As we continue our journey through years and decades past, I find myself thinking more about films that I don't often talk about as much.
I have already mentioned that one of my main reasons of doing this series was to try to talk about older films that might not get a mention from me on various posts. When I do "Best of the Decade" lists, that often just singles out maybe one or two films from a specific year throughout a decade.
When it comes to a decade like the 70s, it is unfair to leave so many films behind when they do deserve a brief discussion. Although, the sad truth to that is that there just aren't enough hours in the day to wax rhapsodic about a few dozen films made in the 70s.
Even when I did my "Best of the 1970s" list, I put down thirty honorable mentions because I wanted to at least mention the films by name despite the fact the fact I was only going to zero on 10 of them for my list to write about.
I already tackled 1978 so now we come to a very big milestone year: the 50th Anniversary for the films released in 1973.
One quick note: I will be considering Ingmar Bergman's Cries & Whispers by its original 1972 release date even though it had competed for Best Picture with films from 1973 (not an uncommon practice for foreign releases that slipped into the Best Picture race). For reference though, had it made this list, it would've been my #2 selection.
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THE LIST:
#10 - The Wicker Man
(Robin Hardy)
It is kind of a shame that when most people hear the title Wicker Man that their minds probably go straight to Nicolas Cage and the 2006 remake: "Oh no! My eyes!".
I am honestly very guilty of that as well.
However, the concept of "folk horror", which got a huge boost fairly recently with Ari Aster's Midsommar, can be traced back to the original Wicker Man by British filmmaker Robin Hardy.
One of the things that works so well about the film is that despite the fact you know exactly where it is heading, you still feel so immersed in the dread and the dreary atmsophere.
I can't say that the film scares me but it is certainly unsettling in how it is presented in such a stark and matter of fact manner. With the relatively low budget, it gives the film a documentary kind of feel which only adds to the uncomfortable nature...particularly in its final scene.
It might a film that hasn't aged too well in how its presented, but even THAT helps the film maintain a sense of heightened dread.
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#9 - Paper Moon
(Peter Bogdonavich)
Peter Bogdonavich is part of the late 60s/early 70s slate of filmmakers dubbed as "New Hollywood", which also included the likes of Spielberg, Scorsese, Coppola, De Palma, and a few others...but unlike many of them, Bogdonavich never seemed to be able to sustain the level of esteem and clout that he got so handily in the early 1970s.
His masterpiece was 1971's The Last Picture Show, but he would never come truly close to hitting those heights again. I would say the closest he came was with Paper Moon (and he would later have 1985's Mask)...which paired father/daughter duo Ryan and Tatum O'Neal.
A lot has been said about these two as both have had a volatile relationship over the years and the fact that young Tatum WON the Oscar for this while he didn't even receive a nomination left him with an ego that was shattered.
Sure, Bogdonavich may have coached the hell out of Tatum O'Neal to get the performance he wanted, but the results were quite stellar and led to her being the youngest winner ever (and also perhaps a strong case for the most egregious category fraud)...and it goes without saying that Ryan O'Neal is...well...a merely adequate actor at best who never truly achieved greatness.
It is that blank slate quality that sort of made him work so well two years later in Kubrick's Barry Lyndon.
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#8 - American Graffiti
(George Lucas)
George Lucas is another filmmaker who is closely linked to the "New Hollywood" generation, but he has since become very closely identified with Star Wars and that is basically it.
In many ways, Lucas is someone that has so much respect and legend around him for a whole galaxy he created...but he doesn't seem to be the best person to cultivate that galaxy.
And because of the massive worldwide phenomenon that is the Star Wars franchise, it is kind of crazy to think that George Lucas began his career and his fame as the man behind a teenage comedy/drama set in the early 1960s.
American Graffiti tapped into the 70s nostalgia for 50s America...although one has to question why in many ways aside from the conservative innocence. And with this film, it is technically set in 1962 only roughly a decade removed from its release.
If anything, it truly shows how much things changed in our country (and the world) during the 1960s with the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK, the Vietnam War, and the British Invasion.
It felt like things truly came alive in the 60s while the world lost so much of its innocence...and while some of that innocence maybe needed to go, I do suppose its hard to not to fall for the charm of this movie and its quirky cast of characters.
However...I do think it is very problematic that at the end, Lucas allows all of the main male characters to get epilogue bubbles while the women get absolutely nothing.
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#7 - Serpico
(Sidney Lumet)
As someone who admittedly has no shame in renouncing the corrupt nature of many police departments, including the one that is represented in his film and the city I live in, I do take some solace in Serpico for depicting an officer who was looking so strongly for reform.
I do think that Serpico, despite being based on a real life officer, may suffer a little from a bit of a "we can only dream" mentality and might border a tad on the preachy side of things even if I think it mostly sticks the landing when it comes to that...but I also say that as someone who wholeheartedly agrees with the topic of severe police reform, especially with the NYPD.
