Wojciech Jerzy Has' 1973 surreal opus The Hourglass Sanitorium is one of the few Polish movies I've seen. For a long time I'd only known this movie by its odd and amazing poster, before I was able to go see it at a Museum of Art on the big screen. When I read more, it sounded intriguing even though I'm very hit and miss on surreal art. I must say that while this suffers from some of the drawbacks of all surreal films, it is one of the most beautifully shot and put together movies I've ever seen and one that I'd happily see again any time.
The "story" as much as one exists, is that of Joseph riding a train to visit his ailing father Jacob in a sanitorium. From there we are led on a series of surreal adventures such as being arrested by soldiers for having a dream, confronting living plastic mannequins of historical figures, reliving childhood memories of many different things. And all with Joseph leading us through, even through the childhood segments, as the adult Joseph stands in for his younger self.
Above all, this is easily one of the most visually splendid films ever made (it was #9 on my Most Beautiful Movies list from last year). The way Has moves from sequence to sequence has an incredible flow to it, as sets seem to almost disappear, or open up into the next segment. It's truly astonishing filmmaking on every technical level. I've only seen two movies from Wojciech Jerzy Has, but the other was The Saragossa Manuscript, which was my #9 movie of the 1960's. I hope to see more in the future. I am not always one to say go see a movie just for the visuals, but if you can see this movie, do it, even if it's only for the visuals.
24. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977) directed by John Lounsbery and Wolfgang Reitherman
Technically, this is simply a package movie of 3 Winnie-the-Pooh shorts that Disney had done, with some connecting material added in. But I think the added stuff really works and helps make the movie feel like a whole piece rather than 3 things stitched together. Pooh is just one of the most likable characters and universes to dive into. Simplistic, but not simple or stupid. The audience is never talked down to, and this movie has that great balance that Pixar has tried to strike, that of entertaining both adults and children while not patronizing either group. Many have tried, and few have succeeded like The Many Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh.
23. Star Wars (1977) directed by George Lucas
Star Wars might be THE most iconic movie ever made. It has truly reached an obscene amount of pop culture awareness. When that kind of thing happens, the movie itself can get lost in the shuffle, or actually become under appreciated for what it is, a real movie, than what it's perceived as, a product. I think this has happened to Star Wars. Going back and watching it, the SFX are flawless, the story is as archetypal as it gets, the dialog is simple but a lot of the time it's fun and engaging as well. It's not the best movie in the series (that's still The Empire Strikes Back), and I wish George Lucas (or Disney now, since they own the rights) would give us back the original cuts, Han DID shoot first, but what we have is definitely one of the best movies of the 1970's.
22. Jaws (1975) directed by Steven Spielberg
One of the other most iconic movies ever made that may not be truly appreciated enough for how great it is is Steven Spielberg's first masterpiece, Jaws. Like Star Wars it has reached pop culture saturation but when revisited on its own terms is just an amazing time at the movies. It's funny, scary, thrilling, with real characters we care about and practical effects that still hold up today. It's one of the most talked about movies ever made, so I'm not sure I have anything new to add to the discussion, but it deserves its spot here on the top 25 of the 70's.
21. Woodstock (1970) directed by Michael Wadleigh
Director Michael Wadleigh and his team of editors (including a young Martin Scorsese and his future editing partner Thelma Schoonmaker, who was nominated for a Best Editing Oscar for this movie, a big time rarity for a documentary) took an ungodly amount of footage shot at the 1969 Woodstock festival and with it made one of the great documentaries. Not just a celebration of the music of the festival, but of the people, the time, and even just the feeling of being there. Although 3 hours long, the time flies by as we're transported back to that muddy field in upstate New York over 3 days. And it really is a transporting document now, as we grow further and further away from that hippie Mecca that sprung up and was a beacon for hundreds of thousands of people in attendance, and became a landmark and symbol for many of those who wanted to be there. Wadleigh and his team make us feel like we're there, and it's an amazing viewing experience.
