1971-1980

  • Vojtech Jasný – Ansichten eines Clowns AKA The Clown (1976)

    1971-1980DramaGermanyVojtech Jasný

    Hans Schnier has earned his living as a clown, though he is in fact a very covert sort of social critic. After enduring a difficult childhood in Bonn during the Second World War, including his mother’s fanatic Nazism, he is appalled to discover many of the people he knows and loves swept deeply into involvement in the Catholic Church.Read More »

  • Warrington Hudlin – Black at Yale: A Film Diary (1974)

    1971-1980DocumentaryPoliticsUSAWarrington Hudlin

    The film was directed by Hudlin while he was a Yale College senior, and focuses on the experiences of African-American students at Yale in the early 1970s. The influential documentary short follows students Erroll McDonald and Eugene Rivers, and features a conversation with civil rights activist Stokely Carmichael.Read More »

  • Philippe Garrel – La cicatrice intérieure AKA The Inner Scar (1972)

    1971-1980ArthouseCultFrancePhilippe GarrelThe Films of May '68

    This is a highly experimental French film consisting of no more than 23 camera shots, total. It resembles nothing so much as one of Warhol’s earlier films, except that it is more episodic. Nico of the Velvet Underground portrays a different woman in each of the episodes. The first three concern her “rescues” from Death Valley, Egypt and Iceland by a young man to whom she eventually says “stay away from me.” Following that, she recites from various texts in German, French and English, makes various gnomic observations and encounters various men in various guises. All the men are played either by director Philippe Garrel or Pierre Clementi.Read More »

  • Kôichi Saitô – Tsugaru jongarabushi AKA Tsugaru Folksong (1973)

    1971-1980ArthouseAsianJapanKôichi Saitô

    Quote:
    BAM/PFA (Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive) wrote:
    In this film of the furusato genre, Isako Nakazato returns to the Tsugaru fishing village where she grew up, bringing with her Iwashiro, a gangster who has been marked for a hit. The two decide to start a new life together in the village, learning from the wisdom of the fishermen, the blind musicians and the other villagers who have made them welcome.

    Koichi Saito has made several films on similar themes, in which his protagonists are outsiders, often criminals, seeking redemption through love and acceptance into a new community.Read More »

  • Mai Zetterling – Stockholm (1978)

    1971-1980ArthouseCanadaMai ZetterlingTV

    Mai Zetterling explores Swedish cultural canon in a Canadian TV-production called “Cities”. Zetterling herself play all the prominent roles.Read More »

  • Terence Young – Soleil rouge aka Red Sun (1971)

    1971-1980Terence YoungThrillerUSAWestern

    In 1870, a gang robs a train and steals a ceremonial Japanese sword meant as a gift for the U.S. President, prompting a manhunt to retrieve it.Read More »

  • Wade Shaw & Stan Vanderbeek – Symmetricks (1972)

    1971-1980AnimationExperimentalStan VanderbeekUSAWade Shaw

    From the DVD notes:
    ”A computer-created animation of high-speed stroboscope mandalas with molecular-like energy. The surprise of this film is the color produced from the strobing black and white symmetrical images. Done with an electronic stylus on a special computer at MIT. This film demonstrates the possible use of the computer interacting with the graphic artist.”

    “Electronic-optical computer finger-painting. Laws of reflective mirror images. An interplay between drawing by hand and computer. Art form of the future – electronic calligraphy.” – S.V., not dated.Read More »

  • Sam Peckinpah – Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974)

    1971-1980CrimeDramaSam PeckinpahUSA

    Quote:
    A family scandal causes a wealthy and powerful Mexican rancher to make the pronouncement–‘Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia!’ Two of the bounty-hunters thus dispatched encounter a local piano-player in their hunt for information. The piano-player does a little investigating on his own and finds out that his girlfriend knows of Garcia’s death and last resting place. Thinking that he can make some easy money and gain financial security for he and his (now) fiancée, they set off on this goal. Of course, this quest only brings him untold misery, in the form of trademark Peckinpah violence.Read More »

  • Akira Kurosawa – Kagemusha [+commentary] (1980)

    1971-1980Akira KurosawaClassicsJapanWar

    Synopsis:
    Akira Kurosawa’s lauded feudal epic presents the tale of a petty thief (Tatsuya Nakadai) who is recruited to impersonate Shingen (also Nakadai), an aging warlord, in order to avoid attacks by competing clans. When Shingen dies, his generals reluctantly agree to have the impostor take over as the powerful ruler. He soon begins to appreciate life as Shingen, but his commitment to the role is tested when he must lead his troops into battle against the forces of a rival warlord.Read More »

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