In the end though, the film mostly succeeds...and it is Al Pacino who pushes it over the edge.
After his sterling and mostly stoic work in The Godfather, you can really tell with Serpico that Pacino is an actor capable of so much. I actually wish he won the Oscar for this performance as it is truly so passionate and volcanic while also having such great moments of beautiful subtlety and emotional vulnerability.
It's a very good film with an important and (sadly) timely message that gets kicked up a notch by a truly stellar Pacino performance that is easily among the top 5 of his career.
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#6 - Mean Streets
(Martin Scorsese)
There is a certain hard-edged style that has become so indelibly linked to New York filmmaker Martin Scorsese...and despite a couple of admirable efforts prior, Mean Streets is the film that truly established the kind of gritty content we would get from him: a true Scorsese effort.
As one might expect, the film contains staples that would become common themes in Scorsese films: the mob and giving film work to Robert DeNiro.
Much like Toshiro Mifune and Akira Kurosawa, there haven't been many actor/director combos that have been quite as potent and successful as DeNiro/Scorsese...and they click so well together.
And connected to those common themes, you do see a lot of glimmers of future films like GoodFellas or The Departed, but I think where Mean Streets might suffer is that it feels a little more rough around the edges.
I do think in some ways it does work in the film's favor but I think some of the pulsating edges that he would eventually give a movie like GoodFellas or even Taxi Driver just 3 years later show that he was still figuring things out as a filmmaker.
It is still one of my favorite films by him because it does feel like you are witnessing a legend be born but with the promise that the best is coming sooner rather than later.
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#5 - Don't Look Now
(Nicholas Roeg)
A film like Don't Look Now is a balancing act as it manages to be a psychological thriller in its highest form while also being a very sophisticated horror film.
Considering 1973 was also the year of a certain film about a girl who vomited pea soup and played with a crucifix in a rather bold way, I think Don't Look Now (and also the aforementioned Wicker Man) represents a truly underrated film of the genre as a whole from that year.
Leading the film are Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland giving two of the finest performances of their lengthy careers as Laura and John, a grieving couple who lost their young daughter after she drowned.
While dealing with the grief, they relocate to Venice where they are tasked with helping restore an old church and soon after encounter two sisters. One of them insists that she has psychic abilities and that their young daughter is trying to contact them from the afterlife to warn them of impending danger.
John doesn't believe them until he actually starts experiencing unusual premonitions that might be showing that something tragic may occur.
Don't Look Now is a film that does suffer at times from being a bit too glacial, but I think that glacial setting helps make the shock of the ending pay off enormously.
It is a film that manages to give great style to a genre that many would soon write off as being only able to make cheap slasher movies a decade later.
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#4 - Touki Bouki
(Djibril Diop Mambety)
During a decade when "Blaxploitation" films were all over the place, it is a shame that a movie like Touki Bouki is not as known as it should be for being a great representation of Sub-Saharan filmmaking.
If you were to simplify Touki Bouki, it would be a movie about goals and dreams and the quest to achieve them...and that is something we've seen dozens and dozens of times in films.
I think what sets apart the film from others of the genre is how unflinching it is in its approach of showing the true horrors that people would've faced at the time...and it is also manages to take a Truffaut/Demy/Rohmer French New Wave aesthetic and transplanting it into an African world.
Martin Scorsese once dubbed the film as a "cinematic poem" and I actually think that is a very strong and apt description.
In addition to the French New Wave elements, Mambety also gives a dose of neo-realism straight from the Italians and even montages like Soviet filmmakers of that era.
I think this is one film that deserves to be seen and discussed a lot more...and I would like to be a little more vague with going into it in detail. I do want to warn anyone that watches it that there is animal cruelty and it is a bit unsettling to see.
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#3 - Amarcord
(Federico Fellini)
After making some truly glorious films throughout the 50s and 60s, I consider Amarcord to be the swan song of Federico Fellini's career.
While his contemporaries like Ingmar Bergman and Akira Kurosawa often tackled darker material, Fellini was a filmmaker who always seemed to go for certain whimsical and fanciful approach...and that isn't to say his films were frivolous; they simply just had more of sumptuous appeal.
I often talk a lot about films that delve into "memories" or "coming-of-age" tales and I would rank Amarcord as being among the best of that genre, right up there with Yi Yi and Cinema Paradiso.
Much like the film that will end up being my #1 selection on this list, you could say Amarcord is one of those films where there isn't exactly a strong plot.
But I think the world Fellini created is truly an explosion of life at its most colorful and vibrant...and you can tell that Fellini really puts a lot of his own childhood into the film...including his own juvenile sexual deviant ways.
