1970s WITD Poll Votes

The voting at Wonders in the Dark for films of the year is by now half way through the 80s - taken me a terrible amount of time to get around to polishing up my 1970s votes. Well - here they are!

DIRECTOR (Individual): Altman, McCabe and Mrs. Miller
Director (Decade): Altman (closely followed by Herzog and Fassbinder, and Cassavetes - and Rivette, if I were able to see more of his 70s films, I think))
LEAD ACTOR (Film): Warren Beatty, McCabe and Mrs Miller
Actor (Decade): Robert DeNiro
LEAD ACTRESS (Film): Gena Rowlands, A Woman Under the Influence
Actress (Decade): Rowlands (who had a better director to work for.... the answer might, again, be someone like Bulle Ogier, though, if I could see more of the Rivettes)
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Sterling Hayden, the Long Goodbye
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Ronee Blakely in Nashville
SHORT: Hapax Legomena I: Nostalgia, Hollis Frampton
SCORE: Leonard Cohen, McCabe and Mrs Miller
CINEMATOGRAPHY: McCabe and Mrs Miller again
CINEMATOGRAPHY: while this is a strong decade for photography - Vilmos Szigmond wins out over all - those Altman films are magnificent looking
Script: I think Life of Brian might take the cake here... listing the top 5, though, not to make the top 20 films:
1. The Marriage of Maria Braun
2. Charlie Verrick
3. A New Leaf
4. Doomed Love
5. Chinatown

Music/Sound: Gimme Shelter
Documentary: really strong decade for this - enough so that I have to make another top 5 - 1 is not enough:
1. Grin Without a Cat
2. Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974
3. Hitler: A Film From Germany
4. Gimme Shelter
5. Sayonara CP

Best films:

1. McCabe and Mrs. Miller
2. Celine and Julie Go Boating
3. Aguirre Wrath of God
4. Nashville
5. The Mystery of Kaspar Hauser
6. A Woman Under the Influence
7. The Killing of a Chinese Bookie
8. Killer of Sheep
9. The Long Goodbye
10. Camera Buff
11. Saint Jack
12. Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail
13. Life of Brian
14. Erasorhead
15. Vengeance is Mine
16. Mean Streets
17. The Conversation
18. World on a Wire
19. The Godfather
20. Trash

And now by years:

1979:

Much stronger year, to end the decade.

PICTURE: Camara Buff, Kieslowski
DIRECTOR: Herzog, Nosferatu Phantom of the Night
LEAD ACTOR: Ken Ogata, Vengeance is Mine
LEAD ACTRESS: Hanna Schygulla, The Marriage of Maria Braun
SUPPORTING ACTOR: why not Kinski, in Nosferatu (that might be a lead, though, hard to say)
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Eva Mattes, Woycek
SHORT: at least for now, video again - Ancient of Days, by Bill Viola
SCORE: Nosferatu, Popol Vuh (assuming it's original)
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Jorg Schmidt-Ritwein, Nosferatu

Plus bonus picks:
Script: Life of Brian
Music/Sound: this one isn't easy - you have a Sex Pistols movie and a Who movie coming released this year - but great as those bands are, neither are up to the level of the Ramones, so Rock and Roll High School wins the prize.

1. Camera Buff
2. St. Jack
3. Life of Brian
4. Vengeance is Mine
5. Marriage of Maria Braun
6. Nosferatu: Phantom of the Night
7. The Tin Drum
8. Apocalypse Now
9. The Third Generation
10. Alien

1978:

PICTURE: Amor de Perdicao (though IMDB has it for 1979 - but you and Harvard have it for 1978, so that's 2 to 1, and that'll do for me... I have mixed feelings about that, since I wanted to vote for Chahine and Alexandria Why? but - on the other hand, 79 is a much stronger year, and de Oliveira wasn't going to win that, so I guess this works out...)
DIRECTOR: Manoel de Oliveira
LEAD ACTOR: Richard Pryor, Blue Collar
LEAD ACTRESS: Jamie Lee Curtis, Halloween (well - it's what sticks in my head after all theze years.)
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Yaphet Kotto, Blue Collar
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Linda Manz, Days of Heaven (though since she narrates the damned thing, shouldn't she be the lead?)
SHORT: another post-ponement, though I'm starting early enough, I might be able to get it done this week.
SCORE: Morricone, Days of Heaven
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Nestor Almendros & Haskell Wexler, Days of Heaven

Plus bonus picks:
Script: Another vote for Doomed Love, in all its tangled romantic glory
Music/Sound: I suppose the obvious answer is the Last Waltz (which is also the documentary winner) - but - for one given song, I can't miss the chance to note Earth Wind and Fire's version of Got to Get You Into My Life from that, um, well, you know, Sgt. Pepper film.

