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Gritty, Natural, Realistic Movies of the 1970s

Started by MortSahlFan, February 03, 2021, 11:11:11 PM

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MortSahlFan

From all the ones I've checked out, they've all been really good and would love to find more. I know a few below are on YouTube, too.

-Fat City
-Minnie And Moskowitz
-The Visitors
-The Blue Motel
-Wanda

and "Les Chat" (The Cat) from France, featuring Jean Gabin and Simona Signoret


Some are very low-budget (maybe all), but it features some fine acting, script, and the general story... Some don't have much movement, some take place in one setting. By the mid-70s, it got stylized with "Taxi Driver" and seemed to have died down since in favor of blockbusters, instead of the more personal movie.


Does anyone have any favorites or recommendations?


St_Eddie


chveik

off the top of my head

The Ceremony (Oshima)

The Traveler (Kiarostami)

We Won't Grow Old Together & The Mouth Agape (Pialat)

Family Life (Loach)

My Childhood (Bill Douglas)

Bleak Moments (Leigh)

Autumn Sonata (Bergman)

Long Farewells (Muratova)

phantom_power

I started watching Wise Blood the other day, another Huston film, and that seems to fit the bill. I was enjoying it but had to stop watching as I fell asleep, which is no judgement on the film

Gulftastic

Compared to what happens in the sequels, Rocky is practically a documentary.

NoSleep

Quote from: phantom_power on February 04, 2021, 09:10:33 AM
I started watching Wise Blood the other day, another Huston film, and that seems to fit the bill. I was enjoying it but had to stop watching as I fell asleep, which is no judgement on the film

Wise Blood is a favourite of mine. I wouldn't describe it as "gritty, natural, realistic" by any reach. For one, it's timeless, in a limbo; there's no indication of what war Motes is returning home from; is it Korea, Vietnam, WWII? It's also packed with symbolism. Well worth watching through to the end (wide awake). Did you spot Huston? And the "typo" on his name in the credits?


phantom_power

Quote from: NoSleep on February 04, 2021, 09:31:05 AM
Wise Blood is a favourite of mine. I wouldn't describe it as "gritty, natural, realistic" by any reach. For one, it's timeless, in a limbo; there's no indication of what war Motes is returning home from; is it Korea, Vietnam, WWII? It's also packed with symbolism. Well worth watching through to the end (wide awake). Did you spot Huston? And the "typo" on his name in the credits?

Yeah it is Jhon in the credits isn't it. It is pretty gritty, natural and realistic I would say. In terms of acting, direction and cinematography at least.

gilbertharding

Quote from: Gulftastic on February 04, 2021, 09:14:48 AM
Compared to what happens in the sequels, Rocky is practically a documentary.

You could say the same about a lot of films - from the Ipcress File, to Mad Max and Rambo.

Custard

The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie is gritty, bleak, and very, very good

EDIT - And already mentioned!

NoSleep

Quote from: phantom_power on February 04, 2021, 09:55:05 AM
Yeah it is Jhon in the credits isn't it. It is pretty gritty, natural and realistic I would say. In terms of acting, direction and cinematography at least.

"Realistic" haha. I would say it's a black comedy dripping in symbolism (written by Flannery O'Connor[nb]"Anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic."[/nb], a Catholic, although some of the original meaning gets filtered somewhat in the screenplay/direction). Amy Wright puts in an incredible performance in it.

phantom_power

As I say I have only seen the first half an hour so it could change but I don't see how symbolism or black comedy would stop something being realistic

NoSleep

#13
Sure, but not Wise Blood. It is a great film, nonetheless, just completely off its tits.

The whole film's on youtube, I see:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A62z5jZdHpI

"It's a good car."
"Shake hands with Gonga."

phantom_power

I suppose Brad Douriff being the star should be a clue to that

the science eel


Mr Banlon

The Stoolie
The Death Collector/Family Enforcer

MortSahlFan

Some great examples above, especially "Wise Blood" (who also dreicted "Fat City")

"Payday" is on YouTube in full, as is one of my favorite movies, "MIkey and Nicky".... "Stroszek" is a fine movie, too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l12ZoYDTkMg

NoSleep

Pretty much any feature by Jon Jost. Extremely low-budget, too. Were I to pick one, I'd say Frame Up[nb]Not from the 70's but a good intro to Jost's style[/nb], the last scene of which is pretty hard to take but is probably the point of the entire film (don't spoil it before watching).