20. The Godfather part II (1974) directed by Francis Ford Coppola
Decidedly inferior to its predecessor, The Godfather part II is still an amazing masterpiece of a movie. Al Pacino gives one of his better performances as Michael Corleone, slowing but surely isolating himself and pushing away all that he wanted to keep close at the beginning of the first movie. Robert De Niro, as Michael's father Vito, in the other main storyline of the movie, is simply brilliant. Charismatic, intelligent, ambitious. It's some of De Niro's best work and he deserved the Supporting Actor Oscar he received for it. My problem with the movie is that the cutting back and forth between these brilliant stories robs each of them of their narrative momentum. Just as Michael's story is revving up, we cut to Vito's story. Once it gets going, we cut back. Francis Ford Coppola has talked about that he played with cutting twice as much, so that the two stories blended more traditionally, but that it didn't work. I can imagine that it didn't, and I don't know what the answer to my issue with the movie is, but since it's still a 10/10, and one of the best movies of its decade, does it really matter?
19. Super Fly (1972) directed by Gordon Parks, Jr.
I didn't really know what to expect going into Super Fly. I'd loved the soundtrack for years, I'm a huge Curtis Mayfield fan, but hadn't really ever heard anyone talk much about the movie itself. I watched a documentary on the "Blaxploitation" genre, and it made me realize that I'd never seen a lot of those movies, so I decided to check out at least one of them.
I'd heard that Superfly got a lot of flack at the time of its release because many members of the black community felt that it glamourized its drug dealing (and addicted) protagonist, thus furthering negative stereotypes of black people and setting bad examples for the children. Seeing it outside of the cultural climate of the times, I can say that it does nothing of the sort. Priest, the main character, is most definitely a drug dealer, but he knows that drugs are a bad scene to be in, and he wants out. The sociological comment that the movie makes, that people seemed to have missed at the time, is that Priest is only supported in his dream to get out by his girlfriend. Every other person in his world tries to keep him in that lifestyle. His partner even telling him "Look, I know it's a rotten game, but it's the only one The Man left us to play." It's his environment that's really poisoned, not him. He's trying to do the right thing by getting out, he just does it by exploiting that poisoned environment. Priest doesn't know what he's qualified to do, or even what he wants to do, in the "real world". But he knows that if he could have half a million dollars in his bank account there'd be no rush to figure it out. So he decides to try and set up the classic "last big score before he retires".
Ron O'Neal is electrifying as Priest. The script is fairly strong, with some good dialog at least, and O'Neal has total command of the screen every moment he's on it. None of the other actors are anything particularly good, but O'Neal is in pretty much every scene for the entire 93 minutes, so it doesn't really matter. It's far from a perfect movie, there are many technical faults (seeing the camera crew in the window reflection and stuff like that), but they're ultimately forgivable. It's really just a crackling good crime drama with a tremendous lead performance by Ron O'Neal.
18. Paper Moon (1973) directed by Peter Bogdanovich
I'm a sucker for a good con movie, and Paper Moon is my favorite one. Gorgeously shot (by the legendary László Kovács), and with a tremendously funny and poignant script from Alvin Sargent, this movie really shines due to the wonderful lead performances from Ryan O'Neal and Tatum O'Neal, with the always welcome Madeline Kahn providing the hilarious, and biggest, supporting role. But mostly it's the O'Neal's whom this movie would live or die on, and live it does. We watch as these two con around Depression era Kansas and Missouri, trading cons and insults and annoyances and generally just making me smile. Addie and Moses are two terrific performances and wonderful characters from two actors who ultimately didn't do much else worth remembering. But for all the talk of how wooden Ryan O'Neal is in things like Love Story or Barry Lyndon, his Moses Pray is engaging and a tricky role to do right. He knocks it out of the park. Tatum's Addie isn't the classic cute kids role, and she really shines, deservedly winning an Oscar for her work (though it was as Supporting Actress when she's really the lead of the movie). It's a classic movie for a reason, one that isn't as widely known today as it should be. It's still funny and engaging and beautiful to look at even these 44 years later.
17. Rocky (1976) directed by John G. Avildsen
Although I personally wouldn't have named it the Best Picture of 1976, as the Oscars did, Rocky is the underdog story of cinema. Anchored by a startlingly terrific performance from Sylvester Stallone, wonderfully sensitive and engaging just as his leading lady Talia Shire is. Carl Weathers, Burgess Meredith, and Burt Young are all memorable and even became iconic for their roles that fill out what is a surprisingly small cast. We saw with Ryan Coogler's Creed (2015) what kind of archetypes Rocky set up that still work beautifully today, but Rocky is the best example of it still. The way director John G. Avildsen puts everything together with just enough grit added to the fairy tale is an underrated something that really helps the movie soar as high as it does. Rocky doesn't win the match, but he wins our hearts.
