*** ILE Best Films of the 1970s REVEALED ***

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101b. Cross of Iron
Sam Peckinpah, 1976

Points: 25
Total Votes: 2
First Place Votes: 0

Comments?

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101b. Superman
Richard Donner, 1978

Points: 25
Total Votes: 2
First Place Votes: 0

Comments?

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101c. The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant
Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1972

Points: 25
Total Votes: 2
First Place Votes: 0

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98. The Getaway
Sam Peckinpah, 1972

Points: 25
Total Votes: 3
First Place Votes: 1

C-Man:
Kim, who was quite possibly the hottest human being on earth in the eighties. Then came the nineties and she got hooked up with a Baldwin, but she's still suuuuuper sexy in "The Getaway". Nudity is cool (as long as the fellas keep their togs on).

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97. The Harder They Come
Perry Henzell, 1972

Points: 28
Total Votes: 3
First Place Votes: 0

Pete Scholtes: I'd side with The Harder They Come only because the story is more mythic, and the music, which spans more years, includes some of the greatest popular music ever set to tape. The live gospel scene is so great. If there's a film from the rock steady era rotting away somewhere, I hope somebody finds it.

Eastern Mantra: This film's in my list of 14 impeccable films, and yet crazy ass me hasn't picked up the wonderful wonderful soundtrack. *le sigh*

I am disappointed The Harder They Come is so low. It has my favourite film soundtrack ever.

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96b. The Shout
Jerzy Skolimowski, 1978

Points: 27
Total Votes: 3
First Place Votes: 0

Comments?

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96a. Patton
Franklin J. Schaffner, 1970

Points: 27
Total Votes: 3
First Place Votes: 0

Kenan: Oh come on. If you're bored watching Patton you need to check your pulse.

Oops: The opening scene in Patton is the shit. . .

happy the shout got three at least.

the scene where john hurt (playing a concréte music composer) slowly makes a new piece by close micing himself smoking a cigarette (static hiss) and recording trapped bees. followed by the scene where the maniac who can kill with his voice stares at him blankly, and says; "I've heard your music. it's empty. it's nothing."

Nightmare!

I forgot to vote for Night Porter. And forgot to vote for God Told Me To. I hope someone else did.

Number is off, but it shouldn't really matter, if people want to renumber after I'm done that's fine, but as longas they are in order!

I love you guys.

Patton, while 'professionally made' and primarily a Scott vehicle, leaves a sour taste for the way it was marketed -- with the subtitle 'Salute to a Rebel" to pander to the Groovy People -- and the way the film hedges against the bloodthirsty SOB's mania throughout, finding his desire to start WW3 before II was over kinda cute. It was also Dick Nixon's most-screened movie in the White House, and inspired him to illegally bomb Cambodia (I'll exempt Schaffner and Coppola from direct responsibility).

The only minor downside is that the film shies away from making the two main characters members of the Nazi party (they both explicitly state that they aren't): that would've emphasized the idea that those on the "bad guys'" side weren't necessary that bad, just ordinary people caught in the midst of political currents far bigger than them.

so even if they *were* nazi party members, you're saying, they were powerless amid the 'currents' of politics?

Never has another film made Devon seem so haunting. The whole film has a disquieting, slow pace, and evokes the madness and serenity in 'Englishness' better than many films by English directors. Bates (infinitely disturbing) and Hurt are great, too; what a shame we didn't see more of them in British cinema in the following decades.

"Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia and The Getaway are among my all-time favourites. Past the hard-as-steel protagonists and the "balletic" action there really is an incredible economy of storytelling, visually these films are excellent. There is always a degree of tension wrung from every scene, and it's never over or underplayed, just on the surface. I actually find that a lot of directors/films that owe something to Peckinpah (Christopher McQuarries Way Of The Gun, Tarantino) skip over a lot of the qualities I have just mentioned."-Nordicskillz

"i got shit to say about the hows and whyfors but i absolutely love the wild bunch, straw dogs, ...alfredo garcia, and the getaway. i bought a toy shotgun last year and wrapped it in brown paper so i could emulate steve mcqueen while i watched the latter flick.
err...i mean nothing." -brian badword

As for me, I think the film has little more than diddleyshit to do with the book. That doesn't stop it from being one of McQueen's best, and one of Peckinpah's most entertaining. Not to mention a key part of Sally Struthers secret history (the other being Five Easy Pieces). Besides Alfredo Garcia was a fair stab at great pseaudo-Jim Thompson.

