Just look at the way they dressed, man. Bell bottoms, clogs etc.. Look at the crazy cars they drove, El Caminos, Pintos, VW Bugs. Can you dig it? Can . . . you . . . dig it? Of course they felt more free. Maybe it was all that cocaine. It did result in some unique film making though. Clockwork, The Warriors, Deliverance, Dog Day Afternoon, Klute, French Connection, Dirty Harry, Harold and Maude, Being There, Apocalypse Now, Five Easy Pieces, Mean Streets, The Godfathers, Cuckoo’s Nest etc. etc.. Looking at most of these films, one notices a certain degree of gritty realism that you don’t often get with today’s overly polished films. What a shit load of great horror films during this decade as well! It has to be the greatest decade for the horror genre.
Lot of different reasons, depending on the country.
In the US at least, it was a decade of films that let the world in: in the 60’s we’d gone through the sexual revolution, civil rights, Vietnam, the long complicated death of colonialism, assassinations, in a 3 month stretch of 1968 there was rioting in more than 150 US cities. We weren’t far into the 70s before severe recessions, Watergate, domestic terrorism (the SLA, Weather Underground, et. al.), and very intense political swings from left to right. Inflation the likes of which we’d never witnessed. It was a decade of everything you were certain about turning out to be not so definitive, and – to me – a lot of US film from the decade is basically a creative way of figuring out what the hell is going on in the country, because easy answers pretty much died, and as spooky or infuriating as some current events might have been, they were often just as fascinating and unprecedented as they were spooky and infuriating. There are so many films from the decade: Taxi Driver, Apocalypse Now, The Conversation, Jaws, Close Encounters, The Exorcist, all the Hal Ashby films (and pretty much everything recorded by Richard Pryor and George Carlin) that have a very intense trying to comprehend the incomprehensible, when the incomprehensible materializes before you quality to them, and there were times when life in the 70s was somewhat like that. I think the creativity was a creativity of chaos, or the kind of rage that comes after reading a newspaper, or of total confusion, and I think cocaine and nihilism and paranoia all definitely played their strange part as well. And to be fair, there were a lot of crap movies during the decade as well.
I was a kid during the decade, and everything, everywhere was very deeply weird. There are simple newscasts I still remember. The best films from the decade do have a bit of that kind of quality to them.
I completely agree, Soybean and David, and thanks for the responses. I was very young in the 70s too, one thing I remember is that it was before the rise of cable TV, so the three networks would usually compete for ratings by airing recent movies, like, two years after their theatrical release. So in the late 70s I watched films like Taxi Driver, New York New York, Nashville, etc., before my bedtime even rolled around. It’s so hard to find anything worth watching on TV anymore.
David, I think you’re right, those filmmakers were trying to understand what was going on. The whole culture of gun violence informs both Nashville and Taxi Driver; at that time, it was something that made people nervous. Then, in the 80s, the country swung to the right on one of Rambo’s biceps and guns became really hot.
The current movies that I feel are derived from the 70s — Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Frost Nixon — just seem to be going through the motions without being lit by that true spark of craziness, edginess. One can see they are made by people who are responsible to accountants at the end of every day. People who have had to go through screenwriting committees, and editing committees. I’m not sure how to put it, I guess I’m for total freedom.
Certainly cocaine was everywhere, and (I think) cheaper than it is today (everything was cheaper than it is today), and there was less of a stigma about doing drugs. That’s perhaps not a good thing. But it did have its impact everywhere from Saturday Night Live to Fleetwood Mac.
I hope we can continue this thread. Thanks again.
