Are the 70s All That and a Bag of Chips? Comparing this decade to the 60s

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 For as long as I've been into films, I’ve heard people incessantly building a hagiocracy around the 70s. For those not well‑versed in the difference, the 70s are remembered as a time of political message movies that reflected the turbulence of the era, an emphasis on action rather than character (with far less exposition than earlier decades), strong directorial signatures, and an overriding theme of generational angst that mirrored the social and cultural divides of the time.

As highlighted in the recent book I finished "Easy Riders and Raging Bulls" (an incredible read, no doubt), there were also some wild stories of the time. Dennis Hopper was a dangerous flight risk who got into a knife fight with a co-star and practically chased his wife into witness protection on the set of Easy Rider (1969). A decade later, Francis Ford Coppola gave Martin Sheen a heart attack on a horribly planned trip to the Phillipines that resulted in just 8 minutes of usable film for what would amount to the first of three grossly negligent trips that eventually became Apocalypse Now (1979). In between, everyone was on wild drugs and traded romantic partners like baseball cards. There's no doubt the lives of William Friedkin, Peter Bogdanovich (probably the best), Martin Scorsese, Warren Beatty, Bob Rafelson, Stephen Spielberg, George Lucas, Hal Ashby, and Francis Ford Coppola make for great narrative arcs and that's part of what makes them all compelling.

But what about the directors with more boring personal lives who killed it in terms of quality a decade earlier?

The Case for the 1960s 🎬

The 1960s were already breaking boundaries, experimenting with genre, and tackling social issues long before the 70s became mythologized. Directors like John Frankenheimer, Sydney Lumet, Arthur Penn, Robert Wise, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Ritt, Sam Peckinpah, and John Sturges were making their mark, while old masters Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, John Ford, and David Lean were in their primes.

Genre Experimentation 🎭

The 60s were a decade of bold experimentation across genres. Westerns matured under directors like John Ford and John Sturges, evolving from simple tales of good versus evil into complex stories of anti‑heroes and professional outlaws, while Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (1969) redefined cinematic violence and morality. At the same time, psychological thrillers pushed boundaries with films like Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) and Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963), which combined psychological tension with horror spectacle. And in science fiction, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) shattered conventions with radical pacing, visual ambition, and philosophical depth. Taken together, these films show that the 60s were already experimenting with genre in ways that rival — and often surpass — the innovations credited to the 70s.

The unfilfilled ambitions of the 1950s were perfected in the form of the epic like Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Doctor Zhivago (1965), or 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and there's no shortage of films that were heavy on social commentary:

• To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) confronted racism and justice with timeless resonance.

• Days of Wine and Roses (1962) explored alcoholism with unflinching honesty.

• Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) examined redemption and humanity within the prison system. I'm in the extreme minority on this, but I liked it better than One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975). In this case, it's the exposition and the central relationships that ground the former even if it's a little old-fashioned.

• West Side Story (1961) tackled race, violence, and love through the lens of musical storytelling. For god's sake, it even has a rape scene!

• Ship of Fools (1965) offered a microcosm of prejudice and human folly.

• It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1965) is fun as hell, but it's also a brutal indictment of capitalism. When the price is high enough, people are willing to do anything.

• In the Heat of the Night (1967) confronted racial tensions and justice in the American South. Do note that all of Sidney Poitier's best work is in this decade

• They Shoot Horses Don't They (1969) is a scathing indictment of the haves and have-nots. It also doesn't shy away from depression and suicidal ideation.

Beyond innovation and directorial signatures, the decade also carried a sense of elegance, wit, and sophistication that is hard to ignore. It was the first time films truly broke away from studio lots in terms of shooting locations. Works like Topkapi (1964), The VIPs (1963), Zorba the Greek (1964), The Pink Panther (1963), Walk Don’t Run (1966), and Never on a Sunday (1960) highlight this trend. This European sensibility even carried over into American films such as The Mating Game (1959), Pillow Talk (1959), and Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961). Even the musical became more worldly in some sense with the All-Asian cast of Flower Drum Song or West Side Story which shot on the streets of New York.

The Case for the 1970s 🎥

So this is subjective, but many of the decade’s most celebrated films don’t resonate with me (I'm again speaking of what I've seen). I'll remove Star Wars (1977) and Spielberg from this equation because they were spiritually more like 80s films.

Without these overarching themes of generational conflict and the stories behind the stories, The Graduate (1967; I consider it a 70s film) is just a story of a love triangle with a killer performance in Anne Bancroft and a great soundtrack. Dog Day Afternoon (1975), stripped of its context, doesn’t feel much different than Smokin’ Aces (2006) or The Rundown (2003). Honestly, I'd take a heist film like Steve McQueen's Widows (2018) any day of the week. The French Connection (1971) is basically The Bourne Identity (2002) decades earlier. Shampoo is practically unwatchable: It reads to me like an overproduced Three's Company episode about a guy trying to wiggle his way out of screwing three women at once. Breaking Away (1979) was done several times better in the 1980s and 1990s.

Yes, I understand that hindsight is 20/20 and there's an entire trope about Seinfeld appearing unfunny to today's youth. But they are grounded in a specific cultural contexts.

To show I'm not a complete hater, here are several 70s Films I Love 🌟:

• Five Easy Pieces (1970) – Five Easy Pieces doesn't have a boat load of exposition (at least at the start), so I'm not entirely opposed to the 1970s style when done right. This is one where the pieces of Bobby DuPree's character are filled in as we go. A lofty comparison would be Citizen Kane. Plus, there are several unforgettable scenes.

• Network (1976) – the perfect storytelling mechanism of everything the 70s had to offer: sharp satire, generational tension, and a critique of media that still feels relevant.

