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Dear Readers,
I’ve been revisiting my favourite films from the seventies - the golden era of film, in my humble opinion.
There are many that simply could never be made now, films which defy convention and smash genre constructs. I’m thinking particularly of British films like Cammell’s Performance (1970), Kubrick’s A ClockWork Orange (1971) and Roeg’s Don’t Look Now (1973).
And the Americans, who created some of the most timeless and rewatchable crime movies: Knieper’s The American Friend (1977), Antonioni’s The Passenger (1975), and of course The Godfather films.
I like Get Carter, about a Newcastle born gangster, played by Michael Caine. I was interested in the portrayal of the North East. I was a child of the 70s but the movie portrays it very differently from my memory of the 70s. In my village near York families had smart teak furniture and followed style trends. Many of the locations in that film look really grim.
I agree that the '70s were a golden age of great films, although I may be biased, as that decade was formative for me. Anyway, here are some of my favorites. (I added the year and director to some but not all of the films.)
CABARET is by far my favorite film from the 1970s, truly a timeless classic.
But there are a few others no one has mentioned, particularly the incredible THE SPOOK WHO SAT BY THE DOOR directed by Ivan Dixon, adapted by Sam Greenlee from his own novel. This film has been intentionally pushed towards obscurity because of its politically radical ideology and it's as shocking and exciting now as it was then. For me it's also a lot more fun than some of the more famous Blaxploitation classics.
I also want to mention INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, directed by Philip Kaufman, and KLUTE, which I really believe was in some ways coauthored by Jane Fonda in one of my favorite film performances of all time. Donald Sutherland also stars in both, and both feel like movies that could never be made now.
Screenplay: Jerry Schatzberg, James Mills, Joan Didion, John Gregory Dunne
Saturday Night Fever
Director: John Badham
Music composed by: Barry Gibb, Robin Gibb, Maurice Gibb, David Shire
All of these had an impact on my adolescent and teen mind. Saturday Night Fever was restricted but I got in. I just about lost my mind over it!
I attempted to go again but I was caught out and no begging swayed the theater employee.
The camera work was a new invention of the cinematographer he used a skate board to pull the camera at ground level in the opening shots of John Travolta’s character Tony walking along the streets of Brooklyn so good!
Al Pacino at his best in Panic in Needle park and such a snapshot of NYC at that time.
I keep on thinking on my favorite movies on that era: as a film maker Lina Wertmüller nmade really funny and profound films: Seven Beauties, Sweot Away, and others. She could tell great italian stories , made fun of macho men, but portrayed complicated, nuanced tales of love. I loved her films. Just as I loved Fellini’s La Strada…also Bergman’s dark films, Wild Strawberries. Even Woody Allen, despised as people find him now, his early films were parodies off troubled life in NYC. The seventies were a golden age of fine film makers, and some great films.
Ooh! Fun topic! Late 60s, but LOVE Bullitt (really, anything with Steve McQueen). Anything with Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Also, Bonnie and Clyde, Five Easy Pieces, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest - so many great films from that era because they just seemed to get the ‘grey’ of life and morality. Also, on the silly side (and admittedly my favorite), Snowball Express.
I have been thinking about it, but the unforgettable film for me is Morgan, a suitable case for treatment. I saw it in late 1969 or so. I was then dating a young man raised as a communist who was equally crazy as Morgan, but was always telling the truth! I, also loved Fellini’s early films. I don’t know when Amacord or 8 1/2 came out but they were truly thrilling,
You're right, it was a golden beyond what today could never even conceive let alone imagine - such films like Jaws, Alien, Star Wars, Deliverance, The Exorcist, French Connection, Apocalypse Now, Superman, Mad Max, Bond films, Nosferatu the Vampyre, Carrie, Saturday Night Fever, Quadrophenia - directors like Spielberg, Satyajit Ray, Coppola, Fassbender, Wenders, Polanski, Cassavetes, Bergman - the list just goes on - I feel that those of us growing up back then, we were treated to something special that only we will ever really appreciate and that is something we must really cherish, and pass on to younger generations...
