Coursen’s list: the best and worst films of 1975
Lisztomania
By DAVID COURSEN
The best film news on
campus this term is the beginning
of a major retrospective of the
films of John Ford, my favorite
director. To attempt to mention
highlights would be to list virtually
the entire series—several of
Ford’s generally under
appreciated early films are
included, most notably the
delightful Judge Priest' (with Will
Rogers in the title role).
On a more mundane level, it's
that time of year when no
self-respecting film critic can
neglect to list the ten best" films
of the year, and perhaps, their
opposite numbers. The
peculiarities of film distribution
and Eugene's position as
something less than the cultural
center of western civilization
combine to create a situation
where many foreign (and even
some American) films don't get
shown here until many years after
their initial releases. So this year
there are actually two best' lists:
new films first shown in the area in
1975, and old films (made
between 1943 and 1969) that
finally opened here last year.
In listing the new films, I note
that I’ve never had a chance to
review most of them, that the
inclusion of some of them is
self-explanatory and that the only
order they are in is alphabetical:
Amarcord,” Fellini; "Emitai," by
the Senegalese director
Ousmane Sembene; "The Man
Who Would Be King," a film John
Huston waited twenty years to
make, and one of the best, most
personal films by this
unfashionable master craftsman;
“The Merchant of Four Seasons,”
by Rainer Fassbinder, a
remarkable prolific German
director; Nashville,” Robert
Altman's film, about which too
much has already been
written—notwithstanding the
hypes, excellent; “Night Moves,
Arthur Penn s first movie in five
years, a meditation on the
detective film; The Passenger,"
Antonioni; Scenes From A
Marriage," Bergman; "Stavisky,"
Resnais.
Daryl Duke s “Payday and
John Milius The Wind and the
Lion aren’t up to the others, but
are, as interesting films by young
directors, worth mentioning.
The older films include two by
Renoir, "The Little Theater of
Jean Renoir" and “Elena Et Les
Hommes," two by Orson Welles,
Falstaff" and The Immortal
Story, and Ozu s “There Was a
Father." Mizoguchi’s “Princess
Yang Kwei Fei and “Ugetsu"
were the best revivals of the year.
And two old, obscure Amencan
films, Joe Lewis' Gun Crazy and
"Crazy" Same Fuller's “Forty
Guns," were also impressive.
Where there are good movies
there must also be bad ones, and.
in 1975 their number was, alas,
.?<mu J
legion. To be one of the worst, a
filrh had to be both repulsive and
utterly devoid of merit. “Jaws," for
example, didn't come close.
Neither did Visconti’s erratic
“Ludwig," incoherently cut to
two-thirds of its intended running
time, dubbed into English, and so
garbled by the whole process that
it seemed finally, to offer the
original if ridiculous proposition
that homosexuality causes...tooth
decay.
To be one of the worst of the
year, a film must have truly
deserved to be exhibited in the
worst theater of the year, the West
11th “Entertainment Center,”
which should, at least, get an
award for consistency; every
frame of every film I’ve ever seen
there has been out of focus.
During one recent screening, the
film was—naturally—out of focus,
but apparently not sufficiently so
to meet the big bunker's exacting
standards, so a projectionist was
dispatched to remedy the
problem, making the necessary
adjustments until the film was
suitably blurred.
Prime baddies included
Once Is Not Enough," which
attempted the formidable task of
excising the bad taste from a
Jacqueline Susann novel and was
left, predictably, with nothing. It
should have been called It’s Too
Often. Bite the Bullet” was
definitely the Hubert Humphrey
movie of the year—alternate title:
“Spit It Out." For incompetent
pretentiousness, only ‘‘Sand
stone” rivalled “92 in the Shade.
Ken Russell, once interesting,
was, in 1975 reduced to “Tommy”
and, worse, ‘‘Lisztomania.”
Beyond the Door,” another birth
of Satan opus, earned special
congratulations for the clever
promo man who decided on a
name for the film's director,
Oliver Heilman. (Get it—those
sly devils: we re supposed to think
that tha man from hell, by now a
major screen personality, decided
to try his hand at directing, and this
is th real stuff—sort of like a home
movie. It looks it.)
But the worst film I saw all
year was “The Terror of Tiny
Town”—so help me—a 1931
singing western with an all-midget
cast (Jed Buell s Midgets, to be
precise). Sounds like a kinky
novelty, but the joke wears out
after, say, the first thirty seconds,
and anyone foolish enough to
continue watching begins to
suffer. Mercifully, I’ve completely
forgotten the story, but the acting
lingers in memory like a Big Mac;
the midgets reciting their lines
woodenly, as if in mortal terror of
forgetting them, tearful that,
should that happen. Mr. Buell
would surely refuse to reclaim
them. It's typical of “Tiny Town
that it used every cliche of the
grade “z” western except the one
that would have been a master
stroke— This town ain't big
enough for both of us. Who says
movies haven't gotten better?
Night Moves
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