1970s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 2)

An ongoing project to survey the best films of individual decades, genres, and filmmakers.
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domino harvey
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#251 Post by domino harvey » Tue Jun 03, 2008 2:47 am

I don't like the Spirit of the Beehive at all and I frankly feel very alone in this opinion, not just on the board either but with anyone I know who's seen the movie-- so it was a sincere sigh of relief. I'm genuinely surprised that Chinatown made it to number one, but it was in my Top 20 and I welcome it to the Number One spot more than I would Spirit or the winner from last time, Annie Hall.

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Cold Bishop
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#252 Post by Cold Bishop » Tue Jun 03, 2008 2:56 am

30/50, 5/10

Patiently awaiting the also-rans

yoshimori
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#253 Post by yoshimori » Tue Jun 03, 2008 3:12 am

The ugly and tedious The Passenger is number 10, but no Zabriskie Point? Shame, shame!

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domino harvey
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#254 Post by domino harvey » Tue Jun 03, 2008 3:19 am

Michael Medved told me not to vote for it

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Zazou dans le Metro
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#255 Post by Zazou dans le Metro » Tue Jun 03, 2008 4:34 am

domino harvey wrote:I don't like the Spirit of the Beehive at all and I frankly feel very alone in this opinion, not just on the board either but with anyone I know who's seen the movie
The cynic in me has a mild hackles rising reaction to the endless shots of the Hallmark greetings cards saucer like limpid eyes of the little girl but I'd be interested to know if you have more fundamental reasons for your dislike of this film.

Did you see Erice's short for the Trumpet (or was it Cello) portfolio film? I thought it was worth the price of entrance alone.

On a personal note my top 3 Alfredo Garcia/Kaspar Hauser/Day for Night fared quite badly but then I got 6 /10 for the rest.

My Fassbinder vote went for Despair. I just love how camp Bogarde gets,rivalling his performance in Providence.

I'd like to have seen Tale of Tales and Hitler, a film from Germany in there but they seem to have fallen by the wayside.

Oh yes..Did no-one else vote for Face to Face?

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NABOB OF NOWHERE
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#256 Post by NABOB OF NOWHERE » Tue Jun 03, 2008 5:49 am

Zazou dans le Metro wrote:My Fassbinder vote went for Despair. I just love how camp Bogarde gets,rivalling his performance in Providence.
This is indeed quite a gigglefest for me. I particularly like the scene where Bogarde has to proclaim 'I'm coming out'. Wonder if he was squirming during that?

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tojoed
Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2008 11:47 am
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#257 Post by tojoed » Tue Jun 03, 2008 7:07 am

With all those votes for Robert Altman, it was a shame that California Split didn't get in. But as I didn't vote, I can't complain.

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Gropius
Joined: Thu Jun 29, 2006 5:47 pm

#258 Post by Gropius » Tue Jun 03, 2008 8:35 am

yoshimori wrote:The ugly and tedious The Passenger is number 10, but no Zabriskie Point? Shame, shame!
Hey! The Passenger was in my number one spot. I can see how it might theoretically be found tedious, but certainly not ugly. I like Zabriskie also, but it gets too silly at points.

As for the final list, disappointed about the lack of 'experimental' titles on there, but at least The Act of Seeing... and Jeanne Dielman made it. I was surprised O Lucky Man! charted so lowly, since I put it at number two (I suppose it was unavailable on disc until recently).

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GringoTex
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#259 Post by GringoTex » Tue Jun 03, 2008 8:44 am

My big discovery this time around was 70s Chabrol, so I'm disappointed none of his made it, although you can't really expect films with no R1 dvd release to make the list.

However, I can take the forum to task over picking Truffaut's second worst film of the 70s as his sole entry. I prefer his 70s output to his 60s, and Bed and Board, Two English Girls, The Story of Adele H, Small Change and The Green Room are all spectacular films. Day for Night just creaks with age.

I'm obviously still in the minority in preferring Herzog's docs to his fiction films. Land of Silence and Darkness was my sole Herzog entry.

BUT HOW ABOUT THAT COCKFIGHTER!!!!!! *chest bumps zedz*
Gropius wrote:As for the final list, disappointed about the lack of 'experimental' titles on there
There's such a lack of critical consensus on 70s experimental films, that I'm even surprised the Brakhage made it.

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Zazou dans le Metro
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#260 Post by Zazou dans le Metro » Tue Jun 03, 2008 9:08 am

GringoTex wrote:Day for Night just creaks with age.
Maybe. Maybe I creak too. But seeing it as film student and falling in love with the IDEA of film making lets that nostalgia lubricant ease those tired old joints.

