1978--The Year in Review

Perhaps this is not the best year of the 1970s, but it's not a mediocre one at all. The top 20 films here scream out joyously and fantastically to the Earth. And the top choice, battered as it may now be, still stands as a prime example of world cinema. It shook me to my core then, and it still does today. And I cannot fail to hail my top director, who really establishes his lyrical voice here. Plus, nearly the best music documentary of all time, and terrific horror, comedy, thrillers, spoofs, war movies, documentaries, rock n’ roll (great year for that!), UK and US television, and the first notable comic book movie (though that now seems like a execrable curse, even as this one set the template). By the way, please check out Special Delivery, the seven-minute choice for Best Animated Short--you will NOT be sorry. Treat yourself! It’s marvelous. And, yes…also…I love Scorsese's The Last Waltz. A masterpiece, that! It makes me cry with utter ecstasy. But so does, ever so slightly more importantly, Michael Cimino's heartbreaking wartime story. NOTE: These are MY choices for each category, and are only occasionally reflective of the selections made by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (aka The Oscars). When available, the nominee that actually won the Oscar will be highlighted in bold. 

PICTURE: THE DEER HUNTER (US, Michael Cimino)
(2nd: The Last Waltz (US, Martin Scorsese)
followed by: Days of Heaven (US, Terrence Malick)
Interiors (US, Woody Allen)
Straight Time (US, Ulu Grosbard)
The Tree of Wooden Clogs (Italy, Ermanno Olmi)
An Unmarried Woman (US, Paul Mazursky)
Who’ll Stop The Rain (US, Karel Reisz)
Blue Collar (US, Paul Schrader)
Halloween (US, John Carpenter)
Gates of Heaven (US, Errol Morris)
The Silent Partner (Canada, Darryl Duke)
Midnight Express (UK, Alan Parker)
Coming Home (US, Hal Ashby)
The End (US, Burt Reynolds)
An Enemy of the People (US, George Schaefer)
Superman (US, Richard Donner)
National Lampoon’s Animal House (US, John Landis)
The Rutles: All You Need is Cash (US, Eric Idle and Gary Weis)
I Wanna Hold Your Hand (US, Robert Zemeckis)
Dawn of the Dead (US, George A. Romero)
Killer of Sheep (US, Charles Barnett)
Girlfriends (US, Claudia Weill)
Autumn Sonata (Sweden, Ingmar Bergman)
Koko: A Talking Gorilla (West Germany, Barbet Schroeder)
Watership Down (US, Martin Rosen)
Get Out Your Handkerchiefs (France, Bertrand Blier)
Scared Straight! (US, Arnold Shapiro)
Martin (US, George A. Romero)
Magic (UK, Richard Attenborough)
The Buddy Holly Story (US, Steve Rash)
A Wedding (US, Robert Altman)
Heaven Can Wait (US, Warren Beatty and Buck Henry)
American Boy (US, Martin Scorsese)
The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (Australia, Fred Schepisi)
Pretty Baby (US, Louis Malle)
Go Tell the Spartans (US, Ted Post)
The Brink's Job (US, William Friedkin)
Fingers (US, James Toback)
Summer of My German Soldier (US, Michael Tuchner)
La Cage aux Folles (France, Edouard Molinaro)
Big Wednesday (US, John Milius)
China 9, Liberty 37 (Italy, Monte Hellman)
Drunken Master (Hong Kong, Woo-Ping Yuen)
American Hot Wax (US, Floyd Mutrux)
Coma (US, Michael Crichton)
The Fury (US, Brian De Palma)
Up in Smoke (US, Lou Adler)
Death on the Nile (UK, John Guillermin)
The Lord of the Rings (US, Ralph Bakshi)
Stevie (UK, Robert Enders)
Foul Play (US, Colin Higgins)
Despair (West Germany, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
The Legacy (UK, Richard Marquand)
The Boys From Brazil US, Franklin J. Schaffner)
Grease (US, Randall Kleiser)
Sextette (US, Ken Hughes))

ACTOR: Dustin Hoffman, STRAIGHT TIME (2nd: Anthony Hopkins, Magic, followed by: Robert De Niro, The Deer Hunter; Christopher Reeve, Superman; Richard Pryor, Blue Collar; Jon Voight, Coming Home; Gary Busey, The Buddy Holly Story; Elliott Gould, The Silent Partner)

