Haskell Wexler's Medium Cool
A few weeks ago we looked at the best albums of 1969 – now it’s time to take a look at that year’s best films. It was a year when the line between exploitation pic and blockbuster were blurrier than ever and when the close of a tumultuous decade was cause for reflection around the world. Here are my favorites from 1969:
Jean Pierre Melville was one of the most American influenced of France’s new wave directors. However Army of Shadows might be his most personal work, moving away from the pulp fiction basis of much of his other films and painting an unsparingly bleak portrait of life in the French Resistance, of which Melville was a member during World War II. Stripping away the romanticism of so many films on the subject, Melville hones in on the core values of survival, trust, and betrayal. It was a film completely out of step with the student revolts then sweeping Europe and France in particular – it’s cold response was consistent with a generation that saw the war – ended just 25 years ago then – as history best left forgotten. It’s only now that the film has been rightly judged as a masterpiece of cinema.
The streak of nihilism that pervades Army of Shadows is also present in Sam Peckinpah’s signature work The Wild Bunch, a film which turned the Western genre inside out even more thoroughly than Sergio Leone was doing with his spaghetti westerns. From the opening shot of a scorpion being swarmed by fire ants to the bloody battles that ensue, The Wild Bunch seems to suggest that endless, mindless competition is the very stuff of nature – indeed of life. Which is not to say that there isn’t a tongue and cheek element to the proceedings. William Holden is at his best here along with Ernest Borgnine and Warren Oates. Along with Bonnie and Clyde in 1967, set the standard for a new era of depicted onscreen violence that matched the senseless depravity of what people were seeing on the evening news in the midst of the Vietnam War.
The first and only X-Rated Best Picture Oscar winner, Midnight Cowboy cemented a shift in American cinema towards a more naturalistic storytelling based on characters who were gritty rather than traditionally heroic. Dustin Hoffman, here playing sleazy grifter Ratso Rizzo, was in on this shift starting with The Graduate. Here his range opposite Jon Voight as a naive Dirk Diggler-like cowboy gigolo in training cemented his status as a star in a universe where stardom was being bestowed on “normal” actors. In the decade to come, other “ordinary” looking actors like Gene Hackman and Al Pacino would become box office draws as well, based on their acting talent.
4. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
The buddy movie par excellance, the first teaming of superstars Paul Newman and Robert Redford, a pop nihilist blockbuster take on the Western genre, all combined to make this one of 1969’s biggest hits. Unlike the Wild Bunch which served it’s bleak vision up straight Butch Cassidy wears anachronisms on its sleeve, always winking at the audience so that we know what’s happening isn’t real. This sometimes leads to sequences that have aged rather poorly – the bicycle ride set to “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” comes to mind. When it works though, it’s a thrill ride that presaged the Summer blockbusters to come such as Jaws and the Indiana Jones films.
5. The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
The name Dario Argento is rightly associated with over-the-top gore but this early film in his directing career is actually a sophisticated thriller with knowing nods to Hitchcock. To be sure there are stirrings of the Argento to come, but here it’s as much about the suspense and helplessness as it is about anything graphic (though there are some bloody scenes). It’s a flashy film that at times seems like some of the Swinging London sexploit thrillers that were on their way out (dare I put Blow-Up in this category?) though the setting is hip Rome.
Just as The Bird with The Crystal Plumage was elevating swinging sex thrillers to a Hitchcockian level, so Easy Rider took the low budget exploitation flick so well perfected by Roger Corman and company and turned it into a cultural phenomenon. Easy Rider was of course, a far bigger success, turning Dennis Hopper who directed and starred into a momentary phenomenon, along with Peter Fonda. It was a third vet of Roger Corman’s quickie film factory who achieved the most lasting fame from the movie however, Jack Nicholson, who was nominated for a supporting actor Oscar as a “straight” who gets turned on by the counterculture motorcyclists. Like many of the films on this list (Butch Cassidy and The Wild Bunch to name two) Easy Rider ultimately reaches for a similar effect as the hugely influential Bonnie and Clyde. Though it hasn’t aged as well as some of the others, its a fascinating look not just at where the so-called counter-culture was at but at the rising tide of independent filmmaking and production which it represented.
