the 70's in a nutshell

The 70's class helped open my eyes to the changes in film just within the past 40 years. These changes are reflective of the times and this is a trend that can be seen in any era of film. Some of these virtues and role changes were huge in the 70's like the role of black people or of women in film. They were no longer the butler or the house wife, they were starting to become their own people and built their own lives and build a new image for them.

It also opened my eyes to a lot of different movies that I know that I would have never seen in my life so it was a good chance to see a few different movies for me and to expose myself to a few different things.

The 70's class was a good learning experience where we got to expose ourselves and think outside of the box more and see a movie for more then it seems at face value. The tools learned with dissecting the film are pretty helpful and will continue to help me further along the road and help me appreciate films a little more then I did before this class.

Assault on Precinct 13

If you ever need a film to help define the 70's era, look no further then "Assault on Precinct 13." It had everything that was relevant and different with the 70's. To start the main character and protagonist is a black hero, and he is your classical almost cowboy hero. He stands for virtue and everything right. This was a role that was no previously seen until the 70's.

The women of this movie is a strong women who does what she wants and has her own attitude to boot. she even takes gun shots and kills a few men in the process. There is your classic anti-hero in the film with the Napoleon being a killer and a murderer. He decided to help out the cops and even though he could have made a run for it decides to stick around and help as much as he can.

All these little things within the movie mirror the direction of the 70's and all of the changes that took place in this time period. The whole movie shows how everyone from the black man to the women and even the classical villain have made big changes in film during this time period and that there was no longer a set gender role or race role anymore.

An Unmarried Woman

The women roll took a huge right turn in the 60's and carried on over into the 70's in a big way. There is no better way to show this then with "An Unmarried Woman." Marriages were no longer the perfect little thing that every tried to make them up to be. In fact this movie showed just how bad some men have become like with Erica and her husband. They were married for 16 years and he left her for a younger women, and not only left her but expect here to just get over it and be ok with the falling out.

So Erica and her daughter had to go through this journey together to help them realize that they can be strong on their own and they do not need to have other people in their life to be that strong person. This is a huge difference in film as it was a huge difference in lifestyle of the 70's. This movie was a mirror image of the type of life that people were starting to have in the real world, and the film world picked this up and starting putting it in their films so that people would start to relate more.

The women bonding was another big part of this film that was a big change from the old times. Erica would go out to lunch with her friends and they would take openly about anything. The significance of this was bigger then I think most people might have realized. This was the start to women having a life outside of the house, and the start of them having an equal life like their male counterparts. It was shown here in this movie like it was happening in the real world.

Dog Day Afternoon

Sonny and Sal were your everyday guys with everyday lives to live. The events of "Dog Day Afternoon" were base on true events that took place in an ordinary town with some ordinary men. The movie starts as what looks like a ten minute robbery and it turns into a twelve hour political statement made by the men. With enough hostages and an itchy finger in Sal, the two men were able to hold up the bank for a few hours and had their way with the media for a lot of it.

The crowd was a constant shift of support and disapproval as the story went on. Everyone could relate to the Attica attacks that had just occurred so he was able to keep the police at bay from their usual brutality as the cameras were rolling and the crowd was cheering him on. The realization that he was gay was both a shift in the crowd and a point shown that gays were not looked upon in a good light or even remotely accepted accept by the people within their gay community. This was to show the political ramifications of being gay and trying to make a stand on it. Not may people were going to back him after they found this out and even started attacking him.

Also the hostages accepted their forceful captivity and even went along with it. They found it amusing as it was something exciting and they would partake in what ever they could. This was ironic how much space and freedom they had throughout the whole movie. It made the cops job almost harder because the girls were not threatened and therefore did not care to cooperate with the cops ever because they were having fun. This was a funny aspect of the movie as they would play with Sal's guns and play cards and just having a fun old time with the bank robbers. I think this was a good statement to make that the bad guy is not always a very mean or dastardly person, and that sometimes it is just someone who feels like that they have run out of options and are looking for a good way out.

Saturday Night Fever

A fun story of a boy becoming a man, you take a journey with Tony, a dancing machine in the weekend night club scene. You get to see how a player in the club scene gets to grow up and mature with his attitude toward his thug friends and his view on women as more then something to bang in the back seat of a car.

The biggest part of this film is the soundtrack and music that accompanies Tony through his journey. It's a lot of groovy beats and sounds that make everyone want to jump to their feet and join in. The story is so based on the music and you see this as everything has a different beat, whether it be the club or him helping someone move across the town to even him just walking down the street.