Don't tell me that Delarue's music doesn't do it for you in the crane shot, please>

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HerrSchreck
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#261 Post by HerrSchreck » Tue Jun 03, 2008 9:10 am

GringoTex wrote:
Gropius wrote:As for the final list, disappointed about the lack of 'experimental' titles on there
There's such a lack of critical consensus on 70s experimental films, that I'm even surprised the Brakhage made it.
I actually didn't want to be a party poop-- especially since I didnt get a list in this time-- but I was going to say this list lacked a certain eclecticism that other earlier-decade lists have to some degree had.

There's some good stuff in there, don't get me wrong. But I''ll be far more interested to see the also rans.

And despite it's modest merits, I just can't believe Chinatown beat out material like The Mirror, STalker, hell even Taxi Driver and The Godfather (if you want to talk in mass market Hollywood). Despite some great moments, (John Huston!) the film is another one of those films that is just never going to light my fire like it does for so many people. A la Polanski "Pop", I'm more of a Rosemary's Baby man (prev decade, I know).

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Dylan
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#262 Post by Dylan » Tue Jun 03, 2008 10:33 am

Yes, this is one of our most interesting lists. I haven't even seen forty-eight of these and most of the others I didn't vote for. It's very intriguing, though, and Chinatown (a perfect film) is a surprising #1.

The most surprising omission, I suppose, is Cabaret.

Since it barely broke in at #90, my placement of Carnal Knowledge as #2 clearly provided some leverage. Who else voted for it?

No Interiors, of course (my #6).

I look forward to seeing this Celine and Julie whenever New Yorker releases their DVD (unless it screen theatrically in Seattle - I have no access to multi-region players).

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Michael
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 12:09 pm

#263 Post by Michael » Tue Jun 03, 2008 10:41 am

Very interesting list. This is making me want to revaluate Chinatown. No love for Bava? Lisa and the Devil, people?

If Celine and Julie made #1, I'd be still happy but for #1, I voted Cria Cuervos, which I think is better than Spirit of the Beehive.
Last edited by Michael on Tue Jun 03, 2008 10:44 am, edited 1 time in total.

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sidehacker
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#264 Post by sidehacker » Tue Jun 03, 2008 10:43 am

Pretty disappointing. It doesn't look like anything in my top 5 made it. Oh well...

DeVaca
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#265 Post by DeVaca » Tue Jun 03, 2008 11:00 am

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul didn't rank this time after ranking at 16 the last time around.

Glad Network made it in.

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Michael
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#266 Post by Michael » Tue Jun 03, 2008 11:02 am

DeVaca wrote:Ali: Fear Eats the Soul didn't rank this time after ranking at 16 the last time around.

Glad Network made it in.
It's ranked #46 this time.

DeVaca
Joined: Sun Mar 16, 2008 10:26 pm

#267 Post by DeVaca » Tue Jun 03, 2008 11:40 am

Ah, thanks for pointing it out. Ctrl + F failed me.

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chaddoli
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#268 Post by chaddoli » Tue Jun 03, 2008 12:00 pm

Dylan wrote:Yes, this is one of our most interesting lists. I haven't even seen forty-eight of these and most of the others I didn't vote for. It's very intriguing, though, and Chinatown (a perfect film) is a surprising #1.

The most surprising omission, I suppose, is Cabaret.

Since it barely broke in at #90, my placement of Carnal Knowledge as #2 clearly provided some leverage. Who else voted for it?

No Interiors, of course (my #6).

I look forward to seeing this Celine and Julie whenever New Yorker releases their DVD (unless it screen theatrically in Seattle - I have no access to multi-region players).
Carnal Knowledge was #3 for me. It looks like Dylan and I might have significantly bumped up it's significance. Interiors came in at #31.

The big missing entries as far as I'm concerned were OUT 1 (no one's seen it), and Lenny, which is as good as All That Jazz. I should have tried to drum up some support for it.

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zedz
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm

#269 Post by zedz » Tue Jun 03, 2008 3:37 pm

Because of the scale of the voting, even a film that topped two separate lists wouldn't have made it to the final hundred (not that this was the case in any instance: Akerman's Les Rendez-vous d'Anna, Norstein's Hedgehog in the Fog and Kiarostami's Traveller came closest, all appearing in two top tens and that was it). So films on the final list needed at least three supporters to make it, and some films could be on lots of lists and still not make it. This decade's Dubious Achievement Award goes to Zabriskie Point, which topped one list and featured on four more, but still didn't reach the threshold.

Which is a roundabout way of saying that an awful lot of really interesting, passionately supported films ended up on the cutting room floor. Here it that floor. Top films (a two-way tie) got 100 votes; bottom films (another two-way, but a much weirder one) got 6.