• The Sting (1973) and The Great Waldo Pepper (1975) – See, I'm not allergic to a good film heist film. The Sting is an excellent period piece that indicated the director is having Sam Peckinpagh or Quentin Tarantino levels of fun (it's no coincidence that Tarantino has long championed George Roy Hill to the point of writing a book about him). The Great Waldo Pepper is a film of incredible stunts combined with thematic depth about the way in which we emulate our heroes in healthy and unhealthy ways.

• Airport (1970) and The Poseidon Adventure (1972) – I consider this more in line with the 50s style of spectacle, but I love these films and look forward to seeing more.

• Norma Rae (1979) – It embodies the 70s ethos of social justice and antiheroes while providing character depth and pathos.

• Taxi Driver (1976) – Not a film I relish every minute of, and I don’t consider it the masterpiece others do. There’s dead space in it, but it remains my favorite kind of intellectual film — one that sparks discussion long after the credits roll.

• Being There (1979) – Proof that when you have a truly great story, it’s hard to screw it up. The execution and the trio of lead actors elevate it into something timeless.

• American Graffiti (1973) – a vibrant snapshot of youth culture, capturing the joy of riding in a car before you get jaded by traffic and the anxieties about growing up too fast.

• Pretty much anything by Rob Altman - If there's an iconoclast in the 1970s I dig, it's gotta be Altman. I haven't seen Nasvhille, but I've seen five films of his from this decade and they all hold up upon multiple viewings as ensemble pieces, thematically clever works, and sharp commentary.

Timelessness

Everything great that people celebrate about the 70s — genre experimentation, social commentary, bold storytelling — was already present in the 60s. The difference is that the filmmakers of the 60s may have led less sensational lives, but they produced work that was no less daring and, in many cases, more enduring. Am I saying that one decade was better than the other. I also do admit that I have no experience with Peter Bogdanovich and my Coppola experience of this decade is extremely weak as well.

But on the whole, the mark of a truly great film is timelessness. Movies like The Magnificent Seven (1960), Birdman of Alcatraz (1962), Inherit the Wind (1960), Ship of Fools (1965), To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), The Manchurian Candidate (1962), In the Heat of the Night (1967), Dr. Zhivago (1965), and West Side Story (1961) don’t require you to understand the mindset of a disillusioned generation to be enthralled. They stand on their own, accessible and powerful across eras.

Notes on the Empire Magazine Top 300 Poll

In 2014, Empire Magazine compiled a reader poll of the 301 greatest films of all time  (you can play it in quiz form here, the list is unavailable but the final composited total is here).

 Here are some notes on the list:

1.   The Empire subscriber base is likely dominated by film aficionados who came of age in the 1990s. This can be seen in the high rankings of the films of Quentin Tarantino’s and Frank Darabont’s films, the ranking of Scorsese’s 1990 film “Goodfellas” over his earlier masterpieces, the high rankings of “Fight Cub,” “The Matrix” and the fact that Kevin Smith is even mentioned at all, shows that this is likely a group of voters that primarily came of age during the 1990s. Tarantino’s debut “Reservoir Dogs” (which didn’t really bring anything to the table that “Pulp Fiction” would do two years later) clocks in at #75. Additionally, David Fincher’s hits “Se7en” and “Fight Club” and the David Fincheresque “Usual Suspects” all place extremely high.
2.   It’s also worth noting that after the big triumvate of “Raging Bull” “Taxi Driver” and “Goodfellas”, the only other pre-2000 Scorsese work listed here is “Casino” which isn’t particularly memorable unless you were forming your filmic vocabulary in that decade. A more preferable choice for a film that defined Scorsese pre-2000 is “Mean Streets.”
3.  This is clearly a male voting body that grew up in the 1990’s. Tarantino and Fincher’s 90’s work are both hyper-masculine celebrations of violence whereas heady science fiction stuff like “Contact” gets ignored in favor of something like “The Matrix” which revels in bullets and special effects. Romantic comedies and musicals are both given much less weight than they would ordinarily. Among the older Westerns, the 1969 film “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” makes the cuts which is a celebration of masculine strength. Another 1969 film which won the best picture that year and generally does about as well on these kinds of lists, “Midnight Cowboy” gets omitted entirely and that’s a film that celebrates masculine weakness. Well-regarded films such as “Ghost” or “In the Name of the Father” from the time period where many of the films are skewed towards stand no chance of making it. "English Patient" is another outliar. I might say the same about the 2012 version of "Les Mis" but as Key and Peele reminded us, it's got Wolverine in it.
4.  Then again, Tim Burton who was one of the most successful film directors of the decade in terms of box office pull, innovation, and cultural clout seems to have retreated from memory. Edward Scissorhands clocks in at 170 while his masterpiece “Ed Wood” isn’t even mentioned at all. Batman is 288 and that’s more likely due to the presence of superhero tastes than Burton’s touch. Perhaps, his gothic flights of imagination are easier to get invested in as kids and  they detached from him as an adult despite the fact that “Big Fish” (which ranks on IMDB’s Top 250) and “Ed Wood” are both considered great films that aren’t particularly relevant to a children’s audience.
5. One would think that a year later in the post-truth era, movies that either champion political truth like “The Candidate,” “All the President’s Men” or “Spotlight” or that satirize news absurdity like Elia Kazan’s “A Face in the Crowd” or “Network” might rise a bit in the rankings. “All the President’s Men” and “Network” are both on AFI’s Top 100. “All the President’s Men” doesn’t even make the list!
6. It’s also clear that this voting body has been selectively exposed to the past. “Scarface” makes the list because the poster is on everyone’s dorm room. “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Wizard of Oz” our TV staples around Christmastime whereas Frank Capra’s other masterpieces don’t make the cut. Similarly, “Cool Hand Luke” has become a very quotable film and as such beat out 1967 films such as “Bonnie and Clyde” and “In the Heat of the Night” that had previously ranked higher on many lists. And don’t forget the cannon of John Hughes whose films are popular at summer parties and clubs.
7.  It seems the artsier the group of film experts, the more dismissive they are of Spielberg. However, if you’re pragmatic enough to realize that Spielberg’s films are as essential as Sergio Leone, David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, and Quentin Tarantino. Whereas “Schindler’s List” ordinarily tops these types of lists, these voters selected “Jaws” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark” 8^th and 9^th. “Schindler’s List” represents Spielberg’s high-brow ambitions, whereas “Jaws” and “Raiders” represent Spielberg sticking to his forte.
8.  For a voting body that rewards the hyper-violent and special-effects laden, it is refreshing to see a couple of Terrence Malick’s films make the list in “Tree of Life” and “New World.” His films stand entirely against any cinematic trends to make narratives faster and tighter.
9. Old-school blockbusters like "Superman" "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn" and particuarly "Die Hard" finally get their due as smartly made blockbusters unashamed to dig into their deep mythologies. I know this is hard to believe but some 15 years ago, there was virtually nothing indicating "Die Hard" was a classic among any serious segment of the population. This also could explain Tim Burton's "Batman" making the list.