Interesting thread Justin. The one thing I would mention is the fall of the traditional Hollywood studio system. Prior to the sixties/seventies, the producer had a lot more say in the creation of a film. However, with the rise of broadcast television, movie attendence was down and there was a push for new, creative ideas. Enter the film school brats and there dedication to cinema and cinema history. These young filmmakers understood better then any previous generation the flow of film history and drew there influences from all over the world, and Europe in particular. This is somewhat ironic since the filmmakers of Europe, like the New Wavers in France, were looking at American film, particularly film noir, for their inspiration. Much of the best noir of course, was made by transposed Germans and utililized the techniques originated in German expressionism. So you have young American filmmakers, drawing on Europeans who are drawing on American films created by Europeans. This cyclical nature of film influence still prevails today, probably to an even greater degree do to the availablilty of films from all over the world. The 60s/70s kinda started all that though and, like you, I have a deep affection from films of that era.
I just wanted to say one other thing about your last post; I thought it was very interesting that you singled out two early PT Anderson works as examples of films that are clearly derivative of seventies filmmakers but don’t quite hold the same power. Though I like both Boogie Nights and Magnolia, I have to agree with you. It always felt to me that Boogie Nights was Anderson’s Scorsese film and Magnolia was his Altman film, good but by no means on par with the best work of those masters. However I felt that with Punch-Drunk Love and especially There Will Be Blood, Anderson managed to bring his own unique voice to the forefront, while still maintaining a sense of respect and admiration for those who came before him.
You’re right, Jason. I enjoy both Boogie Nights and Magnolia, too. I suppose it’s a bit like wishing certain contemporary rock bands actually were the Velvet Underground or the Beatles rather than just sounding like them here and there.
Justin, I think your onto something about “feeling more free” although i don’t think people actually felt “free” in the 1970’s. I think many people felt even more trapped but they believed that the trap would end. This makes sense since there was a global recession in 1973. People thought that capitalist hegemonic organization of the world economic system would end. Instead, it became ever “stronger”. My guess is that many directors in the “communist” block countries were well aware that they weren’t really living under anything that remotely resembled socialism and directors in the “west” recognized that the economic system they lived under was cruel and dysfunctional. What many people failed to understand was that the economic system had truly become global. This is really what 1973 meant. Of course, they also couldn’t realize that soon the Soviet Union would fall or that something called HIV/AIDS was around the corner.
The other thing that can’t be discounted about the 1970’s is the incredible sense of possibility eminating from the post-colonial “third world” movements. Of course, the 1970’s wasn’t a free time at all. We had the overthrow of Chile and the establishment of US backed dictatorships in several Latin American countries, the souring of many of the third world “socialist” projects into authoritarian states, the beginning of a resurgence of identity based rightwing fundamentalist movements, the continuing colonization of Palestine, the growth of terrorism as a response to these trends etc. Still, people had a greater sense of hope mixed with the desperation.
You put that very well, Craig, and I like your perspective there. Maybe it was the last time people felt that hope until… maybe 2009. Maybe the next decade will prove to be like the 60s/70s again. But I would say hiv has been a huge factor in reducing the sort of spontaneity and excitement of human beings. I don’t know if we’ve mapped (or if it’s possible to map) the socio-psychological response to aids, but certainly in individual people when you cut them off from sex or make sex a traumatic thing for them, they become depressed and dysfunctional. So I think we’re wrestling with that, in the arts and the entertainment industry as well as in our day to day lives.
As an American college freshman in 1975, that period seemed like the hangover after the binge. We woke up from Watergate and Vietnam and Kent State and assassinations and inflation and struggled mightily to make sense of it all. Some of the very best films of the decade – of any decade, possibly – detailed that struggle so insightfully well. Including my favorite, Chinatown, which succinctly and
subversively turned a genre film into a topical dissection of our national cynicism, pessimism and distrust.
Which is precisely why I hope (along with everyone else) filmmakers are really paying close attention to the world right about now: the assorted upheavals and collapses that we are either seeing with alarming regularity, or thought we’d never see again, and the social/structural/political currents (from the 70s until now) that seem to have come to a head during the last year or so. I think here’s where we’ll see if the 70s will be mined for style, or if filmmakers will instead seize upon the critical stances that the best of the 70s filmmakers sought (for a while at least, until hubris got the better of them) in their work.
