Tess

Roman Polanski, 1979 (8.4*)

One of the more visually sumptuous of all the filmed classic novels, this is based on Thomas Hardy’s novel Tess of the D’urbervilles (here called Durbeyfield). A young peasant woman may or may not be related to the aristocratic family of the title. She crosses paths with two men, one older and one much younger and closer to her age, who easily fall in love with her and hence classic entanglement problems ensue. I don’t want to reveal too much of the plot, but you’ve likely seen enough of novel from this era to know what to expect. This film is more about the beauty of cinema than the story of the novel, for me anyway.

Nastassja Kinski, daughter of intense German actor Klaus Kinski, who had to be stopped by the crew from beating director Werner Herzog with a rock, made a stunning acting debut in the title role, winning several acting awards.

The beauty of this film was rewarded with Oscars for cinematography (Geoffrey Unsworth won four awards for this), costume design, and art direction. It also won 10 more awards including four for Polanski as best director.

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Richard Pryor Live in Concert

Jeff Margolis, 1979 (9.6*)
This is stand up comedy at it's best. Richard Pryor in his prime is as funny as anyone in history. No props, just a mic and an audience, and comic genius flowed forth like a fountain from the subconscious.

You simply have to get Pryor uncensored as well, the language is part of the humor, it all fits the syntax, the rhythm of the language adds to the humor, which at times moves into the hilarious stage. He will talk about anything, too - some topics here include his pet monkeys, a Chinese stutterer, people at funerals, good sex, his heart attack, whippings from his granny, and dudes lying.

This was a very successful lp, then CD, but you really need to see Pryor act out his humor, as much of it is facial expressions and hand gestures, and even body language, especially when he delves into the sexual realm.

Pryor has influenced comedy forever, it's too bad that he didn't really translate to films, largely because the dumb humor written for him was never as funny as his own stuff, much of it penned by writer Paul Mooney, who is still doing his own standup today. Mooney says that the way to attack racism is to get people to laugh at it first, and at this, Pryor succeeded like no one else. He does perfect imitations of caucasians (even a little John Wayne) and asians both, and has several black voices and characters as well.

This is rare ground, and I doubt there will ever be anyone this funny again in the arena of standup comedy. For what it is, this should really be rated a 10.0, but when I compare it to films that are emotionally moving that's the one thing this lacks.

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The Black Stallion

Carroll Ballard, 1979 (8.5*)

One of the best horse stories ever, from the children's novel by Walter Farley. A young boy, played by Kelly Reno, on an ocean voyage is intrigued by a black stallion on board, when a sudden shipwreck strands them both on a deserted island. The boy and the horse become inseparable friends out of loneliness and mutual need.

After rescue, the two are returned home, and an aging Mickey Rooney, a former race horse trainer, gives a wonderful and Oscar®-nominated performance for supporting actor as he persuades the boy to race the almost wild stallion. Beautiful cinematography and an inspiring G-rated story make this one of the best family films. A classic in the Disney tradition established in the 1950's, this is my favorite Rooney performance on film; he's not so over-energetic and obnoxious in his older age.

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Siberiade

Dir: Andrei Konchalovsky, 1979, Russia, 6 hrs. (7.5*)
This massive 6-hr production looks like it was made for Russian tv, a mini-series in 4 parts about 90 minutes each; since the film was also fullscreen, I'm assuming it was made for tv rather than the cinema - too bad I wish it had been widescreen, for the star and subject of this film is Siberia. In particular, a small village on the Volga River, and about three generations of its inhabitants, some of whom leave Siberia, some of whom return. This epic (in time if not in numbers of people) covers nearly a century of this area, from Czarist Russia until Soviet industrial expansion into the area in the 1980's, searching for oil.

This may be a bit slow and unsophisticated for some western audiences, moving like spring ice melting on the tundra, but there are beautiful scenes of a culture we'll never see: a wind-driven ice sled skating over the frozen river and disappearing into the winter whiteout (how did they ever find their way anywhere and back?, fur-covered Siberian peasants with the weather etched in their faces, audacious swamplands when thawed (called the "Devil's Mane" by the locals), as one Russian official puts in from an airplane "a useless area three times the size of France; we might as well dam it up for hydropower and create the world's largest man-made reservoir". This is truly a Soviet-style, industrial strength epic film, unlike anything from the west.

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My Brilliant Career

Gillian Armstrong, 1979, Australia (8.9*)

Judy Davis (who has won a trainload of Australian awards and one U.S. Emmy) has a star-making part, and deservedly won a BAA for Best Actress, as 19th century author Sybylla Melvin, a non-conventional woman who would rather pursue "my brilliant career" than simply seek out a husband, even though society keeps telling her that's the proper place for a woman.

She eventually falls in love with another free spirit, a landowner played by Sam Neill, also in a star-making role for him. This is both a terrific romance with lots of passion, and an incisive look at the creative mind; it also avoids sentimentality and compromise. Nice music score featuring Schumann's piano music. One of the best Australian films.

Update: for the perfect complement to this film, see We of the Never Never (1982), the true story of Jennifer Gunn, the first white woman to venture into Australia's Northern Territory, when she married a cattle station manager; based on her memoirs.