16. The Conversation (1974) directed by Francis Ford Coppola
Covering much of the same paranoid, down the rabbit hole into madness ground that Michelangelo Antonioni explored with Blow Up, Coppola's take on it follows Gene Hackman's best work as a surveillance expert who ends up getting caught in a web of intrigue and murder he had no business or desire to be in. One of four Coppola movies to make this 1970's list (one of the best runs for any filmmaker ever, if you ask me), The Conversation is well known among film fans, but not as widely known among the regular movie going public. I prefer Blow Up, but The Conversation is a fascinating look at the same theme. Did they say "he'd kill us if he got the chance" or "he'd kill us if he got the chance"? What a difference that is, but what's it worth if it might cost you your life?
15. Blazing Saddles (1974) directed by Mel Brooks
Another one of those that runs out of steam in the end, there may not be a funnier movie for the first half or even 2/3rds than Blazing Saddles. Crazy slapstick, biting satire, pure idiocy, stereotyping galore, and the most n-words this side of Django Unchained, Blazing Saddles is the ultimate "let's throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" movie from the master of said form, Mel Brooks. This is also one of those great 70's movies that wouldn't even get its script read today, much less be greenlit and actually filmed and released to the public. Thankfully, studios in the New Hollywood era (roughly 1967-1980) were slightly riskier and we are all the better for it.
14. The Last Waltz (1978) directed by Martin Scorsese
The Band is one of my all time favorite groups. This is Martin Scorsese's account of their final concert, which they called The Last Waltz. For their last show, they invited some friends to help out. But their friends are different than the friends you or I would invite to our party. Their friends included Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Muddy Waters, Joni Mitchell, Eric Clapton, Emmylou Harris, Van Morrison, Ringo Starr, Ronnie Wood, Dr. John, and others. But my favorite performances are those from The Band by themselves. "Up On Cripple Creek" "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" and especially their definitive take on Marvin Gaye's "Don't Do It", which opens the movie.
It's sad that Richard Manuel, who had maybe the most heartbreaking and beautiful voice in all of rock music, was so broken down through his addictions and hard life on the road that we only really see him sing a single verse of the Dylan/Band classic "I Shall Be Released". There's an overall sadness alongside the joyousness of the music here. A type of sadness not usually seen in concert films. You can see that the guys love playing music together, and with their friends, but there's a sort of knowing wistfulness in everyone's eyes, particularly guitarist/songwriter Robbie Robertson. The Last Waltz was a wonderful celebration of one of the great bands of all time, but also a melancholic goodbye to the music that they made together. The Last Waltz is the greatest of rock docs, about one of the greatest of bands.
13. Dog Day Afternoon (1975) directed by Sidney Lumet
Al Pacino's greatest achievement as an actor is his work in Sidney Lumet's Dog Day Afternoon. He plays Sonny, who along with his buddy Sal (Pacino's good friend John Cazale) rob a bank in Brooklyn, ultimately getting stuck inside with all the employees as police surround the building. Based on a true story, though with plenty of inaccuracies as always with a movie, Dog Day Afternoon was revolutionary in its time for broaching the subject of gay relationships. Sonny is robbing the bank to pay for the sex change operation of his gay lover Leon (future Prince Humperdink Chris Sarandon, who's then wife Susan was starring in another 1975 gay culture revolution called The Rocky Horror Picture Show). Sadly, I think a major movie like this would still cause some controversy if it were made by a huge star and released today.
Alternately hilarious and heartbreaking, Pacino creates one of the great characters in cinema in Sonny. He's smart, paranoid, angry, confused, and Pacino allows him to feel like a real life person, even though there's not a bit of what we think of as Al Pacino in the performance. Mannerisms, voice, everything is Sonny. Sarandon deservedly got nominated for an Oscar for his brief role, which is just as hilarious and tragic as Pacino's. Lumet's as always subtle work is phenomenal, as the lack of music makes things feel more real, ratcheting up the tension, and he keeps us inside with Sonny rather than spending too much time outside with the police. I thought it was a tad too long when I first saw it, but on re-watches I didn't feel that at all.
