’s much Olmi I haven’t seen, but what I have is all good. I was surprised that the general enthusiasm here for his Criterion titles didn’t translate into interest in this great film, which is readily available.

45. Family Life (Loach) – Or, the little engine that couldn’t. Even two eleventh-hour high placings didn’t get it into the Lukewarm 100. If you’re not a Loach fan, make sure you see this before dismissing him completely.

46. A Wedding (Altman) – Maybe the ultimate of his ensemble films, so much going on that it’s constantly on the brink of dissolving into pure anarchy. But it has one of my favourite moments in 70s cinema when the film reaches its tragic climax. But people’s definitions of tragedy may differ.

47. Junior Bonner (Peckinpah) – Peckinpah was something of a dilemma for me. In terms of pure filmmaking, he’s one of my favourite 70s directors, and even his worst films have arresting sequences, edits and shots. The problem is, most of those films have also got aspects that don’t really work for me, or rub me up the wrong way. He had to be on the list, though, and it was a toss-up between this and Alfredo Garcia (though The Getaway has proved surprisingly resilient as well), and I figured this one needed my help more, and is great evidence of Peckinpah’s range. I was right – it got a grand total of 18 points.

50. The Ear (Kachyna) – This got a lot of mentions, but didn’t scrape up many votes. Last place on my list was a revolving door for worthy lost causes. My final ‘top 50’ list ran to well over 100 titles and any one of them could have ended up in this spot!

Stealing zedz's format, here's some cherry-picked excerpts from my list:

01 Wrong Move (Wenders) The most audacious movie I've ever seen, it tears away at road movie conventions until the film is finally revealed to be one of the most deeply cynical statements ever made. And no one voted for it but me.

02 Claire's Knee (Rohmer) A stunning summation of the worst qualities of men.

03 Little Murders (Arkin) A satire so good that its unpopularity seems almost criminal. And no one voted for it but me.

04 Paper Moon (Bogdanovich) Look at Tatum O'Neil and then look at the kids who get nominated now for Oscars, and you'll see that for every step forward, the film industry still takes two back.

05 the Parallax View (Pakula) The epitome of the paranoid seventies thriller, this big budget film is so bleak and pessimistic that it's amazing it ever got made at all.

06 All the President's Men (Pakula) It takes a truly masterful (and shamefully overlooked) director to somehow turn a case everyone knows the facts about into an effective thriller. Action movies be damned, this is the most exciting film I've ever seen-- and the whole thing is sent up beautifully in an even better film, Dick (which I imagine will place around this spot on my 90s list).

07 Don't Look Now (Roeg) A haunting warning on the dangers of rejecting faith, few films achieve this movie's tangible sense of unease and dread.

08 Network (Lumet) Remember when mainstream films really had the balls to do something like this?

09 Nickelodeon (Bogdanovich) A film that reaffirms the necessity of the cinema in its characters' lives-- a message we can all receive warmly, I would think. And no one voted for it but me.

10 the Godfather (Coppola) Most "Best Movie Everrrrr" films don't earn their storied reputations-- this one does.

11 Love and Death (Allen) Allen's funniest film (not counting Play It Again Sam).

13 Celine and Julie Go Boating (Rivette) I groaned going in because it was over three hours long. By the end, I could have easily kept watching for another three.

14 Innocents With Dirty Hands (Chabrol) The epitome of the laidback, just fun film thriller Chabrol does best. And no one voted for it but me.

16 Frenzy (Hitchcock) One of Hitchcock's best films, the potato truck scene is a masterpiece. Family Plot's a lot better than most make it out to be too, but not enough to make this list.

17 Un Flic (Melville) Melville's best film. Gosh, haven't heard me drop that chestnut before eh

18 the Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting (Ruiz) Spellbinding. Binds a spell. You will be left spellbound. You're bound to be... spell... spellbound.

20 Sleuth (Mankiewicz) When you have two actors and a script this good, Norman Taurog could have knocked it out of the park. But with Mankiewicz behind the camera for the last time, it soars. And no one voted for it but me.

