A WOMAN IN HER PRIME LUSTS AFTER FASCISTS - A Look at the Best Films of 1969
We have reached the end of another decade...and Hollywood wasn't sure what to do with itself.
When voters within the Academy submitted their ballots, the Best Picture lineup was perhaps one of the more polarizing I can possibly think of.
Not only did you have a bloated stuffy epic like Anne of a Thousand Days or a bloated misguided musical adaptation in Hello Dolly!, but then an X-Rated film called Midnight Cowboy about a young man from Texas who moves to NY to become a hustler, and Z, a very tense political thriller that became only the second foreign film to receive a Best Picture nomination.
In between those was Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, which is honestly a film that falls squarely in the middle of the pack in that it isn't anything remarkable nor is it horrible...but it was very popular and likely the most iconic of the nominees in some ways.
What is rather hilarious is that Anne of Thousand Days wasn't even that well received at the time. The only thing that holds it together would be the performances. Genevieve Bujold is perhaps the only true saving grace that elevates the film to far better than it actually was...but even then, there is a reason that film has a 43% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Speaking of "43% on Rotten Tomatoes", fellow Best Picture nominee Hello Dolly! currently holds that same rating as of this writing. Do I like that piece as a musical property? Not necessarily. I do think it has its moments as a musical, but the film adaptation is way too grand and cheesy and opulent...not to mention Barbra Streisand was FAR TOO YOUNG for the role. I also think randomly putting in Louis Armstrong was tacky as it was only to market on the success that he had covering the title song...with no disrespect to him of course; he remains a true legend. The film ended up flopping at the box office due to negative word of mouth, and yet...much like FOX did with Doctor Doolittle two years earlier, they pulled it off again with Hello Dolly!
There you have it; sorry to all you Anne of a Thousand Days fans but that certainly won't be making this list. Neither will Hello Dolly!
1969 is, much like 1968 was, a rather eclectic year. It still isn't a super high-quality year compared to a lot of my previous favorites, but I do feel like some of the better films were the ones more overlooked at the time...or perhaps they were helped by the power of their acting. We begin the list with a film that contains one of my favorite Oscar winning performances of all time.
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#10 - THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE
Directed by Ronald Neame
Written by Jacqueline "Jay" Presson Allen
This is a solid film for sure. I wouldn't say it is necessarily a stunning piece but is well made even if it does feel a tad stuffy amidst the changing cinematic landscape of the late 60s.
I am singling out this film primarily for the work of the late great Dame Maggie Smith. In a lot of ways, this was her true breakout role...especially considering her Oscar win was considered something of an upset.
She was certainly known for work in other films, primarily her Oscar nominated role of Desdemona in the infamous 1965 adaptation of Othello where Laurence Olivier gave us a heaping dose of blackface in the titular role.
A role like Jean Brodie is one that is perfect for an actress to sink her teeth into. The great Vanessa Redgrave had originated the role on the West End and was considered a sensation. Not to mention the beloved theatre actress Zoe Caldwell also got raves tackling the role for Broadway...but it was Smith who got tapped for the film adaptation.
Brodie is a teacher at an all-girls school, but she is someone who teaches with great passion and enthusiasm...and perhaps a bit of ego as well. She considers herself to be in the prime of her life...specifically her sexual prime...but she says that she wants to devote her energy to her "Brodie Set" girls. When she begins her first day of class for the school year, she tells her students her personal credo: "I am in the business of putting old heads on young shoulders, and all my pupils are the creme de la creme. Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life!"
However, Brodie veers from the curriculum to romanticize the fascist dictatorships of such leaders as Benito Mussolini and Francisco Franco...and it unfortunately inspires one such student to travel to Spain with her brother during the Spanish Civil War to tragic results. All the while, Brodie's "prime" is also unraveling as she struggles to maintain relationships with the men in her life.
Like I said, the film is by no means amazing, but Smith most definitely is and she alone is a reason to sit through it. She performs with such a theatrical bravado that might seem false, but that is a lot of the point. For as passionate as Brodie may seem, she is also emotionally distant and fragile and too unwilling to recognize her own faults. A truly magnificent performance.
In fact, I want all of you to check out this clip. It's only a little over 2 minutes long, but it shows you one of Smith's finest moments as well. I also love seeing Celia Johnson as Miss MacKay, who gave one of my favorite performances of the 40s in David Lean's Brief Encounter.
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#9 - THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON'T THEY?