The longest response I've ever written to a comment on the Internet.

I wrote an article at toptenz.net on Top Ten Film Directors who Inserted Themselves in Their Own Films in Secondary Roles. It's admittedly not a perfect title as I've included two show runners (Mike Schur and Michael White) but that's more on the editor then me. While it's generally best to avoid the comments section for writers, I relish it (partially because no one comments here) and feel it's a great way to enhance the site by interacting with the readers.

 

I recently wrote the longest response comment I've ever written and thought it would make an entertaining read on the blog, so enjoy:

 

THE LEADUP:

bodymaster says:

April 26, 2013 at 3:17 pm

Most of these aren’t even secondary roles, they’re cameos. Given that, how can you justify having Kevin Smith (who has made arguably one good movie) on this list and not having Martin Scorcese on a list of “top 10 directors…”? What’s the measure of success here? Though I guess we should be thankful Peter Jackson isn’t on the list.

Reply

• Orrin K (article's author) says:

  April 27, 2013 at 12:36 am

  I’ve seen 10 Scorsese films (which I think is a decent number) and he was in zero of those films I saw. I start from my own experiences as a viewer to devise ideas for names on the list. If Scorsese was in none of the films I saw, why would even put his name through imdb to see how many of his own films he’s starred in.
  When I think of Scorsese’s acting career, the first two things that pop in my head are Akira Kurosawa’s film and Shark Tale, neither of which he directed.
  

  Reply
  • Bodymaster says:

    April 27, 2013 at 6:54 am

    Taxi Driver is a pretty well regarded, famous film. I assumed somebody writing an article on popular film would have seen it. I guess not.

AND MY BIG RESPONSE:

Not that your criticism is invalid, but this is generally the kind of comment that makes me regret breaking from the standard internet writer practice of not going into the comment section.

As for you, I’d recommend making less assumptions and you’ll enjoy these lists (or at least this specific one) more or make your own list.

I could argue that Kevin Smith would be more deserving of Marty Scorsese.  That’s not an implication that Smith is a better director but it IS possible to make a top ten list on film that Kevin Smith would be on and Scorsese wouldn’t be on. I think Smith’s insertion into his own films is pretty clever: Especially the irony that he’s a loudmouth in real life and he barely ever talks in his films, not to mention the couple times he does talk, he sounds highly intelligent which I think makes for a nice twist.


The criteria for this list is two fold: 1) people who impressively inserted themselves into their movies (for me Shyamalan fits that bill because he either failed or succeeded spectacularly) and 2) if they make an interesting story. My goal, above all, is to be interesting and informative.

That’s why Dennis Dugan (whom I thought you would have taken an issue before Kevin Smith), who by all accounts is an awful director, is on this list. I felt there was a narrative there about how he failed as an actor and stumbled into directing.

Upon checking imdb, I have now learned that Scorsese is indeed in a number of his films in uncredited roles I’ve seen but I don’t see anything particularly impressive about most of Scorsese’s roles that I can directly remember like doing the voiceovers on Color of Money or on Aviator and I see Gangs of New York practically every time it pops up on TV because I love that film TV and have NEVER noticed Martin Scorsese’s role as an uncredited “wealthy land owner.”

I will say this:
If I magically went back in time and redid this list, Tarantino would be a glaring omission that I would fix. Scorsese’s somewhere in the realm of "I’ll look into it more and consider it."

As for Taxi Driver, congratulations, you have uncovered the dark secret that TopTenz does not screen out all writers who have not seen Taxi Driver, the 52nd greatest film in the history of America cinema according to a massive poll conducted by the American Film Institue, before selecting contributors. I would say that I’m qualified to write articles on film becuase I’m familiar with Taxi Driver and its historical context and every other notable film in American cinema (filmsite.org, for example, published a list of top 300 films and I’m familiar with all of them) so that if I were to make any of the following lists, I would be aware that Taxi Driver belongs on it: Top ten Jodi Foster movies, top ten Robert De Niro movies, top ten movies featuring child actors, top ten Marty Scorsese movies, top 1 Cybill Shephard movie, top ten counterculture films of 1976, top ten films featuring taxi drivers, top ten films written by Paul Schrader, top ten lines delivered by Robert De Niro talking to a mirror, etc etc etc.

Congrats on evoking the longest comment I’ve ever written in response to a comment on one of my articles

My top 100 films of all-time 87-80

I just interviewed the Washington D.C. Filmmaker of the Month and we discussed films shot in D.C., opportunities for local actors and The West Wing. Click here

My top 100 continued. I don't entirely have it mapped it out (I might be guilty of forgetting a film or misplacing a film), but let's see how this goes:

87. Three Kings (1999) directed by David O Russell, Starring George “Please stop writing magazine articles about this guy” Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice-T, Nora Dunn

I was heavily debating between this and "Oh Brother Where Art Thou" and felt an urge not to over-Clooney my list*. The film certainly isn’t a conventional war film or even a particularly patriotic one. Like MASH, this is a film of people who are apathetic to the war around them. More significantly, they’re bored which explains why they initially go on their adventure. The film also deepens in unexpected ways. The film is very gritty visually and doesn’t shy away from gore (it even gets creative with shots of internal organs) but it’s not overly crude just for the sake of being edgy.

