Category Archives: 1979

Camera Buff (Amator)
Directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski
Written by Krzysztof Kieslowski and Jerzy Stuhl
Poland/1979
IMDb page
First viewing/CriterionChannel

Director: “Cinema is the foremost art.” Who said that?
Filip Mosz: Lenin.

This early feature made Kieslowski’s name in cinema circles and it certainly is a small masterpiece.

Filip Mosz (Jerzy Stuhr) is a humble factory worker. He and wife Irka are expecting their first child. He saves up two months wages to buy a movie camera. He hopes to document his new daughter’s childhood with this.

But before too long, Filip’s boss finds out about the camera and asks him to make a documentary about the festivities for an important anniversary of the business. The plant will pay for film and a tripod. This is an offer Filip cannot refuse.

Soon Filip gets the movie bug and starts filming whatever interests him. He shows his work to a few people and then he is chasing film festival prizes. In the process, he destroys his marriage and feels at constant threat of losing his job or worse.

I love Kieslowski and this ranks up there with his best works. It works as a critique of censorship, as a film about filmmaking, and as the story of a simple man who just wants to make stories about real life. Recommended.

Serie noire
Directed by Alain Corneau
Written by Georges Perec and Alain Corneau from a novel by Jim Thompson
1979/France
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental

“I told her the world was full of nice people. I’d have hated to try to prove it to her, but I said it, anyway.”
― Jim Thompson, A Hell of a Woman

This thought-provoking thriller made a big impact on me.

This is an adaptation of a Jim Thompson story called “A Hell of a Woman”. Thompson’s universe is a deep black one and this film certainly keeps the tone as every single character in it is corrupt.

I will not try to do a detailed summary of the complicated plot but basically it is about a weirdo salesman who tries to rescue a young girl from the clutches of her aunt who has forced her into prostitution. Our protagonist ultimately finds one murder must be followed by many others. WIth Patrick Dewaere as the salesman, Marie Trintignant as the teenage prostiute and Bernard Blier as the salesman’s boss.

This is a very good looking film and Dewaere is a phenomenon. He does many bizarre things with utter conviction. It’s a big performance that pushes at the margins of going over the top. I had to sleep on it before I decided whether I liked this enough to recommend and I do.

The Life of Brian
Directed by Terry Jones
Written by Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin
1979/UK
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Criterion Channel
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Reg: All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

This film seems funnier every time I watch it.

Brian (Graham Chapman) was born in a stable in Bethlehem next to the one occupied by the Baby Jesus and his parents. His mother Mandy (Terry Jones) is a shrill old harridan. The three wise men (Chapman, John Cleese and Michael Palin) stop by the wrong stable first.

So begins a series of mistaken identities that get Brian in a heap of trouble. Along the way we get aquainted wth the inept People’s Front of Judea. Irreverent religious, political, and dirty jokes abound along with some general absurdity.

It takes me a while to get in the right head space for Monty Python but once I do I always laugh. Recommended.

Hair
Directed by Milos Forman
Written by Michael Weller based on the book for the Broadway musical by Gerome Ragni and James Rado
1979/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Chorus: [singing] Give me a head with hair, long beautiful hair, shining gleaming steaming flaxen waxen. Give me it down to there, hair, shoulder length or longer, here, baby, there, mamma, everywhere, daddy daddy hair! Flow it, show it, long as God can grow it, my hair!

I am perhaps too well acquainted with Hair the “American Tribal Love-Rock Musical” having seen it in the theater several times. One of my big thrills was getting to watch from backstage when my friend appeared in the play on Broadway. I know the songs by heart. So when the movie came out 10 years later, I didn’t like it much. A big part of this is that the story is changed. But now 25 years later I think that this film is excellent for what it is.

Berger (Treat Williams) is the leader of a group of free-loving free-thinking hippies in New York City. One day, the tribe meets Claude Hooper Bukowski (John Savage) in the park. Claude is a draftee who has arrived to see the sights in New York for a couple of days before leaving for Viet Nam. This sparks a superb rendition of “Aquarius”.

Claude falls for woman he sees horseback riding in the park with her ritzy friends. Berger decides to crash her family’s formal dinner party and sing “Ain’t Got No” while sliding down the table.

Berger’s second mission is to prevent Claude from going to Viet Nam. He does this is a very unexpected way.

I can’t deny that Forman staged this beautifully and the songs are timeless. One that particularly moved me was “Easy to Be Hard” as sung by Cheryl Barnes.

The Wanderers
Directed by Philip Kaufman
Written by Rose and Philip Kaufman from a novel by Richard Price
1979/US
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Chubby Galasso: It’s a shame to see kids beatin’ each other’s brains out, especially when there’s no financial advantage.

My favorite thing about this throwback to the early sixties was its fantastic soundtrack of rock and pop hits from the period

The year is 1963. The city is New York. At the local high school boys join gangs that represent their ethnicity, etc. The Wanderers are an Italian Gang. It is a more innocent age. There is always a brawl going on but fists are the only weapons. Their main rivals are the Baldies. We focus on a group of guys who just graduated high school. Some of them are beginning to think about breaking away. Others comfortably assimilate into the lives of their parents. With Karen Allen as a love interest and free thinker and Linda Manz as a pint-sized female hanger-on to the Baldies.

I had never seen nor heard of this movie. I like Philip Kaufman’s films a lot and this was a solid springboard to better things. The non-professional cast of teenagers were appealing though none would go on to stardom except Karen Allen.

Love on the Run
Directed by François Truffaut
Written by François Truffaut, Marie-France Pisier, Jean Aurel, and Suzanne Schiffman
1979/France
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Criterion Channel

Liliane: You can’t make everyone else pay for your rotten childhood.

Truffaut brings his Antoine Doinel series to a most satisfying conclusion.

Antoine (Jean-Pierre Leaud) is now in his thirties and has just published his first autobiographical novel. He and wife Christine (Claude Jade) are divorcing. He is currently seeing Sabine (Dorothee) a record store clerk but is naturally commitment phobic. During the course of the film he will run into most of the women he has loved before.

This is the most meta film I can think of. Truffaut not only brings in many of the characters of his series, including in a moving scene Antoine’s stepfather, but illustrates past happenings with clips from the earlier films. And everything flows and does not come off gimmicky. Truffaut was extremely lucky in the choice of his young alter ego and Leaud maintained his high quality throughout the series (and later). And the ladies are all gorgeous. This is a comedy about the messiness of love and I highly recommend it.

North Dallas Forty
Directed by Ted Kotcheff
Written by Frank Yablans, Ted Kotcheff, and Peter Gent from a novel by Gent
1979/US
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Phillip Elliott: Hell coach, I love needles.

Very seventies movie takes a look at the underbelly of professional American football and will probably be best appreciated by its fans.

Philip Elliott (Nick Nolte) is the star wide receiver on a team called “North Dallas” (a stand-in for the Dallas Cowboys). He’s aging and has acquired many injuries over the years.

The team members are tight and always ready for a party, as wild as possible. Elliott has been there and done that. He meets a soulmate, Charlotte (Dayle Haddon) at one such party and they become a couple despite Dayle’s discomfort about what football is doing to Elliott.

The more serious parts of the film show how the management is more concerned with wins than with the health of their players. The Super Bowl game puts Elliott into a crisis of conscience. With Mack Davis, Bo Svenson and John Matusack as players, Charles Durning as the coach, and Dabney Colman and G. D. Spradlin as management types.

I like Nick Nolte. And this is not a terrible movie. It does focus on the sport and I’m sure I would have liked it even better if I were a fan.