Directed by Sydney Pollack
Written by Robert E. Thompson & James Poe
As will be a theme that continues for throughout the next couple of selections on this list, I am not exactly a passionate fan of They Shoot Horses, Don't They? I do believe it has merits as I was willing to single it out for this list, but I also don't think its without its faults.
Set during the Great Depression, we follow a group of people who are desperate to win a dance marathon and the bombastic emcee who is eagerly pushing them to continue.
The film veers quite a bit into the melodramatic which often left me with a mix of rolling my eyes and perhaps maybe only caring marginally. Having said that, this is another film much like The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie that gets buoyed up by its central performances. In a lot of ways, this was the dramatic breakthrough for Jane Fonda who truly gives one of her best performances here and likely would've been a stronger contender to win had it not been for Maggie Smith.
Her co-star Gig Young would win the Supporting Actor Oscar for his sloven emcee, and he is certainly at his acting peak, although his legacy would be tarnished when nearly a decade a later, he would murder his wife 3 weeks after their wedding and then turned the gun on himself.
I do think film manages to do well with, particularly thanks to Pollack's direction, immersing us into this desperate world at a time when human nature and moral was at one of its lowest points. I do feel those ideas and aesthetics give them film a bit of an edge that I appreciate more than some of the more traditionalist stylings of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.
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#9 - MIDNIGHT COWBOY
Directed by John Schlesinger
Written by Waldo Salt
My history with Midnight Cowboy has been all over the place. I've never quite known what I truly feel about it. I guess you could say I admire it more than I used to, but I wouldn't say I am enamored by it.
As I mentioned in my intro, Midnight Cowboy was the first film with an X-Rating to win Best Picture. Keep in mind that the MPAA was only a year old, but that would also more or less be the equivalent of NC-17 today.
The film winning was certainly thrilling on paper as this is the same voting body that gave Oliver! Best Picture the year prior and would give it to the stuffy war biopic Patton the year following. The tides were certainly changing, and the industry seemed more willing to embrace darker and subversive stories.
Joe Buck (ugh...Jon Voight) is a young man from Texas. He quits his job at a restaurant and buys a one-way ticket to New York with one mission in mind: he wants to become a male prostitute. He does not find any success, mainly seducing an older woman but then gets conned into giving her money when she claims she is insulted that he would ever ask money from someone like her.
He eventually crosses paths with a con man named Rico "Ratso" Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) who eventually takes him in when he gets kicked out of his hotel. The two live in squalor while Ratso (who insists that Joe call him Rico) insists they go into business together as hustlers.
As a duo, Voight and Hoffman are clearly compelling, particularly Hoffman who does such a 180-here from his mild-mannered and clean-cut Benjamin in The Graduate that it must have been thrilling to witness at the time. Hoffman's Oscar loss here would become a bit of a hot topic as this was the year he lost to John Wayne for True Grit, which was considered a huge lock and career win prior to the ceremony. Hoffman felt (rightly so I might add) that he was far more worthy to win for Midnight Cowboy, and this led him to take on an anti-Oscars stance until he would win for Kramer vs. Kramer a decade later.
More or less, Midnight Cowboy is a film I respect for what it was able to accomplish and for the doors it was able to open, but I can't say it's ever been a film I loved, even despite how it displays the gritty and grimy late 60s NYC in all its glory.
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#7 - WOMEN IN LOVE
Directed by Ken Russell
Written by Larry Kramer
Women in Love is such a bizarre film, and it is by no means perfect or even close to perfect. It just manages to find a way to still pull me in...and no, that isn't due to the wrestling scene.
Set in the Midlands of 1920 England, two sisters named Ursula (Jennie Linden) and Gudrun (Glenda Jackson in her first Oscar winning performance) have marriage on the mind as they prepare to go the wedding of Laura Crich, daughter of the town's very wealthy coal mine owner.
At the wedding, the two observe men who are part of the wedding party: Laura's brother Gerald (Oliver Reed) and Gerald's best friend Rupert (Alan Bates). Gudrun and Ursula choose to find a way to get themselves into a relationship with them and they end up spending time at an estate owned by wealthy Hermoine (Eleanor Bron), who was in a relationship with Rupert that is struggling.
As is usually the case with Ken Russell, Women in Love manages to have a provocative edge despite its relatively stuffy setting. The film is essentially a gothic sex fantasy and is perhaps best remembered, aside from Jackson's alluring work, for the naked wrestling scene between Reed and Bates in which you do get full frontal nudity. It is kind of remarkable the film passed British censors at the time, but it just goes to show you how quickly people were willing to embrace more challenging concepts.
