why 1970 was the greatest decade for film

7/29/2019 Why 1970 Was the Greatest Decade for Film

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Why 70s were the greatest decade for film ever and always will be

The decade that gave us;

The Godfarther

Apocalypse now

Rocky

Grease and many, many more...

At the end of the piece I will try ranking them, and trust me it was difficult, probably more difficult

then choosing which of your kids to save in a sinking ship.

This is probably a highly contested and controversial statement, as anyone growing up in a particular

decade will have a natural nostalgic affinity to it, and will defend its merits (whilst completely

ignoring its faults) to the better death. So in that case I only have one thing to say to you, if when

asked what the greatest decade of film is, and you give me the answer other than 1970s, I officially

have the rights to open up your skull and remove it, and subsequently sell it on EBay for the lowest

prices, because obviously you dont require it. But why so harsh, you might ask. Well the simple fact

is your wrong, but dont give me the Itssubjective rubbish, because through hours of painstaking

research (in other words way too many hours spent watching films on my laptop) I have come to the

conclusion, that I know for a fact that the 1970s were the greatest decade is cinema history. And

heres 5 reasons way:

Films of the decade captured beautifully a pivotal decade in modern human history.

The 1970s is rightly regarded as a pivotal turning point in the modern world we find ourselves in, it

was this decade some of the most important social changes and envelopments occurred, particularly

the changes in the improvements of political and economic liberty of women, encapsulated by the

election of Margret Thatcher as prime minster of Great Britain the very first female of state of any

western country at the time. Also the decade lead to the increase oflevel of the average Joes

political awareness, which lead to great civil unrest, as there was ever mounting resilience to the

Vietnam War. But thats enough of the history lesson; here is where film comes in. These two

particular events to emerge out of this decade out of a whole host others (1970s was a very busy 9

year for humanity) have lead to some of the most thrilling and intelligent films ever made.

Out of the war in Vietnam emerged the likes of; Apocalypse now, Coming home and the Deer

Hunter. The Vietnam was a devastating lost for the American people, thus shaking them down to the

core and loss of indentify and confidence in their nation, but I believe one film in particular helped

restore it Apocalypse Now was and still is a brave and ambitious project, that Francis Ford Coppola

masterminded from begin to the very end, in the midst of so much turmoil during the shoot, he was

able to paint a sincere unflinching picture of the human condition and the obsessive and occasionally

deprived nature of war. The film Apocalypse just shows you the power of film and how it can hold a

honest mirror into the deepest darkest recesses of the humanity.


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The second film to perfectly draw from all the changes of the decade was Riddles Scots Alien. As

stated before, the 1970s was a crucial time for women, a time of liberation, and nothing is more of

a testimony of the female liberation, then the birth of one of the most kick ass women in history of

women in film, a chick so bad ass, that makes all alien scum retract their testicals in fear, encase she

rips them of and feeds it to them. Yes Im talking about Sigourney Weaver and her seminal portrayal

of Ellen Ripley- also just my luck that Alien just squeezed into the decade with a release of 1979.

Ellen Ripley burst onto the scene in a period where there were very few leading women, and even

more of rarity was leading women in SCI-FI or Action genre. So with a genre filled to the brim with

explosions and machismo, it took a little none girl born and raised in Manhattan, to come onto the

scene and turn a whole genre on its head and damn! Was Alien a good film, my favourite sci-fi film

behind 2001 Space odyssey and Planet of the Apes.

The birth of the modern day Blockbuster

The summer blockbuster has now become a staple in our everyday film consumption, every year

people save up their hard earned money, in a anticipation of the preeminent summer blockbuster,

maybe its the latest James Cameron, Spielberg, Jackson or Bay (he sucks as a director, but you cant

deny the guy makes money) film. But what is a summer blockbuster or a blockbuster of any type?

Well thats a film that generally has a big budget for start; lets use James Camerons Avatar for

arguments sake, well Avatar had a budget of 300 million dollar, which was and still is the biggest

budget ever for a film, but its not just the budget that makes a film a blockbuster, it also needs; to

be produced and distributed by a large studio such as Fox, well in Avatars case it was a multicollaboration between four different studios and investment groups but that was just due to the

fact the money required was so significant, and no studio in the right minds is going to give someone

300 million, but luckily for Avatar it made close to 3 billion dollars, which just happens to be another

component of what is needed in a blockbuster. So for a film to be called blockbuster, you need big

budget, studio backing, make lots of money adding to that you need a massive marketing complain,

that fall short of taping a flyer advertising the film to the forehead of every; man, women and child.