1. Doomed Love
2. Alexandria Why?
3. The Cycle
4. Blue Collar
5. The Deer Hunter
6. Drunken Master
7. 36th Chamber of Shaolin
8. The Brinks Job
9. Days of Heaven
10. Snake in the Eagle's Shadow


1977:

PICTURE: Killer of Sheep
DIRECTOR: Hans-Jurgen Syberberg, Hitler...
LEAD ACTOR: Bruno S., Stroscek
LEAD ACTRESS: Shelly Duvall, 3 Women
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Clemens Scheitz, Stroscek
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Eva Mattes, Stroscek
SCORE: Goblin, Suspiria
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Luciano Tovoli, Suspiria

Plus bonus picks:
Script: Stroscek
Music/Sound: Suspiria - it is a grand achievement for the senses...
Documentary: a couple big contenders, though both in the essay form more than the documentary form - Grin Without a Cat probably would win, though Hitler is an astonishing film.

1. Killer of Sheep
2. Eraserhead
3. Grin Without a Cat
4. 3 Women
5. Hitler: A Film from Germany
6. Stroscek
7. Suspiria
8. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
9. Ceddo
10. Annie Hall


1976:

There are Rivettes I've missed, so I don't know how well this vote would hold up, but...

PICTURE: Killing of a Chinese Bookie
DIRECTOR: John Cassavetes
LEAD ACTOR: Robert DeNiro, Taxi Driver
LEAD ACTRESS: Eiko Matsuda, Ai No Corrida
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Timothy Carey, Killing of a Chinese Bookie
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Jodie Foster, Taxi Driver
SHORT: I shall try to come back to this, though I'm tempted just to vote the for the Devo, for its place in history, and, you know, being brilliant.
SCORE: Herrmann, Taxi Driver
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Ballhaus, Taxi Driver

Plus bonus picks::
Script: Killing of a Chinese Bookie
Music/Sound: this would probably be those Devo films, in any case...
Documentary: Harlan County USA, which has to land high on any list...

1. Killing of a Chinese Bookie
2. Taxi Driver
3. Ai No Corrida
4. Bad News Bears
5. Anatomy of a Relationship
6. Harlan County USA
7. Rocky
8. All the President's Men
9. People of the Wind
10. The Man Who Fell to Earth

1975:

PICTURE: Nashville
DIRECTOR: Robert Altman
LEAD ACTOR: Jack Nicholson, in the Passenger (not just to be perverse - I tend to find Cuckoo's Nest a bit overwrought... here, he is restrained, and the restraint plays well with his essential Jack-ness)
LEAD ACTRESS: Delphine Seyrig
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Henry Gibson, Nashville
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: this is very difficult - it didn't really occur to me before, but all the really good parts in Nashville are for women - the performances are all good, but the men tend not to be so important to the film - with Gibson and Carradine and Keenan Wynn as exceptions - but the women, all of them, are superb, and the film really turns around them. If I have to pick? maybe not for her pure acting, but for her overall performance, and her place in the film - it's Ronee Blakely, all the way.
SHORT: Two Solutions to One Problem
SCORE: Jaws, I'm afraid...
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Luciano Tovoli, The Passenger

Plus bonus picks:
Script: Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail, obviously
Music/Sound: Nashville

1. Nashville
2. Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail
3. Jeanne Dielman 23 Quai du Commerce 108 Bruxelles
4. The Man Who WOuld be King
5. The Passenger
6. Galileo
7. Smile
8. Salo or 120 Days of Sodom
9. Dersu Urzala
10. I Am a Cat

1974:

PICTURE: Celine and Julie Go Boating
DIRECTOR: Rivette
LEAD ACTOR: Bruno S., Enigma of Kaspar Hauser
LEAD ACTRESS: Gena Rowlands, Woman Under the Influence
SUPPORTING ACTOR: John Huston, Chinatown
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Madeline Kahn, Blazing Saddles
SHORT: we'll have to be back, when the chance arrives...
SCORE: Jerry Goldsmith, Chinatown
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Jorg Schmidt-Ritwein, Kaspar Hauser