24 Play It Again Sam (Ross) Woody Allen's funniest movie (not counting Love and Death).

29 Sunday Bloody Sunday (Schlesinger) I'm very cool on Schlesinger, but he got this one right. Finch in particular is terrific-- "You even remember my name!" And no one voted for it but me.

34 Klute (Pakula) Obviously worth seeing primarily for Fonda (who never looked better), with the morning-after scene with Sutherland being a particularly winning kick in the stomach.

domino harvey wrote:18 the Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting (Ruiz) Spellbinding. Binds a spell. You will be left spellbound. You're bound to be... spell... spellbound.

So a must for fans of Siouxsie and the Banshees?

1. Mirror
I have been a Tarkovsky fan for about a decade, and I had seen every one of his feature-length films—except this one. My too-long-kevyipped AE DVD finally made it into my DVD player after I resigned myself to not seeing this on the big screen anytime soon. Now it’s not only my favorite Tarkovsky, it’s my favorite film of the 1970s.

2. The Spirit of the Beehive
Just perfection, and yes, that includes seeing Franky at the end.

3. Eraserhead
I saw this for the first time when I was in 8th grade, after having had my skull split open by Blue Velvet. My English teacher recommended I see it, and pointed me to the only video store in town that had it. I watched it twice in a row—it scraped the inside of my skull out. I then wrote a review of it for my Junior High newspaper, which was censored because I described the chickens the fam has for dinner as “ejaculating blood.”

4. Punishment Park
I saw this for the first time when I blind-bought the MoC disc. It was one of those “cinema will never be the same for me” moments. It also scared the shit out of me.

5. Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle
Herzog’s version of the Kaspar Hauser story is wonderfully eerie and beautiful, and probably his best non-documentary film. I can’t help but think Bruno S. is really not acting at all, and the tension there between this person whose life resembled that of the real Kaspar Hauser in many ways, and his “performance” as this person is uncannily palpable. Oh, and it’s also a funny film, which just makes it even more strange.

6. The Conversation
I never cared for Coppola, and this is his only film that made my list. It ranks this high because I have seen it at least six or seven times, and each time it becomes richer. One of the finest uses of sound in a narrative film, it also includes Gene Hackman’s best performance, and is a subtly crafted symbolic work. I get goose bumps through the whole two hours.

7. The Act of Seeing With One’s Own Eyes
I have viewed this film once, and I never want to see it again. But it completely changed the way I see the world. Not many films do that.

8. The Marriage of Maria Brown
My first Fassbinder, and almost my favorite. Could there be a more powerful ending?

9. The Traveler
Kiarostami is in my opinion the finest living director, and this, his second feature-length film, is a masterpiece. It’s also a rare glimpse at pre-Revolutionary Iran.

10. Family Life
I viewed this on zedz’s recommendation and could not have been prepared for the intensity of the performances in it, despite The List Master’s laudatory review.

14. Fontane Effi Briest
Listen to zedz: this is Fassbinder at his most radical, even though it appears stately and overly formal. Amazing cinematography. Also a rare film adaptation of a masterpiece of a novel that’s almost as good as the book.

18. The Hired Hand
Forget Peckinpah’s Westerns: this is the film that redefined the genre, but nobody was looking.

21. Hitler: ein Film aus Deutschland
Over 7 hours? No plot? Just a bunch of guys lecturing or acting out the roles of Himmler and his masseur or doing a ventriloquist act with a Hitler puppet? Yeah, and you’ll never forget it! Brilliant.

22. The Great Ecstasy of the Woodcutter Steiner
And it’s something like “ecstasy” that Herzog manages to capture on film. A Herzog primer of sorts.

25. Moses und Aron
Straub and Huillet’s film version of Schoenberg’s opera is no mere filming of a staged opera. The directors careful staging and mise-en-scene adeptly engages with the story’s central theme of what can and cannot be represented.

26. The Wedding Suit
Funny, charming, suspenseful—and some of the best directing of children I’ve ever seen. This early Kiarostami film (again, pre-revolution) is pure pleasure.

29. La Souffriere
Another Herzog primer, this one of the blind destructiveness of nature. Also a meditation of mortality. So beautiful.

