Fave 70's "New Hollywood" director

[The Write Profile]

No votes for Polanski? That's a bit shocking. I voted for Scorsese, only because he's my favorite director of all time...but Polanski would be my other favorite 70s director.

And good post about Cassavetes BTW.

Do you like his version of Macbeth? I think it's great--exactly as messy as the film of macbeth should be. It's got lots of mud, some bizzarre lapses here and there (the visualisation of the dagger is kind of odd), but goddamn is it powerful.

[geoffcowgill]

It's the best film of a Shakespeare play I've ever seen, to be sure. Maybe his "Oliver Twist" will be as good.
Then again, maybe it will be as good as "Pirates".

[The Modernist]

We should have a second poll to anticipate how Ced will vote before he wakes up.

He'll come out of left field and go for Malick.
Interesting shout on Cassavetes, a massive influence on Scorsese. I need to watch some of his films again. On Scorsese, we can include Raging Bull as well, I'm less concerned with whether a film falls into the seventies than whether it fits in with that period of film making (which conveniently was over by about 1980 anyway). On the same note we can throw in Bonnie and Clyde (1967) for Penn.

[K]

It says Fave '70s' New Holloywood Director, but it doesn't say we should only consider their work during the 70s. Remember that that was when these guys got their big break. SO when considering, remember that Scorsese also made Raging Bull & King of Comedy and Color of Money and Gangs of New York, and Coppola made Rumble Fish & The Outsiders and Dracula & Jack.




I went for Scorsese.

JOEY
We won't pay...

JIMMY
Why? We just said...

JOHNNY BOY
(interrupting)
We won't pay...because this guy
(pointing to JIMMY)
is a...mook.

JIMMY
But I didn't say nothin.

The guys look at each other bewildered.

JOEY
(to JIMMY)
We don't pay mooks!

Nobody knows what a mook is. JIMMY'S attitude now changes.

JIMMY
(angrily)
A mook...I'm a mook...
(pauses)
What's a mook?

[The Modernist]

It says Fave '70s' New Holloywood Director, but it doesn't say we should only consider their work during the 70s. Remember that that was when these guys got their big break. SO when considering, remember that Scorsese also made Raging Bull & King of Comedy and Color of Money and Gangs of New York, and Coppola made Rumble Fish & The Outsiders and Dracula & Jack.




I went for Scorsese.

JOEY
We won't pay...

JIMMY
Why? We just said...

JOHNNY BOY
(interrupting)
We won't pay...because this guy
(pointing to JIMMY)
is a...mook.

JIMMY
But I didn't say nothin.

The guys look at each other bewildered.

JOEY
(to JIMMY)
We don't pay mooks!

Nobody knows what a mook is. JIMMY'S attitude now changes.

JIMMY
(angrily)
A mook...I'm a mook...
(pauses)
What's a mook?

I love the next line "You can't call me a mook" (even though they have no idea what a mook is). I first saw the poolhall fight scene on loads of tv screens on the stage when The Clash were playing. At the time I didn't know about Mean Streets. Quite a cool way to be introduced to the film. My other favourite bit of dialogue is the whole Johny Clams scene where De Niro is giving his convoluted explanation of why he can't pay his debt back. The riffing between Keitel and De Niro is like jazz in the way they rhythmically bounce off each other and improvise. It's also very funny.

[Roygbiv]

It says Fave '70s' New Holloywood Director, but it doesn't say we should only consider their work during the 70s. Remember that that was when these guys got their big break. SO when considering, remember that Scorsese also made Raging Bull & King of Comedy and Color of Money and Gangs of New York.....

and Goodfellas! just one of the best fucking masterpieces ever made.

Going back to someone else's post, Heaven's Gate is a good western. It has been unfairly maligned.

Peter Bogdanovich anyone? The Last Picture Show is really quite excellent.