Nashville by Robert Altman, Fellini's Amacord, Annie Hall and Manhattan by Woody Allen, Cries and Whispers, The Serpent's Egg, Face to Face and Autumn Sonata by Bergman, New York, New York and The Last Waltz by Scorcese, and The Conversation by Coppola.
The 1970’s were my literal “coming of age” - a critical decade that encompassed my secondary through graduate school years. SO MANY MOVIES! Too many to list, but some standouts that affected my world view: Last Tango In Paris/The Passenger (Maria Schneider, Goddess), Women In Love/2001: A Space Odyssey/A Clockwork Orange, Scorsese Taxi Driver, TRUFFAUT Day For Night, Maysles GIMME SHELTER,
I was little more than a child in the 70s but already a movie fan. My favourite films? A lot! L'argent de poche, F. Truffaut, - Iko shashvi mgalobeli, Otar Ioselliani, Harold and Maude, Hal Ashby, Amarcord, Federico Fellini, Novecento, B. Bertolucci, Barry Lyndon, Stanley Kubrick 1975, Dersu Uzala, Akira Kurosawa 1975, Jesus Christ Superstar, Norman Jewison 1973, Taxi Driver, Martin Scorsese 1976, Annie Hall and Manhattan, Woody Allen, Mash and Nashville, Robert Altman, Paper moon, Peter Bogdanovich....
The supernatural western, High Plains Drifter (released in 1973, starring, and directed by, Clint Eastwood) opens with a stranger riding off the salt flats, into the isolated mining town of Lago. Dee Barton's taut purgatorial score, picked clean of melody, strains under its own tension as the stranger's horse picks its way through the scrub towards a few scattered clapboard buildings on the shores of an immense lake.
The residents of Lago, motivated by greed, are indirectly responsible for the murder of a US Marshall who was whipped to death in the streets by bandits. These same bandits are now tormenting the townsfolk with impunity.
The stranger is employed to fight off the outlaws, but he is the architect of a greater vengeance. By the time the film has reached its bloody conclusion, every building in Lago has been literally painted red, and everyone responsible for the death of the Marshall has paid a price.
“Kowalski works for a car delivery service. He takes delivery of a 1970 Dodge Challenger to take from Colorado to San Francisco, California. Shortly after pickup, he takes a bet to get the car there in less than 15 hours. After a few run-ins with motorcycle cops and highway patrol they start a chase to bring him into custody. Along the way, Kowalski is guided by Supersoul - a blind DJ with a police radio scanner. Throw in lots of chase scenes, gay hitchhikers, a naked woman riding a motorbike, lots of Mopar and you've got a great cult hit from the early 70's.”
I enjoyed Taxi Driver, but in large part because it was scored by Bernard Herrmann. I met Herrmann’s third wife, who said Herrmann said through the music he would tell the audience the protagonist would kill again. I hope your health improves, sir. You have my deepest sympathies.
La Vallee Obscured by clouds, Dir. Barbet Schroeder, soundtrack by Pink Floyd, Bulle Ogier has sex in the Forest having a massive impact on my teenage mind and libido which has forever informed my sense of the erotic.
Antonioni and Leone I see as Italian directors, not American really. Mine: Don’t Look Now rediscovered recently, awesome. Il Deserto dei Tartari (Valerio Zurlini). The Last Emperor.
Série Noire (1979) is a French movie that hits those notes - a modern take on the Jim Thompson thriller transposed to the Parisian banlieue, a problematic (anti)hero, with an astonishing lead performance from Patrick Dewaere and a script by Georges Perec to boot.
Ali: Fear Eats The Soul by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
Slow burn, but a touching immigrant / outcast romance
All That Jazz, directed by Bob Fosse. 1979.
I'm still a Taxi Driver fanatic.
I like Get Carter, about a Newcastle born gangster, played by Michael Caine. I was interested in the portrayal of the North East. I was a child of the 70s but the movie portrays it very differently from my memory of the 70s. In my village near York families had smart teak furniture and followed style trends. Many of the locations in that film look really grim.
A Woman Under the Influence by Cassavetes (1974) beyond brilliant!!!
