I have what I called my "imaginary movie project, " but it's been stalled since 2019. It began in 2019. The idea was to see how I react to these things today and try to remember and relate it to how I felt at the time. I began with the year 1960, when I was 9, and I got up to 1968, with the last of the movies I saw when I was in high school. Oh, how I cried!
Now, my son John is doing a movie blog project, where he identifies his favorite movie of every year beginning with 1920, reaching a new year each day. He got up to the point where I left off, and his 1968 movie just happens to be the same as mine. Then one of his 1969 movies is the movie I watched for 1969. I watched it, but I didn't blog about it. And then I've also watched my movie for 1970, 1971, 1972, and 1973 — my college years! — all without blogging.
So now there's a horrible disconnect between watching and writing, but let me solve the problem by writing about all 5 movies right now. Here they are — in their ghoulish, gouldish glory:
1969 — "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice"
1970 — "MASH"
1971 — "McCabe and Mrs. Miller"
1972 — "Play It Again, Sam"
1973 — "The Long Goodbye"
1. That's a lot of Elliott Gould! He was Ted in "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice," one of the doctors in "MASH," and Philip Marlowe in "The Long Goodbye." And he could just as well have been the bumbling fool played by Woody Allen in "Play It Again, Sam" or the bumbling fool played by Warren Beatty in "McCabe and Mrs. Miller."
2. Whatever was happening to American manhood in the early 70s, it was embodied in Elliott Gould. Let me pick one scene to help you contemplate this issue. It's this, the beginning of "The Long Goodbye":
3. We might understand early 70s American manhood through what it is not. It is not Humphrey Bogart. In "The Long Goodbye," Elliott Gould plays Philip Marlowe, the character Humphrey Bogart famously played in the 1940s, but he's 70s Marlowe, and there's a big difference. We're tasked to remember Bogart and compare, but in "Play It Again, Sam," Humphrey Bogart appears— an actor impersonates him — and advises the Woody Allen character on manly behavior. Allen tries repeatedly to follow the advice, fails ludicrously, but ultimately finds a way to incorporate some of the advice into his own version of a man.
4. Why was I absorbing so much movie material about the struggles of the 1970s man? What about me, a woman? There were some women in these movies. The great Julie Christie bested Warren Beatty in the wild West whorehouse business in "McCabe and Mrs. Miller." Diane Keaton was a fine match for Woody Allen in "Play It Again, Sam." Sally Kellerman embodied order in "MASH" — where the yin and yang are reversed and then men are the chaos.
5. The movie with the most substance was "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice." Here's something I wrote to John when he had just watched and loved that movie: "You didn’t live through the period when adults were doing those things, so what they were satirizing wasn’t really available to you. I saw it when I was 18 and that’s what the generation just ahead of me was doing. They seemed quite awful to me so it was easy to laugh at them and feel not at risk to be anything like them. I was half the age you are now when I saw that. Adulthood, even (or especially) among the supposedly hip people, looked sad and clueless."
6. Things? What things? — you may be asking. There's an Esalen-type retreat, training Bob & Carol in how to be progressive in their sexual relationship, and that challenges the more conservative Ted & Alice.
7. Three of those 5 movies were directed by Robert Altman. Oh, my, was he a big deal. I thought "MASH" was excellent at the time (and I never watched the TV show "MASH" because I didn't want to see different actors and different stories). But "MASH" didn't mean as much to me this time. My favorite at the time was "McCabe and Mrs. Miller," and I felt about the same this time. "The Long Goodbye" annoyed me at the time, but I thought it was great on rewatch. When I got to the end this time, I went back to the beginning and watched it again.
8. I could have said a lot more about these movies if I'd written about them one by one as I did my rewatchings. What held me back?