ACTRESS: Jill Clayburgh, AN UNMARRIED WOMAN (2nd: Geraldine Page, Interiors, followed by: Jane Fonda, Coming Home; Ingrid Bergman, Autumn Sonata; Tuesday Weld, Who’ll Stop The Rain; Genevieve Bujold, Coma; Melanie Mayron, Girlfriends; Glenda Jackson, Stevie) 

SUPPORTING ACTOR: Christopher Walken, THE DEER HUNTER (2nd: John Cazale, The Deer Hunter, followed by: Yaphet Kotto, Blue Collar; Christopher Plummer, The Silent Partner; Dom Deluise, The End; Harry Dean Stanton, Straight Time; Bruce Dern, Coming Home; John Hurt, Midnight Express)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Maureen Stapleton, INTERIORS (2nd: Mary Beth Hurt, Interiors, followed by: Linda Manz, Days of Heaven; Theresa Russell, Straight Time; Meryl Streep, The Deer Hunter; Diane Keaton, Interiors; Maggie Smith California Suite; Wendy Jo Sperber, I Wanna Hold Your Hand)



DIRECTOR: Michael Cimino, THE DEER HUNTER (2nd: Terrence Malick, Days of Heaven, followed by: Martin Scorsese, The Last Waltz; Woody Allen, Interiors; John Carpenter, Halloween; Paul Mazursky, An Unmarried Woman; Alan Parker, Midnight Express; Paul Schrader, Blue Collar)



NON-ENGLISH-LANGUAGE FILM: THE TREE OF WOODEN CLOGS (Italy, Ermanno Olmi) (2nd: Autumn Sonata (Sweden, Ingmar Bergman), followed by: Get Out Your Handkerchiefs (France, Bertrand Blier); La Cage aux Folles (France, Edouard Molinaro); Drunken Master (Hong Kong, Woo-Ping Yuen))



DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: THE LAST WALTZ (US, Martin Scorsese) (2nd: Gates of Heaven (US, Errol Morris), followed by: Koko: A Talking Gorilla (West Germany, Barbet Schroeder); Scared Straight! (US, Arnold Shapiro); American Boy (US, Martin Scorsese))



ANIMATED FEATURE: WATERSHIP DOWN (US, Martin Rosen) (2nd: The Lord of the Rings (US, Ralph Bakshi)


 
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Michael Cimino, Derek Washburn, Quinn Redeker and Louis Garfinkle, THE DEER HUNTER (2nd: Paul Schrader and Leonard Schrader, Blue Collar, followed by: Paul Mazursky, An Unmarried Woman; Woody Allen, Interiors; Jerry Belson, The End)



ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Alvin Sargent, Edward Bunker and Jeffery Boam, STRAIGHT TIME (2nd: Judith Rascoe and Robert Stone, Who'll Stop the Rain?, followed by: Alexander Jacobs and Arthur Miller, An Enemy of the People; Curtis Hanson, The Silent Partner; Oliver Stone, Midnight Express)



ANIMATED SHORT: SPECIAL DELIVERY (Canada, Eunice Macauley and John Weldon) (2nd: Rip Van Winkle (US, Will Vinton), followed by: The Small One (US, Don Bluth); The Metamorphosis of Mr. Samsa (Canada, Caroline Leaf); Afterlife (Canada, Ishu Patel))

LIVE ACTION SHORT: HARDWARE WARS (US, Ernie Fossellus) (2nd: Within the Woods (US, Sam Raimi), followed by: Teenage Father (US, Taylor Hackford); Xenogenesis (US, James Cameron and Randall Frakes)

CINEMATOGRAPHY: Nestor Almendros and Haskell Wexler, DAYS OF HEAVEN (2nd: Michael Chapman, Laszlo Kovacs and Vilmos Zsigmond, The Last Waltz, followed by Vilmos Zsigmond, The Deer Hunter; Gordon Willis, Interiors; Dean Cundey, Halloween)

ART DIRECTION: INTERIORS, The Wiz, The Brink’s Job, Heaven Can Wait, Days of Heaven

COSTUME DESIGN: THE WIZ, Death on the Nile, Days of Heaven, Pretty Baby, Interiors



FILM EDITING: THE DEER HUNTER, The Last Waltz, Midnight Express, Straight Time, National Lampoon’s Animal House