12. Days of Heaven (1978) directed by Terrence Malick
One of the most beautiful movies ever made, in fact #2 on my all time list when I made it last year, is this poetic little masterpiece from Terrence Malick, still his best work, I think. It stars Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, and Sam Shepard in a love triangle set against the pastoral Texas wheat fields of the early 1900's. The love triangle is witnessed by Linda Manz, as Gere's little sister, who may not understand everything she sees, but whose eyes we witness a lot of the movie through, including the narration. It's a gorgeously lyrical movie, like a moving poem with some of the greatest cinematography ever put on film. It's not plot heavy, but still there are sequences like the burning of the fields that will stick in your memory forever. A movie maybe better experienced than it is talked about.
11. Hedgehog in the Fog (1975) directed by Yuriy Norshteyn
Playing like a children's fairy tale, with very little in terms of guidance narratively, Yuriy Norshteyn's The Hedgehog in the Fog is basically exactly what it sounds like. An adorable little hedgehog gets lost in the fog on his way to see a friend. He becomes frightened after seeing and hearing many things in the foggy forest. He can hear someone calling to him, is confronted by an owl and a horse, he falls in a river, and loses the present he was bringing his friend. It's a very simple tale, only about 10 minutes long (though fully deserving of being collected here with other great films), and strongly evokes the feelings of childhood. The happiness, curiosity, and occasionally frightening things happening that may not be frightening when you look back on them as an adult, but can be almost overwhelming when viewed through the lens of an innocent child.
10. Annie Hall (1977) directed by Woody Allen
Roger Ebert said that Annie Hall is "Just about everyone's favorite Woody Allen movie", and I guess that makes me like everyone because it is certainly my favorite. Turning a corner from his earlier farces (with which he'd had great success), Annie Hall adds a lot of depth and weight to Allen's still hilarious humor, making for THE romantic comedy of all time, even if it's too singular to Allen to be copied to death like rom-coms tend to be.
Miraculously winning Oscars for Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, and Actress (miraculous because this was the year of Star Wars, after all), I think Woody and the gang deserved it. It's hilarious from start to finish, whether Woody is evoking Grouch Marx ("I'd never be a member of a club who'd someone like me as a member"), fearing for his life as Annie's crazy brother (played by an insanely young Christopher Walken) might kill them, or breaking the fourth wall and giving us in the audience little asides from the plot. My favorite is actually one with a hint of melancholy, where Alvy (Allen's character) tries to recreate different crazy antics he'd had with Annie with a new girl after he and Annie broke up, only to have the new girl not join in and him realize how special Annie was.
It was a turning point for Allen, as his next works became more serious, or at least were not silly, giving rise to the often uttered "I liked his earlier, funnier movies better." Not me, I think he only got better and better as a filmmaker, even if I think he never bettered this masterpiece.
9. Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Taking place in Munich, it tells the story of the scandalous relationship between Emmi (Brigitte Mira) and Ali (El Hedi ben Salem). The relationship is scandalous for a couple of reasons, mainly because she is in her 60's, he is about 40. She's German, he's Moroccan. But they share in common that they're nice people. They're also very lonely people. She is long widowed, with kids whose lives she's not an active part of. He's an immigrant mechanic who doesn't speak the best German, and spends his time either working or drinking away his loneliness at the local Arab friendly bar. They find each other by accident almost, as she ducks into the bar to get out of the rain, and he's taunted by some of his fellow Arabs to dance with "the old woman". They do, and immediately connect with each other.
Soon, they're being confronted with all the post-WWII racism that still exists, with many people considering any dark skinned foreigners "filthy swine" and any woman who takes up with them a "whore". These reactions aren't totally unexpected to Emmi and Ali, but they just want to be together because they make each other happy. But society does its best to spit on them and their relationship, even to the point that her 3 children disown her when they find out about it. Emmi says she wishes they were alone in the world just the two of them and didn't have to deal with that behavior. But we see subtly how as their relationship settles a bit, we start to worry about the couple. Is it real connection or just an affair or what?