9. Something about college? We watched so many older movies in those years as Cinema Guild — right across the street from our dorm — served up 2 classics every day. So many decades of great old films to see — nightly double features for 50¢. Why go to the regular movie theater and pay $2, just because something's new? There was the lure of the old. All the Bergman films, the silents, the noir, the Fellini, the Marx Brothers, the Kurosawa, the Cary Grant movies, Katharine Hepburn, the entire French New Wave. We were hungry for movies, but we had half a century of great stuff to catch up on. And, of course, back then, you had to see a film when it was playing or it would be gone and maybe you'd never get a chance to see it again. Here's "Ikiru" or "Design for Living" or whatever. Better get over to Cinema Guild or you'll regret it — maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life.
10. I might be that what held me back from writing about those movies is that it's too personal. 1969 to 1973 — those were the years when I met and married the man who was my first husband, and those movies had so much to do with our relationship. Writing is an invasion of your own privacy and the privacy of others, but the writer is always deciding where and how far to invade.
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13 comments:
Joe writes:
Gould was good in MASH as a cynical (not bumbling) army surgeon.
But every other movie I've seen him in, he's just himself. Since he doesn't really act (he only reads lines), I don't consider him a good actor.
As for men in films in the '70s, they were bumbling, whiny, and wimpy. Unrecognizable from my father and the other men in our blue collar neighborhood, most of whom lived during the depression and WWII and Korea...
The TV show MASH was a commercial powerhouse but a leftist, progressive shit show. I didn't realize it at the time as my younger self, but rewatching it today is cringe-worthy.
Are Indie film houses still a thing? There used to be one in Palo Alto that showed really quirky stuff that was fun once in a while. I can't believe it still exists as the land it's on is probably worth $50M.
Ted writes:
I was too young to see the significant "adult" films of the late-1960s and 1970s -- but I was aware of their content, because of the satires in Mad Magazine (which was pretty damn hip for a kids' comic). Brilliantly illustrated by artist Mort Drucker and others, to me they were more significant than viewing the movies themselves, because they also commented on the cultural (and Hollywood) trends they were part of. (Among the titles: 'Valley of the Dollars,' 'In the Out Exit,' 'The Post-Graduate,' 'Hoo-Boy, Columbus!,' 'Midnight Wowboy,' 'Carnival Knowledge,' and 'The Heartburn Kid.')
Here's the dialogue that ended their version of one of your faves, 'Boob and Carnal and Tad and Alas':
[The four characters are naked in bed]
-- 'Isn't this honest!'
-- 'It's better than honest! It's DIRTY!!'
-- 'What happens now?'
-- "Nothing! This MAD version ends with a "Cop-Out"... Just like the picture!!'
I still haven't seen the movie, but I can't imagine anything better than that.
K writes:
"Movies in which the men are aimless on a deep level and the women are forcefully trying to get rich or enforce regulations don't interest me. It's as if the men were really saying: It's not worth it but the ladies don't get it yet. Let the poor dears play at working and be happy till they also realize it's all a sham. Aimless men and mean women is to me the actual theme of Absence of Malice (1981 Paul Newman, Sally Fields), a really good movie, only in that movie the guy is trying to wake the woman up to what she is and what she's doing. I don't know if the movies ubnder discussion are really about that because I haven't seen them all the way through. It's that this aimlessness has always put me off so that's why I didn't see them when they came out and why now I lose interest and change the channel. This aimlessness in intensifying in society, I think. So many young people seem like "the dust of the earth", no God, no country, no family, no interest in their job, no house they own - they aren't poor, really, but they're almost spiritual Okies, adrift on the land."
Two-eyed Jack writes:
"One of the things I do not understand about those days (when I was just getting to high school) is the way the slightly older generation was sucked into quasi-boomer hairstyles and clothes. How could full-grown men have been induced to put on leisure suits and orange shirts and wide ties, and grow their hair longish with no planning for its future disposition atop their heads. Everything was oriented in the wrong direction, away from their elders and the earlier generation’s acceptance of maturity and towards a youth that they seem to think now had more to offer, it they could only find the right clothes.