The Italian Job is like Bird With The Crystal Plumage in one way – set in Italy but with a British feel. In fact it’s ridiculously wonderfully British, beginning with star Michael Caine on down to supporting players Benny Hill and Noel Coward. Yes you read that right. By all means avoid F. Gary Gray’s crap remake for this original which romps around the way the a great caper movie ought to – all the way to the great and veddy British climax featuring rooftop leaping Mini Coopers.
8. They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?
Over The top? Very much so but Sidney Pollack’s film also offers great performances from screen vet Gig Young, who won an Oscar, and Jane Fonda who was on her way to becoming a breakout star. Bleak, allegorical, and at times hard to take, it’s as much a commentary on a society gone mad in 1968/69 as it a depression era lament. Set at a dance marathon in the 30s with flashbacks and forwards it’s ultimately an engrossing if depressing film.
9. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
Long the butt of jokes, the single James Bond movie starring George Lazenby has a hard core of devotees who claim it rightfully as one of the best and most overlooked of the series. Sean Connery had big shoes to fill so its not surprising that Lazenby was welcomed with less than open arms. What is surprising is how much of the feel of this film was later returned to in the recent mega-successful series reboot Casino Royale which introduced Danial Craig. While this Bond is never as brutal as Craig’s, he is as vulnerable – falling in love and falling out of favor with his own agency. Diana Rigg is fantastic as always as the woman who steals his heart and Telly Savalas is a great villain.
While some of these films were stuck metaphorically in the brutal wave of assassinations, protests and civil breakdown of 1968, Haskell Wexler’s groundbreaking Medium Cool was actually filmed during one of the year’s defining moments – thr protests turned riots at the Democratic Convention in Chicago. Part documentary, part drama starring Robert Forester (who starred in Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown) – Wexler freely mashes up real people and actors – staged and real events – and dares the viewer to try to untangle the mess that so-called real life had become at the end of the decade. Wexler’s job is to raise questions but unlike most mainstream filmmakers then and now, he doesn’t pretend to know what the answers are.
Z like Medium Cool starts with real, tragic events – in this case the installation of a military dictatorship in Greece and the overthrow of democracy. Director Costa-Gavras fashions a gripping thriller out of this raw material – a searing film that would find it’s counterpart in such post-Nixon American fare as Network and All The President’s Men.
Until Borat Ken Russell’s Women in Love had probably the most famous male-on-male nude wrestling scene in cinema. Yet that great grappling sequence between Alan Bates and Oliver Reed is only part of what makes this a great drama. As great as the acting is all-around the movie is practically stolen by newcomer Glenda Jackson. Based on D.H. Lawrence’s novel, this somewhat atypical Russell film explores the knotty ties between men and women (not to mention men and men and women and women) in a way that resonated even in newly liberated 1969.
13.The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
The ultimate character study, the film tricks you into liking and caring about the title character even as she extols the virtues of fascist leaders like Mussolini. This portrait of a free-spirited unconventional teacher played brilliantly by Maggie Smith isn’t afraid to give you warts and all. Ultimately you may be left with the queasy feeling that unlike Robin William’s toothless teacher in Dead Poet’s Society, Miss Brodie’s popularity amongst the student body may not be such a good thing.
A low budget wonder filled with unknowns, this clever bit of satire was relatively unknown for years until being unearthed and released in 1969. There is an almost cinema verite feel to it’s depiction of everyday life in the 60s, seemingly away from the strife gripping much of the country. There is a definite feel of The Royal Tennenbaums in Harry’s release from prison and uneasy attempts to come to terms with the grown daughters and wife he left behind. The wry humor and matter-of-fact pacing make this a surprisingly subversive pleasure
Woody Allen’s first film as a director is a more raucous affair than his classic period mid 70s work and its more uneven but that doesn’t mean that the laughs aren’t there. Taking all the influences of mid 30s Warner’s gangster flicks and French new wave that made Bonnie and Clyde so bracing and turning them on their ear, this is a Mad Magazine style gag-filled comedy classic.
One Trackback/Pingback
[...] ANGKORCIVILIZATION put an intriguing blog post on Flashback! The Best Movies of 1969Here’s a quick excerpt…people were seeing on the evening news in the midst of the Vietnam War. … look not just at where the so-called counter-culture was at but at… [...]
Post a Comment