1980--The Year in Review

Here we go into another decade, but, really, it’s still the 1970s. The year's best film, Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull is utterly a product of the previous decade, and yet it remains the best film of the 1980s. Unlike many movie lovers, though, its obvious superiority ironically makes me feel sorry for Robert Redford's masterful directorial debut, which ultimately won the Academy's Best Picture prize; Ordinary People has been drubbed upon for years since by movie fans angry over the denial of Scorsese's film, but I maintain Redford's film is a justifiable Best Picture choice--an absolutely devastating and intimate family drama, the sort of which I wish there were more of nowadays. Yet, really--I mean, REALLY--it should have hit an insurmountable wall with Scorsese's picture--but this supremely difficult and even unlikable movie was a box office flop, and was clearly a decade ahead of its time (the director was not yet the massive cultural figure he would become, and frankly, neither was his leading man, and certainly the two electrifying film newcomers Scorsese introduces us to were unknown quantities, audience-wise). Even so, Raging Bull is clearly the best movie of the year, with its superb cast, unrelenting brutality, and unbelievably on-point crew working at their uppermost powers (Thelma Schoonmaker's quicksilver editing may be the best of all time). In fact, the only other movie to come close to Raging Bull in craft quality is another black-and-white film, David Lynch's The Elephant Man (this is the first year in a couple of decades to feature two B&W movies in the running for Best Picture). And we’re not even beginning to talk about the Kubrick movie with which so many film fans are justifiably obsessed! And we're leaving out fantastic works like Kagemusha, Coal Miner's Daughter (whose lead actress obviously deserved her Oscar playing country star Loretta Lynn), the unjustly maligned Heaven's Gate, The Empire Strikes Back, Altered States, The Long Riders, and The Stunt Man. Plus such fine comedy this year, from Airplane!, Used Cars, The Blues Brothers, Fatso, Seems Like Old Times, Melvin and Howard, Bronco Billy, Caddyshack, The Gods Must Be Crazy, and Nine to Five. By the way, the Original Song category this year was insanely jam-packed with great tunes from movies as diverse as One Trick Pony, Fame, Urban Cowboy, Foxes, Xanadu, Nine to Five, American Gigalo, Popeye, Honeysuckle Rose, and The Jazz Singer! Strangely, though, the documentary output was non-existent, to the point where I had to omit the category this year. Even so, man, I tell ya, 1980 was a superb time for movies! 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: RAGING BULL (US, Martin Scorsese)
(2nd: Ordinary People (US, Robert Redford)
followed by: The Shining (US/UK, Stanley Kubrick)
Kagemusha (Japan, Akira Kurosawa)
The Elephant Man (UK/US, David Lynch)
The Long Riders (US, Walter Hill)
Coal Miner’s Daughter (US, Michael Apted)
The Empire Strikes Back (US, Irwin Kershner)
One Trick Pony (US, Robert M. Young)
The Stunt Man (US, Richard Rush)
Heaven’s Gate (US, Michael Cimino)
Altered States (US, Ken Russell)
Fame (US, Alan Parker)
Airplane! (US, Jerry Zucker, David Zucker, and Jim Abrahams)
Used Cars (US, Robert Zemeckis)
Breaker Morant (Australia, Bruce Beresford)
The Long Good Friday (UK, John McKenzie)
Inside Moves (US, Richard Donner)
The Changeling (Canada, Peter Medak)
Carny (US, Robert Kaylor)
The Blues Brothers (US, John Landis)
Fatso (US, Anne Bancroft)
My Bodyguard (US, Tony Bill)
The Big Red One (US, Samuel Fuller)
Night of the Juggler (US, Robert Butler)
Berlin Alexanderplatz (West Germany, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
Stardust Memories (US, Woody Allen)
Atlantic City (US/Canada, Louis Malle)
Mon Oncle d’Amérique (France, Alain Resnais)
Out of the Blue (US, Dennis Hopper)
The Great Santini (US, Lewis John Carlino)
Resurrection (US, Daniel Petrie)
Return of the Secaucus Seven (US, John Sayles)
Permanent Vacation (US, Jim Jaramusch)
Playing For Time (US, Daniel Mann)
Bad Timing (A Sexual Obsession) (US/UK, Nicolas Roeg)
Melvin and Howard (US, Jonathan Demme)
Bronco Billy (US, Clint Eastwood)
Dressed to Kill (US, Brian de Palma)
Urban Cowboy (US, James Bridges)
Seems Like Old Times (US, Jay Sandrich)
Nine to Five (US, Colin Higgins)
Brubaker (US, Stuart Rosenberg)
Foxes (US, Adrian Lyne)
The Ninth Configuration (US, William Peter Blatty)
The Fog (US, John Carpenter)
Rude Boy (UK, Jack Hazan and David Mingay)
Spetters (Netherlands, Paul Verhoeven)
The Last Metro (France, François Truffaut)
McVicar (UK, Tom Clegg)
The Idolmaker (US, Taylor Hackford)
The Dogs of War (US, John Irvin)
Private Benjamin (US, Howard Zieff)
Popeye (US, Robert Altman)
Gloria (US, John Cassavetes)
The Gods Must Be Crazy (South Africa, Jamie Urys)
A Small Circle of Friends (US, Rob Cohen)
Somewhere in Time (US, Jeannot Szwarc)
Foolin' Around (US, Richard T. Heffron)
American Gigolo (US, Paul Schrader)
Breaking Glass (UK, Brian Gibson)
The Blue Lagoon (US, Randal Kleiser)
Caddyshack (US, Harold Ramis)
The Apple (US/West Germany, Menahem Golan)
Cruising (US, William Friedkin)
Times Square (US, Allan Moyle)
Forbidden Zone (US, Richard Elfman)
Taxi Zum Klo (West Germany, Frank Ripploh)
Xanadu (US, Robert Greenwald)
Flash Gordon (US/UK, Mike Hodges)
The Jazz Singer (US, Richard Fleischer)
Friday the 13th (US, Sean Cunningham)
Insatiable (US, Stu Segall))



