What these movies have in common, besides acclaim, is one landmark year.
This fall, the free, weekly film series the Emory Cinematheque highlights the masterful, the absurd and the downright terrifying with “1975: A Year in Cinema.”
The idea to focus on 1975 started when Daniel Reynolds, associate professor of film and media, began thinking critically about “Jaws” as the movie’s 50th anniversary approached.
“As I looked at what else came out that year,” he recalls, “I was like, ‘Oh, great movie, great movie, great movie.”
The Cinematheque invites both cinephiles and those just seeking a night of good entertainment to check out titles picked by film and media faculty and staff. Screenings take place Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m. in White Hall, Room 208, through Dec. 3. Each screening is followed by a talkback led by the Emory staff or faculty member who chose the film.
The series, which is free and open to the public, is co-sponsored by the Department of Film and Media and Emory College of Arts and Sciences.
Below, Reynolds and Michele Schreiber, associate professor and chair of the Department of Film and Media, discuss what made 1975 a pivotal year for film and what moviemakers — and movie-goers — can learn from the Cinematheque selections.
An era of cinematic rebellion
Daniel Reynolds: 1975 marked a monumental sea change — so to speak! When “Jaws” came out that summer, that was really the nominal beginning of the modern blockbuster era, which we’re still in. Besides breaking something like $100 million at the box office, which was huge for the time, it brought about the sort of high-budget, mass-market appeal movie that still dominates the market today.
But most of the notable movies from 1975 are complex psychological stories: movies like “Nashville,” “Dog Day Afternoon” and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.” This director-driven cinema really started in the mid-to-late ’60s with what’s sometimes called New Hollywood cinema.
Michele Schreiber: And that came about because a confluence of things happened in the late 1960s.
Hollywood was really flailing in the ’60s. Filmmakers were still trying to re-create the successes of classic Hollywood cinema. They made a lot of musicals. And these were not connecting with young audiences, the rising baby-boom generation. That generation was seeing violence from Vietnam on their TVs and all these social movements.
In the 1960s, you see the fall of the Motion Picture Production Code, in which studios and screenwriters had to submit scripts for consideration before making them. And that’s when you see the start of the rating system we have now — G, PG and R ratings. These allowed mainstream movies to show violence and sexuality. [The “PG-13” rating was introduced in 1984.]
Inspiration from across the pond
Schreiber: You also see the influence of European art cinema on these filmmakers — French new wave, in particular. European films are starting to be shown on U.S. college campuses and in big cities at this time, and they’re introducing this entirely new cinematic language.
And so, this younger generation of filmmakers is also influenced by that — a different approach to storytelling, which is not necessarily about plot and goal-oriented protagonists.
These films tend to have a lot of talking; they’re about understanding psychology, and almost this rebellion or push-back against authority. You see all of this in “Dog Day Afternoon.”
And it’s interesting because, Dan, you were talking about “Jaws” as the beginning of the blockbuster era, and it is, but there’s also lots of talking in that movie.
Reynolds: That’s true!
This is also during the rise of auteur cinema. With studios granting directors more leeway, you get the big-name directors of the early ’70s, like Robert Altman and Francis Ford Coppola.
And so, you start to see Hollywood connecting to its youth audience in ways it hadn’t before.
And with this focus on 1975, in a way, it feels like we're actually celebrating the peak of something that was, if not entirely eclipsed, then kind of sidelined a little bit by the blockbuster era.
Lessons from the films of ’75
Reynolds: There’s a lot that young filmmakers can learn from these films.
First, there’s a real resourcefulness; they’re finding new ways to tell stories.
The director of “Bonnie and Clyde,” Arthur Penn — his later film, “Night Moves,” is part of the Cinematheque series. It’s about a person who’s trying to figure something out and keeps hitting these dead ends.
So, young filmmakers can really learn from this sense that you can embrace a lack of resolution in films; you can tell stories that don't necessarily hit all the conventional beats.
But there are also quite a few movies in the series that aren’t Hollywood studio films. There’s a documentary. There’s a ’70s exploitation film and a horror film. So, there are a variety of genres, but also a variety of budgets.
Movies like “The Battle of Chile” or “Death Race 2000” were made with less fancy equipment and less access to financial resources than some of the bigger studio films. So, I think there are also a lot of chances for student filmmakers to see these films and think, “Okay, people were able to pull this off.”
And it's remarkable how many people are coming out who aren’t Emory students or faculty. Just people coming from the Atlanta area who are eager to talk about film. I just heard from Jen Porst [associate professor of film and media], who introduced “Shampoo.” And she said that there were people in the Q&A comparing the movie to “Nashville” from the week before.
So, the fact that we have people from the community, not only coming to see these movies, but to do some film studies? That’s wonderful.
Upcoming screenings at the Cinematheque
All screenings take place Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m. in White Hall, room 208.
Oct. 1: “Let’s Do It Again”
Oct. 8: “The Battle of Chile: Part 1”
Oct. 15: “Death Race 2000”
Oct. 22: “Dog Day Afternoon”
Oct. 29: “Deep Red”
Nov. 5: “Night Moves”
Nov. 12: “Xala”
Nov. 19: “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”
Dec. 3: “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”