It manages to balance a great line between very elegant but also brash and crude. There is a realism to everything but with a heightened sense that were a witnessing what might be a fever dream of a childhood memory...and very few filmmakers could walk the tightrope of reality and film exuberance quite like Fellini.
Amarcord is essentially a slang term in Italian for "I Remember"...and the film's theme song (which has since been used in pop culture for sentimental montages and the like) is one of my favorite film themes ever. The whole score, by The Godfather's Nino Rita, is one of the best pairings of film and music we will ever get.
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#2 - Badlands
(Terrence Malick)
Every now and then, a filmmaker comes along and you know that they just have something special.
It becomes even more exciting when they hit it out of the park on their debut.
Much like Francois Truffaut's The 400 Blows, I think one of the best debuts of any filmmaker has to be Badlands.
I have already discussed Terrence Malick on this series as his 1978 masterpiece Days of Heaven was my choice of the best film of that year (and it also ranked on my top 10 of the decade as well).
Malick is a filmmaker who is something of a mystery. He has a lot of clout and respect and people want to work with him, but he is reclusive and rarely ever gives any kind of interviews. For the longest time, people weren't even sure what he looked like...AND...after he made Days of Heaven, he didn't make another film for 20 years.
Badlands has a similarity to Days of Heaven in that the story itself is rather conventional and it deals with a couple who are sort of on the run.
While Days has more of a sweeping epic Harlequin romance angle to it, Badlands seems more in line with being a neo-noir Bonnie & Clyde, as it was loosely based on the real-life murder spree of Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate in 1958, a couple that murdered 11 people.
Badlands was the first film to truly introduce Sissy Spacek to more of a wider audience and it truly establishes her as a new kind of face and performer for actresses in the 70s.
Martin Sheen was already known for his theatre and television work (and originally was deemed too old by Malick to play this role), but he does very well at capturing a sort of sly and sleazy charmer. There is no denying the chemistry between him and Spacek is palpable.
While the film has received its flowers, I still think it is something of a unsung film at the same time. It deserves a little more attention and praise.
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#1 - Day for Night
(Francois Truffaut)
For those who did happen to read my "Best of the 1970s" list, you will recall that Day for Night was my #10 choice.
You always hear about films that celebrate Hollywood, but there is something about special about a film that simply celebrates film and filmmaking.
When it comes to that type of genre, I would say that Day for Night is among the best ever...and in terms of being a love-letter to film, it is right up there with Cinema Paradiso.
I think what is truly remarkable about Day for Night is that it manages to be such a quietly chaotic and unorganized film but it isn't at its detriment. It truly makes us feel like we are witnessing the true messy nature of a film set where someone might pull focus at a certain moment and another person may do so the next. This could be either the director or an actor or a crew member...because in the end, every film's output would not be possible without the help of everyone on the set. Day for Night puts that mentality all on the screen.
As a filmmaker, Truffaut is someone that I admire greatly in terms of how he approaches films (no matter what Quentin Tarantino has to say about it), but I would say his overall output wasn't as consistently stellar as some of his contemporaries.
I do think Day for Night is one of his true masterpieces...and there is a sense that his career was building to this film (even if I actually still think my favorite film of his was his debut: The 400 Blows).
The film truly captures the magic of the cinema and how it is made...and I often think back to the line said by Valentina Cortese's character Severine: "What a funny life we lead! We meet, we work together, we love each other, and then, as soon as we grasp something -- it's gone."
It's a potent line.
(And not for nothing, Valentina Cortese losing the Oscar to Ingrid Bergman in Murder on the Orient Express was such a joke that one of the first things Bergman said at the podium was an apology to Cortese. A true class act.)
That line hits so hard...especially when related to any kind of artistic endeavor. The bonds and attachments formed are often strong and emotional...and magical.
Day for Night is basically magic. The end.
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FINAL THOUGHTS:
In the last few weeks, I have been admittedly dealing with a lot when it comes to various things. The sad truth is that I would've expected writing down my thoughts on films or TV or theatre would be a great source of releasing some stress...sadly that hasn't been the case.
However, over the last couple of days, I was able to devise this post as I did want to continue my "Anniversary Retrospective" series and also get some new content out there.
I do have some other years lined up that I would like to do still, but this time, 1973 was the one that stood out. There are times where I will draft a list of films and then I will flip flop some of the placements and in some cases, remove a film altogether.
When it came to 1973, I felt pretty solid about the list and just shifted some of the movies around as I began writing about them.
It is a very good year for film and the amazing thing is that this is basically the appetizer leading into the main course that is 1974 and the dessert that is 1975.
*And I suppose if I keep this series up, I will be discussing 1974 for its 50th Anniversary next year!*
For reference, other years coming up will be:
1968 (55th)
1983 (40th)
1993 (30th)
1998 (25th)
2008 (15th)
Maybe I will do one for 2018, but it still feels too recent. We shall see!