Roger Ebert says:

QuoteI have received a good deal of mail from readers concerned that movies like "Pulp Fiction" will inspire young viewers to shoot one another. I don't believe movies are that influential, but if they are, then I hope that potential drifting aimless alienated teenage killers will make it a point to catch "Jon Jost's Frameup," which will show them just how banal the whole business is.

Here is a movie like "Badlands," "Guncrazy" or "Natural Born Killers," but deliberately drained of energy. Instead of romanticizing his young killers on the road, Jost displays them as boring, stupid airheads.


El Unicornio, mang

The Boys in the Band (1970), William Friedkin movie about gay men in NYC, based on a 1968 play (and recently remade). First "mainstream" movie to use the word "cunt".

MortSahlFan

Quote from: chveik on February 04, 2021, 12:38:50 AM
off the top of my head

The Ceremony (Oshima)

The Traveler (Kiarostami)

We Won't Grow Old Together & The Mouth Agape (Pialat)

Family Life (Loach)

My Childhood (Bill Douglas)

Bleak Moments (Leigh)

Autumn Sonata (Bergman)

Long Farewells (Muratova)

I've seen half of them, glad you posted some foreign movies.. Added to the watch-list. Thanks!


Lots of great movies mentioned throughout.

MortSahlFan

If you don't like the 70s and want something made fairly recently, check out "Buffalo '66" - i because it's so great, very realistic, gritty, with very natural acting, and a damn good cast.

MortSahlFan

I don't know how I forgot my favorite movie ever -- "Harry and Tonto"

MortSahlFan

What about "Last Tango In Paris"? It might be stylish, but it still fits the criteria of "gritty, natural, and realistic" for its time.

greenman

Came out in the 80's but The Boarder very much feels still like this kind of film in terms of look/style(maybe the last of it?), not the fireworks you might expect from Tony Richardson directing Nicholson and Keitel but does have a nice Fat City style "pretty gritty" look/feel to it.

Blumf

Electra Glide in Blue (1973), always seems to get overlooked.

Gritty-natural films of the 70s is shooting fish in a barrel. What about earlier decades? You had a few kitchen sink dramas in the 60s, such as Ken Loach's stuff. A bit earlier you had the 'Angry young men' movement in the 50s with Look Back in Anger (1959) being a classic example (also by Tony Richardson).

Would Brief Encounter (1945) count?

holyzombiejesus

Quote from: MortSahlFan on February 04, 2021, 04:50:17 PM
If you don't like the 70s and want something made fairly recently, check out "Buffalo '66" - i because it's so great, very realistic, gritty, with very natural acting, and a damn good cast.

Never thought of Buffalo 66 as gritty.

willbo

I went through a phase of watching 70s tv movies on youtube, stuff like "maybe I'll come home in the spring", "the radical" and "feminist and the fuzz". Most of them are about hippies or counterculture, some demonizing it some giving it more of a fair shake.

MortSahlFan

Quote from: Blumf on February 09, 2021, 09:24:17 AM
Electra Glide in Blue (1973), always seems to get overlooked.

Gritty-natural films of the 70s is shooting fish in a barrel. What about earlier decades? You had a few kitchen sink dramas in the 60s, such as Ken Loach's stuff. A bit earlier you had the 'Angry young men' movement in the 50s with Look Back in Anger (1959) being a classic example (also by Tony Richardson).

Would Brief Encounter (1945) count?

You can even go back to 1940s Italian neo-realism with Vittorio De Sica.. I like the English kitchen sink movies, and Loach is my favorite living director, along with Mike Leigh, and Aki Kaurismaki, who has made his fair share of great movies, especially in the 80s with Matti Pellonpaa, which are minimalist, gritty, natural, realistic, but humorous, too. I'd highly recommend "Shadows in Paradise".