My Life In Movies

Movies have always been my first love. As much as I enjoy writing fiction these days, I came to that through a lifetime of enjoying movies; studying movies; writing about movies; getting angry at strangers on the internet about movies…you get the idea. It was attempts to write screenplays that got me here, on Vocal, sharing short fiction, so I thought I might mix up the two loves and try a series of film based articles. Those of you who have read my fiction will no doubt see a clear line connecting the two things.

How about we go through all the years I’ve been alive, look at the best and/or most interesting movies of each of those years, and then try and pick my favourite?

No! Well tough, because I’m doing it anyway.

Hang on to your hats, folks, it’s 1973.

Top Ten of the Year.

The old Hollywood studio system is still plugging away this year and has a decent showing in the Top Ten Box Office draws. Solid fare like The Sting, Papillon and The Way We Were, sit alongside Dirty Harry sequel, Magnum Force and the latest Bond movie, Live and Let Die. However, the Movie Brats are starting to take a hold and shake things up: Some kid named George Lucas made a movie about his teenage years called American Graffiti and everybody loved it; Peter Bogdanovich, following up his success with The Last Picture Show and What’s Up Doc, stumbled a little with Paper Moon, but still managed to scrape into the Top Ten. William Friedkin, hot off success with The French Connection, storms into the number one spot with everyone’s favourite Christmas Day classic - The Exorcist.

The Exorcist is probably a no-brainer for my favourite film choice for 73, and I’ll explain why in a bit, but there’s a few other movies that gave me pause for thought:

High Plains Drifter. Lurking just outside the Top Ten is Clint Eastwood’s masterful directorial debut. Having made a boatload of money for Warner Bros over the years because, well, Clint Eastwood, they must have happily thrown money at him when he decided to direct a western. Oh, to have been a fly on the wall when they saw it. Far from being one of the movie brats shaking up Hollywood, Eastwood definitely picked up on the darker, more violent, and artistic mood that was beginning to take hold. While he leans into his ‘man with no name’ persona, he takes it to nihilistic levels in a tale of revenge upon a small town. It’s full of fantastic scenes and builds to a rousing, shocking finale, but it sits alongside Straw Dogs (Sam Peckinpah) as a 70’s gem tarnished by awful sexual attitudes, and should be approached with caution by modern audiences.

The Wicker Man. I discovered this film very late in life. I was vaguely aware of it as a ‘folk horror’ classic but knew very little going into it - which is the best way. It tells the tale of a virginal policeman (Edward Woodward, outstanding) and his search for a missing girl on a small Scottish island. It doesn’t end well. It’s weird and really creepy, with a great soundtrack; beautifully written, well directed and has some outstanding performances - Christopher Lee is unforgettable. If you’re lucky enough to have never seen it then try and fix that. Don’t ‘internet’ it first and, whatever you do, DON’T watch the Nicolas Cage remake.

Badlands. Terence Malick’s directorial debut, and arguably still his best film, is a gorgeous, moody cinematic gem. Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek star as teenage Bonnie and Clyde figures on the run for murder. Cinema as poetry. Fans of True Romance might recognise the score - a nod by Tony Scott/Quentin Tarantino to it influence on that film.

Other notable films from 73 if you’re willing to take my word for them are:

Sleeper (Woody Allen), The Last Detail (Hal Ashby), The Long Goodbye (Robert Altman), Flesh For Frankenstein (Paul Morrisey), Turkish Delight (Paul Verhoeven), Don’t Look Now (Nicolas Roeg) and Mean Streets (Martin Scorsese).

My favourite of the year: The Exorcist.

As a Brit, I have an unusual relationship with The Exorcist as it was banned on home video until 1999. It had been lumped in with a load of exploitation fodder collectively known as ‘video nasties.’

History Break: There was a brief, wonderful time in the early eighties when Betamax and VHS were landing in our homes, or the homes of those who could afford them - our friends had one and I was invited to watch quite a few films I probably shouldn’t have. Due to a loophole, the British Board of Film Classification had no say over video releases and this was jumped on by distributors looking to make a quick buck with lurid, gory, hyper-violent exploitation films.

Most local shops had a spinner full of delightfully tempting (to a kid with an overactive imagination) titles like Driller Killer (actually a decent film but that cover *chefs kiss*), Zombie Flesh Eaters (Zombie bites a shark…it’s awesome), Athropophagus (A foetus is ripped out of someone and eaten…it’s not good), New York Ripper, Ilsa - She Wolf of the SS, etc. Most of these are now considered ‘cult’ movies and some have still never been released uncut in the UK.

Led by a Christian conservative woman called Mary Whitehouse (think: Dolores Umbridge), the National Viewers and Listeners association took it upon themselves to complain about all this degrading, corrupting filth and spoil everyones fun. The Video Recordings Act of 1984 came into being and the term ‘video nasty’ was born.

The Exorcist had been released on video at this point but never certified, so it was pulled from release and never passed again until 99. Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs suffered a similar fate but that was due to a still uncomfortable rape scene.

The plus side of all this fun-spoiling was a fairly comprehensive list of movies that every teenager in Britain made it a point to seek out and watch at some point. I must admit the advent of torrenting helped me with this later in life, although there’s quite a few I’d like to unsee.

Since I missed it during this period, the only way to see The Exorcist at home was on pirated VHS copies which would be passed around like illicit contraband. I was in my mid to late teens before I happened across a dodgy copy - the poor quality only making the experience all the more unsettling and it remains a favourite movie.

Sadly it has gone the way of many old movies and modern audiences either find it too dull or unintentionally funny. Personally I still think it holds a lot of power. The set-pieces are still shocking and the scenes with Reagan undergoing the scans and tests, still disturb. William Peter Blatty’s screenplay (based on his excellent book) is an all-timer, and William Friedkin never made a better film - personally I think much of the film’s greatness is in the writing, but you have to hand it to Friedkin for having the balls to film it.

Blatty would later write a sequel novel called Legion, which he turned into the less impressively titled movie, Exorcist 3. It’ll make an appearance further down the line because it’s great.

See you next year.