Tom, I feel the same way about “Chinatown,” but I wonder how intentional it was. It’s funny how a work of art can begin to reflect a mood without the artist being consciously aware of it. Robert Towne started working on the script for “Chinatown” in 1971, well before the rot set in for the decade — yet by the time it came out, with Watergate on the news and Nixon’s resignation looming, the movie seemed already to have captured a certain feeling of disillusionment, despair, and the widespread feeling that we were all pretty much screwed when it came to dealing with Noah Crosses of the world.
Mildly related sidebar on the matter of disillusionment and despair: did you know that Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks at the Diner” is commonly interpreted as a reflection of postwar anomie and entrapment? I always thought it was about urban loneliness, but I never really connected it to a period until I read the Wikipedia article on it this morning. Makes sense though. It was painted in 1946.
True, Rodney, Chinatown might well have been a happy accident of timing. By the time Polanski rewrote Towne’s original ending, though, forcing Gittes to watch helplessly as evil triumphed, I suspect the malaise was ripe for the tapping. Thanks for the enlightenment on Hopper, too. Another day, another lesson learned.
Just want to add one picture to all the others mentioned, that also gives us an insight into the period: Hal Ashby’s Shampoo. I think Warren Beatty gives us a glance of what that period in time was about through his brilliant realization of his character. He plays a hairdresser who is totally self-centered, has no real moral focus, leads a rather meaningless existence, goes from girl friend to girl friend as he can’t commit to anyone or anything. The film is set against the backdrop of Nixon’s coming into office, which we see in the key party scene, happening on TV while no one is watching. The picture of Nixon on TV perfectly defines the rot that was setting into America’s heartland. All we can feel for Beatty’s flawed character is a kind of sadness at the waste, and I think this says it all about that terribly disturbed period in history, which all of you have remarked on so well. As a person who was a product of the 60s, the 70s was a period of great letdown, fatigue, self-absorbtion, and ultimately despair at what had been lost – the revolutionary idealism of the 60s. Shampoo encapsulates this all in an nutshell. Have another look at it.
I’d also add The Eyes of Laura Mars, which is a fascinating look at how far art should go, what the responsibilities of the artist are, etc. It’s like Tommy Lee Jones is the Eighties, in that film, waiting right around the corner to poke everyone’s eyes out for knowing/seeing too much. So to speak.
Yeah, Bob, definitely some of the most representative films of the 70s were comedies. Wild Cats comes to mind, and that other Goldie Hawn comedy where she saves the President’s life (?) Or was that just a hallucination of mine?
I think our whole society was diminished and started sucking when a singular event occurred: Cristina Crawford’s Mommie Dearest memoir. This — forgive me — talentless little nothing sold her childhood for easy notoriety, and sold out her mother, transforming her from the greatest Hollywood movie star to the poster woman of drunken child abuse. After that the flood gates were wide open and the standards increasingly dropped. There was no more private life; anyone who had a public life had to give up any hope of a private one. And everything just became that much more shameless and tawdry. It began the age of the media whore, the age of the ankle biter. The age of being famous for nothing. Now anyone with a cell phone cam can nail you for the slightest faux pas.
Not that Cristina didn’t have a right to be angry. But prior to the 80s, people took something with that kind of anger and turned it into artistic achievement — they didn’t just spew it out raw for money on tv and everywhere.
Sorry if this sounds mean.
JB: Thanks for the tirade about Mommie Dearest – I never wanted to read that type of trashy bio and now I know why! Joan Crawford was one of my early gods, one of the reasons I posted the recent thread on ‘strong’ female characers, as I had just seen her again in Humoresque and was thinking: they don’t make bigger than life female characters like that anymore. Interesting thoughts on how this created the whole celebrity slam dunking/bashing thing we are still subject endessly to today. Perhaps, that was when private lives ceased being private, and celebrity hell on earth – with gossip mongers, tabloids, papparazzi everywhere – came about. But great call on that and I heartily agree.