30. Alice in the Cities
My favorite 70s Wenders. Dunno why, but I find it transfixing.

36. Fata Morgana
In which Herzog captures on film a bus that pulls up in the distance, stops, lets people out, who proceed to walk toward the camera—but they’re not there! If that isn’t creepy, there’s plenty more in here that is more so, and then surreal and melancholy altogether. It’s an astounding work.

37. Xala
Very funny story about a man who marries a third much younger wife, but has trouble consummating the marriage. The travails of his impotence become a kind of absurd farce. Brilliant.

39. Solution, No. 1 (Kiarostami)
One of Kiarostami’s short films that comically and ingeniously presents one of his later obsessions in miniature, namely the automobile ride.

46. The Experience
Kiarostami’s first feature length. Sadly unavailable on video.

50. Bread and Alley
Kiarostami’s first film, a short about a boy and a dog that could not have been directed by anyone else.

And even though I talked it up in the 70s thread, I forgot to include Hitchcock's Frenzy, which should have been on my list.

Even Dwarfs Started Small (Werner Herzog, 1970) - Even the soundtrack is amazing. There's really no need to defend this as there's obviously a certain "type" of film viewer who will be captivated and absorbed. Others who will either try to read too much into it or just be turned off from the get go.

The Mother and the Whore (Jean Eustache, 1973) - Like Trash except more accomplished and less funny.

Home From the Sea (Yoji Yamada, 1972) - This is what Shindo's Naked Island should have been like. In other words, none of the overly-theatric "minimalism." Great performances all around.

Trash (Paul Morrissey, 1970) - Like The Mother and the Whore but more funny and less accomplished.

The Meetings of Anna (Chantal Akerman, 1978) - The only Akerman I've seen from the 70s, hence the only one that makes my list. Hopefully, I'll fix this the next time we do this in 2018.

Sweet Movie (Dusan Makavejev, 1974) - Some goofy stuff but spontaneous as all hell with some of the most beautiful images ever.

Two-Lane Blacktop (Monte Hellman, 1971) - Nowhere near as groundbreaking as Akerman's stuff, but there's enough Tsai-esque motifs to make me totally love this.

Over the Edge (Jonathan Kaplan, 1979) - Oddly enough, I saw this on TV two days after I submitted my list and I noticed for just the first time how conventional some of it is.

Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974 (Kazuo Hara, 1974) - Live child birth...twice! It runs out of steam afterwards but everything before said scenes is amazing.

Je t'aime moi non plus (Serge Gainsbourg, 1976) - Jane Birkin and Little Joe - 'nuff said. There's also a completely random scene with Gérard Depardieu on a horse thrown in for good measures.

Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets (Shuji Terayama, 1971) - It's been forever since I've seen this but it's hard to forget that scene where the guy is walking with his sister who has just been gang rape and some guy carrying deer (?) meat on his back walks right by...

Brewster McCloud (Robert Altman, 1970) - More than half of the jokes fall totally flat, but it seems, at times, that this almost intentional. It doesn't get much more quirky than this!

A few darlings of mine...

2: Scream and Scream Again. Nice to see some post list love for this. However, for me it works less as a horror film and more as a 70s paranoia piece, a la Parallax View. The plot makes very little sense, but that just adds to the general paranoia. And the use of Peter Cushing in a minute role, often criticised, opens up interesting readings. Along with my number 6 choice, the highpoint of Amicus's output (although owing not a small bit to co-producers AIP).

5: 1900. Have I missed something? Is this hiding on the list? On the lower limits last time, now am I really the only voter? Or have my eyes just given up in the early weeks of fatherhood (I remember sleep...). Whatever - flawed, messy but my favourite Bertolucci. And I'm a sucker for these generational epics.

6: From Beyond The Grave: Other Amicus anthologies were more popular and are better remembered, but this is my favourite. Genuinely eerie stories - the second with Donald and Angela Pleasance is often compared to Pinter - and the best comedy episode from the anthologies. The framing device is not as obviously clever as some of the others, but pays dividends for the final story. Oh - and the League of Gentlemen love it.

20: The Driver: I'm a major Hill fan - and this might be his leanest, purest work. There are more below.

