The 1970s can easily be described by most as the “return of Hollywood” or rather a Hollywood renaissance coupled with the birth of the new age of blockbusters. This renaissance began a decade earlier but didn’t seem to get much credibility from the big decision makers until Easy Rider made a boatload of money. This in turn spawned a number of green lights to seemingly unthinkable films in the past, some were complete disasters (Dennis Hopper’s follow up The Last Movie infamously failed to match it’s predecessor’s success), and others have remained cult classics and certified landmarks (Monte Hellman’s Two Lane Blacktop, Bob Raefelson’s Five Easy Pieces, and many more). Even some of the old guard tried to cash in on this hippy films, Otto Preminger’s Skidoo one of the most notorious examples. However the films of Robert Altman, Michael Cimeno, Martin Scorsese, William Friedkin, and Terence Malick among others are still justly praised.
Of course to think that it was all experimental and personal cinema is ignoring a lot of very obvious films. Perhaps like always Hollywood found a successful formula then milked it dry til it ceased to turn a profit. When Melvin Van Peebles scored a very surprising hit with Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song suddenly black filmmakers were given a green light to make films where they fight, and beat “the man”. This in turn brought about the relatively popular and well received Shaft and Superfly (whose soundtracks might be better known than the films today), and in turn too many sequels. Then typical white hack filmmakers were told to crank out blaxploitation films and everything went downhill (Sheba, Baby anyone?). The same can be said for the strange phenomenon of pornographic films. It’s hard to explain to young people that porno was very much en vogue and something that intellectuals and couples went to see in regular movie theaters. My great grandmother even went to see Deep Throat (and recounted the plot of the film to much hilarity over a holiday dinner). This too started to pan out as the plot and innovative qualities of the films gave way to more and more graphic sex, and then good old VHS relegated it to rooms in the back of video stores and eventually the internet. Although still today films like Behind the Green Door, The Devil in Miss Jones, and Mona are still among the most interesting films of the decade.
Parallel to this was the enormous success of The Towering Inferno, which was one of the earliest modern examples of two studios joining together to produce a film, populating the cast with nothing but stars (including OJ Simpson) and setting a skyscraper on fire thereby setting the disaster film cycle in order. These films continued with more stars and eventually less original ideas until eventually the idea of getting as many recognizable faces in a film proved unprofitable and pointless (A Bridge Too Far par example). Also this was a decade that celebrated films like Nicholas and Alexandra which had 6 Oscar Nominations, which along with Fiddler on the Roof seems to acknowledge everything wrong with the old system of making movies. Again pardon me for looking at a half empty glass, but there was a whole lot of garbage to be found in the 70s, and lets not even get into the world of made for TV movies.
In 1969, Z was nominated for a best picture Oscar, this broke a 31 year stretch without a foreign language film nominated for the top prize, of course it didn’t win (Midnight Cowboy surprisingly took the prize) but a new precedent was set. The Emmigrants and Cries and Whispers also received best picture nominations in the 70s and Lina Wertmuller became the first woman to be nominated for best director with Seven Beauties in 1976 (one of her competitors was Ingmar Bergman for Face to Face). The cultural landscape of films was changing and an increase in foreign art houses led to increased acceptance in most film circles.
Although most of the “new waves” faded in the 70s that didn’t mean that those countries stopped producing movies. France had their own sort of post new wave exemplified by films like Jean Eustache’s The Mother and the Whore and Jacques Rivette’s Celine and Julie Go Boating (as well as Out 1). Some of the icons of the 60s movement started to move into more and more esoteric territory (Godard’s films became more and more complex), while others seemed to adopt more commercial instincts like Francois Truffaut. Jacques Demy and later Agnes Varda had their own brief flirtation with Hollywood filmmaking. By and large though French filmmaking continued on as usual, where adopted Luis Bunuel made his last films which were easily among his best.
However it was West Germany that really seemed to captivate an international audience. Although what was constituted as their own new wave first took root in the 60s with films like Alexander Kluge’s Yesterday Girl and Straub-Hulliet’s Not Reconciled, they wouldn’t attract a great deal of international attention until the mid-seventies. Both Wim Wenders’ The American Friend and Werner Herzog’s Aguirre the Wrath of God were released in the US the same year and quickly opened the door for a host of films made before. They had their own “big three” of Wenders, Herzog, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder who was by far the groups most prolific member. Hans-Jurgen Syberberg, Volker Schlondorff and Margarethe von Trotta also deserve a mention amongst the better known filmmakers of the movement.