86. Cat Ballou (1965) directed by Henry Hathaway, Starring Jane Fonda, Lee Marvin, Dwayne Hickman, Nat King Cole

I’m not sure if I’m becoming guilty of overloading my list with goofy pictures of no technical value other than they just make me smile, because like “In Like Flint” this might fall into that category as well. It’s got some pretty heavy comedic leanings, but it’s a solid adventure that’s just as kinetic as the most fun Western you can imagine. The film really is a perfect fit for Jane Fonda too.


I did once review this film years ago on my blog, so that should cover it.

85. Fisher King (1991) directed by Terry Gilliam, Starring Robin Williams, Jeff Bridges, Amanda Plummer, Mercedes Ruehl

Sometimes Gilliam gets lost in his own imagination and the effect can be that the story gets diluted through cartoonish characters and deviations from the plot. This is a shame because some of his stories are really great. This is one such great plot idea and it helps here that these are probably the four best acting performances I’ve seen in a Gilliam film. It’s a great fusion of solid drama with the abstract stylings of Gilliam’s bizarreness.

84. Seabiscuit (2003) directed by Gary Ross, Starring Jeff Bridges, Tobey Maguire, Chris Cooper, William H Macy, Elizabeth Banks

This is my one clichéd Disney story of an underdog entity winning against all the odds. I would rethink this corny period piece until I remember that the film was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar so other people must have thought it was pretty good too. The production values are great, the source material is converted to cinematic effect, and the acting is tremendous (I remember thinking: man, that actress who plays the wife should get nominated for an Oscar. She didn’t but she was Elizabeth Banks and became famous later). Also, it does have some very bittersweet undertones despite being a film made for no other reason than to stir up inspirational feelings.

83. Rain Man (1998) directed and written by Barry Levinson, Starring Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman

I generally don’t think a film can be considered great solely on the basis of one performance. “Rain Man” comes close. Hoffman is a fascinating character but Tom Cruise doesn’t get enough credit for his role even though he acts like Tom Cruise for the first half of the movie. While it’s a story about two people with very rigid temperaments changing (one because he’s biologically incapable, and one because he’s “a prick” in his own words) for the better.

82. Goldfinger (1964) directed by Guy Hamilton, based on the book by Ian Flemming, starring Sean Connery, Gert Forbe, Harry Sakada, Honor Blackman, Los Maxwell, Shirley Eaton, Cec Linder, Bernard Lee

Embodies the best of everything that you associate with James Bond: Beautiful scenery, ornate lairs, diabolical villains, creative technology, sexy women, and a convoluted plan for world domination. There’s not much more to say. Last time a James Bond film came out pre-Daniel Craig era, I found it amusing to see the reviews because there really isn’t much to say about a Bond film. You basically just check off a list of elements because as complex as the stories are, it’s mostly an excuse for the elements.

81. McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), dir. Rob Altman, starring Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, Rene Auberjoinis, Keith Carradine, William DeVane

This film is basically a response to the other Westerns of its time. It’s not really a great film on its own, because you have to see at least a couple other classic Westerns to really appreciate the way that this film turns those conventions on their head. It’s definitely a film worth watching a second time, if only for the fact that you’re not going to get everything anyone’s saying. It’s also a piece with a lot of symbolism that sort of pieces together in a thinky kind of way.

80. Goodfellas (1990), Martin Scorsese, written by Nicholas Pileggi, starring Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco

I'd probably characterize my reaction to this film as a classic that I agree is worthy of being a classic. Other people call this the most influential film of the 1990’s or whatever. I won´t say that´s untrue but I have no idea why, so if anyone wants to correct me about that in the comments. Didn´t Scorsese make other mob films? I just see it as a very good film within an already existin genre.

On a recent poll of best supporting actor winners of all time, I ranked Pesci #1 (& Waltz #2). To me the film is most notable for Pesci's performance and the very organic character change from Henry Hill, the relatively morally straight teenager who admired the local hoodlums, to a ruthless man and almost entirely unsympathetic character.

How do film buffs/film snobs read Eastwood?

I wrote this on a message board for classic film lovers and got some interesting responses. This is my initial message:

"My guess, right off the bat, is that those high brow viewers might not be big fans of Eastwood, because his films rely more on emotionally rich stories and characters than a sort of film making style that can be dissected, analyzed and torn apart. I find Eastwood's films, except for Unforgiven and Letters, to not be something that an astute film buff and your average viewer could see two different films out of.

If a film buff saw Chinatown, Midnight Cowboy, Lawrence of Arabia, Citizen Kane, Raging Bull, Mullholland Drive, Man Who Wasn't There, Third Man, The Prestige (with it's art imitating life themes), etc., they would come away with a greater appreciation of the film than an average viewer because the films work on multiple levels, they're brilliant in subtext and in text.

I feel like Million Dollar Baby and Mystic River are simply effectively told stories that connect equally to your average viewer and someone looking for rich symbolism and mise-en-scene and everything else.

Do you think this is a valid theory?"

