Looking at the movie titles from this year just reminds me what an era of trash the 1970s was. There were some truly awful offerings. Thankfully certain movies stand out from the rest for differing reasons, the ones chosen here being The Deer Hunter (winner of 5 Oscars), Superman (enjoyable and still well-regarded), and Watership Down (unusual animated feature). Not having seen any of these for a number of years, I’m curious as to how they have stood the test of time.
WATERSHIP DOWN (October 1978) UK
Director: Martin Rosen.
Cast: John Hurt, Richard Briers, Ralph Richardson.
Plot: After seeing the destruction of their warren in a vision, a community of wild rabbits set off to find a better, safer pasture, encountering various hazards along the way.
Review: I saw this at the cinema when it came out, but not since. I recall a close-up of a finely drawn cartoon rabbit, a bit where a bird-of-prey scoops up a rabbit, and a bit with spirit-rabbits flying in a circle during a song intermission. That’s all. However, I remember it fondly, so it clearly made an impression on me as a fourteen-year-old, so how about now …
I’m probably at least thirty years too old to really appreciate this, and while in some ways it is vastly superior to much that is produced today, has it’s faults too. The movie goes for realism (talking animals aside), and this includes quite large amounts of blood being spilled at times when various animals are fighting. Perhaps as a young teenager I took the imagery in my stride, but now it seems rather unnecessary. Otherwise, it’s a nice piece of work visually, with finely-drawn watercolour backgrounds of the English countryside and much attention to detail in the animation. Being well before computer-aided animation, it has a very ‘human’ feel to it.
I was expecting a stronger story. I remembered it as an ecological fable of some sort, but it was simply a good rabbits v. inexplicably bad rabbits affair, and with stereotypical portrayals of ‘country folk’ as being lowbrow, shotgun-toting types. So, slightly dissapointed. A case of distance in time making the movie seem sweeter.
Score: 3/10.
Robert De Niro in The Deer Hunter
THE DEER HUNTER (8 December 1978) USA
Director: Michael Cimino.
Cast: Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, John Cazale, John Savage, Meryl Streep.
Plot: Three friends’ lives are dramatically changed by their experiences during military service in Vietnam.
Review: A movies of three hours, but which holds one’s interest throughout. The first hour, centred on wedding celebrations, introduces us to the characters. Robert De Niro the sound, solid one of the group, Christopher Walken the young gun, John Savage the nervous groom, and John Cazale as the annoying one who is tolerated rather than accepted. Others include George Dzundza and Chuck Aspegren. Aspegren was not an actor, but a foreman at the steelworks used as one of the locations. He was so natural in his interactions with the cast while they were exploring the set that he was cast as an extra during filming, eventually playing quite a significant part as one of the group of friends, but has never appeared on screen again.
John Cazale deserves a special mention. A gifted and very intelligent individual totally unlike the characters he played, he appeared in only five movies, which between them won 15 Oscars. He also did a small amount of TV work as well as being a regular stage performer. In a close relationship with Meryl Streep at the time of The Deer Hunter, he was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and so had all his scenes filmed first during production. The studio had wanted him replaced, but Streep threatened to walk off set if this happened. He died before the movie was completed.
The on-screen romance between Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro is terrifically well-played, and a central plot of the movie. Other sub-plots are John Savage’s experience of invalidity and Walken’s ultimate fate. One can’t help feeling that the knowledge of Cazale’s condition may have heightened all the performances in this movie. Whatever the case, it is a tour-de-force for all involved.
The movie is most famous for its Russian roulette scenes, of which there is no evidence of this ever having happened in Vietnam – it was used as a way of condensing into a single episode the inhumanity and violence that can occur in war situations. This also brings up the one incredulity in the movie – would anyone really stand ‘in line of fire’ right behind someone who was busy shooting themself in the head? It is a dramatic invention, of course, a metaphor for the insane logic of war, and also illustrates the devotion of De Niro to his friends. If only it didn’t so relentlessly portray the Vietnamese as either sadists, prostitutes or desperate victims, it would be a 9/10, but I settled for a point lower. The makers of the movie later stated that they regretted this negative portrayal.
Score: 8/10.
“You’ve got me! Who’s got you?” Margot Kidder accepts a lift from Christopher Reeve in Superman.
SUPERMAN (10 December 1978) UK / USA
Director: Richard Donner.
Cast: Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, Marlon Brando. (Note: John Wayne’s son, Christopher Wayne, was the original choice as Superman, but had to decline when his father became ill with cancer.)
Plot: A alien being with extraordinary abilities finds himself on earth after his own planet is destroyed.
Review: I’d forgotton how many well-known faces there are in this movie. Gene Hackman, Marlon Brando, Trevor Howard, Terence Stamp, Susannah York, Harry Andrews (a long-serving British character actor), and even Larry Hagman.
The back story – Superman’s origins on the planet Krypton – is well developed, and the movie is fun to watch. There’s a tinge of sadness, remembering how the late Christopher Reeve became paraplegic after a horse-riding accident, but this doesn’t affect the pleasure of watching his upbeat performance. Recent superhero stars take themselves very seriously. This is fun and fantasy.
Margot Kidder as Lois Lane really makes the part her own, and no subsequent Lois has quite matched her performance. Kidder is a bit of an extraordinary character in real life, having dated presidents, movie stars and writers, as well as living with severe bi-polar disorder. She now has a more settled existence, with the occasional TV or film appearance, and is an activist in the Montana political scene.
Score: 4/10.
So, the best movie of 1978 is …
THE DEER HUNTER (8/10)
John Cazale, Chuck Aspergren, George Dzundza & Robert De Niro in The Deer Hunter.
… because of the flawless performances from the ensemble cast which keeps one interested throughout this three hour movie.
The next The Best Movie of … will be the year 1940. Contact me at twitter.com.
Thank you for reading this, I hope you found it interesting. This and the previous posts had been written while I was on a two-week holiday. This ‘blog’ will continue, but posts will not be so frequent.
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