[the masked man]

I voted for Altman, because I think he's a director who has always followed his own instincts and developed a unique voice. Of course, his work is uneven, but his highs, to me, shine higher than his contemporaries. "McCabe & Mrs Miller", "Nashville" and "The Long Goodbye" are remarkable pieces of pure cinema, as are later works like "The Player", "Short Cuts" and "Gosford Park" (the latter even brings life to the moribund British period drama genre, for goodness' sake). Also, there are "lesser" works in his oeuvre that remain overlooked (anyone see "Tanner '88"?) and are waiting for re-discovery. And "Images" and "Secret Honor" are among the unavailable Altman films I'm dying to see. I think there's more depth in his work than in any of the more famous directors here.

BTW, one name who deserves to be here is Alan J Pakula. Decades of spurious hackwork have ruined his reputation, but "Klute" and "The Parallax View" showed he was a master of the paranoid conspiracy theory, and "All The President's Men" proved that some conspiracies are not merely the imaginings of paranoid minds.

[Mr Maps]

Funny, I just watch Easy Riders and Raging Bulls again last night.
Easily Malick for me. Almost Scorsese.
Altman's good films are great and his bad ones are really bad. Brewstar Mcloud? and I know I'll catch hell for this but MASH is a piece of crap.

I wish Hal Ashby got more crediot for his stuff too. He should bea household name.

Why no Peckinpah?

[The Modernist]

Funny, I just watch Easy Riders and Raging Bulls again last night.
Easily Malick for me. Almost Scorsese.
Altman's good films are great and his bad ones are really bad. Brewstar Mcloud? and I know I'll catch hell for this but MASH is a piece of crap.

I wish Hal Ashby got more crediot for his stuff too. He should bea household name.

Why no Peckinpah?

Peckinpah was an oversight, a pretty glaring one admittedly. Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia pretty much epitomises what was great about this period. A totally anarchic film which pays scant regard to conventions. And of course any man who makes a spaghetti western and bases it in Cornwall is alright by me.
I went with Malick too, although with the knowledge that Scorsese would run away with it. Badlands and Days Of Heaven are just pure cinema.

[My name is Spaulding]

What about the directors who these days try to make movies like the ones those "New Hollywood" directors used to make?

I´m thinking of people like Michael Mann (and his wonderful "The insider")

[The Modernist]

What about the directors who these days try to make movies like the ones those "New Hollywood" directors used to make?

I´m thinking of people like Michael Mann (and his wonderful "The insider")

Mann is all gloss and hype. He should be shot for his excessive use of backlighting alone. He's very much a post-eighties director.

[Jeff K]

It seems funny to see Brian DePalma's name mentioned along with all the others but he was once considered a promising director although he had an annoying Hitchcock fetish. He's really fallen off the radar now. No one ever talks about him anymore.

[BARON CORNY DOG]

Gotta be Malick. Two incredible movies. I actually enjoy the more recent Altman more than what I've seen from the seventies, Francis Ford gave us a nice Epic (Godfather I&II) and the debatable Vietnam flick (which I'll see again soon). I'm so sick of Scorsese I get nauseated thinking about his over the top puke-chunks (other than Taxi Driver). I have loved many of his movies but right now I'm sick of almost all of them.

By the way, I recall a considerable amount of DePalma talk in earlier Now Watching threads.

[marios]

Gotta be Malick. Two incredible movies. I actually enjoy the more recent Altman more than what I've seen from the seventies, [b]Francis Ford gave us a nice Epic (Godfather I&II) and the debatable Vietnam flick (which I'll see again soon)./b] I'm so sick of Scorsese I get nauseated thinking about his over the top puke-chunks (other than Taxi Driver). I have loved many of his movies but right now I'm sick of almost all of them.

By the way, I recall a considerable amount of DePalma talk in earlier Now Watching threads.

Don't forget The Conversation.

And i kinda know what you mean about Scorsese, depsite the fact that i still refuse to let go...

[My name is Spaulding]

What about the directors who these days try to make movies like the ones those "New Hollywood" directors used to make?

I´m thinking of people like Michael Mann (and his wonderful "The insider")

Mann is all gloss and hype. He should be shot for his excessive use of backlighting alone. He's very much a post-eighties director.

I still think tha "The Insider" is the best 70s movie from the last 5 years.