SOUND: THE DEER HUNTER, The Last Waltz, Days of Heaven, Midnight Express, Superman



ORIGINAL SCORE: John Carpenter, HALLOWEEN (2nd: Giorgio Moroder, Midnight Express, followed by: John Williams, Superman; Jerry Goldsmith, The Boys from Brazil; Jerry Goldsmith, Magic)



SCORING OF A MUSICAL/ADAPTATION SCORING: Joe Renzetti, THE BUDDY HOLLY STORY (2nd: Neil Innes, The Rutles: All You Need is Cash, followed by: Louis St. Louis, Grease)



ORIGINAL SONG: “Hopelessly Devoted to You” from GREASE (Music and lyrics by John Farrar) (2nd: “Can You Read My Mind” from Superman (Music by John Williams, lyrics by Leslie Bricusse), followed by: “FM (No Static at All)” from FM (Music and lyrics by Donald Fagan and Walter Becker); “Last Dance” from Thank God It’s Friday (Music and lyrics by Paul Jabara); "Grease" from Grease (Music and lyrics by Barry Gibb); “Another Fine Mess” from The End (Music and lyrics by Paul Williams); “Ready to Take a Chance Again” from Foul Play (Music by Charles Fox, lyrics by Norman Gimbel); "Through the Eyes of Love" from Ice Castles (Music by Marvin Hamlisch, lyrics by Carole Bayer Sager))

SPECIAL EFFECTS: SUPERMAN

MAKEUP: THE WIZ, Dawn of the Dead, Superman

The Encyclopedia of Cinematography: C-D

 The compendium continues...
 

Cabaret (Geoffrey Unsworth, 72)
The onslaught of Nazi think is personified on-stage, with Unsworth's unforgiving light and art director Tony Walton's bubbly, twisting mylar as backdrop.  The film's off-stage moments are shot in a fuzzy, nostalgic haze...until the inevitable becomes evitable.  
  

Carnal Knowledge (Giuseppe Rotunno, 71)
Rotunno's photography transmogrifies before our eyes, from classic 40s setups (in unusual widescreen) to slick 70s coldness.  

Casablanca (Arthur Edeson, 43)  
Romanticism in extrema.  

Champion (Frank Planer, 49) 
The hard-nosed early diagram for so many boxing movies. 
 

Children of Men (Emannuel Lubeski, 2006)
Utilizing the then-new possibilities of digital photography, Lubezki revolutionizes the unbroken shot, while still keeping it gorgeous to witness.  

Chinatown (John A. Alonzo [and Stanley Cortez], 74)
The noir film is given a jolt of color, always remaining true to its history.  

Citizen Kane (Gregg Toland, 41)
The movie that taught us all.  It taught us all. 

City of God (Cesar Charlone, 2002)
A battleground use of color and perfect framing.  

The City of Lost Children (Darius Khondji, 95)
Blues and yellows mix together, and end up in a greenish, fairy-taled, CGI-sickening hellhole. 

Claire's Knee (Nestor Alamendros, 70)  
As is the case with Eric Rohmer's works (for which Alamendros was a key player), the idyllic countryside becomes a metaphor for the female body.   

Cleopatra (Victor Milner, 34) 
A strikingly hued early De Mille spectacle, and an Oscar winner.  

Cleopatra (Leon Shamroy, 63) 
Dappled with light and hue, the long-masculine epic now becomes feminine.  

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Vilmos Zsigmond [with John Alonzo, William A. Fraker, Laszlo Kovacs, Steven Poster, and Douglas Slocombe], 77)
Special effects and lush photography--set against deserts, fields, mountains, houses, cities and space--unite for perhaps the first time.   
 

Coal Miner’s Daughter (Ralf D. Bode, 80) '
The capture of both the rural and the less rural, in striking blues and browns.  

The Color of Pomegranites (Suren Shakhbazyan, 68)
Shot after shot, you can hardly believe what you are seeing.  Utterly unique in every way.  

The Conformist (Vittorio Storaro, 70) 
Stark, sharp angles and bold coloring accompany one man's decent into fascism.  

Contempt (Raoul Coutard, 63)  
Gorgeous primary-colored widescreen interiors and sharp exteriors highlight another of Coutard's indispensable collaborations with Godard.  

The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (Sacha Vierny, 89) 
Decadence and disgust, filmed with glory.  
 