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Breaking Away

Dir: Peter Yates, 1979 (8.5*)

Best Comedy Picture (GG)

This is a sports movie with everyday heros that we can all cheer for, namely some locals, called "Cutters" from working in the local stone quarry, that are living in the shadow of Indiana University. The small group is led by Dennis Quaid, the ex-quarterback and local ladies man, and the film’s star Dennis Christopher, a lonely and lovesick biker with a dream of racing with the big guys, the Italians, and backed up by funny-man Daniel Stern, and pipsqueak Jackie Earle Haley in his first major part.
Most of the comedy in Steve Tesich's Oscar-winning script comes from Christopher’s dysfunctional dad, Paul Dooley, in his funniest film role as the local used car lot owner who literally has a coronary when his son suggests giving a student a refund for buying a lemon there, while the patient mom, Barbara Barrie, wants her son be happy. We get a little sports, a little romance (with Robyn Douglass as the college girl Dennis fools into thinking he's Italian), but a lot of comedy about growing up, dreams vs. reality, and trying to make your place in the world, whether you break away from your home town or not. A G-rated gem, all done in good taste, without sentimentality. 5 nominations, One Oscar (Screenplay)

Quote: I'm tired of all this "ini" and "oli" food, I want some American food - bring me some French fries! (Paul Dooley)

Quote2: Well, my dad's birthday's coming up soon, I could fail the SAT's for him - then he could say "it's alright, Cyril" (Daniel Stern)

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Norma Rae

Dir: Martin Ritt, 1979 (8.9*)

AFI 50 Heroes

Sally Fields won an Oscar for her most inspirational performance, playing a sewing factory worker in Alabama who helps organize a union against many detractors and expected backlash. Ron Leibman is an organizer who provides legal support, Beau Bridges is the distraught husband who feels ignored, but Martin Ritt (Hud, The Great White Hope) is the star who made this uplifting and inspiring but without sentimentality, and its based on a true story. Ritt himself was blacklisted and filmed the events as The Front, with Woody Allen in a dramatic role. There's a scene in the factory when she stands by herself that's one of the greatest in film history.

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Going in Style

Dir: Martin Brest, 1979 (8.6*)
Touching and unique comedy of three elderly gents, Art Carney, Lee Strasbourg, and George Burns, who decide they're so old, their best days in the past, so they have nothing to lose and decide to rob a bank together; at least they may leave their kids some untaxable cash. Wearing Groucho masks, they unexpectedly succeed, and the story and their problems begin. Brest has pulled off a touching statement on aging (Burns is especially affecting in his role) within a funny heist caper; a rare unknown gem.

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Manhattan

Dir: Woody Allen, 1979, bw (9.0*)

Best Picture (BAA)

Perhaps more drama than comedy, this is one of Woody's great three New York Films, the others being Annie Hall and Hannah and Her Sisters.

Allen, a writer, is involved with a high schooler, Oscar-nominated Mariel Hemingway, while going through a nasty divorce, ex Meryl Streep (Oscar nomination) is writing an autobiography of how he turned her lesbian! (terrific stuff). Meanwhile, he falls for married friend Michael Murphy's new mistress, Diane Keaton. This film delicately balances all this without resorting to his normal comic foibles (running from creatures, being attacked by bric-a-brac). Lovingly shot in black and white around famous New York locales, it also appropriately uses the music of George Gershwin instead of his normal ragtime or dixieland or whatever the heck he plays, and this fits better; one of his best.

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Apocalypse Now!

Francis Ford Coppola, 1979 (9.8*)
Palm d'Or (Cannes )
Loosely based on the Joseph Conrad novella Heart of Darkness, Coppola's most unique film is a visual feast of the Vietnam war, a near dreamlike excursion into the soul using the metaphor of the boat trip deep into the jungle, where civilized men fear to tread.

Perhaps the worst artistic choice is  Martin Sheen's unnecessary narration, which is even grating at times, and a huge Marlon Brando was a puzzlement (Coppola "didn't know what to do with him"). However, several exciting sequences make up for it and are some of the best war footage put on film, notably the dawn helicopter raid on the village at the river's mouth, done to the Wagner "Ride of the Valkyries" music; but my favorite scene is the Do Lung Bridge at night, in one soldier's words "the asshole of the world", a nightmare trip of party lights, explosions, gunfire, and screams. Robert Duvall as a gung-ho air cavalry colonel was nominated for a supporting actor Oscar and should have won.


Watch the longer Redux version if you haven't, it restores some deleted scenes from the theatrical release; I liked it even more, especially a leisurely sequence at a French colonial plantation. This version seems more like a slow boat trip up a river.

Note: Coppola felt he had no ending. He even changed it once after a pre-screening with an audience, before the general release. Currently, the ending of the Redux version is different from the ending of the original theatrical version; I don't think in either case it changes much - this film is about a journey into the darkness of the soul.

Companion Film: the excellent documentary using footage filmed by wife Eleanor Coppola, Hearts of Darkness and her book about the location filming, Notes.

Quote: "I love the smell of napalm in the morning; it smells like.... victory" (Robert Duvall)
Quote2: "Charlie don't surf!" (Robert Duvall)
Quote3: "Run, Charlie!" (Larry Fishburne)
Quote4: "Soldier, who's in charge here?" - "Ain't YOU?"
Quote5:
"Damn, you stepped on my face!"
"I thought you were dead"
"Well, you thought wrong, dammit!"

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