27: Piranha: My wife loves the sound the Piranhas make. Genius exploitation pastichery from Dante and Sayles.

32: The Fog: A sentimental favourite - which makes me jump every time I see it.

37: The Warriors: I haven't seen the new cut, but the original is marvellous - right down to the strangely empty ending.

42: Hard Times / The Streetfighter: Hill's debut - and Bronson's best film after Once Upon A Time in the West.

47: Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny & Girly. Almost impossible to find - I have a pirate from a Danish TV broadcast. Freddie Francis at his 70's best as a director, this is one of those films you just can't believe you have just watched.

domino harvey wrote:01 Wrong Move (Wenders) And no one voted for it but me.

Not quite - I put it in at 35, and ought to have put it higher. Certainly one of the best German films of the decade.

As for the rest (top 5 plus non-charting):

1. The Passenger (Antonioni)
Glad this made the top 10. Only re-released a few years ago, but as far as I am concerned it is the perfect 70s film, with some of the best cinematography ever, and Nicholson demonstrating a restraint he rarely attained elsewhere.

2. O Lucky Man! (Anderson)
Lindsay Anderson's most bizarre and sprawling film, and Malcolm McDowell's favourite project.

3. Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Akerman)
Perhaps the closest a narrative feature has got to emulating 'real time'.

4. Vertical Features Remake (Greenaway)
Another classic early short, affectionately parodying the rigorous systematic editing of structural film, and first introducing the elusive Tulse Luper. Unlike Zedz, I don't think Greenaway lost it after this, and remain a fan of most of his work up to the present day.

5. Crimes of the Future (Cronenberg)
I appear to have been the only voter for this, one of Cronenberg's experimental no-budget student films. A sort of drifting, dystopian sci-fi masterpiece, unfolding in the concrete spaces of Toronto. Although I love his later work also, I wish he had returned to the same uncommercial vein at some point.

7. My Ain Folk (Douglas)
Like Zedz, I rate the Douglas Trilogy highly. I've only seen this once, but the stark monochrome imagery ranks with the best of the silent era. An intensely visual cinema that makes most British product look like inept TV filler (which it usually is).

10. Serene Velocity (Gehr)
The American avant-garde fared poorly in this list, perhaps because it is almost invisible on DVD. I finally had a chance to see some Ernie Gehr films last year: this one, a silent concertina motion between alternating shots of a university corridor, is perhaps the purest achievement of structural film.

11. Tout va bien (Godard/Gorin)
Despite the Criterion, no obvious enthusiasm for this one. Perhaps it's too stridently political in the Week-End vein, but I find the cartoonish Marxist set pieces envigorating.

12. L’Éden et après (Robbe-Grillet)
Perhaps his recent death will prompt a reappraisal. I increasingly think that Robbe-Grillet was actually as great a filmmaker as Resnais, and at times more so. This one contains elements of exploitation, but set in a bewildering labyrinth of fragmented narrative.

15. Critical Mass (Frampton)
A simple but ingenious device, editing a spoken argument so that every phrase loops back on itself, exacerbating the sense of non-communication.

17. Winstanley (Brownlow)
Another forgotten British gem, by film historian Kevin Brownlow. This is no ordinary period drama, as the radical Diggers movement of the 1640s, and its leader Winstanley, are lovingly reconstructed (cf. Watkins's Culloden).

18. 1 PM (Pennebaker)
An aborted Godard project turned into an eccentric piece of direct cinema, combining interviews with Black Panthers (played back and imitated by Rip Torn), Jefferson Airplane performing on an NY rooftop, and a ridiculous attempt to incite uprising in a classroom.

19. Ludwig: Requiem for a Virgin King (Syberberg)
I haven't had a chance to see Hitler yet, but have seen this earlier piece, a 'biopic' of the 19th century Bavarian king (forget Visconti). I love the screaming artifice of this style, with flattened back projections and stilted theatrical performances that prefigure the best of Greenaway.

21. Still (Gehr)
More Gehr: a Warholian static shot of a street, mostly in double exposure. Cars and pedestrians move in and out of frame. Another questioning of everyday perception. (Just noticed that the IMDB lists this as 1969 - oops - but it was finished in 1971.)