There are those who didn't like Eastwood's styles much and seemed to break down his style as amounting to "just not very good."
Examples:

"If you're saying you think film elitists would look down upon Eastwood films because they rely on heavy handed emotional manipulation, laboured moralising and rather standard filmmaking techniques, you'd probably be right. Then again, I don't think you need to be a "snob" to see that much"

"His narrative technique hasn't really changed and his films often feel over-simplified. He tends to use first take, shoots first draft, and so his films often feel like they need to be re-edited or should have been re-written a couple of times before entering production. Some would praise his simplicity, which strikes you on the first viewing, but when you re-watch his movies you notice how little there is behind what is being told"

"I'm a buff though not a snob. I have mixed feelings on his films. I haven't seen all of them but of what I've seen, Letters From Iwo Jima works on every level and its just a pretty brilliant war film. Flags of Our Fathers, not so much, though it does feature a great performance from Adam Beach. The 2nd half of the film though is just completely misjudged. Million Dollar Baby worked for me initially but on rewatch not so much. Well acted and a decent story but a lot of the stylistic touches are off putting to say the least. His direction is by far the film's biggest problem. Mystic River I found to be absolute drivel. And Unforgiven, though certainly a well made western is far from great."

There were also some interesting comments that compared Eastwood's style to that of the Golden Age directors and mentioned Welles was even a fan of him:
"He's a good director; Times when he hits greatness. What more do you want?
The Golden age had lots of directors who were his equal. They served the story first and personal agendas second. A lot of great films resulted.
Eastwood said that Orson Welles told him that if someone else had directed Josey Wales it would have been hailed a masterpiece."

Along with another story:
"I saw Welles once (well, more than once) on the Merv Griffin show and on one occasion Merv asked him about some current releases - this was in the summer of 1982.

Welles got to Firefox and pretty much dismissed it, but added that Outlaw Josey Wales was one of the best films he had ever seen that was directed by an actor. He added that it was difficult to do both at the same time. It's my favorite of all of his films."

There are some who defend Clint on all levels as well and maintain that he has the critical respectability of his peers:
"Actually Clint Eastwood is internationally respected and feted as one of America's most interesting and talented directors active today, especially in the mainstream. His unpretentious approach to storytelling and character and his fast and economical way of working and also his total lack of sentimentality is prized worldwide.

In France, Eastwood is seen as an auteur and his films get good coverage in Cahiers du Cinema, Positif and also Sight and Sound magazine in the UK.....

Well you are wrong on both counts. Thinking that these films are "easy" or something. They aren't. Especially the harsh masterpiece that is Mystic River, one of the greatest American films of this decade.

Eastwood is a very talented film-maker, a rare(and welcome) minimalist in American cinema. My favourites include Bird, White Hunter, Black Heart, Unforgiven and among his earlier stuff The Outlaw Josey Wales."


And this message board response couldn't deny the one thing Eastwood has going for him: No other filmmaker has had as much praise from the critics of his era this decade. Scorsese might come close:
"No other director or actor has had anything remotely resembling his career trajectory. From television player to movie star to director to auteur to great humanist filmmaker, & at the top of his game in both roles even as he nears 80. He also of course was responsible for ensuring that his actors dominated the Oscars two years in a row what with Sean Penn & Tim Robbins winning for Mystic River & Morgan Freeman & Hilary Swank winning the following year (& Eastwood nominated for his performance too) for Million Dollar Baby. No other director has won Best Picture & Best Director twice since at least as far back as the 1970's. That in itself shows how much the film community regard Eastwood as the greatest living director.

Granted, not every movie is a knockout & Eastwood's notorious impatience has resulted in scripts going into production before they're ready. And yet .. any filmmaker with a body of work as large or larger than Eastwood's is going to suffer from poor scripts/ movies at some point. It's inevitable. What's more important is that in nearly 40 years of directing Eastwood has amassed at least half a dozen great movies, a string of near great ones & a varied oeuvre that encompasses an unexpectedly wide range of genres including, remarkably, arthouse pics. Moreover he was producing strong work right from the start. Play Misty For Me still holds up, likewise his second feature High Plains Drifter, & then came his first masterpiece The Outlaw Josey Wales in 1976. The following year The Gauntlet showed that Eastwood was capable of handling action setpieces on a much larger scale than anything he'd done before. Over the years he's shown a fascination with dismantling his screen persona, taking it off into darker areas (Tightrope), or satirizing it(Bronco Billy) or brutally pulling it down altogether (White Hunter Black Heart). And Eastwood's output this decade has resulted in a succession of varied, powerful & resonant work at a level no other contemporary American filmmaker has matched & that is remarkable, not least given the man is well into his 70's.

I find it fascinating that some people have this attitude - which is essentially Pauline Kael's attitude - that Eastwood is not a 'proper' director & therefore can't be taken seriously. This condescension is endlessly amusing. The Outlaw Josey Wales, way back in 1976, with its striking tracking shots in which characters appear to literally slide off the screen during moments of intense emotion, was a quite wonderful bit of work & a film that was highly praised - as most here will know - by none other than Orson Welles, who called it one of the great westerns that belonged up there alongside the best works of Ford & Hawks. Bird in 1988 was another bravura directorial piece in which the shadowy lighting & what has since become Eastwood's trademark rueful, melancholy feel were unmistakable. And Million Dollar Baby, with its characters bisected by pools of light in otherwise complete darkness, was not only thematically apt but direction so discreet that, as one critic noted, watching the movie you were barely even aware of the camera. That approach to me is exactly what narrative storytelling should be. After all that classical style didn't exactly hurt the great movies of the 1930's & 40's & yet it's important to note Eastwood isn't trying to slavishly imitate those old movies. He may be working in the classical style, a style that drives younger viewers weened on the juiced up editing style of a Scorsese, to distraction but there's nothing old fashioned about his fearlessness in tackling dark & disturbing material."

As what might happen when describing Eastwood's films this decade, people are bound to compare him to the other guy who has pulled off 3 nominations and one win in the directing department, Martin Scorsese. Comparing Scorsese and Eastwood could bestbe done with Raging Bull and Million Dollar Baby because the similar boxing themes:
"Yep, better written, acted, directed, scored, etc. Raging Bull is thematically muddled, poorly written & repetitive. Scorsese has no interest in explaining LaMotta's motivations to the audience & ends up with a boorish, alienating thug the viewer can't wait to see the back of. In its musical scoring of the boxing scenes the film is downright pretentious & the ending with its quote from scripture, implying that LaMotta has seen the error of his ways, is downright laughable. We've just spent two hours in the company of a thug who has done precisely the opposite! As one critic memorably wrote, the film is a celluloid bimbo because Scorsese has no interest in explaining the character. The technique is what RB is overly celebrated for & wrongly so IMO.

