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1976 was a year of great cultural importance. In the case of rock 'n' roll, the debut singles of The Rammons and Sex Pistols announced the birth of punk music to the world. For a moment, the soft slow rock and avant-garde rock that were once popular on the radio suddenly looked very outdated.
Sex pistols
In the field of film, you may see the opposite. The New Hollywood movement, which had revived the American film industry that had been dormant for a decade, staged the final carnival of the movement with Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver and Sidney Lumet's Television Storm.
The Taxi Driver (1976)
Tv Drama (1976)
Both films have angry and divisive qualities that are in perfect harmony with the era. But times are always changing. The success of Jaws (1975) reminded filmmakers of how to make money, and with the phenomenal success of Star Wars, this growing trend toward commercial film finally took shape in 1977 – a "soft rock" time of the film industry's own.
Star Wars (1977)
The 1976 Oscar winner for Best Picture was Rocky, which was also the box office champion that year. Barbara Streisand's version of "The Birth of a Superstar" and Richard Donner's demonic thriller film "Omens" have also been very successful.
Rocky (1976)
Of course, just as Rock Chronicles doesn't remember 1976 as the year of remix reggae, when you open your eyes and jump out of these famous American movies, you'll see a much bigger picture.
In addition to the films listed below, you can go directly to Oshima's sensational (and controversial World of the Senses), Horace Ovie's thrilling "Stress" (the first feature film directed by a black British director), John Kasowitz's independent "Murder of the Underground Boss", Lukino Visconti's "Innocent", and Wiener Herzog's illusory and ethereal "Glass Heart" (the name was also borrowed by the Blondes).
"Presidential Team"
Directed by: Alan M. J. Pakula
Alan M. The final installment of J. Pakula's "Paranoid Trilogy" continues to illustrate the political scandals of the 1970s through fictional conspiracies. Although "Presidential Team" is not a political film in the strict sense of the word: the entire film begins with the "famous" infiltration that takes place at the Watergate Hotel and ends with the shameful resignation of a president, the reason for connecting the two is simple: two journalists are constantly investigating in order to write a report.
Despite the rigor of William Goldman's screenplay, Pakula's film does not focus on why the Nixon administration ignored the rules, but on how two Washington Post heroes, Woodward and Bernstein (played by Robert Rayford and Dustin Hoffman in solid doubles), gradually uncovered this unprecedented conspiracy.
Presidential's respect for serious journalists is reflected in its documentary style, meticulously reproducing the details of the facts, and Pakula,Pacula, in order to deal with such unfiltered facts, did not even edit the actor's mistakes in the final edition. There are quite a few better films about the fall of the Nixon administration, but this one is probably the best one in history about the process of news generation.
"Rise"
Director: Larissa Shepichenko
Intending to compete with his teacher Alexander Dovzhinko's Arsenal (1929), The Fourth and Final Film by Lasari Shepichenko was adapted from Vasily Berkeo's novel. Another of his novels about Belarus in 1942 was also the source of inspiration for Sergei Roznitsa's The Great Fog (2012).
Mixing reflections on duty, loyalty, and morality with religious metaphors, Ascension tells the story of how two guerrillas captured by collaborating white bandits rise up in inhumane circumstances to maintain their humanity.
The injured Boris Poltnekov, during the interrogation of the "Russian traitor" Anatoly Soronichen, silently endured the pain of being burned by a soldering iron without uttering a word. The seemingly heroic Vladimir Gerstyusin was unable to pick up the imaginary machine gun and could only watch in humiliation as his brother was hanged.
Cinematographer Vladimir Chuknov's monochromatic shots and Alfred Schnickett's symphonic score reinforce the frozen atmosphere of the cold winter, and the Golden Bear award-winning film, while expressing physical torture and moral courage, does not forget to vaguely question whether the Soviet regime is always worth such a noble sacrifice.
Carrie the Witch
Director: Brian de Palma
Few thrillers have achieved the same perfect scheduling and master-level use of the camera as the climax of the prom in Carrie the Witch.