Here, writer/director Rainer Werner Fassbinder made a movie about two people coming together out of shared kindness and loneliness, ceding into truly being in love, falling a bit into complacency, and eventually, hopefully, dedication and more love. It's an astounding movie, powerful and striking right to the core. Simply and realistically acted by our two leads who I was really rooting for by the end of it.
8. Chinatown (1974) directed by Roman Polanski
Jack Nicholson's Jake Gittes is one of the best and most understated performances of his career in Roman Polanski's downbeat classic Chinatown. Set in 1937, and obviously indebted to the crime movies of previous generations, Polanski doesn't shoot much at night, making Chinatown what I'd refer to as a daylight noir. John Huston was a towering directorial figure in the noir genre, and makes for a towering villain in this one. From his refusal to say Jake's name correctly (always calling him "Mr. Gits" instead of "Git-ies"), to the air of a charming snake oil salesman, everything about Huston's Noah Cross gets under your skin, before you even know if he's done anything bad. Faye Dunaway rounds out the three leads and gives a wonderfully different take on the noir femme fatale.
Because of its downbeat and uncompromising take on the noir genre, Chinatown is a movie that subverts your expectations and therefore sticks out and grows in your mind in a way that most other crime thrillers don't. Robert Towne deservedly won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay (the movie's only win in a year dominated by The Godfather part II), but it was reportedly Polanski who came up with the film's famous ending. This was just a few years after his wife Sharon Tate had been murdered by the Manson family, and was his first time shooting in LA since then, something he only agreed to because of the extraordinary strength of the script and his wish to work with friend Jack Nicholson. Sadly, it would be Polanski's last American film, as he would have his famous legal troubles just 3 years after Chinatown's release. It's a hell of a great American movie though.
7. Don't Look Now (1973) directed by Nicolas Roeg
Don't Look Now is the story of a couple, John and Laura (Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie) who lose a child to a freak drowning accident. They soon after travel to Venice, hoping a change of scenery will help them cope while John works restoring a church. Strange things happen on the job to John, while Laura meets two sisters, one of whom claims she's clairvoyant and that Laura's daughter is trying to contact her parents to warn of danger. John also begins catching glimpses of a tiny figure, in the same red rain coat his daughter died in, running around, but every time he follows, he loses the person in the labyrinthine streets of the city.
A psychological workout on many levels, even the infamous sex scene is wrought with layers of meaning as it cuts between Sutherland and Christie in bed and the couple getting dressed for dinner, also mimicking other time jumping cuts that director Roeg only lets us realize are happening at the last (and most emotionally impactful) minute. The sex scene was reportedly so intense even during filming that stories have gone over the years that it was not simulated, much to the anger of Christie's boyfriend at the time, Warren Beatty. Sutherland insists that it was not only fake, but choreographed by Roeg sitting behind the camera calling out what he wanted each of them to do while filming.
So much more than its famous sex scene, in 2011 Don't Look Now was voted by UK magazine Time Out as the #1 British movie of all time. It drips with foreboding atmosphere and like all great horror movies, works on your mind, not with blood and cheap thrills.
6. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) directed by Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam
One of the handful of funniest movies ever made, Holy Grail is a right of passage for every teenager (especially boys, as girls don't seem to respond to Monty Python quite as well, on average). It's probably the most quotable, and quoted, comedy of all time, and with good reason. Everything Python ever did was messy, with some bits that work and others that don't, but they were never as consistently hilarious as in Holy Grail. Surprisingly well shot on a shoestring budget, it's a good old fashioned "let's throw everything we can at the wall and see what sticks" kind of comedy, with musical numbers, animation, failed musical numbers, storybooks, narrators, and many more techniques showing up on the episodic quest for the Holy Grail. And none of that even covers the characters, sequences, and lines that have entered pop culture over the past 35+ years.
There's much debate among Python fans as to whether this or their subsequent movie, the controversial Biblical tale Life of Brian, is superior. For me it's easy. Life of Brian obviously benefited from the Pythons experience making this movie, as it's more professional looking and was made on a significantly higher budget. It's a good movie, with many hugely hilarious and wonderfully quotable lines. But it's no Holy Grail. Holy Grail is the best comedy of the 70's, and if you don't believe me, I shall be forced to taunt you a second time.