So all those ingredient culminated together equals a blockbuster.

But guess what amazing year, was the very first to start the blockbuster trend? Yes no prize for

guessing, it was the 70s, let me illiterate once more if you havent got the messagethe 70s wasthe greatest decade for film, like ever! So what film and director started it all off? Well that prize

goes to a little known director named Steven Spielberg and the honour of being the first blockbuster

film goes to..drum roll (queue drum roll- well at least you tap the desk) please .. It is Jaws. Yes

Jaws was officially regarded as the very first film to coin the term blockbuster. It was the summer of

75, and a little known director, with just $9 million in his back pocket had a little film called Jaws that

he wanted everyone to see, of course it doesnt take a genius to guess that the film that is called

jaws, would be about a killer sharkbut wait your wrong, it isnt about just your average shark, no

in fact it a giant killing machine shark! Ha never saw that coming did you. Well anyway to cut a long

story short, Spielberg took that little known film, and with a clever marketing campaign, we was able

to turn $9 million, into $450 million and became rich and successful, then he decided to release a

little known film in 77 called Close Encounters of a Third Kind, which made$340 million from $20


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million, then from there he became even more rich and successful then he was already. How nice for

Spielberg.

The landscape of blockbuster in the 70s wasnt just dominated by Spielberg (And god damn! Did he

dominate) but the summer of 78, spawned probably the most famous musical film in Grease. And is

undeniably credited with the creation of the super star, we like to call Travolta, and cemented hisstatus as a sex symbol, that would successfully carry him into the late 90s then of course old age

does what it does to so many other people (cough, cough Al Pacino) and make them suck, but the

70s are still the good days and the golden era, for all straight men who like to sing and dance, and

wear far too tight of clothingand thats all because of Grease and to some extent, Saturday Night

Fever, which also could have be considered to have emerged on the scene as blockbusters, but

ultimately both helped to change the modern landscape of film for ever.

The brat pack

Luckily for us and for any generation after, the year of 1970s brought about a new era of

domination of both critical acclaim and box office smashes, of a so called rag-tag group known as the

the brat pack this is the name coined by alumni of well adverse and film educated - both home and

foreign, of well known Film Schools. The group consist of Martin Scorsese, George Lucas and Steven

Spielberg, these men between them have grossed close to 7 billion and garnered 3 academy awards

for best directors. Although Martins had a better decade in the 80s, the 70s did spawn for him the

amazing Taxi Driver, which perfectly encapsulates the feeling of isolation and loneliness that a

person can experience, and how this empty feeling can sometimes lead to volatile actions. But this

decade did help enforce Spielbergs claim to being one of the greatest directors of all time (in myopinion he is number two behind Stanley Kubrick) with the like of Shindlers list, Saving Private Ryan

and Jurassic park, Steven is one of the few directors able to blend critical acclaim and box office

smash hits. And as you can see from before that this decade in particular spawned, for me the best

and quintessential film in Spielbergs, multifaceted arsenal of good films. But not to forget poor old

Georgey, who wont go down as one of the greatest, but most certainly would go down as the at

least top 3 richest and most commercially successful, with a net worth of 4 billion, owed primarily to

the space epic Star Wars, but I will go into more detail on it a little bit laterdont worry, before you

rip your hair out, it wont be too long.

The greatest film of the last 60 years and the greatest film of its genre ever

Well the two following films probably dont need much explanation, or much introduction, because

honestly there isnt much you can say about them that really havent been said before; The

Godfarther, 72 winner of the Academy Award, and brought the director Francis Ford Coppola Best

Director. Whilst at the time of its realise, it was regarded as the greatest film of all time, well

certainly in the eyes of your average Joe, and for many year in the minds of your film buffs, but only

until the turn of the century did they concede the fact that Citizen Kane was a finer picture, but for

me anyway The Godfarther will still and always be the best film ever made.