Million Dollar Baby far surpasses Scorsese's movie in that it does actually have a narratively sound, thematically coherent (about how we choose to live life), script. Coming on as a familiar boxing yarn it's really a sensitive father-daughter love story that turns brutally dark in its third act & climaxes with the father having literally sacrificed his soul. For this reason, as well as Eastwood's beautiful direction, & the three powerhouse performances that are at the centre of the film (including Eastwood himself who gives a career best turn) & infinitely more empathic than the repulsive LaMotta, the film actually surpasses Eastwood's other Best Picture winner Unforgiven as his best work. It's a brutally tough work of art & one of the all time great Oscar winners."

Because there is so much attention bestowed upon Scorsese, I'm going to have to include one more pro-Eastwood side of the argument here:
"When you have to dredge up pablum like Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore as proof of Scorsese's ability to flesh out character then you're really scraping the bottom of the Ragu sauce!

Look, at the top of his game, Scorsese is brilliant! Taxi Driver is a bonafide masterpiece. The Last Waltz may well be the greatest concert film ever made. But oh my God are you going to defend the cardboard cut outs of The Aviator and the cliched stereotypes of Gangs Of New York as proof of Scorsese's genius, too? The only thing great about Raging Bull is Robert DeNiro's ferocious and justifiably lauded performance. As cinema, Raging Bull is about as audacious as Lady Sings The Blues or any other biopic. Scorsese is successful with a certain type of character which is why his most successful work like Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, Casino is populated with them. He does one thing and he does one thing well though it's getting so old hat that I could only take 36 minutes of The Departed before said, "Oh, God, not again!" and turned it off. When Scorsese attempts to deviate from the tried and true with stuff like Age Of Innocence, New York New York, Last Temptation Of Christ, he stumbles. He's out of his element.

And don't get me started with Scorsese's inability to portray female characters (even he admits he's not very good at it) and rarely are women at the fore of Scorsese's world. Whereas Eastwood has been great at it at the very beginning from Jessica Walter's psychotic in Play Misty For Me, Sondra Locke's vengeful rape victim in Sudden Impact, Meryl Streep's Italian housewife in Bridges Of Madison County, Hilary Swank's struggling boxer in Million Dollar Baby or, if the early reviews are any indication, Angelina Jolie as the distraught mother in Changeling. Whereas Scorsese struggles whenever he leaves the "crime" environment, Eastwood is a chameleon able to shift gears easily."


One response suggested Eastwood might benefit from a historic flip:
"My point is that in the long run ultimately what we think of Eastwood today while it might be of curiosity to moviegoers in 2108 is unimportant. In 2008, is it important that in 1956 a big bloated elephant like Giant was lavished with Oscar nominations when Ford's The Searchers was totally ignored by the Academy? Not really. What is important is that posterity has rectified The Searchers standing over 1956 sensibilities. Who knows what the future will bring. In 2108, contemporary critics and film buffs may consider Adam Sandler to be the one of the great comics of his generation and "misunderstood" by contemporary audiences of his day. In that respect, the general contemptuous regard in which Sandler is held today may be an interesting footnote but unimportant to 2108 audiences and critics."

Oscar Blog II: From the 4th worst film critic in the nation

OK, Oscarcentral did actually post my picks and apparently, I am an idiot and a terrible oscar predictor. Out of 80 oscar pundits nationwide I was 4th worst, but I virtually got 3 more right than were listed down. As I said before, I was thinking Alan Arkin/Forest Whitaker but my main goal was to mix up the 5 locks (the 4 acting spots and the 1 directing nod) and I guess I must have picked a Peter O'Toole/Eddie Murphy combination instead. A red-headed girl named Allison, who I watched the Oscars with, can confirm that I did pick Alan Arkin, Dreamgirls for Sound (according to Oscarcentral, I picked Letters from Iwo Jima, which wasn't even nominated, I don't know who I could've done that) and Forest Whitaker. After submitting my picks, I went over to watch the Oscars at a local movie theater and her and I created our own little oscar pool between us where we wagered on each nomination as they came up, and I did pick Alan Arkin, but oh well. I did push for Oscarcentral to accept my picks at the 11th hour and I am happy to be considered one of 80 "Oscar Pundits" nationwide that they consulted and the credibility to me as a film critic is good, so whatever. I'll write more about that as i told Oscarcentral i would, in another post.

Anyway, I think. I did beat David Spade, which is great because I am a big fan of the showbiz show and think David Spade is one of SNL's most underrated alumni (possibly the most) and that it was cool that he was blogging although it says "The Showbiz Show Crew." I am curious, though: According to Tom Shale's "Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live," Eddie Murphy refused to speak to David Spade after he lambasted him on Hollywood Minute. I wonder if Spade will be writing anything on Murphy tonight, or if he'll stay clear. I plan to go over to his site, but I wanted to transcribe my handwritten notes first without inhibitions of what he might've wrote and seen how my notes compared to his, so here are my thoughts about the oscars:

Here are some notes I have:
-I think Ellen DeGeneres did a reasonably good job. I'm kind of a fan of her but not an 100% Ellen fan and I did think she'd be way over her head. She's a good sketch comedian-type and can be funny in certain situations but someone of that nature like SNL's Maya Rudolph I wouldn't tag to host the Oscars either. I think bigger comic acts like Steve Martin and Billy Crystal suffice and I don't see exactly why they've been avoiding them for the last few ceremonies. I think the Oscars will always be watched by the kinds of people who appreciate good movies and it's crowd is already set. If you're a Chris Rock fan or an Ellen DeGeneres fan and you're not that much into watching ambitious high-concept movies, you probably still won't watch the Oscars, or you'll turn it off after the opening monologue when the comic does their comic bits. After that, they don't completely dissapear but they don't appear often enough for someone to want to sit through the other parts. But, still a few will so, maybe the effect on people who were borderline about watching the Oscars is better.