All Satyajit Ray films from World of Apu onwards
My memories from being a child (7 years old in 1970) to a teen ager
Julia by Zimmerman with Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave and Meryl Streep (1977)
The Deer Hunter (1978)
Annie Hall (1977)
Adele H by Truffaut (1978)
The Turning Point (1977)
Midnight Express (1978)
Peau d'Ane (1970) by Jacques Demy
These are my faves from the ‘70’s in no particular order. I could watch them all again.
Apocalypse Now. surely still ranks as one of the finest films ever made.
Taxi Driver – ‘nuff said.
The French Connection – what a car chase, for its time.
A Clockwork Orange – Beethoven’s 9th Symphony never sounded the same again.
Klute – Donald and Jane in their heyday. An atmospheric masterpiece.
The Deer Hunter. Russian Roulette in the pit of madness.
Marathon Man. ‘Is it Safe?’
Midnight Express. Alan Parker’s genius.
Last Tango in Paris. Did a lot for sales of unsalted butter – well at lest I hope it was unsalted!
Annie Hall. Woody’s finest.
Don’t look Now. Venice will never be like that again. Probably my fave of all
Nobody's mentioned Nashville!
Wim
Wenders Wings of Desire
Chinatown.
Harold & Maude
Paper Moon. The Long Goodbye. L'aventure c'est l'aventure. Mahogany. Daguerréotypes. +The Passenger.
I agree that the '70s were a golden age of great films, although I may be biased, as that decade was formative for me. Anyway, here are some of my favorites. (I added the year and director to some but not all of the films.)
The Deer Hunter
Harold and Maude
The Life of Brian
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
Carnal Knowledge
One Flew Over the Cukoo’s Nest
Scenes from a Marriage (Ingmar Bergman)
The Conformist (1970)
The Godfather (1972)
The Emigrants (Ingmar Bergman, 1972)
Cabaret (1972)
The Godfather Part 2 (1974)
Blazing Saddles (1974)
The Man Who Would Be King (1975)
Dersu Uzala (Akira Kurosawa, 1975)
Star Wars (1977)
My Brilliant Career (1979)
CABARET is by far my favorite film from the 1970s, truly a timeless classic.
But there are a few others no one has mentioned, particularly the incredible THE SPOOK WHO SAT BY THE DOOR directed by Ivan Dixon, adapted by Sam Greenlee from his own novel. This film has been intentionally pushed towards obscurity because of its politically radical ideology and it's as shocking and exciting now as it was then. For me it's also a lot more fun than some of the more famous Blaxploitation classics.
I also want to mention INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, directed by Philip Kaufman, and KLUTE, which I really believe was in some ways coauthored by Jane Fonda in one of my favorite film performances of all time. Donald Sutherland also stars in both, and both feel like movies that could never be made now.
Harold and Maude
Hal Ashby
Screenplay: Colin Higgins
Panic in Needle Park
Director: Jerry Schatzberg
Screenplay: Jerry Schatzberg, James Mills, Joan Didion, John Gregory Dunne
Saturday Night Fever
Director: John Badham
Music composed by: Barry Gibb, Robin Gibb, Maurice Gibb, David Shire
All of these had an impact on my adolescent and teen mind. Saturday Night Fever was restricted but I got in. I just about lost my mind over it!
I attempted to go again but I was caught out and no begging swayed the theater employee.
The camera work was a new invention of the cinematographer he used a skate board to pull the camera at ground level in the opening shots of John Travolta’s character Tony walking along the streets of Brooklyn so good!
Al Pacino at his best in Panic in Needle park and such a snapshot of NYC at that time.
Harold and Maude was so orbital and funny!
I keep on thinking on my favorite movies on that era: as a film maker Lina Wertmüller nmade really funny and profound films: Seven Beauties, Sweot Away, and others. She could tell great italian stories , made fun of macho men, but portrayed complicated, nuanced tales of love. I loved her films. Just as I loved Fellini’s La Strada…also Bergman’s dark films, Wild Strawberries. Even Woody Allen, despised as people find him now, his early films were parodies off troubled life in NYC. The seventies were a golden age of fine film makers, and some great films.
Sunday Bloody Sunday - Schlesinger and screenplay by Penelope Gilliat. (1971)
O Lucky Man - Lindsay Anderson (1973)
Scarecrow - Jerry Schatzberg - (1973) little seen masterpiece with Pacino & Hackman.