And then you have The Exorcist, just writing the title, send shivers down my spine, the film is truly

haunting, and is one of the few horror films to actually leave a puddle under my chairits that


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scary! Which Im not too embarrassed about admitting, as even Entertainment Weekly ranked the

seminal film as the scariest of all time. So at least I can take solace in the fact Im not the only one

cradling myself behind the sofa anytime I hear the score. And dont forget it is still the first and only

horror film to be nominated for Best Picture.

Fun for the whole family

"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...." there existed a film franchise like one never seen

before, a franchise that will go on to be the holy bible to geeks everywhere, but wait such was the

scale of this humongous behemoth, it didnt just stay in the dark room of 30 year old nerd living in

his mums basement, instead it crossed the fresh hold of just your average geeky SCI-FI film, and

entered the world ofsuper block busters, and spread across the globe, faster than the love child of

the plague and the common cold. Going on to spawn a franchise worth 4 billion (and counting as of

2015) and thats just the films, couple that with cartoons and merchandising, the Star Wars franchise

reaches close to a value of 30 billion dollars and can be credited for the launching of the career of a

American Icon in Harrison ford - not bad for a film that started with a budget of just 6 million. Yes

Star Wars is a film that as swiped the whole world, and caters to all four quadrants of audience, with

iconic stars, ground breaking special effects and the greatest plot twist in modern cinema, Star Wars

is a film that Appeals to the whole family; mum, dad and granddad heck ever your toaster has a

poster of R2-d2 at home on its wall. Star Wars burst into the scene in 1977, the brain child of

George Lucas, who was inspired by Akira Kurosawas The Hidden Fortress. Upon its release it was

able gross almost 200 million dollars in America alone, and would go one to garner 10 Oscar

nominations, winning 6 of them. So its not hard to see how Star Wars has become one of the those

very few films to appeal to the whole family, with bright interesting characters, exciting plots and

stunning use of colours, Star Wars was and still is a very entertaining watch.

Let paint the picture, the year was 1976 and a 31 year old had a script which took him just three

days to write, but he wasnt just content with a measly writing credit, he was adamant in the fact

that he wanted to play as the lead, he was offered mine boggling figure to sell the script outright so

that producer and execs could add a more recognisable leadbecause lets face it, the guy so

strapped for cash, had to appear in a soft core porno, for a messily 200 bucks, just to make ends

meet, then for the next few year he had the occasional lead role, in lets just say, not the most

fashionable of films, but mostly his body of work consisted of bit parts. Then when he was able to

retain his place as the lead of the film well the rest was history, the guys name was Sylvester

Stallone, and the film was called Rocky, which went on to nominations for Best Actor and Best

Screenplay at the 49 Academy Awards, making the Stallone the third man in history to be nominated

for the two for the same film.

Your classical rags to riches story, is powerful and inspirational film that strikes a chord with so many

of us, making it a film that the whole family can enjoy over and over again, well the first Rocky

anyway, did I forget to mention that there were 5 sequels that all sucked, to the existent that they

became a parody of themselves. But no matter how bad they get and they do get bad, they will

never distract from the genies and uplifting Rocky, rightly so the winner of Best Picture award.

So I hope I was able to knock some sense into the heads, of any silly billys that doubt the

awesomeness of the 70S decade, we learned that the decade gave us; films that were fun for the

whole family, two of the greatest films in their genre, it gave us the brat pack, captured the


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prevalent issues of the decade both realistically and artistically and too top is all off, the decade

gave us the blockbuster. But still if you are not convinced, below is a list of the top ten film of the

decade, which I would blame you If you thought it was a list of all time greatestits a easy mistake

to make, because god damn! The 70s was a good decade for film. But I illiterate, below is not a list

of all time greats, but a list of the top ten films between the years of 1970-179. And by the way it

was probably the hardest list I have ever had to create: there is literally close to 30 films in the 70s

that could easily sneak into the top ten.

Top 10 best films of the decade

1. The Godfarther2. The Godfarther 23. Annie Hall4. Star Wars5. Chinatown6. Apocalypse Now7. The Exorcist8. Jaws9. One Flew Over the Cocos Nest10.Rocky

Honourable mentions:

The Deer Hunter

Nashville

Saturday night fever

Close Encounter of a Third Kind

The French Connection

Alien

Taxi driver

And a billion other films...

why 1970 was the greatest decade for film

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