The Cranes are Flying (Sergei Urusevsky, 57)  
Every--and I mean every--shot is a stunner.  

Cries and Whispers (Sven Nykvist, 73)
Ardent, elegant blood reds highlight this Oscar-winning turn from Bergman and Nykvist.  
 

Crumb (Maryse Alberti, 94)
A prime example of expressive documentary cinematography.  
 

Dancer in the Dark (Robby Muller, 2001)
Muller's faux-documentary style takes a leap with this schizophrenic melodrama that, in its musical sequences, utilizes the gaze of a hundred cameras.  

Dark City (Dariusz Wolski, 98) 
A wild, threatening dream world is made alive through Wolski's stunning camerawork.  

Das Boot (Jost Vacano, 82)
Vacano's camera seeps in the harsh lighting and crushing claustrophobia of submarine life like no other movie has before or since.  
 

Days of Heaven (Nestor Alamendros and Haskell Wexler, 78) 
Arguably the most beautiful movie ever filmed; NOTE: my choice for the greatest cinematography of all time.

Dead Man (Robby Muller, 95)
The expressive influence of silent moviemakers in soaked up in Muller's work for this, one of the creepiest of westerns.  
 

Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (Michael Chapman, 82)
Chapman perfectly matches the work of studio-era cameramen; his work can be seen side-by-side here with noir masters, without a hiccup. 

Dead Ringers (Peter Suschitzsky, 88)
Suschitzsky's first in a long series of collaborations with Cronenberg, and perhaps his best; the film is filled with gloriously rich primary colors hauntingly tinted with the blackness of the film's tale.  Plus, the film, pre-CGI, revolutionized the use of split screen photography in crafting the illusion of its twin leads.

Deep Red (Luigi Kuveiller, 75)
Kuveiller's camera jets from impossible close-ups to gorgeous long shots with a notable nimbleness.  
 

Delicatessen (Darius Khondji, 91) 
Stomach-churning yellows and greens vividly illustrate this cannibalistic, post-apocalypse landscape.
 

Deliverance (Vilmos Zsigmond, 72)
Zsigmond's camera sojourns so easily from idyllic weekend sightseeing to nightmarish frays. 
 

Die Hard (Jan De Bont, 88) 
Action photography at its most athletic and adept.   

Double Indemnity (John Seitz, 44) 
Through Billy Wilder's direction, Seitz's camera captures a man who;s already caught.  

Dracula (Karl Freund, 31) 
The undead, come to life, with creepy backgrounds and strong key lighting from German master Karl Freund.

Duel in the Sun (Lee Garmes, Ray Rennahan, and Hal Rosson, 46)
Bright yellows and reds memorably dapple this almost dreamlike tale of lust in the dust.  
 

The Duelists (Frank Tidy, 77) 
John Alcott's groundbreaking work with Barry Lyndon sees its closest compatriot in Tidy's expressive and absolutely transportative work.  

The Diary of Anne Frank (William C. Mellor, 59) 
The cinematographer had a bearish task here: how to deal with widescreen photography in a crushingly claustrophobic setting.  Mellor--who'd been used to filming in wide-open spaces with John Ford's westerns--really challenged himself here, to astonishing effect.

Dick Tracy (Vittorio Storaro, 90) 
The comic strip actually comes to vivid life under Storaro's tutelage.  

The Diving Bell and The Butterfly (Janusz Kaminsky, 2007) 
The masterful Janusz Kaminsky outdoes himself, with impossible images concocted in collusion with director Julian Schnabel's inventive guidance, to tell a story that many thought could not be portrayed on film.  

Do The Right Thing (Ernest Dickerson, 89)
A red hot day in 80s Brooklyn is given a searing countenence.  One of the most vivacious examples of cinematography out there.   
 

Doctor Zhivago (Freddie Young, 65)
The freezing, oppressive climate of revolutionary Russia is lit with the warm romanticism of an affair gone awry in this, another of director David Lean's jaw-dropping collaborations with the singular Freddie Young.  

Down By Law (Robby Muller, 86)  
The bayous, cityscapes and prison cells of New Orleans, in articulate blacks, whites and greys.  

 Drums Along the Mohawk (Ray Rennahan and Burt Glennon, 39)  
A majestic early color cinematography Oscar winner, in service of director John Ford.