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93. Day for Night
François Truffaut, 1973

Points: 28
Total Votes: 3
First Place Votes: 0

Comments?

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92a. Days of Heaven
Terrence Malick, 1978

Points: 29
Total Votes: 2
First Place Votes: 0

Amateurist: the rhythms are very strange. the sound design is strange. the pervasive quiet is very strange.

(i have to say i find the lead actress really unappealing. but the little girl is the strangest and most fascinating of all the film's elements.)

it's interesting to think of this film and "badlands" (and i guess "the thin red line") coming out the revisionist cycle of films that kicked off with "the chase" and "bonnie & clyde" etc. and they *are* revisionist readings of american history, albeit very unorthodox compared to the likes of "soldier blue" or even "heaven's gate."

sam shepard talks in this movie just like terrence malick!! it's weird.

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92b. The Tenant
Roman Polanski, 1976

Points: 29
Total Votes: 2
First Place Votes: 0

Jay Vee: I love when Polanski's character comes back from his wacky shopping spree, takes his new shoes out of their bag and does that little, high pitched "What lovely shoes! Wherever did you get them?" conversation with himself.

Polanski does "slowly unhinging" really, really well.

Fields of Salmon: the first time i saw this film i was stone cold sober, yet it unnerved me to such a degree that i actually shut it off (i think at the point where he starts screaming "they're trying to turn me into her!") ... and yet after staring at the darkened t.v. screen for about a minute i found myself unable to not finish the film.

Fabrice: One of my faves ever. The filming angles are also key in giving it that subtly nauseating feel, eg. when going to the bathroom and seeing the mummy there. Classic scene, Polanski in full garb in a darkened room staring at the window, with this head bouncing in the courtyard..

I didn't vote so feel free to disregard above.

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4. The Godfather
Francis Ford Coppola, 1972

Points: 244
Total Votes: 15
First Place Votes: 3

Jimmy the Mod: Only narrowly bested by Annie Hall in ways that I can't really quantify. Classic if only for the cinematography of Gordon Willis -- daring and groundbraking even to this day.

Pete Scholtes: The Godfather's flaws are those of its deeply conflicted audience. The family is evil, but we want in. We know our leaders kill in cold blood, but isn't that the price of security? Like Apocalypse Now, the movie is about steeling yourself past the point of no return. But Coppola steels himself, too. He stacks the moral deck in favor of conformism: Michael doesn't accidentally kill an innocent bystander at the restaurant, for example. And the rival family is so bad, you find yourself thinking Carlo gets what he deserves.

Maybe the second film colors the first, so that I can enjoy The Godfather's look and pace without guilt, the changing seasons and period details, the performances (even the minor ones), the reliance on narrative, the father-son tragedy, and all the great lines. "They're animals, anyway, so let them lose their souls."

The Godfather is the opposite of Lawrence of Arabia, which sent its mystery of a character through incomprehensible world history, and didn't make sense of either. The Godfather indulges in everything that made it the defining Rated R movie, but Pacino's Michael is more modern than its sex and violence. He's probably the most realized monster in movies.

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4. Aguirre: The Wrath of God
Werner Herzog, 1973

Points: 262
Total Votes: 19
First Place Votes: 1

Jed_: I just saw Aguirre and it's insane. watching it made me hate all those widescreen pretty-beautiful epics that are ten a penny. it's so fucking real-looking. anthony minghella please watch a Herzong film then give up or kill yourself. obviously Aguirre is astonishing to look at but makes you realise, to an extent, that most films are just cinematography and lightning with actual direction and vision and depth waaaaaaay down the list. films are too beautiful now. all surface no feeling.

