1979 was one of those great years for movies as can be seen by the sheer number of films of that year showing up on the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die list.
We lost a number of great directors that year including Jean Renoir, Nicholas Ray, George Seaton, Dorothy Arzner, and Ernest B. Schoedsak. Other notables who died in 1979 were Nino Rota, Mary Pickford, Jim Hutton, John Wayne, Jean Seberg, Dmitri Tiompkin, Merle Oberon, Ann Dvorak, and Joan Blondell.
Rosanna Arquette, Ted Danson, Matt Dillon, Danny Glover, Mickey Rourke, and Patrick Swayze made their film debuts.
Just some incidents in a tumultuous year. Iran became an Islamic Republic upon the arrival of the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini and the ouster of the Shah. 63 U.S. Embassy employees were held hostage by “students” for 444 days starting November 4. The crisis in Iran sparked an international oil crisis which saw gasoline prices soaring. The first Black government took office in Rhodesia, whose name was changed to Zimbabwe. The Sandinista National Liberation Front took power in Nicaragua. Islamic extremists took pilgrims hostage during the Haj in Mecca – 250 people were killed. A series of accidents at the nuclear power plant at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania caused a partial melt-down.
The Billboard top single of the year was “My Sharona” by The Knack. “The Stories of John Cheever” won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature. “Buried Child” by Sam Shepard won for Drama. The Ayatollah Khomeini was Time magazine’s Man of the Year.
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Here’s the list of films I will pick from for 1979 viewing.
