Best Films of the 70s

[wpqx]

It seems we all have a few peculiar Huston favorites, I was a big fan of Heaven Knows Mr. Allison and Night of the Iguana. I didn't dislike Fat City it just wasn't on the same level as those other films. I had a similar feeling of disappointment with The Dead.

[arsaib4]

Thanks for the encouragement, M.M. It's been a couple of years since I've seen Fat City myself. The film, which primarily received positive reviews upon its release, deserves to be properly written about and I'll attempt to do so in the near future.

[wpqx]

If you could A I'd appreciate some comments on the Oshima film, I'm yet to see it, but am endlessly fascinated by this period of his work.

[A]

The Oshima film was a real surprise, but also a challenge to view, and I find it difficult to write much about it. You probably know the plot - if one can call it that - where a young man kills himself and one of his fellow political activists and filmmakers takes his camera and tries to find the hidden meaning of the last images the dead boy had recorded. The film is very experimental, because it plays with your perception of time, as well as space. Scenes that had already appeared are repeated, and have a different meaning each time they are reintroduced. The spaces in which the characters move around also often possess an inherent duality. Some of the footage Oshima shot appears realistic (I even had the feeling of a "documentary" touch - maybe because aof the use of amateur actors), some is very stylised. Oftentimes you don't know if you are watching what the characters in the film have shot, if you are watching them shooting footage right now, or if it is merely the "normal" gaze of Oshima's cameraman. Many traits from Haneke's Cach (2005) are already here, and the famous opening shot, with the voices of Auteuil and Binoche, is in my opinion not merely inspired by Oshima, but a direct - if very good - copy. The film also manages to pull off the rare achievement of being very sensual and intellectually stimulating at the same time. The off-beat, conceptual soundtrack adds to this experience, when it switches from psychedelic rock-inspired segments to stripped-down experimental sounscapes. Much of my experience of the film might have also had to do with the fact that the print I saw was of pristine quality and looked absolutely ravishing. It wasn't like watching a restoration rather than watching a completely new print of a film from 1970. You can imagine my excitement. Don't know what else to write at the moment. "The Man who left his will on film" is in my opinion not only one of the defining works of the 60s and 70s new wave movements around the world, but a crowning achievement in the history of film. It speaks of general politics in a personal way that never discards one aspect because of the other and manages to be both intimate and universal in a self-conscious and reflective way I have rarely witnessed in a movie, especially not at that time. It was as if Jean-Luc Godard and Hirokazu Kore'eda had decided to make a movie together.

[wpqx]

A wrote:

*some of the more recent additions are Nagisa Oshima's wonderful "The Man Who Left His Will on Film" (1970) as well as George Romero's fantastic Dawn of the Dead (1978) as edited by Dario Argento, which I recently re-watched at the cinema, and also Argento's elusive Inferno (1979). Another revelation was the screening of Shunya Ito's marvellous third Sasori film (1973) at our cinema. Pure Magic.


I thought Inferno was '80, but close enough I suppose. I haven't seen that Oshima film and it's not particularly easy to come by, although I do think there is an import DVD available somewhere. I'm not sure what I've seen lately that I would add to my list, but it's been a slow quarter for movie watching.