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#6 - THE PASSION OF ANNA
Written & Directed by Ingmar Bergman
As the final installment of a defacto trilogy, The Passion of Anna is easily the weakest of the 3 and feels like a step back for Bergman. However, it is still in my top 10 so that is clearly showing that I must not think of it too negatively. I think it benefits from Bergman usually still being pretty good fairly consistently and the fact this isn't exactly the strongest top 10 I've discussed.
We have Liv Ullman and Max von Sydow again. He is a divorcee named Andreas, who is still feeling very bleak with his marriage falling apart. She is Anna, a widower who lost her husband and son in a car accident.
She happens to be his neighbor and comes over one day asking to use his phone, and being a bit nosy, he listens in on her conversation which ends with Anna leaving his home in tears. She leaves her handbag behind, and Andreas looks through it finding a letter from her dead husband stating that he is unhappy in their marriage and feels fearful about the possibility of "psychological and physical violence".
One element that is rather fascinating, though I am not sure it's enough to truly make me that compelled, is that Bergman uses a motif where he is an unseen interviewer talking to the performers about their characters which also includes Bibi Andersson fresh off of her stellar work in Persona and also Erland Josephson who would go on to be iconically paired with Ullman in the legendary Scenes from a Marriage.
The film is also unique in that is an early case of Bergman filming in color, but that doesn't exactly benefit the film in any way. I would argue that his staging and Nykvist's cinematography are not as striking as they had been up to that point. What truly carries the film is the quartet of actors, and the material certainly allows all of them a chance to shine which is easy considering all 4 of them are among the greatest actors to have ever lived.
The Passion of Anna is a solid film, not one of Bergman's best, but there is enough here that I find it to be a rather intriguing piece.
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#5 - MY NIGHT AT MAUD'S
Written & Directed by Eric Rohmer
I've briefly written about Eric Rohmer's work, and I do want to point out again that Rohmer had (along with Godard) the longest and most sustainable career out of any of the French New Wave auteurs.
I always found the fact that he was able to explore many different styles and ideas with ease to be rather refreshing, especially when he made believable films surrounding people younger than 30 when he was already in his 70s.
My Night at Maud's was Rohmer's breakthrough film that finally netted him both critical and commercial success. His late start had been due to him focusing on editing the famed Cahiers du cinema and mentoring people before taking a dive at the cause himself.
This was the 4th film released in what was series called Six Moral Tales. It's the Christmas season in the town of Clermont-Ferrand. We follow the lives of 4 single people and how they all manage to connect and interact with each other. One of the 4 at least already knows one of the other three, and they do come from varying backgrounds. For example, Jean-Louis (Jean-Louis Trintignant) is a devout catholic while his friend Vidal (Antoine Vitez) is a Marxist atheist. The titular Maud (Francoise Fabian) is also an atheist while the other lady Francoise (Marie-Christine Barrault) happens to be Catholic.
When they all end up at Maud's apartment, conversations break out from everything related to religion and mathematics and ethics...a wide variety. Once it begins to heavily snow, Maud offers her guest room...but there is tension as Vidal is an ex-lover of Maud's...and Jean-Louis is sort of feeling that maybe there is vibe with her.
My Night at Maud's has a very simple story that is arguably in some ways universal...but it gets a bit of a spark in that it tries to engage you in a philosophy and think over your own morals/ethics. Hence it being part of a Moral series.
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#4 - FUNERAL PARADE OF ROSES
Written & Directed by Toshio Matsumoto
Quite possibly one of the more fascinating films from this era in terms of what it tries to explore, Funeral Parade of Roses is essentially a loose adaptation of Oedipus but set in the underground queer culture scenes of late 60s Tokyo.
I do have to stress before I go further that some elements of this could likely not be seen as appropriate today nor is the film completely successful in terms of tackling some of the themes it wants to put forth. I would argue that it can come off as messy and even too melodramatic and self-conscious for its own good.
And yet...I am giving it high marks. Well, not 5 stars or anything. This one gets a 4.5 but the extra boost is for what it was able to put forth at a time when the Stonewall Riots had only occurred 3 months prior.
