Before you dive into the sea of words that's going to follow, make sure you've read my movie post from two weeks ago. This is a follow up to: Any Film Snobs Out There?
As I had hoped, that write up spawned a pretty nice discussion. I don't remember receiving so many ( decent ) comments in a long, long time. It's one of these exceptional cases, where the comments are actually more interesting than the post itself. Something that I aimed for. I wanted to kickstart a conversation about cinema and it seemed to work :>)
In the last ten days or so, I managed to watch four movies. Two recent ones ( a Greek black comedy called Pity (2018) and the 2016 Shin Godzilla ( Godzilla Resurgence), as well as a movie from the 1970s ( The Driver ) and one from the 1950s ( an early Fellini called 'The White Sheik').
Although I set out with the intenton of writing about those four titles, I decided to instead talk about films from the 1970s. Most of you probably don't know that it's probably my favorite decade in movie history. To rephrase that, many of my favorite movies were released in the 1970s.
To give you an idea of the diversity of 1970s flicks, here's a list of all 353 titles I ( remember to ) have seen from those ten years. It's about 10 percent of the 3500+ titles that I ( remember to ) have seen overall.
Not only was the 1970s a great era for sci-fi ( think of Alien, Mad Max, Solaris, Stalker, Invasion of the Body Snatchers ) as well as the first Star Wars and Star Trek movies, to name a few. It was also the decade of Steven Spielberg's rise to fame ( JAWS, Close Encounters of The Third Kind ), George Lucas' break out with Star Wars ( Episode IV: A New Hope) as well as the breakthrough of Francis Ford Coppola ( The Godfather I, Godfather II and Apocalypse Now ).
Taking a closer look on my watchlist, I see that another main reason why I like the 70s is that it was one of the heydays of horror. Some of my all time favorite horror films can be found there: Cronenberg's The Brood (1979), Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes (1977), John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) as well as a bunch of giallo movies: Mario Bava's 'Shock', Lucio Fulci's 'The Psychic' and Zombi 2, Dario Argento's Profondo Rosso and Suspiria, to name a few of a dozen or two that I would be able to name without searching.
One of my very favorite action films, Sorcerer (1977), is also from the 1970s. Then there's a plethora of arthouse movies that have a special place in my movie memory: The Spanish Spirit of the Beehive (1973). Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now (1973), David Lynch's directorial debut Eraserhead (1977), The amazing Australian drama 'Wake in Fright' (1973) and Picnic at Hangin' Rock to name just a handful.
Then there's a bunch of awesome (roadmovies) by German director Wim Wenders, as well as the first collabs between countrymen Werner Herzog and the notorious actor Klaus Kinski, namely: Aguirre, Der Zorn Gottes (1972) and Nosferatu (1979) and a couple of unforgettable titles by Fassbinder ( Angst Essen Seele Auf, Despair, World on a Wire ).
I should not forget the handful of amazing features that one of my favorite ( indie ) directors - who was also a more than decent actor - John Cassavetes released: A Woman Under the Influence, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, Opening Night, Husbands, Minnie and Moskowitz )
I could go on and on - but I would almost forget that I set out to spawn a conversation with you, my readers and fellow film fans, instead - so let me end this post by a bunch of favorites, in no particular order, that I forgot to mention:
Jodorowsky's El Topo
The Wicker Man
Soylent Green
The Andromeda Strain
Melville's Le Cercle Rouge and Un Flic
A Clockwork Orange
Straw Dogs
Deliverance
The Long Goodbye
Themroc
La Grande Bouffe
And, before I forget, I really enjoyed The Driver (1978), a film I watched last month, that clearly inspired the 2011 indie hit Drive.
Fun Fact: *Drive, in its turn inspired the indie game Hotline: Miami (made by a friend of my younger brother, who's a gamemaker) that I almost made a trailer for, back in the days. It didn't happen, eventually, and that's why you find me here, nowadays, instead of following a different career path, kicking ass making trailers for video games.
Alright, now it's your turn. What's your opinion on 1970s movies and what are your favorites and why? I would love to hear your story in a comment on this post. Greetings from a guy who was born just after the 1970s, in October 1981 :>)
This post was written under the influence / spell of an album called 'Mechanical Puzzle' by the band 'Reflection'. I heard of this band / artist thanks to a post by 
FYI: The image above this post is part of a screenshot that I took from my list of favorite 1970s movies on Letterboxd. You can find the full list here: My Fav 70s Movies