Plus bonus picks:
Script: Cassavetes, A Woman Under the Influence
Music/Sound: I'd say Kaspar Hauser - mix of classical, Bruno on the piano, and so on... very nice.
Documentary: another great Kazuo Hara film - Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974

1. Celine and Julie Go Boating
2. Mystery of Kaspar Hauser
3. A Woman Under the Influence
4. The Conversation
5. Out 1: Spectre
6. Chinatown
7. Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974
8. Godfather II
9. Fear Eats the Soul
10. The Circumstance

1973:

PICTURE: The Long Goodbye
DIRECTOR: Fassbinder, World on a Wire
LEAD ACTOR: Robert Mitchum, Friends of Eddie Coyle
LEAD ACTRESS: Sissy Spacek, Dablands
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Sterling Hayden, The Long Goodbye, though it's hard to pass by De Niro
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Ana Torrent, Spirit of the Beehive
SHORT: not really being qualified to vote on these, I'll vote for another great piece of video art - Nam June Paik's Global Groove
SCORE: John Williams, The Long Goodbye
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Vilmos Szigmond, The Long Goodbye

Plus bonus picks:
Script: I need a vote for Charley Varrick in here somewhere, and this makes a good spot for it
Music/Sound: Mean Streets
Best Quotation in another film or other medium: Tarantino's recycling the "pair of pliers and a blowtorch" line from Charley Varrick is a strong contender, but I have to vote for "if the devil comes, we'll shoot him with a gun" from Pere Ubu's Laughing (by way of Badlands).

1. Long Goodbye
2. Mean Streets
3. World on a Wire
4. Badlands
5. Charley Varrick
6. Spirit of the Beehive
7. The Mother and the Whore
8. Don't Look Now
9. Sleepers
10. The Wanderers

1972:

PICTURE: Aguirre Wrath of God
DIRECTOR: Werner Herzog
LEAD ACTOR: Klaus Kinski
LEAD ACTRESS: Liza Minelli, Cabaret
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Joel Gray, Cabaret
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Hanna Schygulla
SHORT: Vertical Roll (video art by Joan Jonas)
SCORE: Popul Vuh, Aguirre
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Thomas Mauch, Aguirre

Plus bonus picks:
Script: Love in the Afternoon. Rohmer
Music/Sound: probably Cabaret.
Documentary: Sayonara CP, by the inimitable Kazuo Hara

1. Aguirre Wrath of God
2. The Godfather
3. Sayonara CP
4. Solaris
5. Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
6. Fat City
7. Pink Flamingos
8. Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean
9. The Heartbreak Kid
10. Fourteen Amazons

1971:

A good year, but totally dominated by its best film. (Though that's partly because I've only seen the later, shorter, version of Out 1.)

PICTURE: McCabe and Mrs. Miller
DIRECTOR: Robert Altman
LEAD ACTOR: Warren Beatty
LEAD ACTRESS: Julie Christie
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Warren Oates
SUPPORTING ACTRESS:
SHORT: Hapax Legomena I: Nostalgia, Hollis Frampton
SCORE: Leonard Cohen, McCabe
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Vilmos Szigmond, McCabe

Plus bonus picks:
Script: A New Leaf, Elaine May
Documentary: Land of Silence and Darkness, Herzog

1. McCabe and Mrs. Miller
2. The Ceremony
3. Two Lane Blacktop
4. Land of Silence and Darkness
5. Walkabout
6. Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
7. Get Carter
8. A New Leaf
9. Harold and Maude
10. Minnie and Moskowitz

1970:

PICTURE: Trash
DIRECTOR: Oshima, for The Man Who Put His Will on Film
LEAD ACTOR: Joe D'Alessandro, Trash
LEAD ACTRESS: Julie Christie, Go-Betweens
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Elliot Gould, MASH
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Holly Woodlawn, Trash
SHORT: I don't know if it's a vote, but I'll say Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty...
SCORE: Toro Takemitsu, Dodes'ka-den
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Vittorio Storaro, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage

Plus bonus picks:
Script: Pinter, for the Go-Betweens
Music/Sound: Gimme Shelter, which is also the best documentary of the year.

1. Trash
2. The Wild Child
3. The Man Who Left His Will on Film
4. The Conformist
5. Gimme Shelter
6. The Go Between
7. Dodeskaden
8. Zabriskie Point
9. Bed and Board
10. Claire's Knees