There was one country and continent that literally started their film making in the 70s. In 1971 Nicholas Roeg went to the Australian outback where he filmed Walkabout with scarcely more than a dozen pages of a script. It opened the door for a new generation of filmmakers to come from down under where in a few short years the films of Peter Weir, Phillip Noyce, Fred Sshepisi, Gillian Armstrong, and George Miller started to draw attention far outside their homeland. Shortly thereafter filmmaking also started ramping up in New Zealand as well.
In Asia the name of the game was kung-fu. A far reaching cultural phenomenon that made Bruce Lee a household name and had everyone “Kung-fu Fighting”. Hong Kong really hit pay dirt in this period and their martial arts films became the subject of massive cult followings here in the US. Directors like King Hu, Chang Cheh, and Yuen Woo Ping all crafted their own high flying style that only briefly found its way to America in the big budget and hugely successful Enter the Dragon. Before too long Hong Kong was making more films than just about anywhere in the world where their dominance in Asia put them as Hollywood’s equals.
However in terms of classic filmmaking Hollywood ushered in a whole new world of dominance. The wave of film school students turned directors quickly rose from the ranks of independent mavericks to big time players. There were some (Steven Spielberg, George Lucas) who excelled in classic genre pictures but on a grander scale. Others like Brian De Palma, Martin Scorsese, and Francis Ford Coppola became more and more obsessed with their own personal visions and employing all the tricks and techniques of their European counterparts to breathe some much needed life into American cinema. The films got more violent, more sexual, more experimental, and for the most part better. For many though the eventual enormous success of films like Jaws and Star Wars helped to bring about an end to the personal sort of experimentation that earlier films of the decade had.
Now there are numerous books written about these subjects and perhaps I’m glossing over a whole heck of a lot of world cinema here (Britain, Spain, Africa, Latin America, Italy, Eastern Europe, Japan) but well I believe it’s list time:
10. A Clockwork Orange (1971) UK Stanley Kubrick
After 2001 went way over budget and over schedule Stanley Kubrick wanted to prove to himself and Warner Bros. that he could make a film on a low budget and on time. After years of toying around with Anthony Burgess’ novel Kubrick found his Alex after seeing Malcolm McDowell in Lindsay Anderson’s If. . . With his biggest piece filled he downplayed the futuristic aspects,
trimmed some of the novel (including the end to much controversy) and made a cult classic for the ages. Never before had Kubrick had nudity in one of his films, and he really seemed to make up for lost time here, granted by 1971 nudity was almost a requirement for a major motion picture. Comprised of roughly three acts he takes us through Alex and his Droogs’ life of anarchy, his prison and rehabilitation, and finally his re-rehabilitation or deprogramming, along the way injecting the film with a host of curious little bits of wisdom and some of the most unique dialogue in movie history. Utilizing more classical music, some of it composed by the eccentric synthesizer artist Wendy Carlos (who also used to be a man). It is the type of film that cult filmmakers wish they could make, but here again was Kubrick doing everything a little better than everyone else.9. Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) West Germany/Peru Werner Herzog
Today Werner Herzog’s eccentricities are legendary, but in 1972 they were just beginning. Before he went to an island that was about to be buried in an active volcano, before he
hypnotized his entire cast, before dragging a ship over a mountain, there was Aguirre. The first of five films he made with Klaus Kinski and by far the best. A group of Spanish explorers search for El Dorado to claim it in their king’s name along the way down the Amazon things get stranger and stranger and all hell runs amuck until we’re left with Aguirre, his daughter and a whole lot of monkeys. A direct influence on Apocalypse Now and possibly the greatest of the New German cinema. It was shot on location amidst numerous problems, at one point Herzog reportedly pulled a gun on his leading man. This is the type of quietly surreal film where little by little you start to unravel along with the conquistadors. It really doesn’t do anyone justice to describe the film to people who haven’t seen it, but if you have then just nod your head and read on about the next one.8. All That Jazz (1979) US Bob Fosse
For all intents and purposes the musical was at long last put out of its misery in the 70s. After a decade of three hour plus epics with popular song scores the genre had ceased to retain any of its original charm and luster. Bob Fosse helped inject some life with Cabaret which brought him a best director Oscar (over Coppola for The Godfather no less). Fosse was raised through all the