One Film for Me “Days of Heaven”
Oh! Yea… Nashville too
Thanks Bob. I was hoping you or someone else could help me figure out what I was trying to get at there.
Great mention Bob – Shampoo is a favorite of mine. It’s not an original thought at all (Peter Biskind’s Easy Riders Raging Bulls is built upon the conceit), but Ashby was such a great chronicler of the mood of the times – that 70s run of films aren’t just great for their quirks, but in five of them: The Landlord, Harold & Maude, The Last Detail, Shampoo and Being There Ashby gives us a very specific kind of character – this sort of noble misfit getting kicked around by, and then trying (flailing in the attempt) to make sense of a world that is moving in a very different direction from them. George (Warren Beatty) at first doesn’t seem to have much in common with Bud Cort’s Harold, except that both are innocents in their own way, shallow in their own way, and shallow enough to get into troubles that they should probably find healthier ways of resolving, but also just smart enough to know that they aren’t alone in their condition – they just aren’t quite as savvy at covering it up. Shampoo has several moments of deadly comedy, and Ashby was more of a hired gun on it than on his other 70s films, but the final scene – which is devastating – is pure Ashby. And Christie, Hawn and Warden all give some of their greatest performances in it.
That group of films in particular are oddly of a piece – not just in tone or style, but in that character – an interesting ‘type,’ with Ashby giving you a different take on them in every picture.
Ah, the 70’s! Golden age of Fassbinder (all great, and too numerous to name); all my favourite Wenders movies (apart from Wings of Desire) such as Alice in the Cities, The Goaltender’s Fear of the Penalty Kick, The American Friend; Eric Rohmer goin’ strong, from Claire’s Knee to Parsifal; Alain Tanner’s Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000, The Middle of the World, Retour d’Afrique, and The Salamander; Bergman’s Cries and Whispers (!!); the great Makavejev at his best; Fellini’s Satyricon (albeit ‘69), Roma, Amarcord, Cassanova, Orchestra Rehearsal; at least half a dozen wonderful films by Lina Wertmuller; the rise of marvellously understated Canadian cinematic realism in movies like Rip-Off and Goin’ Down the Road (Shebib) and Jutra’s Mon oncle Antoine; brilliant and amazing British surrealistic satire (Wow!) as seen in O Lucky Man and The Ruling Class… What a rich period in world cinema, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. But of course, the interesting thing is why the US turned out such great films from late 60’s through the following decade. (I personally never cared for Chinatown, but that’s a whole other essay). I notice that no one mentioned yet The King of Marvin Gardens and They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? And remember that The Sterile Cuckoo, The Reivers, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, and Midnight Cowboy were all 1969 flicks – close enough! (and a really good year for movies it was!) And in the 70’s Woody Allen could still make us laugh. A lot.
Absolutely there WAS gritty realism and there WERE crises of identity. Anti-heroes abound. New themes could be turned over (see The Boys in the Band and Outrageous!) as we liberated ourselves from convention and bigotry — racially, sexually, spiritually. A time for for Native, Latino, Black, Women’s, and Homosexual RIGHTS. We tried to End Nuclear Testing and we got into hugging trees and saving whales. Some tuned in, lots turned on, and more than a few dropped out. We got very inward-looking. (too much so, it would appear, as history’s lens is now revealing the error of our selfish regard) Some commentators above have touched on obvious reasons for this flourishing of cinema arts at the time. I am reminded of British film in the 40’s and 50’s after another war: profoundly realistic kitchen-table dramas, no happy endings, clean black & white photography, smart dialogue, conflicted characters.