-Ellen was actually pretty good albeit pretty invisible. Her bits with Clint Eastwood and Martin Scorsesee were good and I'm not entirely sure why she didn't do more of those. I got a kick out of her trying to set up Peter O'Toole with her mom, so I thought Ellen would chat with him more. I think her oscarbib wasn't really that funny.

-Best score is a funny category, check this article out:
[url]http://www.variety.com/awardcentral_article/VR1117959350.html[/url]

-In reality, though, it was just a really well-done ceremony that I felt had a complete overhall or something. Like they did with the honorary oscar for Robert Altman last year, they had voiceover for the cinematography awards and the little videos for the five best pictures* explaining a little bit about what creatively went into it. They also read excerpts from the ten nominated scripts which was immensely interesting. Also, they found a way to make the costume design interesting with models appearing on stage. They also mixed up the montages by having America as seen through the eyes of the movies, and a salute to foreign films.


-Best presenters: Jaden Smith and Abigail Breslin, I'm not really into child actors or anything, but those two were sooo cute. Some child actors like Haley Joel Osmont and the Olsen Twins and even Leo DiCaprio when he was young try to act so much like adults. Dakota Fanning also falls into this category. Let kids be kids. Also on good presenters, I think considering how little Jerry Sienfeld is on TV these days, it was definitely a highlight of the evening that they could integrate a Jerry Sienfeld monologue into an oscar acceptance speech

-Best people onstage who had absolutely nothing to do with the ceremony: With Borat refusing to show up to the Oscars this year, Jack Black, Will Ferrell and John C Riley were awesome and provided much needed comic relief. I love those guys and Will Ferrell and Jack Black brought down the house with their made-up acceptance speech song "You're Boring." When they did that song, however, they were actually presenting an award and here they were kind of just using up time in a ceremony that went on really, really long. I imagine as a result many reviews of the Oscars will be picking on those guys. What they said, though, rang true. One humongous flaw of the Academy Awards is that they rarely honor comedic performances, when as many directors will tell you, a comedic performance is harder to pull off than a dramatic one. It is ironic though, because Will Ferrell did sell his comedic soul this year to play a serious part this year in Stranger than Fiction and with that role, he had just as much Oscar Buzz pre-release as anyone else, so he did actually have his shot this year at winning an Oscar, but he was just out of his element. While the script was humorous, there wasn't a single bit of humor in his performance (I saw him as more the straight man to Emma Thompson, Maggie Gyllenhall and Dustin Hoffman) and what's the point of casting Will Ferrell if he hasn't got some laughs in his role?

-I thought it was funny that Sherry Lansing wasn't an actor yet she could either remember her entire speech or read it off a teleprompter whereas the actors who won had to bring up a piece of a paper or else they just fell apart when they got onstage.

-One fact that a lot of people in the media have got wrong about Jennifer Hudson was that while she finished 7th, she wasn't exactly the 7th most popular contestant that season nor did Simon or anyone else suggest that she would be a failure. She was considered a dark horse contender to win and wasn't kicked off the show by Simon or anyone else. She was the victim of a phone voting system in which you vote who you want to move on rather who you want to go, that had already elicited controvoursey. She did a good enough job that many people thought the week she was kicked off, that she'd be safe and placed their votes on candidates they thought were on the bubble instead. When she was voted off, Fox was sent a lot of hate mail and accusations that the system was rigged, as mentioned by Ryan Seacrest in the next episde. The point is, she did have quite an impact on the show contrary to what the media is saying.

-So thrilled that Alan Arkin won: I wrote about that in Oscar Blog I.

-I notice that some of the acting clips aren't that long, particularly for the supporting nominees. Abigail Breslin's acting clip just shows her screaming. It's really very unflattering and to anyone who didn't see Little Miss Sunshine, she did more than scream.


-Forest Whitaker won an oscar and he was so nervous up there even though he's had a chance to practice the art of giving a speech at least 3 other times this award season. After Helen Mirren thanked the Queen, I was moderately worried that he might thank Idi Amin or something

-The academy sent a message loud and clear tonight: They don't like Mexicans! When it comes to immigration, they're as conservative as Rush Limbaugh. Of the 7 most critically acclaimed movies of the year, one was made by a Brit, 3 by Americans and 3 by Mexicans, and those Americans who were afraid of having their jobs outsourced made it perfectly clear where they stood by voting down Pan's Labrynth, Children of Men and Babel. I say we start a movement of internet backlash! When will the academy stop being so conservative and accept Mexicans and Gays?!
(by the way, this is a humorous post in response to the partial rediculousness of the backlash of people who felt the academy was anti-Gay for not giving the Oscar to Brokeback Mountain. They did after all nominate the film, give it a best screenplay oscar and the best actor winner was for a gay character, not to mention playing a gay character or a transsexual gives you an automatic edge for an oscar nod)

-Best songs: Thank god, Randy Newman didn't sing. For that alone, I would've given Our Town an award. I actually think, in retrospect, though, Our Town would have been a good choice. People are just not thinking along the lines of what song would make a great radio hit when it comes to this category, which is an excellent opportunity for the Oscars to cross over into the territory of people who like the Grammys. Exceptions to this are generally the rap songs, as with "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" and "Lose Yourself." Beyond that, I don't think Melissa Ethridge's Inconvinient Truth song would be as popular of a hit as "Our Town" which I could see killing on country music stations. I think Counting Crows "Accidentally in Love" might have had a longer shelf life than the Motorcycle Diaries song, and the same to one of the Cold Mountain songs over "Into the West" from Lord of the Rings. I did a whole rant on this under my post "10 biggest Mistakes of the Decade"

-When William Moynahan got up on stage, I said "wow, William Moynahan is ugly" to which Allison pointed out "that's why he's a screenwriter." I don't know, I think there are plenty of handsome screenwriters out there, but then again Cameron Crowe isn't exactly easy on the eyes.