Jeff-PTTL: Where to begin? I find it almost impossible to talk about my favorite film of all time. The opening shot just kills me everytime, it's the start of a constant barrage of goosebumps that don't end untill Kinski is surrounded by monkeys.

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3. The Godfather, Part II
Francis Ford Coppola, 1974

Points: 285
Total Votes: 19
First Place Votes: 2

Pete Scholtes: The Fredo drama and the Cuban sequences redeem the lackluster killings, the romanticized De Niro Corleone, and one very shaky plot point: What exactly is Fredo's complicity in the attempt on Michael's life? Did he tell his enemies what bedroom Michael was sleeping in? Open the gate to let the gunmen in? What?

Jimmy the Mod: overlong but an appropriate end to the saga, III notwithsanding.

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2. Annie Hall
Woody Allen, 1977

Points: 316
Total Votes: 22
First Place Votes: 3

Pete Scholtes: I don't even want to use the phrase "romantic comedy." This is best comedy about love that I can think of. How did Allen pull it off? By remembering a great relationship. By establishing right off that his view of his life is skewed. By recognizing his foibles (he's bigoted, pseudo-intellectual, snobbish, schtick-prone, mildly self-hating, and roundly and passively hostile). By still making you care about him, and by making his great love stand in for all relationships remembered with fondness. By going about it all with the playfulness of a filmmaker just discovering what he can do, and finding he's willing to try anything.

Jimmy the Mod: makes New York the most romantic place in the world, Diane Keaton an oddball ideal, and proves that Los Angeles really DOESN'T have anything going for it. Woody never got better.

Jedidiah: Woody Allen's greatest moment. He has been both funnier and more poignant, but never in the same film

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1. Taxi Driver
Martin Scorsese, 1976

Points: 317
Total Votes: 22
First Place Votes: 1

Pete Scholtes: It's all about the long stare into that glass of Alcaseltzer.

DG: Right at the end, after Travis drops Cybil Shephard's character off, there's this odd moment where he catches himself in the mirror, and well, it's just odd. I've always taken it to mean everything from him being dumped up till then is just some bizarre power fantasy, which would explain how he gets off scot-free for the shootings. If this is correct, this would make the second half just a 'dream', and therefore a bit of a GCSE drama project ending - and therefore dud. But I could be wrong...

Jonathan: The strange ending only adds to it's uniqueness. Robert de Niro, Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel and a sick cameo from Scorcese himself. What more could a boy want?

Michael G Breece: 'Taxi Driver': earnest portrayal (basically, based on the writer Schrader himself - is why it is earnest) of a loser/loner type in America. Sure, it goes far overboard at the end with the "cool anarchist mohawk" bullshit and the shoot-em-ups and all that jazz, but...it's a Hollywood type of thing. It should've been left to a more earnest ending, fitting to the realistic loner/loser portrayal built-up. In reality, that character (a frayed coward at hear) would have just stayed in his crappy little apartment more as he spent the rest of his time driving the taxi. Nothing less/nothing more than that, basically. Until some other little "hottie" turned his eye, then it would all go round and round again.

Joe: Actually, one of my favorite little moments in the movie is when the dispatcher asks Travis: "Education?" and Travis responds blankly, "Oh...some...here and there...", and then it cuts back to the dispatcher's reaction.

Who's doing the '60s?

The Conversation is the Garret Anderson of '70s films: most overrated
"underrated."

How did News From Home sneak in there? I don't think I've even read about it.

Apocalypse Now would have a shot at being one of the 5 best films of the decade if Coppola cut it down to a short about Kilgore and the Air Cavalry titled "Charlie Don't Surf."

>morbius = pwnd<

Happily, I am still Luddite enough to have no fuckin idea what that means.