requisite stops one is required to make in his business, as a choreographer, a dancer, and eventually a theatrical director before finally given the reigns to Sweet Charity, itself a remake of Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria. All That Jazz however was unlike any musical ever made. Employing the personal vision of the best 70s films with an avant-garde meditation on death and a rather painful self examination along with a few songs that take backstage to all the goings on of the film itself. This set the bar far too high for any musical to attempt to follow it, and Fosse’s own early death a few years later kept him from even topping it. Although the film was criticized for being too personal and self serving it works regardless of how much you know about Fosse, too bad we couldn’t have had more of this and less On a Clear Day You Can See Forever.7. The Mother and the Whore (1973) France Jean Eustache
Jean Eustache is one of the most troubling and frustrating filmmakers to come out of France. Originally a documentarian who made far too few features before committing suicide in 1981. Of those features, none come close to the power of The Mother and the Whore which still can speak volumes of the mating habits of men and women. An intense character study with three
characters all assigned an archetype. A critique on post May-1968 Paris dealing with the realistic after effects of the sexual revolution of the 60s. Often the characters make direct statements to the camera, shot head on as if in an Ozu film. On occasion they are full of shit, nearly everything Alexandre (Jean-Pierre Leaud) does is contradictory, other times completely heartbreaking like Veronika’s (Francoise Lebrun) self deprecating monologue near the end of the film. At times tough to watch other times incredibly endearing but always compelling, one of the fastest 210 minutes you can watch, which inexplicably still hasn’t been released on DVD in North America.6. The Conformist (1970) France/Italy/West Germany Bernardo Bertolucci
Italian filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci seemed a little late to the party during Italy’s re-emergence in the 60s. His films seemed much closer to the French New Wave than the surreal circus films of Fellini. He seemed to be finding his way slowly but surely, first as something of a protégé of Pier Paolo Passolini, then as a bit of a Godard worshiper, he
contributed an episode to Love and Anger, which also featured segments from those two. However with 1970’s The Conformist he finally came into his own. A film about fascism and one man’s desire to blend into the background and not make waves, doesn’t sound like the subject of a brilliant film does it? With some of modern cinema’s best cinematography courtesy of Vittorio Storaro the film is a marvel simply to watch without sound. Only hinting at the type of sexuality he would explore with Last Tango in Paris, and far from the over the top extravagance of 1900 this is his most perfect film. Concise, innovative, interesting, and with never a dull moment to spare. Easily the best European co-production of the 70s that unfortunately was kept away from the public for far too long.5. Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail (1974) UK Terry Jones/Terry Gilliam
I don’t think it’s terribly out of the question to call this the funniest film ever made. True Monty Python’s brand of humor goes over some heads, but for those that get it, this film is at the top of the food chain for comedy. Shot on a miniscule budget that works these flaws to its advantage, like using coconuts for horses’ hooves and Terry Gilliam’s bizarre animation rather than special effects. It’s dialogue is among film’s most quotable and if you ask 100 people what their favorite line is you might just get 100 answers my favorite is the simple but perfectly delivered “Jesus Christ”. With a Black Knight, killer rabbit, great beast of AAAAAGGGGHHH, the Knights who
say Ni, and the bloodiest wedding reception in film history. In fact every time you watch the film you may wind up with a new favorite scene and moment, no doubt because you may have laughed over a lot of the earlier dialogue. The film is also among the most defended amongst its supporters, not liking it is tantamount to treason in certain circles. Films like Some Like it Hot and Dr. Strangelove may top several lists of the funniest films ever made, but neither can hold a candle to this. The DVD is worth it’s price just for the Lego animation of “Knights of the Round Table”.4. Annie Hall (1977) US Woody Allen
Ok well you might be asking yourself “Didn’t you just say Holy Grail was the funniest film ever?” The answer is yes, I did say that, or typed it, technically speaking we’re paraphrasing but that’s merely a technicality. Truth is Annie Hall isn’t the funniest film ever made, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t one of the best. Woody Allen was best known as a stand up comedian and writer during the 60s who slowly but surely began to build some confidence as a filmmaker himself. From 1969’s Take the Money and Run pretty much to the present he’s averaged about one film