The main thing about these movies (Viet Nam and post-Nam era) is typically the sheer weight of the storyline and strength of understated delivery. We weren’t so crazy back then for Blockbusters as for mental stimulation. Or even just a damn good story well-told. It was a time for playwrights like Pinter and Stoppard and Albee. For poets and short-story writers. It’s a different world now – listen to the lyrics of today’s music compared with that of a few decades ago. People are less inclined to become serious thinkers; they seem less equipped to think well. Is it the junk food? The noise pollution? The demanding pace? The easy-answer computer age? The consumerism and celebrity madness?? I think having too much of the “good” life is just making people soft. [All empires eventually decline and fall.] Maybe it was because of the six jolts per minute trend in children’s TV (ushered in, remember, in the 70’s), maybe the quality of teaching declines with each generation. The curriculum is much watered down today compared with that of several generations ago — excepting perhaps the demands made of today’s learners in maths and sciences.
Would it be too simplistic to say that it was a good time for films because it was a good time for the arts? There was a creative path, a line drawn right through the 20th century: the movies of the 70’s didn’t appear suddenly out of nowhere. But non-conformity definitely characterized the period. Not so today, hmm?
Yes, it was a time when freedom was demanded, fought for, and celebrated, and Americans like Cassavettes and Altman broke all the rules and expanded boundaries. And yes, it was as stated above, not so free — if US foreign policy didn’t like YOUR idea of freedom, or if you had loads of education but still no paying work. Women were still ghetto-ized, but man, we were working on that! It was a pretty good time and I miss it (in the way that middle-age tends to miss youth probably), but trust me, there is still good stuff being made today. I went to Slumdog Millionaire and Milk on the weekend. Not too shabby. But for some reason I do not find as many foreign films that I enjoy like those of years gone by. Probably a distribution issue, not a lack of great films being made. I hear there are terrific pictures coming out of Africa – though they’re not playing up the street around here. Quebec cinema is very interesting these days, you know…
Also the Netherlands. Plenty of interesting and satisfying US movies too, but they’re up against a whole lot of (more popular) schlock, glitz, barbarity, T & A, and potty-humour. Maybe that’s the difference – there’s just such a big market today for Really Bad Movies! It’s the audience (dominant culture) that’s driving down the quality of cinema? But look at the rise of indie film and the technological changes making both possible (small films made by artsy types and huge mass-market blockbusters with all the bells and whistles money can buy) Ah, the 70’s. Definitelty NOT a “simpler” time. But we could handle it!
I had once thought of the 70s as a bleak period in cultural history after the dynamics of the 60s and rapid social change, consiousness expansion (hey wow, man!), exploration in the arts on all levels, sexual liberation, alternative lifestyles, etc. You had to be there to know what I am talking about. Now you all have me thinking, when we explore the films and culture of that period, it was one of the last golden ages. I agree with KY TofF (“People are less inclined to become serious thinkers; they seem less equipped to think well”). that it looks pretty good next to the time we are in now – maybe because everything looks better from hindsight (or old age – with the dimming of mental faculties that implies). In any case, I think KY has argued quite rightly that we are in a period of consistent dumbing down, both in our fragile social contract and in the films we are surronded by. I know on this site we try to uphold a certain standard when applying it to those films we discuss here, we don’t usually talk about mainstream movies, but I still believe the prospects out there are bleak. We kid ourselves that all is fine with contemporary cinema, and that masterpieces are still appearing at the cineplex, but we know that we are really in a bleak period for film, personal consciousness, exploration in any area. A few brave souls are still turning out respectable product in the various corners of the world, or consciousness, not infected by the dumbing down virus. But that damn dumb bug is out there, and just as deadly in its on way as aids was a generation ago.
For the younger members on site out here, wake up – smell the whiff of Starbuck’s cappuccino – and realize: unless you change things and change them now, stagnation, apathy, convention, and an even dumber reality are around the corner. Yes, the 70s was a golden age compared to where we are now – save for the independent spirits out there. Fly with the eagles or run with the herd – the choice is your!