I was Gene Hackman from The Conversation a few years ago for Halloween, so I like it enough for that.

But I rented it a few days ago and my problem with it (once again) is that it just doesn't make sense (spoilers to follow): So the Harrison Ford character hired Hackman to record a conversation Ford knew was going to happen, and which the murderers knew was going to be overheard? Why not just record the conversation without Hackman?

I love the film so much, and get so caught up in it, I've never even stopped to ponder the logic. I guess I've always assumed that while Hackman is technically hired by Ford, it's with Duvall's knowledge; we hear Duvall say "You want it to be true" to Ford, which I take to mean that Ford initiated Hackman's hiring as a way to prove to Duvall that there's a plot against him, that Duvall approved the project, and that now they're sitting around weighing the evidence. I don't think Cindy Williams and Frederic Forrest were aware they were being taped. That would make Ford the really shadowy and unknowable figure--aligned with Duvall at the beginning, but keeping quiet and keeping his own proximity to the company's seat of power intact when the plot to kill the emperor succeeds and power is transferred.

I don't know, maybe that's wrong. But with The Conversation so steeped in the Watergate moment (accidentally; it's well known that Coppola wrote the script years earlier), I think a little mystery concerning the film's internal logic works well. The real-life parallel is why Nixon never burned the tapes, something that continues to puzzle everyone.

You mean "Gredo-shoots-first," right? On a related note, I also notice that the Jaws swimmer's breasts are less visible on the DVD art than they were in the original 1975 poster. These things matter.

I seem to remember Gene Wilder regreting that he made the film because it was "anti-child," but can't place the source...

But then, you know, "Looney Toons" is pretty fucked up, moralitywise, too (how many times does Bugs torture his foes in a manner of total overkill that isn't at all justified by the small infraction that they've made? That's without mentioning the times when it's entirely unprovoked), and I wouldn't want that erased from my childhood.

"Taxi Driver" is a good movie.

Of course, I could have voted.

/opening Netflix queue

They sound like utterly unremarkable films that have passed into greatness on qualities I can't ascertain.

Should I just break down and watch them?

actually, bugs usually doesn't go after ppl without a good reason (i.e. they're trying to shoot him or dig up his home or posting "rabbit season" signs all over the place). chuck jones talked about this in his autobiography, how he wanted bugs to be more sympathetic/interesting than, say, woody woodpecker. of course, daffy's another story...

"My coat! My lucky coat!"

"This pope has powerful enemies!"

OK, who was it who liked The Shout (96b)? It's showing at Lincoln Center at 4pm. Dave Kehr:

An airy allegory (from a Robert Graves story) held to earth by some scathing sexual passion. Alan Bates is the traveling madman who holds a composer (John Hurt) and his wife (Susannah York) in thrall. Sexuality triumphs over civilization through a series of small betrayals, each registered with appalling, pinpoint accuracy by Jerzy Skolimowski's camera. Though Skolimowski had backed off from his formal ambitions somewhat (he once seemed a real rival to Godard), this 1978 feature is shrewd, imaginative moviemaking, a trance thriller that beats Peter Weir on his own turf.

^this is like the most noize board movie ever (maybe crossed w/ I LOVE CRICKET: THE CHINATOWN OF ILX: THE CHINATOWN OF ILX)

I used to disagree with Dr. Morbius under my actual name; now I disagree with him under a fabricated one. The world has changed so much.

has anyone seen Chilly Scenes of Winter ('79) by Joan Micklin Silver, aka Head Over Heels?

http://www.ifccenter.com/films/chilly-scenes-of-winter/

A friend was telling me about this book--not sure if I knew about it or not.

https://academic.macmillan.com/academictrade/9781632868183/openingwednesdayatatheaterordriveinnearyou

Will definitely try to track down a copy at a decent price.

I was Gene Hackman from The Conversation a few years ago for Halloween, so I like it enough for that.
― Pete Scholtes, Monday, September 12,

Still the funniest Halloween costume I've ever heard of.