Il caso Mattei
Monty Python & the Holy Grail
Zabriskie Point
Coup d'etat
Dawn of the Dead
Les Rendez-vous d'Anna (Akerman)
Two English Girls
The Devils
Love & Death
Family Life
Frenzy
Hedgehog in the Fog (Norstein)
Kings of the Road
The Merchant of Four Seasons
Traveller (Kiarostami)
My Ain Folk (Douglas)
Tout va bien
Deep End
The Hired Hand
Life of Brian
Being There
Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid
Red Psalm
A Grin without a Cat
Husbands
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Deep Red
California Split
Murmur of the Heart
Providence
The Holy Mountain
Un Flic
Lacombe, Lucien
Wrong Move
Casanova (Fellini)
The Story of Adele H
Alice in the Cities
The Ascent
The Wicker Man
The Ear (Kachyna)
Female Prisoner Scorpion: Jailhouse 41
Female Trouble
Harlan County USA
Interiors
Bed & Board
Klute
Je Tu Il Elle (Akerman)
Duelle
Fantastic Planet
Illustrious Corpses
Lenny
News from Home (Akerman)
Assault on Precinct 13
Gates of Heaven
King of Marvin Gardens
The Ossuary (Svankmajer)
The Honeymoon Killers
Macbeth (Polanski)
Pastoral: To Die in the Country (Terayama)
Tale of Tales (Norstein)
Le Boucher
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
The Last Detail
Salo
The Tin Drum
Avanti!
Cabaret
MASH
THX-1138
El Topo
Vertical Features Remake
Brewster McCloud
The Brood
Hitler: a Film from Germany
The Man Who Would Be King
Shivers
Real Life
Bad Company
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders
The Ballad of Cable Hogue
Moses und Aron
A Walk through H (Greenaway)
High Plains Drifter
Images
Martin
Sayonara CP (Hara)
Star Wars
Throw Away Your Books. . . (Terayama)
Martha (Fassbinder)
India Song
Five Easy Pieces
Jaws
La Rupture
The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner
The American Friend
The Last Waltz
Night Moves
Sleeper
The Tree of Wooden Clogs
Uta (Jissoji)
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
Camera Buff
Face to Face
Fata Morgana
Ma nuit chez Maud
Scum
A Swedish Love Story (Andersson)
One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
Christ Stopped at Eboli
The Third Part of the Night (Zulawski)
The Heartbreak Kid
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Duck, You Sucker!
Eureka (Gehr)
Tess
Ulzana's Raid
Wanda (Loden)
Fat City
Serpico
Autumn Sonata
Gimme Shelter
Junior Bonner
Daisy Miller
Heart of Glass
Land of Silence and Darkness
Get Carter
Phantasm
Pink Flamingos

Go on, defend your darlings - if you can!
Last edited by zedz on Tue Jun 03, 2008 6:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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domino harvey
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#270 Post by domino harvey » Tue Jun 03, 2008 3:43 pm

So no one voted for Little Murders (my #2 pick) or Sleuth but me?

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tavernier
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#271 Post by tavernier » Tue Jun 03, 2008 3:47 pm

Hey, don't feel so bad: none of my top four (The Lacemaker, The Judge and the Assassin, The Emigrants and The New Land) made the also-rans either.

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Michael
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 12:09 pm

#272 Post by Michael » Tue Jun 03, 2008 3:51 pm

So I was the only one who voted for Lisa and the Devil. Not even the recent release of the Anchor Bay sets and Tim Lucas' masterpiece of a book could change anything. Thanks a lot! :evil:

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domino harvey
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#273 Post by domino harvey » Tue Jun 03, 2008 3:54 pm

I really wonder if I wouldn't have been better served placing films on my list that aren't necessarily my favorites but were more likely to appear on the final list .
Last edited by domino harvey on Tue Jun 03, 2008 3:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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denti alligator
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#274 Post by denti alligator » Tue Jun 03, 2008 3:56 pm

Michael wrote:So I was the only one who voted for Lisa and the Devil. Not even the recent release of the Anchor Bay sets and Tim Lucas' masterpiece of a book could change anything. Thanks a lot!
That does it, Michael, I'm watching it tonight! One less kevyip!
zedz wrote:Kiarostami's Traveller came closest, all appearing in two top tens and that was it)
I hope my vote for the same film, but misspelled #-o, counted.

mikeohhh
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#275 Post by mikeohhh » Tue Jun 03, 2008 4:11 pm

domino harvey wrote:So no one voted for Little Murders (my #2 pick) or Sleuth but me?
Little Murders almost made my list (hell, should have), not that it would have really helped things out much.

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