Despite the violence against him in schools, the teenage girl, who could empathize with the transfer of objects, reaped a brief moment of glory on the podium, while Brian de Palma's camera spun wildly in the school gymnasium. The sparkling prom queen is about to receive a "greeting" with a bucket of pig blood, and de Palma, who uses a lot of staggered editing and split-screen techniques, is very sophisticated in pushing this suspense step by step to the climax.
The public trial of Carrie has led to her masochistic tendencies and has transformed her from a jubilant maiden into a bloodthirsty witch. As Spesik changed before our eyes, her appearance gradually twisted, a little chameleon-like unsettling feeling.
De Palmer's adaptation of Stephen King's novel is a colorful and exclusive textbook of '70s thrillers—full of Catholic intentions that fascinate and fear the Teenage Girls, with a bit of hysteria. When Carrie takes revenge on the old Testament purgatory of her classmates and teachers who have tormented her, she can't help but feel a rush of happiness.
"Raising Crows"
Director: Carlos Shola
Remember seven-year-old Anna Torrent's memorable debut? She played a Castel girl who was fascinated by Frankstein in Victor Ellis's masterpiece The Hive Elf (1973). Three years later, she was on the screen again, and although she grew up a little, she still grasped the role of the second eldest of the three sisters and lived in the aftermath of her mother's death, which was wonderful.
As one of the masterpieces of the Spanish film industry, "Raising Crows" combines reality and fantasy in a confusing way to imitate the perspective of little Anna, who often fantasizes that her mother (Geraldin Chaplin) also lives with everyone in the dark townhouses of Madrid. The whole story has elements of a spiral ghost story, as well as hints at the oppressive atmosphere of Franco's time.
However, after watching the film, it is Carlos Shola's straightforward description of children and the way they play, imagine, and try to understand the mysteries of the adult world. It's a dark, sad, and complicated film, but thanks to an enduring dance sequence in which Anna and her sisters dance in the house with a catchy pop song, "Porquete vas." After the release of the film, the song became a popular Song in Europe.
Harlan, USA
Director: Barbara Cooper
"It's time to fight violence with violence," says a miner on strike in Barbara Cooper's gripping realistic documentary Harlantown, USA. Mixed with melancholy and soulful bluegrass music, the film not only gives a detailed account of the general strike that took place between 1972 and 1973, but also gives a fascinating, extremely detailed picture of a community's relentless struggle for survival and justice.
The wives of the miners shouted to the strike cordon — a woman who took the lead in singing the song that had been sung during the bloodier strikes of the 1930s: "Which side are you on?" For Cooper, the answer is obvious: She's not interested in a bipartisan balance.
The film shows Cooper's emerging approach to dealing with people's sensual recollections of the event: mixing direct testimony with documentary material. At the same time, she also uses and edits to make her point of view more powerful. As the gunshots pierced through the pre-dawn darkness, she still stood there tenaciously, along with her camera.
The King of Highways
Directed by Wim Wenders
A man with a mustache and long, scruffy hair like Shakyy in Scooby-Doo drives a truck through the sunny land. The background music is a guitar sound played with portamento. Is this the middle of the United States? No, this is Wim Wenders lens filtering under West Germany in 1976.
His male protagonist is a movie projector repairman, running back and forth between dusty old movie theaters. On the way, he took a passenger who wanted to commit suicide, looked at each other wordlessly, and continued to advance on the sunny road. Will they go on a crazy adventure like Terma and Louise in The End of the Road? Not really.
Movie buffs will pay homage to the romance of King of the Highway using 35mm film, along with the creaking old cinema and the art of getting rusty projectors right. But for me, Wenders' monochromatic road movie focuses more than just driving on asphalt, or smashing the dashboard with his fist while humming "Like Eddie," or shaving in the rearview mirror in the morning light.
Simply put, the movie is a tip for movie lovers: get out of your movie theater seat once in a while and try your hand at getting started in real life!
The Man Who Fell to Earth
Director: Nicholas Logue
"Something magical happened, a boy fell out of the sky." W· H. Auden wrote this in his 1938 poem "The Museum of Fine Arts of Montreal," which pushed Bruegel's painting "The Arrogant Icarus" to the altar.
