Tag Archives: 1970s cinema

Despite finding itself under the thumb of Stalin’s Soviet Union after World War II, grey and miserable Communism never quite took in what was then Czechoslovakia, no matter what the Party or the secret police demanded. There was (and still ...

Try to imagine that, like me, your life has become a steady parade of disappointments and squandered potential, but then one day, the following happens: having previously been enlightened as to the existence of a Bollywood ninja movie—a rip-off of ...

If YOU have never thought about death, it’s time you started thinking.” As the trailer for Faces of Death (1978) comes to an end, the final statement issues a firm declaration to anyone watching. What lies in store for us ...

Greatest director of all time (fight me) Rainer Werner Fassbinder covered a range of genres throughout his absurdly prolific career, from science fiction and western to crime film and the melodrama he loved so much, but his overarching theme was ...

I really hate to say this, but Four Candles for Garringo (1971) is not very good. Let me say this though before that sinks in too deeply: it is a hugely enjoyable, very watchable, albeit bizarre film. And I am ...

Dead Men Ride (Anda muchacho, spara!) premiered in Italy on August 8, 1971 and would return less than stellar box office revenue in Italy. 1971, of course, was the year that changed the Italian western genre forever: the highest grossing ...

“I feel swept by destiny into a strange, beautiful dream.” —Swept Away The first part of this essay explored director Lina Wertmüller’s first two, important collaborations with the actor Giancarlo Giannini: The Seduction of Mimi (1972) and Love and Anarchy (1974), ...

Known for her explorations of political and sexual themes—with onscreen sexual and romantic relationships often serving as allegories for political conflicts—Italian director Lina Wertmüller has often been unfairly neglected alongside contemporaries like Fellini, Pasolini, Bunuel, and other male directors working ...

Though scoffed at by its creator—writer and director Paul Schrader—and eclipsed by his similarly-themed earlier work like Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976) and Brian De Palma’s Obsession (1976), both of which Schrader scripted, Hardcore (1979) deserves to be remembered as much ...

In the opening sequence of Bernardo Bertolucci’s Ultimo tango a Parigi (1972), the two protagonists — Marlon Brando’s Paul and Maria Schneider’s Jeanne, though their names are rarely spoken aloud — both happen to be walking under Jean-Camille Formigé’s iconic ...