Eddie (played by a famous gay entertainer in Japan simply known as Peter) works as a trans female hostess at a Tokyo gay bar known as The Genet. This bar is owned by Gonda (Yoshio Tuschiya), a drug dealer who lives with the madame of the bar Leda (Osamu Ogasawara). Eddie and Gonda have begun sleeping together and Leda becomes suspicious...only to be exacerbated when Gonda tells Eddie that she will be promised the position of new madame.
I am sure you can see the seeds being planted for a melodramatic story, and I haven't even begun to talk about the directions that the film takes us in. On top of that, the film follows a non-linear narrative structure and embraces the idea of an almost Brechtian style of commentary. A lot of the film has fourth wall breaks and a sense that these people know they are being filmed and want to be sure that we never forget it either.
And as I mentioned, Peter was not actually a trans woman but an androgynous gay actor who often did play drag...sort of reminiscent to how Chinese actor Leslie Cheung would be so affective at doing years later.
Funeral Parade of Roses is a lot. It isn't perfect, but somehow that manages to work extremely well in its favor even if sometimes it does feel like it tries a bit too hard. I just have to give them props for giving us something so bold in terms of being an early forerunner for Queer cinema...even if it may be of the tragedy porn variety.
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#3 - KES
Written & Directed by Ken Loach
Have I seriously not talked about Ken Loach yet on this blog? I guess a lot of his films barely miss my lists, but he is someone I do respect highly compared to how he approaches his work and what he tries to accomplish.
Loach is a socialist who often directed his work with a strong focus on social critique. He loved focusing on the working-class and giving them compassionate portrayals while also tackling the flaws with the British Educational System and how those of the lower classes were often not given the same career or learning opportunities to get the kind of jobs that might give them a bit of a boost.
We follow 15-year-old Billy (David Bradley), who lives with his poor & dysfunctional family in South Yorkshire. He is frequently abused, both physically and mentally, by his older half-brother who works in the coal mines, and also faces a lot of bullying from classmates and his strict teachers.
His mother is raising him alone as his father walked out on the family years prior, and unfortunately, she doesn't provide him much warmth. She mostly just considers him "a hopeless case". He does steal dairy for the family as a means to try to help, but then one day, steals a kestrel from a nearby farm with the goal of learning falconry and keeping it as a pet.
Kes could be seen as a bit of a cruel process of filmmaking as Loach did try to use as many non-actors as possible and in order to keep the spontaneity alive, he even had the teachers actually cane the students which led to their own shocked and pained reactions.
Even though that does leave me a bit cold, there is something so warm and passionate about the film otherwise...and that is clearly due to how Loach is able to unleash David Bradley. I sort of see this as a bleaker companion piece to The Long Day Closes because while young Bud feels very alone in that one, his family is still at least welcoming to him. Here, you practically want to shove the mom and the half-brother's heads through a window.
Although I do have to say...I often could pride myself on being able to understand a lot of thick British accents due to my Nan and her older sister Mary being very fond of British entertainment and being exposed to it from a young age. Kes is one of the biggest examples of where the Yorkshire accent is so intense that it truly did feel like I was watching something in a foreign language...not that I am criticizing the film for that obviously, but I do love how it only adds to the reality of the world. It is not the idea of swinging 60s London where people sound posh; people do live in the north of England after all.
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#2 - ARMY OF SHADOWS
Written & Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
Army of Shadows is a film I watched much later than basically all of the films on this list. When it was first released in France, the film was mostly met with disdain as critics perceived it as glorifying the legacy of Charles de Gaulle following the events of the Algerian War. Due to this, art-house cinemas here in the States that would frequently show foreign films took their cue from Cahiers du cinema and chose not to accept the film here either.
It wouldn't be released over here until 2006 and because it was deemed brand new, many critics would place it on their top 10 list for that year. Honestly, 2006 was actually a fairly good year for film in what was a relatively weaker decade, but I would say that Army of Shadows wiped most of the output off the map.
Based on a novel by Joseph Kessel where he uses his own experiences mixed with that of fictional characters, we follow resistance fighters who are weaving their way through a series of hidden channels such as safe houses to avoid capture and execution from Nazi forces.
What is it about French cinema, especially from this time period, that manages to look so beautiful even in settings that are relatively gritty by comparison. This is by no means The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, but even with stark greys and blues, the cold cinematography pops and feels so rich. It kind of reminds me of Melville's film the following year, Le Circle Rouge, which did make my 1970 list.
Considering the deeply personal connection to this era by not just Kessel but Melville too, Army of Shadows does have a strong emotional intensity that even some of the better war-themed films lack.
War is hell...and sometimes, you just have to decide to stop running.