Nicholas Logue adapts Walter Tevez's 1963 science fiction novel Icarus into Thomas Jerome Newton, a time-traveling, insightful alien who is also the owner of a high-tech company. He fell to the United States in an attempt to take his family and other survivors from the home planet hit by nuclear war — a vision of the future of Earth.
Logue's complex film of kaleidoscope and metaphysical color is also a kind of "magical thing". Newton, played by David Bowie, is a blend of Ellis, Giki Nebula, the fallen angel from Enoch, and William Black's satirical poem Sir Isaac Newton and his "Rose" imitating The Christian Prophet.
Repeatedly betrayed and corrupted by Earthlings (played by Booker Henry, Rip Thorn, and Candy Clark), the vulnerable alien visitor is eventually completely destroyed by government spies and humanity. Logue's fatalistic moral preaching seemed so shocking in 1976 that few frightened American publishers were willing to take over, and it has since been thrust into the altar.
Western Law Enforcers
Directed by: Clint Eastwood
Despite its many supporters, The Prodigal Son of the Wild (1973), Western Enforcer was clinch Eastwood's first great Western as director. It's a film that rewrote the rules of the '70s Western genre; it's a film with such a great twist that he's willing to reuse the film's techniques over and over again in '80s's 'Pale Rider and ''90s's 'Unforgivable.
Set during the American Civil War, Eastwood himself plays a Missouri farmer who escapes to escape from soldiers who kill his family. Originally directed by Philip Kafman, he was fired midway through the film at Eastwood's instigation, prompting the Directors Guild to issue the "Eastwood Ban", which prohibits actors or producers from firing directors to direct themselves.
It's a wonderful work that shows the essence of human nature, projecting contemporary American anxiety about the Vietnam War to the Old West. The Western Enforcer's vague treatment of political stance quickly established Eastwood's image as a "conservative" for decades, especially in the recent episode of The American Sniper (2014), in which the loyal male protagonist is mentally ill.
But from Western Enforcer to The Jersey Boys (2014), Eastwood knows that such a gray area is not only hidden in countless American myths, but also in his own films, especially when placed at a double moral boundary.
Taxi Driver
Director: Martin Scorsese
Forty years ago, there was a transformation in American filmmaking. The old myth of fighting, killing, and killing has been twisted into a new style of egoistic fantasy, embodied in Travis Bicker, the restless and angry male protagonist of Taxi Driver. He was the cryptist of Dostoevsky's Basement Notes, a walking paradox, tormented and played with by every purgatory day in New York in the '70s—and claimed to be its savior.
Taxi Driver is the embodiment of the scorched earth of the minds of four American artists: writer Paul Schrader, director Martin Scorsese, actor Robert De Niro and composer Bernard Herman. The film's combination of their distinctive talents—from Schrader's mania to Hermann's sudden, heavenly and underground soundtrack—forms an exciting combination, and Scorsese's harmonious integration of these elements leads to a masterpiece that is technically artistic classic, violent to disturbing in content.
While history continues to explore the film's puzzling "vigilante" fantasy and trembling redemption ending, it still injects a unique and powerful shot into our imaginations. Through Travis's barb-like, restless perspective, Taxi Driver brutally isolates us from him and takes us on one of the most mesmerizing journeys in cinematic history.
"Strange Tenant"
Director: Roman Polanski
"The Strange Lodger" is a shocking presentation of psychological alienation, loss of identity, and schizophrenia, the most frequently used repressive themes of Polanski, and is also a work that confronts these themes and evaluates their value. The director himself stars Tarkovsky, a docile Polish-French citizen who moves into a Parisian apartment where former female tenants once tried to commit suicide. As the plot progresses, Tarkovsky becomes extremely paranoid and soon begins to suspect that the other occupants of the apartment have ill intentions and want him to die as well.
Overall, Polanski designed the apartment rooms as isolated and claustrophobic spaces, a design that was crucial to creating a trance-like atmosphere throughout the film. As in Disgust (1965) and Rosemary's Baby (1968), the sense of uneasiness formed by the building is combined with the dysfunctional, annoying neighbors, and the walls do not serve as a reliable boundary against the outside world. Dark, funny, and unabashedly nihilistic, Stranger Is Probably the most Kafka-character of Polanski's films.