A New Beginning

1971 was an exciting time in Hollywood.  They'd finally caught up to the rest of the world and started experimenting, both in content and style.  This led to some exciting stuff, as well as a fair amount of self-indulgence.

The adult subject matter, and some of the techniques, remained, though the freewheeling atmosphere didn't last the decade.

So let's see what Jesse Walker says were the top ten films of the year. (https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2021/12/sayonara-bretton-woods-weve-gone.html)

1.  The Last Picture Show

2.  A Clockwork Orange

3.  Mon Oncle Antoine

4.  McCabe & Mrs. Miller

5.  They Might Be Giants

6.  Walkabout

7.  Trafic

8.  Bananas

9.  Macbeth

10.  Dirty Harry

I've watched The Last Picture Show about once a decade, and I still don't get why anyone thinks it's good, much less great.

A Clockwork Orange is more interesting.  I'm not even saying it's good, but you know you've watched something when it's over. (By the way, not a great date film--I took someone to see this in college and she walked out.)

I think I like Mon Oncle Antoine, but haven't seen it in a long time.  Same for Walkabout.

McCabe & Mrs. Miller.  That's more like it. I'm amazed Robert Altman was allowed to make such a run of defiantly uncommercial films (often featuring big stars) back then.  There are two explanations: MASH had been a blockbuster, and it was the 70s.

They Might Be Giants is a lot of fun.  Trafic is the first Tati feature that wouldn't make my top ten.  Bananas would make my top ten--the kind of film I wish Woody would (and could) still make, though he (and too many critics) probably thought good riddance about 40 years ago.

Haven't seen Polanski's Macbeth.  Jesse mentions Welles and Kurosawa.  Wonder if ten years from now he'll be mentioning Joel Coen?

Dirty Harry was no doubt an influential film.  So influential you wonder what all the controversy was about, as we've since gotten so used to the formula.  While I can't say I really like it, I have to admit that crime films from that era in general are refreshing, if only because they still operate on a human level while today's tend to leave humanity behind.

Here are Jesse's honorable mentions:

11.  The Hired Hand

12.  W.R.--Mysteries Of The Organism

13.  Duck, You Sucker

14.  Two-Lane Blacktop

15.  Klute

16.  The Hospital

17.  A New Leaf

18.  Jabberwocky

19.  Basic Training

20.  Play Misty For Me

11 and 14 are examples of the kind of pretentious messes that Hollywood made trying to duplicate the success of Easy Rider.  12 is sort of fascinating.  13 is low-rent Leone.  15 isn't bad, though no great shakes.

16 is an overwritten Chayefsky mess, though George C. Scott is good.  17 would make my top ten list.  18 is a (fine) short.  19 is a Wiseman doc I haven't seen.  20 was the first film Eastwood directed (he was busy in '71). Don't remember liking it, but maybe I should give it another chance.

Here are some films that would have made my top ten or twenty:

And Now For Something Completely Different

Murmur Of The Heart

Other films of interest:

$, 10 Rillington Place, 200 Motels, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, The Anderson Tapes, The Andromeda Strain, The Barefoot Executive, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Billy Jack, Bless the Beasts and Children, Blue Movie, The Boy Friend, Carnal Knowledge, Cold Turkey, Dad's Army, Death In Venice, The Decameron, The Devils, Diamonds Are Forever, Drive He Said, The Emigrants, Escape from the Planet of the Apes, Evel Knievel, Fiddler On The Roof, The French Connection, The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight, Gas-s-s-s, Get Carter, Happy Birthday Wanda June, Harold and Maude, The Hellstrom Chronicle, The Hunting Party, Johnny Got His Gun, Kotch, The Last Movie, Two English Girls, Little Murders, Made For Each Other, Man and Boy, Le Mans, The Mephisto Waltz, The Million Dollar Duck, Minnie and Moskowitz, Nicholas And Alexandra, The Omega Man, The Panic in Needle Park, Plaza Suite, Shaft, Star Spangled Girl, Straw Dogs, Summer Of '42, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Support Your Local Gunfighter, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, Taking Off, THX 1138, The Trojan Women, Up Pompeii, Vanishing Point, Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?, Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?, Willard, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Zatoichi and the One-Armed Swordsman