The portrayal of women in this movie is mostly as every guys bitch. What I mean by that is all they are for is sex and to be seen with and nothing more, and for the most part the women in this movie went along with it. It took a stronger women, Stephanie, to help Tony realize that he needed to grow up and start treating life a little more seriously. It was her saying no to him that made him realize that he really was not all that he thought he was and the transformation had begun in Tony at this point. So although most of the women in the movie are small and a tool for men, it only took one girl to stand up for herself to make a change in the movie and a change in Tony groove.

SHAFT!!

A staple of the 70's era came in the form of shaft. This film was a revolution in the time because of the role that the black man played in this movie. He was a dominant figure in the movie who could stick it to the man and they could not touch him. He had no limits to what he could do with no regards to what people think of him as long as he can get his answers.

The black dominance was established and accepted into the public quite nicely. This was a film that showed that the black man can be a winner and does not end with the man crushing him all the time. In fact Shaft got his way in the end and got away with all of it. This was huge during the 70's because up until then that just did not happen. The film's intended audience was raving for the film because it was revolutionary to them. To them it was about being on top and winning for a change.

Taxi Driver

The nitty gritty New York streets are captured and shown pretty nicely in the film "Taxi Driver." You follow the depressing and very odd life of Travis Bickle, your everyday normal psychopath with a big sleeping disorder. He feels like he has to accomplish something big in life and he is determined to figure out what that is. The man is far from social acceptable, bringing dates to porno's and stalking them when they leave. He also fantasizes about shooting someone, like the man running for Senator, and want to help a prostitute from her pimp. Mentally unstable is really being nice about this mans state of mind.

Overall the story is captivating enough to keep you entertained through the whole film. Watching as the man becomes a hero makes you a little uneasy as you see the life he lead up to that point and you find that you almost don't want him to be the hero because of all the things that he tried before killing the pimp. Even killing the pimp was a less then heroic act, as it was more selfish and him wanting to make a name for himself. He didn't even plan on living. But the way the director made you choose how you felt about it made the ending that much more compelling.

The random women he puts in his life is another aspect of the movie that shows us how unstable he is and his real motives in life. The first girl he meets he is actually trying to date. Unfortunately for him he does not know what to do on a date, so he kills that relationship before it really even began. Then the next girl he finds is a hooker that is only a kid. He wants to help her but the only life she knows is as a prostitute and relying on her pimp to supply. The movie ends with him helping out in the only way he knows how. That is by killing everyone and hoping she can find her way back home. As a war vet he seems to be unsure of how to handle himself and I feel that this was the only way he knew how to take care of any problems he had. Point and shoot.

Jaws!!!!

An easy movie to recognize with and one that almost anyone has heard of even if they have not seen it. Jaws is a great classic of the 70's and for many good reason. The film played off a sense of fear that everyone inherently has. The fear of something bigger getting to you, and a fear of the unknown.

Jaws has many good qualities to it like the main role who wants to help the town, but is terrified of the water. So he seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time for the whole movie. You remember the main people in this story because they are all memorable with small little quarks like this one. This movie also has a huge sense of irony throughout. Like the sea captain and how he lived through all the horrors, even lived when the boat when down in the navy and had to watch sharks eat all his friends. He ends up getting eaten by the shark and that is how he ends his long and difficult life.

I think the best part of the film is probable the one aspect that has made it timeless, and that is the music track. It has become associated with any type of impending attack. whether joking around in the pool or what ever else you could be doing. This song has taken the movie and made it classic just because everyone knows that song, and knows what it means. For any movie or any song, that is a huge deal because it means that it will always be remembered.

The Conversation

We continue our theme of sabotage and death in the film "The Conversation" with Harry being the best at what he does; a private eye of sorts. He can record any conversation at any location and make it work very well. When peoples lives are at stake he starts to worry and wonder what has he done.

In this film you see the continuing trend of paranoia that has been growing throughout this era. Now this film does not attack people fear that the government is trying to screw them. This one harps on the fears that no conversation you are having is safe. That things like your phone, your floor, and even a walk in the park, can be bugged, monitored, and recorded to be used against you later.

In the film people make a living out of this and even have new gadgets and such that they can implement to help them in spying on the seemingly innocent. Also within the film it brings to light that almost knowing something is not quite enough, and that jumping to conclusions will only make your head spin and get you in a load of trouble. He thought that the husband was the one that was going to be killing but it turned out the other way. With this shocking twist Harry is left high and dry and utterly confused and even a little used.

