When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 1970, it gave its Best Picture award to Patton, a military biopic co-written by a kid named Francis Ford Coppola, who would go on to make The Godfather, and directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, who had just helmed Planet of the Apes. And isn't Patton ultimately a cross between The Godfather and Planet of the Apes?
(What's that? It isn't? Damn, you might be right. But it sounded good for a couple of seconds.)
Anyway. Patton is a good movie, but I like these better:
1. Five Easy Pieces
Directed by Bob Rafelson
Written by Carole Eastman, from a story by Rafelson and Eastman
Jack Nicholson gets a chance to play the lead, and he doesn't waste it. From here through Cuckoo's Nest, he'll be one of the most essential actors working in Hollywood.
2. MASH
Directed by Robert Altman
Written by Ring Lardner Jr., from a novel by H. Richard Hornberger and W.C. Heinz
This is, among other things, the greatest football movie ever made.
3. Gimme Shelter
Directed by Albert Maysles, David Maysles, and Charlotte Zwerin
Yes, I'm rating the Altamont movie higher than the Woodstock movie.
4. Le Boucher
Written and directed by Claude Chabrol
Chabrol's debt to Hitchcock is even more obvious than usual here, but this is more than mere imitation. If Hitch had made this, we'd be calling it Chabrolian.
5. The Honeymoon Killers
Written and directed by Leonard Kastle
It's tense, bleak, and artful. I should probably add, just in case you're the sort who is put off by such things, that it's also a low-budget exploitation flick about serial killers.
6. Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion
Directed by Elio Petri
Written by Petri and Ugo Pirro
It was a banner year for anti-fascist films by Italian leftists, and this was the best of the crop.
7. Hospital
Directed by Frederick Wiseman
One of several searing documentaries Wiseman made about life in different total institutions—in this case, an urban hospital.
8. Bed and Board
Directed by François Truffaut
Written by Truffaut, Claude de Givray, and Bernard Revon
400 Blows 4: The Voyage Home.
9. The Conformist
Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
Written by Bertolucci, from a novel by Alberto Moravia
"Ten years ago, my father was in Munich. Often, after the theater, he told me that he'd go with friends to a bierstube. There was a nutty man they thought a fool. He spoke about politics. He was quite an attraction. They'd buy him beer and encourage him. He'd stand up on the table making furious speeches. It was Hitler."
10. Le Cercle Rouge
Written and directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
"All men are guilty. They're born innocent, but it doesn't last."
Honorable mentions:
11. La Rupture (Claude Chabrol)
12. Claire's Knee (Éric Rohmer)
13. Woodstock (Michael Wadleigh)
14. Chicken Real (Les Blank)
15. Wanda (Barbara Loden)
16. Donkey Skin (Jacques Demy)
17. Tristana (Luis Buñuel)
18. Deep End (Jerzy Skolimowski)
19. Little Big Man (Arthur Penn)
20. Original Cast Album: Company (D.A. Pennebaker)
Of the films of 1970 that I haven't seen, I'm most interested in The Twelve Chairs.