Tom — another thought on Chinatown that occurred to me later. I think when we get to the ending — and the famous backstage battle between writer and director that ensued — it might be worthwhile to consider Polanski knew tragedy and hopelessness firsthand: he grew up in the Krakow Ghetto, lost his mother to the Nazis and, later, famously lost his pregnant young wife to Manson’s gang. At the risk of reading too much into this psychologically, that ending — where a woman gets killed and loses her unstable daughter to her evil father (who is of course the girl’s father as well) — may have just seemed like pure unvarnished reality as far as he was concerned.
Perceptive, as always, Rodney. Reality informs much of Polanski’s work; his Macbeth moved some offstage murders bloodily onto the screen, just one more way in which he attempted to exorcise his own tragic backstory.
Top 21 of the 1970s
The killing of a chinese bookie
Performance
Last tango in paris
The Mirror
Edvard Munch
Eraserhead
The Conversation
The Passenger
Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
Stalker
The Hired hand
A woman under the influence
Spirit of the Beehive
The Last Picture Show
Rolling Thunder
Day for Night
Manhattan
The gore-gore girls
The conformist
Electra glide in blue
Barry Lyndon
…and Lenny. I shouldn’t have forgotten to mention it. Could not have been done any sooner, not with theatrical release!
Speaking of the 1970’s I am reminded of my favourite Ang Lee film, The Ice Storm (‘97). Aptly demonstrates some of what was wrong with the social culture of that day (That 70’s Show, it ain’t). Any other great movies ABOUT the 70’s, seen in retrospect, that we can come up with? (may already be a topic in forum, can’t say I’ve looked. Maybe we could begin one.)
This is the year for films about the 70s: at least two offhand, Milk and Frost Nixon. Also, in recent years: Munich, Nixon (Oliver Stone), The People Vs. Larry Flynt, Boogie Nights, Man on the Moon.
Nice thread Justin….. for me Parallax View, Sounder, The Front, Last Picture Show, Bad Company, Thieves Like Us, 3 Women are just a few of my US favs I’d like to mention as all the obvious masterpieces have found champions…… the period represents a late golden age when Hollywood made films for adults, before the triumph of the multi-plex wide release and the money tree it represented, and the dumbing down in the mainstream as a result. Would a mainstream company make ‘The Conversation’ now? no way… the closest they get is fluff like ‘Enemy of the State’ .
I’ll leave the foreign films for when I have more time!!
Lenny? YES…. and Slaughter House Five while we’re on Valerie………. and I was going to say let’s all get together and watch
The Ice Storm…. but I was beaten to it!
Thanks Musycks.
I agree. And there’s a genealogy there, from The Conversation down to Enemy of the State. The same line one could trace down from Dirty Harry and Taxi Driver, which explore the moral complexities of taking the law into one’s hand, to the Bronson Death Wish movies, to Steven Seagal. In the 70s movies, we are never sure if we should identify too much with Harry or Travis, especially Travis; and there are other people in the movies who speak up for the other point of view. In the Bronson movies the villains are so over the top evil, that no one would question why Bronson stalks and kills them. And by the Seagal era, the villains are pure evil incarnate, almost supernatural, so that the whole film forces you to either identify with Seagal or turn away. No other choice. In foreign policy terms: “You’re either with us or against us.” From an intellectual/moral position to a kind of primitive bloodletting or exorcism.
Justin Biberkopf
As you might have noticed from some of my posts, I have a fascination for films of the seventies. And I have a lot of theories about them. It seems like there was a huge amount of creative energy in cinema throughout that decade, in the U.S., in West Germany, in U.S.S.R., in France, in Japan, etc. It also seems like some of the most puzzling, controversial, hotly debated films were made during that decade. I’m wondering if anyone wants to talk about that period in particular. What fueled all the creativity? Personally, I think people felt more free in the 70s than we do now. I’m not talking government conspiracies, I’m talking about the way we (have to) lead our lives, the way people seem more isolated, more defensive, today. I just thought I’d put it out there as a topic.