The American Friend (1977) by far the best Highsmith adaptation, free wheeling and sad...(but directed by Wim Wenders...)
The Passenger - yes, Antonioni
Straight Time - by the under appreciated Ulu Grossbard (1978)
The Long Goodbye (Altman 1973) The original mumblecore.
No list complete without Il Conformisto (1970) Bertolucci - sex inextricable from our delusion of our political selves, Never better rendered maybe...
Ooh! Fun topic! Late 60s, but LOVE Bullitt (really, anything with Steve McQueen). Anything with Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Also, Bonnie and Clyde, Five Easy Pieces, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest - so many great films from that era because they just seemed to get the ‘grey’ of life and morality. Also, on the silly side (and admittedly my favorite), Snowball Express.
I have been thinking about it, but the unforgettable film for me is Morgan, a suitable case for treatment. I saw it in late 1969 or so. I was then dating a young man raised as a communist who was equally crazy as Morgan, but was always telling the truth! I, also loved Fellini’s early films. I don’t know when Amacord or 8 1/2 came out but they were truly thrilling,
KING OF COMEDY. - gave us Sandra Bernard!
Hello Hanif
Thanks for asking. Aside from the obvious ones you mentioned, I’d go for:
Radio On
Picnic at Hanging Rock
The Last Picture Show
Dog Day Afternoon
The Tempest
Aguirre, The Wrath of God
You're right, it was a golden beyond what today could never even conceive let alone imagine - such films like Jaws, Alien, Star Wars, Deliverance, The Exorcist, French Connection, Apocalypse Now, Superman, Mad Max, Bond films, Nosferatu the Vampyre, Carrie, Saturday Night Fever, Quadrophenia - directors like Spielberg, Satyajit Ray, Coppola, Fassbender, Wenders, Polanski, Cassavetes, Bergman - the list just goes on - I feel that those of us growing up back then, we were treated to something special that only we will ever really appreciate and that is something we must really cherish, and pass on to younger generations...
The Midnight Movie & Moviedrome slots on BBC2 during the '70s & '80s were always a good source for independent movies :
'Friends of Eddie Coyle'
'The Outfit'
'Night Moves'
'Executive Action'
Scala Cinema classics :
'Maitresse'
'Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie'
'The Decameron'
That's enough I think x
Nashville by Robert Altman, Fellini's Amacord, Annie Hall and Manhattan by Woody Allen, Cries and Whispers, The Serpent's Egg, Face to Face and Autumn Sonata by Bergman, New York, New York and The Last Waltz by Scorcese, and The Conversation by Coppola.
Has “ The man who fell to Earth “ been mentioned?
Coppola's The Conversation
Polanski's Chinatown
The Last Picture Show (Bogdanovich)
Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock
*Note. It was, all in all, a pretty lean decade for the British film industry with fortunes wasted on trash.
The 1970’s were my literal “coming of age” - a critical decade that encompassed my secondary through graduate school years. SO MANY MOVIES! Too many to list, but some standouts that affected my world view: Last Tango In Paris/The Passenger (Maria Schneider, Goddess), Women In Love/2001: A Space Odyssey/A Clockwork Orange, Scorsese Taxi Driver, TRUFFAUT Day For Night, Maysles GIMME SHELTER,
THE CONFORMIST! Phew! What an era!
I was little more than a child in the 70s but already a movie fan. My favourite films? A lot! L'argent de poche, F. Truffaut, - Iko shashvi mgalobeli, Otar Ioselliani, Harold and Maude, Hal Ashby, Amarcord, Federico Fellini, Novecento, B. Bertolucci, Barry Lyndon, Stanley Kubrick 1975, Dersu Uzala, Akira Kurosawa 1975, Jesus Christ Superstar, Norman Jewison 1973, Taxi Driver, Martin Scorsese 1976, Annie Hall and Manhattan, Woody Allen, Mash and Nashville, Robert Altman, Paper moon, Peter Bogdanovich....