[James R]

The title of this poll bothers me a bit. If, like me, you want to be pedantic, it has to be observed that of them all, only Cimino, Malick and Ashby really qualify as "70s" filmmakers. De Palma, Scorsese, Rafelson, Polanski and Coppola all made their first features in the 60s, while Penn and Altman made theirs in the 50s.

Carry on, though. Never mind me.

[The Write Profile]

I still think tha "The Insider" is the best 70s movie from the last 5 years.

You would be correct. Even better than "All the President's Men" it is, and the film which Russel Crowe has built his entire reputation around. Also contains Pacino's best monologue since his Dog Day Afternoon peak:

You pay me to go get guys like Wigand, to draw him out. To get him to trust us, to get him to go on television. I do. I deliver him. He sits. He talks. He violates his own fucking confidentiality agreement. And he's only the key witness in the biggest public health reform issue, maybe the biggest, most-expensive corporate-malfeasance case in U.S. history. And Jeffrey Wigand, who's out on a limb, does he go on television and tell the truth? Yes. Is it newsworthy? Yes. Are we gonna air it? Of course not. Why? Because he's not telling the truth? No. Because he is telling the truth. That's why we're not going to air it. And the more truth he tells, the worse it gets!

I have to think that's about the most powerful indictment of Television Journalism in Hollywood film in a long, long time


Oh, for the record

Favourite films of the directors mentioned

Altman: McCabe & Mrs Miller
Peckinpah: Straw Dogs
Coppola: The Conversation
Ashby: Being There
Scorsese: Taxi Driver and Raging Bull
De Palma: I'm going out on a limb and saying "Scarface" if only because, frankly, if ever a film summarised the respective directors' excesses, then that is it.

What about John Schlesinger? Surely he got the ball rolling with such great films as Billy Liar, and crucially Midnight Cowboy...

Also...



Anyone with the remotest interest in these directors' work(s) should read this. It's rioutous, entertaining, and fully epitomised how the directors were pricks to a man. Bisking probably fucks around with the facts more than he admits (much of the stuff in there is hearsay repudiated by the people involved, Spielberg in particular has taken the book to task, though he comes accross as the nicest bloke in the book, just the least artistically adventurous). Cocaine, sex, and some films. A great read, but worth taking with some salt.

[the masked man]

The title of this poll bothers me a bit. If, like me, you want to be pedantic, it has to be observed that of them all, only Cimino, Malick and Ashby really qualify as "70s" filmmakers. De Palma, Scorsese, Rafelson, Polanski and Coppola all made their first features in the 60s, while Penn and Altman made theirs in the 50s.

Carry on, though. Never mind me.

Wasn't Ashby active in the 60s too? Anyway, I think the point is that these directors all reached their peak in the 70s, and collectively represented a new spirit in Hollywood.

I must say, then, that perhaps Polanski is out of place here. "Chinatown" aside, all his masterpieces were from the 60s ("Knife In The Water", "Repulsion", "Cul-de-Sac", "Rosemary's Baby"). Also, much of Polanski's work in all his periods is European rather than American.

While I'm being nit-picking, I'd also say that John Cassavetes (who was mentioned earlier) is also in a different category. He made his films independently (usually in New York) and, aesthetically, he was utterly opposed to Hollywood values. Cassavetes reminds us that "Hollywood" and "American cinema" are not exact synonyms.

[K]

Favourite films of the directors mentioned

Scorsese: Taxi Driver and Raging Bull

- but what about Michael Jackson's BAD video?

[James R]

Wasn't Ashby active in the 60s too?

As an editor, yes. Not as a director. He made his directorial debut in 1970.

I must say, then, that perhaps Polanski is out of place here. "Chinatown" aside, all his masterpieces were from the 60s ("Knife In The Water", "Repulsion", "Cul-de-Sac", "Rosemary's Baby"). Also, much of Polanski's work in all his periods is European rather than American.

Yes, this bothers me about the poll as well. I don't think Polanski's much good, to be honest—of all his films I only really like Macbeth and The Pianist, both of which are admittedly excellent films—but at any rate I've never seen him as a particularly "Hollywood" figure.