22. India Song (Duras)
Another great nouveau romancier's independent foray onto the screen (actually she has 19 directorial credits, according to the IMDB). As hypnotic as the prose.

23. King Lear (Brook)
One of the most radical Shakespeare films, with Paul Scofield delivering lines in a crushing dead pan style. Can any stage version compare?

24. Hotel Monterey (Akerman)
A discovery from last year's Akerman set, as she moves a camera around the spaces of a hotel. Phantom hints of other great hotel films (Marienbad and The Shining?), minus the narrative.

26. Radio On (Petit)
File this next to Douglas and Brownlow in the 'neglected British' category (a new BFI DVD may help rectify that). Freely inspired by Wenders's Wrong Move, and using the German's cinematographer, this mournfully dreary small-scale road trip fully captures the blankness of England's motorways, climaxing with Kraftwerk's 'Ohm Sweet Ohm' on the edge of a quarry.

27. Winter Solstice (Frampton) [not listed in IMDB]
Part of Hollis Frampton's Magellan cycle: abstract images of molten metal in a steel foundry.

28. Moses and Aaron (Straub/Huillet)
As defended by Denti above. An austere staging of an austere opera. S & H impose the discipline of early cinema upon themselves, and generally impress. Wish there were more on DVD.

29. Der Leone have sept cabeças (Rocha)
Only seen this in atrocious VHS quality, but it's a lunatic African panorama featuring Jean-Pierre Leaud as a preacher.

30. The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes (Brakhage)
Aestheticised autopsy footage, harking back to anatomical paintings. Human body parts still more taboo than the genitals. Got quite a few votes, it seems.

31. Running Fence (Maysles/Maysles/Zwerin)
Less intimate than Grey Gardens, but I think I prefer it. One of the Christo films, following the Bulgarian artist's project to erect a continual fence of white fabric through the farms of rural California. Many amusing arguments on the artistic value of such a scheme. A Herzogian document of monomaniacal overreach.

There are plenty more 'darlings' on the list, but I've run out of energy to comment on them. Names that would be on here if I'd seen their 70s stuff: Michael Snow, Raoul Ruiz (have been too lazy to get that French disc).

Anyway, have enjoyed reading this thread. The 70s really were a stunningly diverse cinematic decade.

Gropius wrote:

domino harvey wrote:01 Wrong Move (Wenders) And no one voted for it but me.

Not quite - I put it in at 35, and ought to have put it higher. Certainly one of the best German films of the decade.

And I had it at 46, easily the best German film of the 70s (an overrated decade, to be sure).

Gropius wrote:11. Tout va bien (Godard/Gorin)
Despite the Criterion, no obvious enthusiasm for this one. Perhaps it's too stridently political in the Week-End vein, but I find the cartoonish Marxist set pieces envigorating..

Hmm, I had it at #12... were we the only two who voted for it?

I can't believe I missed Wrong Move on the also-ran final tally, at least some faith in humanity has been restored by it placing on other lists.

Even though Fosse's masterpiece All That Jazz made the list, I'm surprised that Cabaret didn't. Cabaret is such a gorgeous-photographed film with astounding performances from Liza and Joel. The background is fantastically gritty and dark. What film could be more perfect than Cabaret to dig up the grave for the long and beautiful Hollywood musical era?

O Lucky Man! (Anderson, 1973) A stunning film, it's criticism of capitalism, the journey, the horror, the performance. I had no idea it was three hours when I put it on but as it ended I shouted "no" at the TV. I really didn't want it to end.

Scenes from a Marriage (Bergman, 1973) I guess I must be in the minority of people who actually want their partner to watch the film with. I think it's important and it will make you question everything about the person you share your life with and such challenges are important. Cinematically the film is not striking but there is something about it's televisual simplicity that I find so absorbing, there is an intimacy to the way Bergman shoots - for television we are closer to the characters but this serves the film so well as we feel so close to them, we see every nuance and look - made possible by the fantastic central performances.

Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (Petri, 1970) One of the best openings I have ever seen. I do so enjoy Gian Maria Volonte's performances and this may be his best. Petri's aesthetic is delightful - crafting imagery that is so complex, full of symbols and surrealist imagery the film is richly rewarding on all counts not to mention Morricone's excellent score (on of my faves).

The Mattei Affair (Rosi, 1972) Volonte again though under Rosi's direction and another fine performance. The film is typical of Rosi's investigate thrillers, exquisitely shot. The film also features some stunning scenes, I particularly remember the oil fire (There Will Be Blood eat your heart out). The film is particularly interesting as near the end Rosi himself appears questioning the disappearance of a journalist - which in fact happened in real life and just like the film seeks to answer no questions but only to reveal them Rosi demonstrates how corrupt the Mattei affair was to the point that the scandal has infected his own narrative.

Shura (Matsumoto, 1971) There doesn't seem to be any praise for Matsumoto's features except Funeral Parade of Roses though I personally adore this. The film is nothing like the former, featuring stunning photography and good performances the film's greatest success is it's editing in which Matsumoto replays fragments of scenes over and over giving a repetitive nature of the protagonist's vision of reality and desire which gives the audience an unsettling experience - which adds to the horror of the film and truly so I found certain moments of violence shocking even for today.

Stuff I should have voted for but forgot or saw after I handed the list in:

Domicile Conjugal (Truffaut, 1970) This just slipped off my records and I forgot the year but consider it such a lovely film, something I imagine I will return to along with Salinger's short stories when I want to 'take time off'. The film is no masterpiece but I enjoy the characters and the dialogue and the situations Doinel gets himself into. And what a lovely score!

Scream and Scream Again (Hessler, 1970) Pure fun. The film is a rip roaring piece of pulp with multiple narratives all meeting eventually with the great Cushing, Price and Lee not to mention, the best of all the detective who can throw rocks with such precise aim as to bring down his suspect (watch it and you'll see)!

That Obscure Object of Desire (Bunuel, 1977) There is something so amazing about Bunuel's films that holds my attention. As the film worked it's way forwards it became clear that this was not quite like the famous late Bunuel, even more of a departure than Belle de Jour, though in quite a different (and better) way. The film is ostensibly quite conventional in terms of it's narrative and structure - the film is full of such wonderful moments that watching it is irresistible to me. The opening sequence bleeds effortlessly into the train journey where I am reminded of those wonderful portmanteau Amicus films, though the film is not portmanteau at all, the narrative is linear and cohesive. Cause and effect reign supreme. But there are flourishes, moments, subtleties that make this a Bunuel film for all of it's conventionality. We see people peer into the lens of the camera. We see the stylisations of the set that are so effortlessly stylised that they almost draw attention to themselves as a stylisation. Two actresses as Conchita, Michel Piccoli's voice. I won't blather on as I am sure everyone is familiar with this film, but for those who aren't pick this up now!

Cries and Whispers (Bergman, 1972) Sven Nykvist's photography is some of the best I have ever seen. The film gives off a strange, horrific quality which works brilliantly. The narrative is tight and simple. The cast as always are excellent. Harriet Anderson plays the dying sister with a stunning performance and as she wretches you can't help but feel her pain. The two sisters; the venomous Ingrid Thulin and the smiling Liv Ullman are wonderful (Liv Ullman's quick aside with the doctor Erland Josephson, a quick kiss and debate is practically a practice run for Scenes from a Marriage). Playing Anna, Kari Sylwan gives a great silent performance, the relationship between Anna and Agnes is confusing at times and I wondered about why Anna bears her breasts and embraces Agnes but quickly decided that it was a sign of maternal love rather than anything sexual, Bergman does not shoot the scenes erotically. The film is about pain and suffering, the scene in which Karin puts a piece of glass into her vagina is truly terrifying and she intends to cause herself pain as well as her husband, visual and sexual, though obviously he has no choice for sexual contact after this and I think that is part of the film, it keeps sex at bay and favours suffering, we see the blood but no touching or sexual embrace. Even the scene between Maria and the doctor is cut short in favour of the doctor telling Maria about her wrinkles and her decayed personality - the film is about decay, a cancerous disease which has gripped one sister and seemigly torn a family apart - the abject comes to haunt the sisters even after her death Agnes is still alive in her bed calling to her sisters, though they will have nothing to do with it, it is only the meek, subservient, pure Anna who is comfortable with this contact. The sisters are corrupted, wearing darker clothes, afraid of love, unable to speak to each other, unable to engage in their own familial relationships (both their family lives are a farce it seems). By the end the house has fallen apart, the sisters parting on superficial promises already cracking. Agnes's last memory of happiness and purity - she and her sisters in the garden, wearing white being rocked on the swing by Anna. A masterpiece.