5. Apocalypse Now (1979) directed by Francis Ford Coppola
A towering nightmare of a movie, and even more so of a production (check out the great documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse for that fascinating backstory), Francis Coppola's Apocalypse Now was the last of 4 masterpieces by the man (the 2 Godfathers and The Conversation being the others, of course), and is one of the great achievements in cinema. Speaking to the depth of greatness of the 1970's, I would list this movie among the top 25 or so ever made, yet is only #5 of its decade. Martin Sheen stars as Capt. Willard in the loose adaptation of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, as a Vietnam soldier sent on an assassination mission on former hero Col. Kurtz (Marlon Brando), who has set up his own Cambodian army, with himself as a God like figurehead.
The nightmare of the movie is the long trip down river as Willard comes across Lt. Col. Kilgore (Robert Duvall) bombing a Vietnamese village so they can get the good surfing waves there, a USO show featuring Playboy Bunnies, and unseen attackers as they get closer and closer to the hell of Kurtz's compound where he lectures Willard on war, humanity, and civilization as his fool (a photographer played by Dennis Hopper) babbles on about Kurtz's greatness. It's all so tragic, yet hallucinogenic enough that you're not really sure what Willard will do once he gets to the compound. That's also based on Brando's divisive work as Kurtz. It was among the first works of Brando I saw and I was completely spellbound as he captured my attention like few other actors ever had. I was fascinated by every single (sometimes nonsensical) word. Some say he was lazy and bloated, I say he's brilliant. Sheen too is terrific as Willard, and all of the supporting cast is wonderful.
But even Brando doesn't steal the spotlight from the movie itself, which is so epic even when feeling so singularly personal and emotional. There are also so many things about it that work like a lot of 70's cinema does for me, which is like music. You can't always quite describe why one thing is particularly better than another, but you feel it in your gut. "The horror... the horror..." sticks with you like all the great closing lines do, maybe because there are so many things the phrase could be applied to in the movie. Maybe because it's the great final notes in an incomparable symphony.
4. Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) directed by Werner Herzog
One of the biggest influences on Coppola's Apocalypse Now was the movie that introduced the genius of Werner Herzog to the rest of the world. His fourth fiction film, it was his first with volatile star Klaus Kinski (father of Nastassja Kinski), who gives one of the great crazy man performances in the history of movies. It's the fictional story of a group of Spanish conquistadors looking for the fabled El Dorado, the City of Gold. Like Apocalypse Now, it's a slowly burning tale of madness, though here we stay with Don Lope de Aguirre (Kinski) as he takes over the mission, only to lead it to insanity and tragedy.
Kinski's work as a crazy man may not have been great acting, as by all accounts Kinski was every bit a barely controlled crazy man. Still, his work succeeds on screen in giving us a descent into delusion and a frenzy of blood as he becomes single minded in his tragic quest for the golden city. The perfect compliment to his erratic star, Herzog's gift of telling stories by not seeming to tell stories is a singular gift. His films unfold as if they're not at all planned, but we never doubt we're in the hands of a master who knows where he's taking us. Herzog's habit of not storyboarding his shots leads not to messy shooting (though a low budget movie like this has a bit of that too) but of found, seemingly accidental awe inspiring visuals. The opening shot of thousands of people marching down one hill and up another in the dangerous looking jungles of Ecuador is one of the great shots in movies, as is the closing shot. Aguirre alone in his madness, surrounded by chattering monkeys, muttering to himself on a raft, the camera slowly circles him as he leaves the screen, but not our memories. Not anytime soon anyway, this movie sticks with you for a while.
3. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) directed by Steven Spielberg
The concept of "first contact" (the first interactions between mankind and an alien race) has long been one of the most fascinating to me. Many movies and books have revolved around the topic, in an infinite number of ways, and my favorite movie dealing with it is Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Like he often does, Spielberg picked just the right leading man for the job here, as Richard Dreyfuss is not exactly your regular everyman. He gives off that quality, but has a sarcastic intelligence, and sometimes anger, that makes him feel even more relateable. As he says at one point in the movie, he didn't ask for "this" to happen to him (to have contact with aliens). He's not even really sure what happened, or why, or what it means, or where he goes from here. He loses everything in his life to find the answer to those questions.