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#1 - Z
Written & Directed by Costa-Gavras
Co-written by Jorge Semprun
Ugh, the right-wing fascists are still rearing their ugly and punch-worthy heads.
A beacon of the political thriller genre, Z is truly a glorious achievement.
When the film first came out, legendary critic Roger Ebert dubbed it the Best Film of 1969 and considered it "a film of our time". He clearly wasn't wrong, but it is also a film that has aged very well for better and for worse and still feels very relevant.
The film is thinly fictionalized account of the events surrounding the assassination of a Greek democratic politician Grigoris Lambrakis. This occurred during the reign of the junta, a far-right military group who maintained a stronghold in Greece until the mid-70s.
For the film, the country nor the name of the assassinated deputy would be named, but we follow a group of the left-wing opposition who want to have a famous government deputy give a speech to plead for nuclear disarmament. As a surprise to no one, the junta members relentlessly try to block the group by making venues deny them space, sending thugs to attack them, and destroying their promotional material. The assassination attempt, staged as a car crash, is successful but when the autopsy reveals that The Deputy died from a blow to the head. A witness claims he can corroborate this, but before he can testify, he is struck down by a club from a passing car. Everything continues to descend from there...
Z is a film that I actually think can be rather rough in its presentation, but it manages to make the gritty realism into a rather appealing style. It also contains a stellar ensemble, led by Jean-Louis Trintignant, Yves Montand, Irene Papas, Pierre Dux, and several others.
It was, indeed, a "film of the times", This was coming out in the height of conflict: the Vietnam War was still raging; 1968 had been a year of turmoil with the Democratic Convention riots in Chicago and the murders of both MLK Jr and RFK, and even at the end of 1969, there was the killing of the Black Panthers' Chicago chairman Fred Hampton. Ironically enough, the Black Panthers were among the first to acquire the film for advance screenings earlier in the year in addition to the United Front Against Fascism.
In the end, even in moments of victory, Z shows that the world will never be rid of corruption. Even the "heroes" can be discreetly villainous. It is a film that will make you livid with the world around you, so perhaps it would not be the easiest watch for some these days...AND YET...maybe that it is why people should watch it.
Costa-Gavras, who is still alive at 93 as of this writing, is truly dynamic when tapping into political thrillers, just as he would be over a decade later with Missing, which also netted him more Oscar attention. He manages to enthrall to levels of tension and excitement that are almost unbearable, which only adds to the emotional weight of knowing how history has a way of repeating itself.
Z still remains a film of our time. I just wish we could consider the film as a work of absolute fiction.
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FINAL THOUGHTS:
I am very happy to have finally completed another decade of films for my blog, but I do have to stress once again that I am kind of surprised at how the late 60s ended up being frequently less compelling to me compared to the early half.
1969 in particular felt pretty dire in that I would only give Z and Army of Shadows 5 stars, Kes, Funeral Parade of Roses, and My Night at Maud's would get 4.5, but everything else would only get 4. Even then, I feel like those films each had something that I felt had one or two major selling points that made me feel better about justifying its position on this list.
I hadn't planned on doing this, but I just decided for the hell of it to rank each of the years of the 60s in order of what I think was the best to the worst:
#1 - 1964
#2 - 1960
#3 - 1962
#4 - 1966
#5 - 1967
#6 - 1961
#7 - 1963
#8 - 1968
#9 - 1965
#10 - 1969
Then again, knowing me, this list would likely shift a bit depending on the day.
With that, another decade is in the books. I would like to try tackling another decade which does make me have to address that I know I keep abandoning the 2010s after only doing 2010-2013, but I still admittedly feel compelled to pick a new one.
I am leaning towards the 1980s, because as a decade, it is often seen as a bit of a valley when it comes to quality compared to the 70s and the 90s...and honestly that is totally fair. However, I do think we get great gems sprinkled throughout the decade...plus, there is a year of film from the 80s that I lowkey think is one of my favorites ever and it is certainly one that I don't see get discussed so I would be excited to shine a light on it.
We will see if that is how this pans out.
ALSO - not to date this post - as of this writing, I am in the process of starting a YouTube channel that will mainly be a digital/video version of this blog. The channel is made and I also have an IG profile devoted to it. I will link them below, but I suspect that I won't have a video up until the weekend.
I hope to record the first video on Friday April 17th with the goal of posting it no later than Sunday the 19th...I hope all of you will come over to support that once the content comes out!
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