-"It's too bad Peter O'Toole didn't win" said Ellen, but doesn't the honorary oscar count? Kirk Douglas got to join the 75th Anniversary Oscar Commemoration in 2002 when, in reality, he only won an honorary oscar.

-The academy awards had some softer gentler music this year to let the people know when there speeches were done, did anyone notice that?

-Syd Gannis in under a minute: I absolutely loved that.

-When Martin Scorsesee won, there was a great moment of elation within myself and with everyone in the theater. It felt like when the Boston Red Sox won the World Series: Like we were witnessing something previously thought of as impossible. The truth though, is that it was entirely quite possible for Martin Scorsesee to win an Oscar, and it's not like the Academy was refusing to vote for him out of some dislike for him. You might say that Ordinary People beating Raging Bull was a travesty, but other than that, I think the winners were perfectly reasonable. There was no way in hell that Scorsesee was going to win an oscar for Last Temptation of Christ, and Roman Polanski in 2002 and Clint Eastwood for a second oscar in 2004 were both reasonably good choices. Kevin Costner made the brilliant Dances with Wolves in 1990 that beat Scorsesee's Goodfellas, but quickly dispelled the notion that he had any other brilliant movie ideas by making Waterworld. As for Goodfellas, which is ranked by the AFI's top 100 list as his 3rd best film (behind Taxi Driver and Raging Bull), its loss to Kevin Costner has helped turn it into a cult classic.
But, it was good of the Academy to wait until Scorsesee was really the best in his field this year.

-One of the few things that I officially got right was "Departed" for best editing. I thought it was obvious that Thelma Schoolmaker (hopefully i spelled her name right) would win best editor, on the basis of the fact that she's the most recognizable name of any editor in Hollywood, for her collaborations with Martin Scorsesee, and editing was one of The Departed's strong suits.

*Those videos they made for the pictures were really good. Why don't they use THOSE as trailers. Also, those videos would look good on youtube and would help promote the picture more.

The indiscriminate nature of the gun and Departed

I spent a third of a semester in my film genres class on Westerns, and one of the first ones our class saw was High Noon. My class had an interesting reaction to that film. There general sentiment was: "This was totally lame. Why did Gary Cooper have to go out into the street? Why didn't he just climb on a rooftop and shoot them from above like a sniper?" Our film professor who had noted at the start of the semester that he had seen easily over 100 Westerns, was somewhat baffled at this assertion. He had trouble explaining it but he just said, "That just wouldn't happen in a Western." It's not what a Western hero does. And that's what we call a film convention. Something we're used to seeing in a certain genre to the point where audiences expect it and filmmakers use it as a language.

I was watching a program of the history channel this afternoon on sharpshooters of the Old West and most historians, apparently, would've sided with my class. Historians said that there might have only been one or two shootouts in the history of the West that happened like High Noon. Most of the time, people shot each other in the back or in their sleep, which would have sent my old film professor into shock that there was little sense of an honorable way to shoot someone back then. The quickest and most efficient way to lodge a bullet into your enemy's head seemed to be the route that was more often taken. It was the pulp fiction novelists who started this tradition of the pulp fiction hero and sold that image back to the folks back East, so that convention has started for longer than Westerns.

Later in the semester, we saw Sam "Bloody Sam" Peckinpaugh's The Wild Bunch which was considered to be later in the evolution of the genre. The film was just as compelling a story as Stagecoach or High Noon, but it was also very bloody and gory. One of the students delivering a report on the film said that one of the themes of the movie was "The indiscriminate nature of the gun." He noted that the film stressed the myth that a bullet would never hit a woman or a child when someone fired it. And it's true: Guns do tend to defy the laws of physics by discriminating against their target. It seems that whenever a sharpshooter aims at James Bond, he has a rare miss. There are whole armies firing at James Bond and he runs fast and manages to emerge unscathed but logically, one of those bullets will hit the guy. The message from these movies is that a true hero won't get shot and that's potentially dangerous to a world.

As the genre has evolved, it seems like film directors like Clint Eastwood, Sam Peckinpaugh, and Martin Scorsesee in the urban crime genre have dutifully attacked the myth and that's where their brilliance comes from. Eastwood's Unforgiven is self-referencing as he inserts a pulp writer (played by Saul Rubineck) directly into his movie of the exact same kind that romanticized the West and those conventions in the first place and through his eyes, we see myths being made in the process.

Scorsesee really has built a reputation for attacking the romanticism of violence head-on. In Goodfellas, he starts out showing the romanticism of the mob life but slowly disintegrates it throughout the film. In The Departed, however, he really targets that convention about the "indiscriminate nature of the gun" I was thinking of.
*Spoiler warning*









You go through the movie thinking that Jack Nicholson is one of those invincible larger-than-life heroes who partially because he has been alive so long and partially because of those conventions you think that no matter how many bullets go whizzing by in a shootout, he will emerge unscathed. But, no, just like that, in the most anticlimatic way, he is shot by Matt Damon in something that isn't thought out particularly well. You get the feeling that if Matt Damon were thinking through his actions, he wouldn't have shot the guy who he'd been devoting all his time to risking his career to protect. But that's just the point: to shoot a gun, you don't have to think about it very long. All you have to do is just apply one inch of pressure and in a quarter of a second, massive consequences can happen.

The same thing happens to Leonardo DiCaprio. Because he's the hero and we're conditioned to believe, he'll get his happy ending, we're absolutely in shock because it all happens so quickly. But that's really how guns work.