My birthday is next week, and owing to pandemic blah blah blah, I can’t really go anywhere or do anything to celebrate. So I’m having an at-home film festival. I am planning to “screen” three different titles based around a theme. Here are the ideas I have right now. Would love any random input, up to and including entirely new theme suggestions.
All (but one) of these films would be new to me. If an apparently obvious title is omitted, it’s probably because I’ve seen it. (Running times noted for my own reference.)
New York in the 70s
The Panic in Needle Park (1:50)
Serpico (2:10)
Klute (1:54)
The Early 70s Grab Bag
Carnal Knowledge (1:38)
The King of Marvin Gardens (1:43)
Badlands (1:34)
Hal Ashby
Coming Home (2:07)
Shampoo (1:50)
The Landlord (1:50)
Robert Altman
The Long Goodbye (1:52)
McCabe & Mrs. Miller (2:00)
Thieves Like Us (2:03)
John Frankenheimer
Birdman of Alcatraz (2:27)
Seven Days in May (1:58)
The Train (2:13)
William Friedkin
To Live and Die in LA (1:56)
The Boys in the Band (1:58)
The French Connection (already seen, but would watch again) (1:44)
Michelangelo Antonioni
Zabriskie Point (1:53)
L’Avventura (2:24)
Blow-Up (1:51)
European Grab Bag
Persona (1:23)
La Dolce Vita (2:54)
Elevator to the Gallows (1:31)
So there needs to be a theme, then? The vast majority of your flicks are from the 70s - is that the era basically you want to work with? (some of the following are from the 60s)
Ingmar Bergman Cries and Whispers Autmn Sonata Scenes From a Marriage
(romantic/familial dysfunction)
Roman Polanski Cul de Sac Repulsion The Tenant
(isolation, paranoia, depravity)
I’d skip that. Yeah, the photography and scenery is beautiful and the soundtrack is legendary (Floyd, Stones, Grateful Dead), but the story is just boring.
As for Billy Wilder films, I second the recommendation for “The Apartment”. It’s his most perfect comedy (you can even call it a tragicomedy, given the jarring sexual politics of the time it demonstrates and subverts).