Category Archives: 1978

Gates of Heaven
Directed by Errol Morris
1978/USA
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime

Mrs. Harberts: Surely at the gates of heaven an all-compassionate God is not going to say, “Well, you’re walking in on two legs, you can go in. You’re walking in four legs, we can’t take you.”

Who knew a documentary about pet cemeteries could be so great?  Errol Morris knocks it out of the park with his first film.

There is no narration.  We start by being introduced to an animal lover whose dream of creating a beautiful park like pet cemetery was eventually dashed by his refusal to run it on the sound business principals insisted on by his partner.  All the pets eventually had to be dug up and moved.  We also meet various pet owners with opinions on the matter.

A rendering plant owner discusses an alternative method of disposing of dead animals.  The second part of the film is devoted to another pet cemetery and the family that runs it as a business venture.  Along the way, we meet many interesting and odd people both from the business side and the pet owner side.

A singing dog

I’ve seen this at least twice previously and it always seems like a different film.  It is about so much more than pet cemeteries including: capitalism, dreams, middle America, the afterlife, and people’s relationships with animals.  By turns comic and touching, it is one of the great documentaries.  The film is available on YouTube.  Highly recommended.

Werner Herzog told Errol Morris that he would eat his shoe if Morris could get this film released and was true to his word.  He boiled it up in a pot with lots of delicious things.

Clip

Vietnam Era films began to appear, including Hal Ashby’s Coming Home, Sidney Furie’s The Boys in Company C, Ted Post’s Go Tell the Spartans , and Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter (1978).

Philips introduced the video laser disc (aka laserdisc and LD) — the first optical disc storage media for the consumer market. Pioneer began selling home LaserDisc players in 1980. Eventually, the laserdisc systems would be replaced by the DVD (“digital versatile disc”) format in the late 1990s.  Disney licensed its cartoon compilations to MCA’s DiscoVision – these were the first Disney videos available to the public.

In early March of 1978, Charlie Chaplin’s body was stolen from the grave where it was buried two months earlier in a small cemetery in the Swiss village of Corsier-sur-Vevey. The body was held for ransom by the extortionist grave robbers, but their plot was foiled (and they were arrested) when the body was recovered two months later near Lake Geneva and subsequently reburied in a new, solid cement grave.

We lost Jack Oakie, Oskar Homolka, John Cazale, Will Geer, Mark Robson, Charles Boyer,  Robert Shaw, Gig Young, and Ed Wood.  A new generation of actors made their film debuts including: Kevin Bacon, John Belushi, Billy Crystal, Jamie Lee Curtis, Ed Harris, Michael Keaton, John Malkovich, Liam Neeson, and Christopher Reeve.

Andy Gibbs “Shadow Dancing” (a song I don’t even remember) was named #1 song of the year by Billboard.  Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.  The Gin Game by Donald M Coburn won for Drama. Time magazine’s Man of the Year was Teng Hsiao‐ping, regarded by many as the official most responsible for the People’s Republic of China’s modernization.

After murdering investigating Congressman Leo Ryan and his companions, cult leader Jim Jones ordered the 900 inhabitants of Jonestown in Guyana to commit suicide by drinking cyanide-laced punch.  Egypt and Israel signed the Camp David accords.  The first “test-tube” baby was born.  The first ever mobile cellular phone was introduced.

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The list I plan to select from is here.  Suggestions and warnings will be warmly appreciated.