The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie

Luis Buñuel, France, 1972 (8.6*)
Best Foreign Film (AA)
#99, Top Ranked 1000 Films, 2011 Update, all polls.

Probably the most affable and accessible of the Spanish master’s films, as many are a bit serious or obscure for the average filmgoer. On the surface, this is a comedy about a suburban dinner party.

However, as you would expect from Buñuel, you don’t exactly plan then have a successful dinner party. This story begins innocently enough, but you soon find yourself once again in the mind of an inventive and creative filmmaker, the same one who in his The Exterminating Angel, has guests to a dinner enjoy the meal and the company then find they cannot leave the room.

The dinner party gets delayed by a series of random and spontaneous events that include the hosts having afternoon sex, and a military patrol on war game maneuvers uses the house for a field headquarters.

As usual in his films, what you get out of this is going to depend on what you bring into it, but I wouldn’t look for anything too deep here – I believe this film is more enjoyable than most of his because of that, and for the excellent cast led by Fernando Rey, and the award-winning Stéphane Audran.

Winner of the Foreign Language Film Oscar® for 1972, and six awards total out of 11 nominations

#16 on the Top Ranked Comedy Films of All-Time, 2011 Update

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Sleuth

Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1972 (8.1*)
This engaging mystery play by Anthony Shaffer becomes an acting tour-de-force for it's two stars, Laurence Olivier, as a man whose wife is having an affair with a younger man, and Michael Caine, as the wife's lover. Olivier invites Caine to his home for a drink and what follows is an intellectual game of oneupmanship as the two battle wits in what is perhaps the best performances of each actor as they skillfully play off each other and the incisive repartee.

You could call this an experimental play, as it's an all dialogue piece for two actors, and it's underlying uniqueness is also perhaps it's major weakness. Rather lengthy at nearly three hours, if one tires of the one room setting or the voices of Olivier and Caine, then there's really no escape within the film. However, there are enough twists in the plot puzzle to keep more mental movie fans riveted throughout as the film is basically a crime mystery.

Joseph L. Mankiewicz is the brilliant director of 1950's best picture and director winner All About Eve, which also featured two actors sparring throughout, Bette Davis and Anne Baxter but also a terrific supporting cast.

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Aguirre, the Wrath of God

Werner Herzog, Germany, 1972 (8.6*)
German director Werner Herzog often became obsessed with films about obsessed men in pursuit of personal dreams above all other concerns in life. He often chose German actor Klaus Kinski because, as Herzog said, "he was quite mad", and his elastic face seems to project the madness outward for the world to see. Their confrontations are legendary, with the crew having to save Herzog from Kinski's homicidal attacks on occasion.

Kinski is the perfect choice to play Aguirre, an obsessed Spanish conquistador in South America who leads a small band of explorers on a quest for the golden city of legend, El Dorado. This is an adventure of Joseph Conrad (Heart of Darkness) proportions, as the descent into the wilderness coincides with Aguirre's spiritual descent.

Herzog and Kinski work best together when filming Europeans in primitive settings - Fitzcarraldo is perhaps their best and most fully realized adventure, about an opera lover determined to bring a steamship into the jungle rainforest to provide a floating platform for opera performances. The documentary Burden of Dreams shows just how obsessed Herzog became to achieve this film.

Here, in a film made during a hiatus in the Fitzcarraldo shooting in South America, we get to witness some of Kinski's best acting as a madman descending further into madness in search of the yellow metal. Fans of Herzog, Kinski, or John Huston's Treasure of the Sierra Madre will like this one.

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The Ruling Class

Peter Medak, 1972, (7.5*)
Offbeat and downright alarming black comedy, featuring one of Peter O'Toole's juiciest roles. An earl, a member of the House of Lords, dies, and his nutty son O'Toole, who currently thinks he's Jesus Christ ("because when I pray, I find that I'm talking to myself"), inherits his estate and position. Everyone from relatives to the church is now working to "cure" him, and occasionally people, including O'Toole, burst into song! There's also murder and mayhem, as the barbs at British aristrocracy and inheritance are witty and wide-ranging. A little long at 2.5 hrs, there's a second half that I can't mention without being a spoiler. This will either surprise and entertain you, or baffle you and make you say "What the H are they doing?"

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All the President's Men

Alan J. Pakula, 1972 (9*)
Based on the true story of Washington Post journalists Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, who broke the story of Nixon's illegal directives, Watergate "Plumbers", and usurping of the Constitution, and which eventually led to his resignation to avoid impeachment. This is a tightly plotted film put together like a mystery-thriller, and stars an excellent cast, led by Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford, supported by Jason Robards as the Post editor Benjamin Bradley, who gave them license to dig into and run the story. Based on the Pulitzer-winning book, this is docudrama at its best, even knowing the eventual outcome doesn't spoil the suspense.

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Jeremiah Johnson

Sydney Pollack, 1972 (8.1*)
Just a simple story about "a man called Jeremiah Johnson who wanted to be a mountain man". He was told to "go west of the sunset, turn left at the Rockies", and from sparkling dialogue like this, we thankfully have a quiet film about a pioneer played by Robert Redford who attempts to survive alone in the western wilderness. This is a very well-made and unique western, definitely not the standard good vs evil plot; it's more about survival, cooperation, coexistence, independence. The film introduced Redford to the Wasatch Mountains of Utah (not far from Salt Lake City), where he later built Sundance after falling in love with the incredible scenery there. This is the kind of western that you can watch over and over, and it even casts Native Americans in a positive light. Sydney Pollack would later win a directing Oscar for Out of Africa, also with Redford.
Quote: I know who you are - I've been hearing you for 20 days and smelling you for three!

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Cabaret

Dir: Bob Fosse, 1972 (8.1*)
Best Picture (BAA, GG)
AFI Top 100
The musical that attempts to duplicate a German cabaret that producer Howard Prince saw in Berlin just after the war. He even says that the lead emcee was perfectly duplicated by Oscar®-winner Joel Gray, who introduces various burlesque acts, including self-proclaimed "decadent American" Sally Bowles, played by Liza Minelli, another Oscar® winner. The film is a good musical, but not much else, the attempted plotlines that sorta included Nazis and sorta avoided them detracted from the "divine decadence" onstage. Won 8 Oscars®, but not Best Picture as The Godfather made the academy members a better offer! 10 nominations, 8 Oscars

Note: The Oscar for Liza made her the only Oscar winner in history whose two parents, Judy Garland and director Vincente Minelli (An American in Paris) also won Oscars.

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The Godfather

Dir: Francis Ford Coppola, 1972 (9.9*)

Best Picture (AA)

AFI Top 100

One of the great American crime films, poetic and dreamlike, thanks to the cinematography of Vittorio Storraro, who began with Bernardo Bertolucci in Italy (see their classic The Conformist). From Mario Puzo's novel that chronicles the life of a Mafia don (Corleone) and his family (led by sons Al Pacino and James Caan, couseled by Robert Duvall), Best Actor winner Marlon Brando turned in a surprisingly effective yet unique performance, actually stuffing pits into his cheeks to affect his speech. The film upset Cabaret for Best Picture, which had won 8 Oscars (a record for non-Best Pics) to Godfather's 2 at that point, the audience gasped, realizing that perhaps Price Waterhouse got an offer they couldn't refuse! 3 Oscars

Quote: I made him an offer he couldn't refuse. (Marlon Brando)

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