Dr Amicus wrote:5: 1900. Have I missed something? Is this hiding on the list? On the lower limits last time, now am I really the only voter?

Yep. I found this hard to believe as well. Though I seem to be temperamentally incompatible with Bertolucci, I thought he was a pet director around here. Maybe the much-anticipated DVD release disappointed everybody? I was also surprised by the placing of Last Tango, which barely made the top 50.

Gropius wrote:22. India Song (Duras)
Another great nouveau romancier's independent foray onto the screen (actually she has 19 directorial credits, according to the IMDB). As hypnotic as the prose.

Duras was a bit of a dilemma for me and ended up in the too-hard basket outside my top 50. I've seen a fair bit of her 70s work, but only once, some time ago, and it was all so strong and unusual that no single film emerged as the main contender. This film, the most celebrated, would be the logical choice, but I actually preferred Nathalie Granger, Le Camion and Le Navire Night at the time. Thinking about it now, I'd probably go with Le Camion if pressed, but probably only because it's so structurally perverse: Duras and Depardieu discuss the film you think you're going to see (but aren't) while a truck pootles around France, never really arriving at its eponymous film. Until the end, when you realise that was it. It's like do-it-yourself cinema: here's a story, here's an actor and a director, here are some shots of a truck, here's a feature-length running time, why should we bother to make the film when you can assemble it in your own head?

zedz wrote: Le Camion if pressed, but probably only because it's so structurally perverse: Duras and Depardieu discuss the film you think you're going to see (but aren't) while a truck pootles around France, never really arriving at its eponymous film. Until the end, when you realise that was it. It's like do-it-yourself cinema: here's a story, here's an actor and a director, here are some shots of a truck, here's a feature-length running time, why should we bother to make the film when you can assemble it in your own head?

That's sounds fascinating. Is this available anywhere?

Gropius wrote:The American avant-garde fared poorly in this list, perhaps because it is almost invisible on DVD.

Yes it did, with little help from me to my head-slapping chagrin. Events in the days and weeks leading up to the deadline forced a last-minute and rather conventional list out of me in retrospect. I left off a number of films I had wanted to include. Hutton's New York Near Sleep, Dorsky's Alaya (though the date range on this would have put its eligibility into question) and Jack Chambers’ The Hart of London, which probably would have cracked my top 15 (written about beautifully by Fred Camper here and here). Even Brakhage, especially The Text of Light. I stand by my list (what a decade…), but I regret not including these extraordinary films—I surely would have found a way to do so. I did include Gehr's Eureka, a stunning film in which Gehr takes a five minute film from 1905 and slows it down 8:1. The result is a film on the cusp of cinema and photography with a camera floating very slowly down San Francisco's busy and booming Market Street at the turn of the century. It’s a remarkable film and one that has stuck with me for so long (so hard to see though!). Gehr gives you time to notice everything... the periphery, the choreography of it all (passerby after passerby entering and exiting the frame, glancing once or twice at the camera, while sidestepping and narrowly avoiding horse carts, automobiles, and the trolley car the camera is hitching a ride on). The sense of off-screen space. The past being resurrected by experimental means. Everything is wonderous in this gem of a film (somebody reviewed it here)

Another darling of mine was The Honeymoon Killers (top 20 for me), which I thought had a chance of making the final list since it’s in the collection. What a film. Really, a tremendous film. A couple more: Le Boucher and Five Easy Pieces.

Another darling of mine was The Honeymoon Killers (top 20 for me), which I thought had a chance of making the final list since it’s in the collection. What a film. Really, a tremendous film.

I also voted for it. Very high on my list. Great film in every way.