"In 1967 men looked sharp:
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/american-actor-james-coburn-as-derek-flint-in-in-like-flint-news-photo/159337730
"A few years later we have this:
https://community.babycenter.com/post/a53539255/fashion_for_men_from_the_1970s"
Leora writes:
"1969 was a great year for movies. Consulting Wikipedia’s list of movies made in 1969, I remember being impressed with Z, Easy Rider, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Midnight Cowboy, and Medium Cool, enjoying True Grit, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Castle Keep, Putney Swope, The Reivers, Goodbye Mr Chips (Peter O’Toole version), , Popi with Alan Arkin trying to fake his children as Cuban immigrants, Take the Money and Run, Topaz, Viva Max. plus non-specific films with James Garner, Dick Van Dyke, Burt Lancaster or Dean Martin in them. I remember being interested but not compelled by Oh What a Lovely War, Goodbye Columbus, They Shoot Horses Don’t They, Royal Hunt of the Sun, The Rain People, The Sterile Cuckoo with Liza Minelli. The Wild Bunch was too bloody for my taste. I don’t recall any impulse to watch Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice. If I had to pick one movie for 1969 it would be Z.
"My movie for 1970 would be 1.
"For 1971 The Last Picture Show which probably means more to those of us raised in rural areas where everyone knows all about everyone else.
"For 1972 Play it Again Sam
"For 1973 Save the Tiger a kind of obscure Jack Lemmon movie (he got an Oscar) about a man trying to salvage his garment business or maybe Paper Moon. I am totally unwilling to accept Elliot Gould as Marlowe. Marlowe embodies a sort of masculinity totally at odds with him. Elliot Gould is an intelligent child in an adult body."
I'll add:
The idea of "The Long Goodbye" was to take Marlowe and put him in the 70s. The at-odds quality was wanted and achieved. It's very entertaining if you get it. I didn't get it when I watched it at the time. Found it fascinating in 2021.
"Five Easy Pieces" is John's pick for the best movie of 1970. I liked it at the time but chose "MASH" as the one to examine my reaction. I would have gotten more out of "Five" I think. It makes me think of "Carnal Knowledge," a 1971 movie with Jack Nicholson, but that's something I only watched for the first time recently, so it wouldn't fit my project. I'm not picking my favorite movies for each year, just movies I know I saw in the theater when they came out, where I can remember my reaction and I'm interested in comparing it to my reaction rewatching it today.
Joanne writes:
"I didn’t turn 17 until 1971, so I missed all the great R-rated movies of the 1960s. The non-R-rated ones I saw in the theater or, more often, on "[Day of the Week] Night at the Movies" on network television.
"Last year I decided to spend my extra free time watching the great 1960’s movies I hadn’t seen: Alfie, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Graduate, Goodbye Columbus, Catch-22, Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice, Midnight Cowboy, Clockwork Orange, Taxi Driver, and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, to name a few. While I knew the music and words to their theme song and who starred in them, and had seen enough clips or read reviews along the way to think I knew the gist of the story, each movie was a complete revelation! I enjoyed them tremendously and decided it was a great education, so I planned to continue my movie project in 2021; unfortunately the only old movie I’ve watched so far this year was Some Like it Hot—and I’ve seen that movie at least half a dozen times!
"I look forward to watching the movies on John’s list that I haven’t seen."
Lucien writes:
"Boy, John omits a bunch of David Lean: River Kwai, Lawrence, Zhivago. Also: In the Heat of the Night, Bonnie & Clyde, Guess Who’s Coming . ., The Graduate, The Lion in Winter, Man for all Seasons, Planet of the Apes, Patton, Serpico, The Godfather."
I say:
His idea is to identify only ONE movie for each year (some years have a close runner up or 2 or 3), so he's not really "omitting" everything else.
He's only up to 1970, so you can't know his position on Serpico and The Godfather. I doubt if many people would say Serpico was the best movie of its year.