I loved the movie when seeing it as a kid, but watching as an adult, I wonder why. It's actually not a very fast paced movie, with much of the time being spent watching Dreyfuss think and try to figure out what he's going to do, or with French UFO scientist Claude Lacombe (legendary director Francois Truffaut) and his interpreter (Bob Balaban) as they go on a similar chase for knowing the unknown. But I bet the seeds for my fascination in first contact were sown when I saw the powerful final section of this movie, where the Mothership shows up and we finally make our contact. It's a transcendent piece of filmmaking, awe inspiring and impressive on both a technical and storytelling level, the special effects are so prominent but always serve to better the story. I also love that we see the aliens, but they never speak nor directly communicate. We follow Richard Dreyfuss search for answers, but we're never given any. I like that.
2. Taxi Driver (1976) directed by Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver was a very important and influential movie in my development as a cinephile. I first watched it when I was about 16, I think, and I thought it was okay. Over the years, Travis Bickle's lonely decline into violent madness has haunted me and begged for re-watch after re-watch. Robert De Niro gives one of his many extraordinary performances, and working with Scorsese for the second of eight times the pair give us one of the great character portraits ever committed to celluloid. It's the story of Travis Bickle, a lonely insomniac Vietnam vet who drives around NYC when he can't sleep until he figures he might as well get paid for it by being a cabbie. Seeing the grimy, drug riddled, dangerous streets of pre-Guiliani NYC, Travis calls himself "God's lonely man" who thinks thoughts like "some day a real rain will come and wash all the scum off the streets."
We follow Travis on his journey to becoming that rain to wash scum off the streets, but before we get there he meets Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), a campaign worker, and Iris (Jodie Foster) a 12-year-old prostitute. He eventually takes it upon himself to be the savior of these two women, the fact that neither seems to want saving being irrelevant to Travis. The most disturbing thing about the finale of Taxi Driver is that after Travis kills a bunch of low life creeps, he's hailed in the media as a hero trying to clean up the city, while we who've been with him know that he was simply a ticking time bomb who went off, it just happened to be directed at these people (don't buy from anyone that everything after the shootout is a dream, that's bullshit). Travis saves his news clippings, and a letter from Iris's parents, but the final scene plays a strange noise as Travis looks in his rearview mirror at Betsy. To me this has always been the sound of the time bomb starting to tick down again.
It's a hauntingly lonely and disturbing movie that I can't shake for days each time I watch it. In the best possible way, and in a way that few movie have ever affected me.
1. The Godfather (1972) directed by Francis Ford Coppola
Conventional choice? Sure. Expected? Maybe. Boring? No way. Few movies have ever been as entertaining as The Godfather. Few movies have ever been as densely constructed as The Godfather. There's seriously not a wasted scene or moment in the entire film, everything means something. We're conditioned by other movies that there will be throwaway lines, moments, even whole scenes in which nothing was really accomplished in either a character or plot development way. Not so in the best adaptation of a book ever made.
Marlon Brando's work gets better every time I watch this movie, and ditto Al Pacino. The scenes between the two of them are electric in their greatness, as Brando's Vito Corleone cedes power of his mafia family to Pacino's Michael. Robert Duvall, James Caan, John Cazale, Talia Shire, they're all wonderful. But to me the movie comes down to the operatic execution of the amazing script from Coppola and the novel's author Mario Puzo (one of the movie's only 3 Academy Awards), and those two lead performances from Pacino and Brando. Of course, you could praise everything from Gordon Willis's influential photography (for which the master somehow didn't even get nominated for an Oscar) to the flawless production and costume design, Nino Rota's famous score, everything. It's one of the most thoroughly well made movies I've ever seen.
But none of that would make The Godfather as esteemed as it is if it wasn't so layered, powerful, and damn entertaining to watch. There's a reason so many people consider it the best movie ever made. I have to watch it every once in a while and I never fail to love it even more than I did the last time.