Ingmar Bergman: Autumn Sonata (1978)
Liliana Cavani: Il Portiere di Notte (1974)
Mel Brooks: Young Frankenstein (1974)
Peter Bogdanovich: Paper Moon (1973)
Federico Fellini: Amarcord (1974)
Wim Wenders: Alice in Den Stadten/ Alice in the Cities (1974)
Andrei Tarkovsky: Solaris (1971)
Woody Allen: Annie Hall (1977)
Shampoo, Close Encounters, Fahrenheit 451
Nobody's said The Godfather? Personally am fond of Terrence Mallick's Badlands.
Oh dear...the net said 1970...I saw it round then..
There are so many to choose from in the 70s O don't lnow where to start...
The supernatural western, High Plains Drifter (released in 1973, starring, and directed by, Clint Eastwood) opens with a stranger riding off the salt flats, into the isolated mining town of Lago. Dee Barton's taut purgatorial score, picked clean of melody, strains under its own tension as the stranger's horse picks its way through the scrub towards a few scattered clapboard buildings on the shores of an immense lake.
The residents of Lago, motivated by greed, are indirectly responsible for the murder of a US Marshall who was whipped to death in the streets by bandits. These same bandits are now tormenting the townsfolk with impunity.
The stranger is employed to fight off the outlaws, but he is the architect of a greater vengeance. By the time the film has reached its bloody conclusion, every building in Lago has been literally painted red, and everyone responsible for the death of the Marshall has paid a price.
[] mean streets
[] saturday night fever, big & gorgeous--my legs hurt every time i watch--& heartbreakingly gritty
[] the first star wars
[] i seem to be a coppola person
[] richard pryor in concert
Amarcord, Days of Heaven, All That Jazz
Vanishing Point:
“Kowalski works for a car delivery service. He takes delivery of a 1970 Dodge Challenger to take from Colorado to San Francisco, California. Shortly after pickup, he takes a bet to get the car there in less than 15 hours. After a few run-ins with motorcycle cops and highway patrol they start a chase to bring him into custody. Along the way, Kowalski is guided by Supersoul - a blind DJ with a police radio scanner. Throw in lots of chase scenes, gay hitchhikers, a naked woman riding a motorbike, lots of Mopar and you've got a great cult hit from the early 70's.”
Apocalypse Now. The Garden of the Finzi-Continis. Don't Look Now. Cría Cuervos.
I enjoyed Taxi Driver, but in large part because it was scored by Bernard Herrmann. I met Herrmann’s third wife, who said Herrmann said through the music he would tell the audience the protagonist would kill again. I hope your health improves, sir. You have my deepest sympathies.
Alain Tanner seems to have fallen out of favour, but his works, particularly the collaborations with novelist/art critic John Berger, are excellent
Surprised to not see anyone mention Chantal Akerman, who has enjoyed a major reappraisal in recent years
Nagisa Oshima’s works are incredible, and so are the 70’s films of Shuji Terayama and Yoshihige Yoshida
La Vallee Obscured by clouds, Dir. Barbet Schroeder, soundtrack by Pink Floyd, Bulle Ogier has sex in the Forest having a massive impact on my teenage mind and libido which has forever informed my sense of the erotic.
It was 1969, but it kicked open the gates for the 70's: Midnight Cowboy.
Antonioni and Leone I see as Italian directors, not American really. Mine: Don’t Look Now rediscovered recently, awesome. Il Deserto dei Tartari (Valerio Zurlini). The Last Emperor.
I'll be the un-hippest: Fiddler on The Roof.
5 easy pieces, the conformist, days of heaven
Hey, Hanif...."The American Friend" is by Wim Wenders ... I'd go for "Alice in the Cities"
"Le Cercle Rouge" by Melville, as his films are always amazing, beautifully wroughtm with great actors, and no frills
"Kes"
Either of the early Bertolucci films: "The Conformist" and "The Spiders' Stratagem"
"Mean Streets"
"Get Carter" - Mike Hodges one of the most under-rated British directors.
The Wicker Man (1973)
Three Days of the Condor
Little Big Man
Série Noire (1979) is a French movie that hits those notes - a modern take on the Jim Thompson thriller transposed to the Parisian banlieue, a problematic (anti)hero, with an astonishing lead performance from Patrick Dewaere and a script by Georges Perec to boot.
“Faces “can’t think of director/writer/actor
He died very young.
Glad to see The Parallax View mentioned.
And yes to most of the others too!