a year, whether or not he has a film to make. However after a string of funny and somewhat silly films, Allen decided to take an abrupt right turn. Annie Hall was conceived in numerous stages, with a structure closely resembling what later became Deconstructing Harry. The relationship between Allen’s Alvy and Diane Keaton’s Annie was supposed to be just one small vignette in the film but quickly proved to be more compelling than everything else. As was his habit then as now, Allen re-shot a ton of the film, restructured it and eventually we got to the film that won best picture, best director, and best actress. It ushered in the emergence of Woody Allen the artist, rather than just Woody Allen the comedian. Absolutely hilarious at times it remains easily the best romantic comedy ever made which unfortunately is largely a deplorable genre populated by far too many mundane and uninteresting films. Allen’s film had real characters, real situations, and eschewed the “love conquers all” sentimentality that the lesser films of its kind employ. Using any trick in the bag it was also the first comedy to be taken seriously critically in decades. People may have their own personal favorite Woody Allen film, but it’s hard for anyone to deny that this is where it all started.3. Apocalypse Now (1979) US Francis Ford Coppola
In a rather audacious move Coppola decried that his film wasn’t about Vietnam but was Vietnam. It was hard for people at the time to look at the film as a historically accurate depiction of life in wartime Vietnam, even though that was never even close to the intention. Based on Joseph Conrad’s Hearts of Darkness he takes the simple plot of that story, turns it upside down and shows a tremendous personal vision backed with all the money in the world seemingly. Meant to be somewhat low key, the film went insanely over schedule, he had a breakdown, Martin Sheen had a heart attack, all notions of coherency seemed to slip and there were over a million feet of film to edit. With several hands the film was assembled, entire subplots dropped, and finally assembled into working order. After an incredible opening sequence of overlapping
edits and a jungle being napalmed with graphic matches between helicopter blades and a ceiling fan, we get thrust into the mind of Captain Willard (Sheen). Although the film takes on a quasi-surreal tone for the next 90 minutes or so with surfing in the middle of a war zone, it isn’t until the men get close to Kurtz’ camp that things really get interesting. The wheels completely fall off and the film enters into a wide awake nightmare with over weight bald Marlon Brando babbling incoherently like only a demented genius can. The last 40 minutes or so of this film are completely mesmerizing and defy any sort of description. Amazing to think of the massive scale the film was on, with full cooperation from the military it shows the grandiose vision that only Coppola could have, which would ultimately do him in with his next film One from the Heart (another modest film that would be blown out of proportion). This is one of the last great (and successful) hurrahs of personal 70s filmmaking.2. Star Wars (1977) US George Lucas
For better or worse Star Wars changed cinema forever. It’s still hard to comprehend that there are people on earth who haven’t seen this or any of them still. A remarkable feat to begin with
the 4th episode, for most people this is still the most iconic chapter in the Star Wars series. This film not only cemented the blockbuster but also introduced franchising to levels never even contemplated before. Everything that could be marketed was from lunchboxes and action figures to comic books video games and Halloween costumes, and anyone who even played a storm trooper could get $10 for an autograph at a comic book convention. I can’t make a case for seeing the film, people who have avoided it are simply stubborn and ignorant and no degree of praise will change that ever. Today nearly everything is memorable from this film, the iconic characters, the great sound design, the music, and the sheer fun of it all. The other films may have gotten darker, may have probed deeper, may have gotten more complex but none could possibly have the impact of A New Hope. Ranking the film this high shouldn’t surprise anyone.1. The Godfather/The Godfather Part 2 (1972, 1974) US Francis Ford Coppola
To say Coppola was on a role in the 70s is an understatement. Before ET, before Star Wars, before Jaws, and before The Exorcist, The Godfather was the highest grossing film to come out of Hollywood. Remarkable to think a near three hour film about a mafia family could be so huge, but that speaks volumes of the way film was in the 70s. A sequel seemed almost essential and shocking nearly everyone was how incredibly good it was. To date this was the only sequel to ever win a best picture Oscar (although through some technicality Return of the King could be
considered a sequel). The two films established after several decades that America has a rather large fascination with the mafia and to date no film has shown that life better. Featuring a cast that seems to have descended from Heaven to assume their roles this film has become perhaps second only to Citizen Kane as the greatest film to ever come out of the US. Perhaps it might seem cheating to put the two together, but these really are one continuous story (later re-edited chronologically for The Godfather Saga). Pick a favorite scene go ahead, there are few better things to do than sit down with the family, make some pasta and spend the day with the Corleone family.
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