The concept of "first contact" (the first interactions between mankind and an alien race) has long been one of the most fascinating to me. Many movies and books have revolved around the topic, in an infinite number of ways, and my favorite movie dealing with it is Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Like he often does, Spielberg picked just the right leading man for the job here, as Richard Dreyfuss is not exactly your regular everyman. He gives off that quality, but has a sarcastic intelligence, and sometimes anger, that makes him feel even more relateable. As he says at one point in the movie, he didn't ask for "this" to happen to him (to have contact with aliens). He's not even really sure what happened, or why, or what it means, or where he goes from here. He loses everything in his life to find the answer to those questions.
I loved the movie when seeing it as a kid, but watching as an adult, I wonder why. It's actually not a very fast paced movie, with much of the time being spent watching Dreyfuss think and try to figure out what he's going to do, or with French UFO scientist Claude Lacombe (legendary director Francois Truffaut) and his interpreter (Bob Balaban) as they go on a similar chase for knowing the unknown. But I bet the seeds for my fascination in first contact were sown when I saw the powerful final section of this movie, where the Mothership shows up and we finally make our contact. It's a transcendent piece of filmmaking, awe inspiring and impressive on both a technical and storytelling level, the special effects are so prominent but always serve to better the story. I also love that we see the aliens, but they never speak nor directly communicate. We follow Richard Dreyfuss search for answers, but we're never given any. I like that.
2. Taxi Driver (1976) directed by Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver was a very important and influential movie in my development as a cinephile. I first watched it when I was about 16, I think, and I thought it was okay. Over the years, Travis Bickle's lonely decline into violent madness has haunted me and begged for re-watch after re-watch. Robert De Niro gives one of his many extraordinary performances, and working with Scorsese for the second of eight times the pair give us one of the great character portraits ever committed to celluloid. It's the story of Travis Bickle, a lonely insomniac Vietnam vet who drives around NYC when he can't sleep until he figures he might as well get paid for it by being a cabbie. Seeing the grimy, drug riddled, dangerous streets of pre-Guiliani NYC, Travis calls himself "God's lonely man" who thinks thoughts like "some day a real rain will come and wash all the scum off the streets."
We follow Travis on his journey to becoming that rain to wash scum off the streets, but before we get there he meets Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), a campaign worker, and Iris (Jodie Foster) a 12-year-old prostitute. He eventually takes it upon himself to be the savior of these two women, the fact that neither seems to want saving being irrelevant to Travis. The most disturbing thing about the finale of Taxi Driver is that after Travis kills a bunch of low life creeps, he's hailed in the media as a hero trying to clean up the city, while we who've been with him know that he was simply a ticking time bomb who went off, it just happened to be directed at these people (don't buy from anyone that everything after the shootout is a dream, that's bullshit). Travis saves his news clippings, and a letter from Iris's parents, but the final scene plays a strange noise as Travis looks in his rearview mirror at Betsy. To me this has always been the sound of the time bomb starting to tick down again.
It's a hauntingly lonely and disturbing movie that I can't shake for days each time I watch it. In the best possible way, and in a way that few movie have ever affected me.
1. The Godfather (1972) directed by Francis Ford Coppola
Conventional choice? Sure. Expected? Maybe. Boring? No way. Few movies have ever been as entertaining as The Godfather. Few movies have ever been as densely constructed as The Godfather. There's seriously not a wasted scene or moment in the entire film, everything means something. We're conditioned by other movies that there will be throwaway lines, moments, even whole scenes in which nothing was really accomplished in either a character or plot development way. Not so in the best adaptation of a book ever made.
Marlon Brando's work gets better every time I watch this movie, and ditto Al Pacino. The scenes between the two of them are electric in their greatness, as Brando's Vito Corleone cedes power of his mafia family to Pacino's Michael. Robert Duvall, James Caan, John Cazale, Talia Shire, they're all wonderful. But to me the movie comes down to the operatic execution of the amazing script from Coppola and the novel's author Mario Puzo (one of the movie's only 3 Academy Awards), and those two lead performances from Pacino and Brando. Of course, you could praise everything from Gordon Willis's influential photography (for which the master somehow didn't even get nominated for an Oscar) to the flawless production and costume design, Nino Rota's famous score, everything. It's one of the most thoroughly well made movies I've ever seen.
But none of that would make The Godfather as esteemed as it is if it wasn't so layered, powerful, and damn entertaining to watch. There's a reason so many people consider it the best movie ever made. I have to watch it every once in a while and I never fail to love it even more than I did the last time.