Joseph writes:
"I had some of the same reactions you did, I think, to the three Altman films you wrote about. I watched McCabe again just after you posted the Pauline Kael interview, and not only does it hold up, but it gets better with each viewing. When I first saw it years ago, I thought Beatty seemed lackluster, but even his performance is part of the reason the movie works.
"A couple of years ago I watched The Long Goodbye, which seemed formless and boring when I saw it years ago, but now was a pleasure. It doesn't really have much of the tone of Raymond Chandler's book, which I love, but it captures the odd combination of glamor and rot that characterized LA in the 70s. I agree with you about MASH. It doesn't seem to hold my attention the way it did when I first saw it. The plot shifts seem a little clunky, and I don't think Altman had quite nailed down cross dialogue. In addition, some of the camera techniques he would use over the years feel a little forced. It might also be a movie I have to prepare for by forgetting about the TV show, which was good in the McClean Stevenson/Wayne Rogers years, but got increasingly topical, preachy, and anachronistic afterwards.
"Play it Again Sam was Allen when he was still charming and naive, qualities he kept until Annie Hall, after which he became so skilled as a film maker that he began to coast. Crimes and Misdemeanors was his last great film, and everything since then has been mediocre.
"I need to watch Bob & Carol, etc. I remember Kael watched it. It's seems odd that Robert Culp was ever in a major film."
Lloyd writes:
"Yes, Gould was everywhere for a while there. The one that stands out for me is Getting Straight (1970). Many critics don't like it, saying the student protests of the late 60s are just mashed up with new sexual issues for effect. Gould plays Harry Bailey, and in the climactic scene he goes through some kind of oral defence for his Masters in English. There are a lot of examiners, maybe 10. Through the big windows of the meeting room we can see troops on guard, and late in the scene there is an explosion and flame outside. Link here.
"One examiner likes Harry's preference for Gatsby, but he has a theory which Harry paraphrases: "Carraway was queer for Gatsby?" Fitzgerald driven by homosexual panic? Harry tries to go along in order to pass, but he just can't stomach it. He explodes.
""It's gonna be a surprise to Sheila Graham!" (a famous Hollywood gossip columnist)
"Zelda is not gonna believe that!"
"Limericks, Shakespeare, Francis Bacon, Milton explaining to his wife how to help him find paradise.
"The fairly serious message is that progressives only read great literature in order to read their own political agenda into it. This may be (in a way) more important than either the anti-war protests or the actual sexual revolution that is going on outside.
""It's not what you do that counts, it's what you are.""
I'm not sure whether I've seen "Getting Straight." Probably not, but I don't know why!
Terry writes:
"…5 Easy Pieces was finally mentioned. I’m a few years younger than you, but I saw both 5 Easy Pieces and McCabe and Mrs. Miller “cold” (no review ahead of time) in movie theaters. Both were indelible experiences. I am reading Bernhard’s The Loser, in which Glenn Gould is prominent and the narrator writes that Gould hummed while playing (re 5 Easy Pieces). The Altman interview with Cavett re Mc MM was really great — thank you for posting. My father saw a lot of combat in WWII and loved MASH— for realism! (“Goddamned army”)."
Terry added:
"Wished I had included that, according to Altman, if “Elliott Gould” had starred in Mc MM it would have been “20 minutes longer” (lesser star than Beatty would have needed background demonstrated to audience)."
Mattman26 writes:
"Speaking of Liza Minelli (and to being too young to see some of these films when they came out), I wonder if anyone else was ever subject to the horrors of Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon.
"Came out in 1970, so I was 11. My great aunt—in so many ways the savior of my childhood—would take my sister and me to the big theaters in downtown Chicago for lots of new releases, Mary Poppins, Sound of Music, you name it. One day it was Junie Moon, which sounded like a pretty cute title. If I recall correctly (and I’m afraid I do), within the first several minutes Liza embarks on a first date with a guy who rapes her, dumps her in a ditch, and disfigures her with battery acid. And it’s downhill from there. Apparently rated PG, which seems all wrong.
"I’m still trying to recover."
I'll say:
That's terrible!
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