1970s

  • Yigal Lossin – Pillar Of Fire – A Television History Of Israel’s Rebirth (1979)

    1971-1980DocumentaryHolocaust HistoryIsraelPoliticsYigal Lossin
    Pillar Of Fire A Television History Of Israel's Rebirth (1979)
    Pillar Of Fire A Television History Of Israel’s Rebirth (1979)

    Quote:
    The incredible story of Israel’s rebirth – this landmark series is the masterpiece of Israeli documentaries and the crowning achievement of Israeli television.

    Pillar of Fire relates the drama of the Jewish people’s return to Zion and the establishment of the state of Israel. It is an extensive documentary production that feature rare documentary footage collected from more than 30 archives and private collections throughout the world, as well as many eye-witness interviews. This documentary series also portrays the Jewish-Arab struggle for Palestine, persecution of Jews in Europe, the war of 1948 and David Ben-Gurion’s declaration of independence.Read More »

  • Daniel Schmid – La Paloma (1974)

    Arthouse1971-1980Daniel SchmidDramaSwitzerland
    La Paloma (1974)
    La Paloma (1974)

    This heady exercise in excess mixes the operatic passion of La Traviata, stylish decadence of Stroheim and Sternberg, and the macabre glee of Grand Guignol. Ingrid Caven plays Dietrich-like chanteuse stricken with CamilIe-like wasting disease. The disease seems to be arrested when a plump, wealthy young man (Peter Kern) develops a grand passion for her, but mortality raises its grinning skull again when she falls helplessly in love with another man. Jay Cocks in Time wrote, “La Paloma is a wonderful mad shotgun wedding of high camp movie mythology, bad taste, obsessive, romanticism, and impudent satire… Whatever it is, it certainly is some kind of fantastic movie.”Read More »

  • Man-hui Lee – Sampoganeun kil AKA The Road to Sampo (1975)

    1971-1980ClassicsDramaMan-hui LeeSouth Korea
    Sampoganeun kil (1975)
    Sampoganeun kil (1975)

    Going through a jail and a site of construction, a young laborer Young-Dal meets middle aged Mr. Jeong on his way to his hometown Sampo after ten years’ absence. They become to know a waitress Baek-Hwa who runs away from a restaurant and then, they travel together. Arriving at the destination Kangcheon Station, Mr. Jeong is disappointed at the changes of the old village by building a hotel. Young-Dal and Mr. Jeong stay at Sampo not as the hometown but as the site of living. Baek-Hwa leaves Sampo with a ticket Young-Dal buys her with his last money.Read More »

  • Paolo Taviani & Vittorio Taviani – Allonsanfan (1974)

    1971-1980ArthouseDramaItalyPaolo TavianiVittorio Taviani
    Allonsanfan (1974)
    Allonsanfan (1974)

    After the fall of Napoleon, the Restoration begins. Fulvio (Marcello Mastroianni, La dolce vita), an aristocrat who has dedicated his life to the revolution has become disillusioned and his cowardice keeps him from joining his comrades. As he struggles to manage his evasion and lies he gets swept up in a suicidal uprising in Southern Italy. Stunningly photographed with lush period detail and featuring the Taviani brothers’ trademark magic realism and absurdist irony, Allonsanfàn has Mastroianni on top form as the reluctant insurgent and one of Ennio Morricone’s finest scores.Read More »

  • Susumu Hani – Yôsei no uta AKA Mio (1972)

    1971-1980DocumentaryDramaJapanSusumu Hani
    Yôsei no uta (1972)
    Yôsei no uta (1972)

    Susumu Hani’s six-year-old daughter Mio plays an orphaned Japanese girl who, for some reason, ends up in Sardinia. She starts going to school, quickly learns Italian, and befriends a boy named Raphael. One of Hani’s stranger concepts for a film, made enjoyable by the great naturalistic acting that’s found in most of his work.Read More »

  • Tewfik Saleh – al-Makhdu’un AKA The Dupes (1972)

    1971-1980DramaPoliticsSyriaTewfik Saleh
    al Makhdu'un aka The Dupes (1972)
    al Makhdu’un aka The Dupes (1972)

    Set in Iraq (but shot in Syria), this is the story of three men who try to leave their impoverished and hopeless lives to get get work in Kuwait. They hire a water-truck driver to transport them illegally across the border in the tank of his truck…Read More »

  • Aleksandr Alov & Vladimir Naumov – Legenda o Tile AKA Legend About Thiel (1977)

    Aleksandr Alov1971-1980AdventureDramaUSSRVladimir Naumov
    Legenda o Tile (1977)
    Legenda o Tile (1977)

    This TV miniseries is based on the book “La légende et les aventures héroïques, joyeuses et glorieuses d’Ulenspiegel et de Lamme Goedzak au pays de Flandres et ailleurs”, by belgian XIX century author Charles de Coaster, which, in turn is based on the popular German renaissance text “Ein kurzweiliges Buch von Till Eulenspiegel aus dem Lande Braunschweig”, by Hermann Bote. The story is set at the time of religious wars and turmoils following the protestant reformation and the hero fights for the freedom of his country from Spanish occupation and from the holy inquisition. The fist parts of the film are devoted to showing the atmosphere of oppression in the Netherlands at the time, with people being reported to the inquisition by envious neighbors and burned at the stake on flimsy excuses, when the real goal is for the king to get hold of their riches.Read More »

  • Mustafa Abu Ali – They Do Not Exist (1974)

    1971-1980DocumentaryMustafa Abu AliPalestinePolitics
    They Do Not Exist (1974)
    They Do Not Exist (1974)

    Shooting under extraordinary conditions, the director, who worked with Godard on his Ici et Ailleurs (Here and Elsewhere) – this film was shot on the same 16mm camera – and founded the PLO’s film division, covers conditions in Lebanon’s refugee camps, the effects of Israeli bombardments, and the lives of guerrillas in training camps. They Do Not Exist is a stylistically unique work which explodes at the intersection between the political and the aesthetic.Read More »

  • Bahrudin ‘Bato’ Cengic – Uloga moje porodice u svjetskoj revoluciji AKA The Role of My Family in the Revolution (1971)

    1971-1980ArthouseBahrudin 'Bato' CengicCultYugoslaviaYugoslavian Cinema under Tito
    Uloga moje porodice u svjetskoj revoluciji (1971)
    Uloga moje porodice u svjetskoj revoluciji (1971)

    Quote:
    Screen adaptation of the popular novel of the same name by Bora Ćosić, published in 1969, for which he won the NIN Award for Novel of the Year in the same year. The film was screened at the Pula Film Festival and was later banned.

    An ironic and parodic view of the revolution, the war, the great historical events are described from the boy’s perspective. His story, abbreviated and simple, reveals all the absurdity and lies of the world “outside the family”. It is a story about the revolution that happened in 1945, together with the national liberation. With the National Revolution, there was a smaller one – a revolution within the family. The film tells what is left of one family that enters a revolution and what is left of a revolution that enters one family.Read More »

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