In the end the film shows that even the best can not get away from the bugging and probing of their lives and that they to can be put under a microscope. But what is more problematic is the fact that he has lived a lonely life on purpose to help him separate from people, and now he is all alone with no one to turn to as he tears his house apart to try and get back the one thing he has always pretended to have; control.

The Parallax View

The "Parallax View" was a deep movie where no one can be trusted. The story starts with a skeptical man with a very distraught friend and it ends with the same man stuck in the middle trying to find out what is going on not only with his friend but also with the new problems he seems to be facing.

The 70's were huge on their conspiracy theories because everything in the 70's seemed to be a conspiracy to them. So the films reflect this new sense of paranoia that has developed in the people and take advantage of everyone’s newfound distrust in the government or anything official for that matter.

The main character, Joe Frady, is a nice example of the kind of people that were around in the 70's. You had the up and coming rebels of that time who felt like they were entitled to some information. If they could not get that information either they developed theories for why this information was not available to them, or they had the pioneers, like Joe, who would go find out the answers to this question. It did not always end well for them although it did not end like it did for Joe in this film.

Overall a very paranoid feeling to the film that you cannot seem to shake through the whole movie. A good central character you can care about and root for and also try to help him find the answer to this very big and what seems endless question.

Coming Home

This film has a very negative connotation toward the Vietnam war. He was trying to show what kind of hard life that the soldiers had to face from coming home to a pointless war. They felt lost and without hope. So this film makers attitude toward this war was distasteful and with no positive outlook on it.

The realism of this film was to be as natural as possible so that the audience could see what kind of pain these people have to go through when then get home. In order to empathize with the different people they had to be as real as possible and to have real problems to deal with. I felt that this movie tried to convey real problems that would arise during these times and within these types of families.

I was able to empathize with and felt sorry for Luke as he had to deal with the mental troubles and problems that came with coming home from a very disliked war with nothing that worked below the waist. You couldn't help but root for him even though his intentions were not so pure or even morally correct. You wanted him to get some meaning to his life and to do well. I felt although the story was not completely focused on him, I liked the way that this character developed and I liked how you could really root for this guys life.

This movie would not have been capable of being made to much sooner then this because the causes and problem of the war were not really known to the public right away. With that the people did not really know about the soldiers coming home and how they were dealing with being in that war. So to make this film sooner would have been difficult because there would have been a lot of knowledge left out and certain things that would not have been known or portrayed as well.

I think the ending was done in a very good way that helped with rapping up all of their lives but still leaving it a little open. You see how the Captain ends his life because he could not deal with the stress of being home and you see how Luke has risen up from his depressed state and is now speaking to students about how it is really over there and being strong enough to talk about what happened to him. So it was a good way to show how both guys have dealt with their lives and it comes to a sort of circle as the Captain is now weak and Luke now has strength to go on.

The Long Goodbye

The film had a lot going on in such a short period of time. There was many plot twist and turns that i felt kept the audience both entertained and wondering if they really know what is going to happen next.

My favorite part of the film was the huge twist in the end that you didn't see in the movie. I love any movie that has an ending that was far from what you thought was possible or imaginable, but is still within the realm of possible. By that I mean the film maker takes you down a road and at the very end takes a hard right and you are still confused as the end credits are running. This film did just that.

The anti-hero in this film is a well developed character with many flaws and defects that made him almost unlikeable to most people. But for me the idea of an imperfect hero makes the person more human and easier to connect with. With everything he said he always had a underlying reason of just getting as much information as he could out of you, and he was very good at doing just this. A lonely man who was just working his one from one person to the next, i felt like you could still relate and understand what he was trying to do and you start to root for him in the end as everything seems to fall apart around him. The film ends with the "friend" dead and the hero walking away, and you feel relieved as he walks down the street and you have a sense of happiness as the woman who was jerking him around drives on past. So overall the film was one of my favorites so far and was a good one to enjoy.

class 1

5 easy pieces was a bizarre movie on a man with some commitment issues and I guess daddy issues as well. The story was a little off and the characters did not quite build and develop into someone you could care about i felt. There was a lot happening in the story and I could not find a way to really care or connect with the characters. Most is this is probably due to the fact that I had a migraine last class, but i still feel like the movie it's self was a little off. With that said, I feel like i should probably watch it again with out the migraine to see if the movie is more enjoyable and deeper then originally thought of right now.