ACTOR: Robert De Niro, RAGING BULL (2nd: Timothy Hutton, Ordinary People (won as Supporting Actor), followed by: Jack Nicholson, The Shining; Tommy Lee Jones, Coal Miner’s Daughter; Peter O’Toole, The Stunt Man; John Hurt, The Elephant Man; Bob Hoskins, The Long Good Friday; Robert Duvall, The Great Santini; John Savage, Inside Moves)



ACTRESS: Sissy Spacek, COAL MINER‘S DAUGHTER (2nd: Ellen Burstyn, Resurrection, followed by: Mary Tyler Moore, Ordinary People; Linda Manz, Out of the Blue; Vanessa Redgrave, Playing for Time; Theresa Russell, Bad Timing (A Sexual Obsession); Debra Winger, Urban Cowboy; Shelley Duvall, The Shining)



SUPPORTING ACTOR: Donald Sutherland, ORDINARY PEOPLE (2nd: Joe Pesci, Raging Bull , followed by: Levon Helm, Coal Miner’s Daughter; Scatman Crothers, The Shining; Jack Thompson, Breaker Morant; Matt Dillon, My Bodyguard; Judd Hirsch, Ordinary People; Cliff Gorman, Night of the Juggler)



SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Cathy Moriarty, RAGING BULL (2nd: Eva Le Gallienne, Resurrection, followed by: Pamela Reed, The Long Riders; Charlotte Rampling, Stardust Memories; Mary Steenburgen, Melvin and Howard; Dolly Parton, Nine to Five; Beverly D’Angelo, Coal Miner’s Daughter; Diana Scarwid, Inside Moves)



DIRECTOR: Martin Scorsese, RAGING BULL (2nd: Stanley Kubrick, The Shining, followed by: Robert Redford, Ordinary People; Akira Kurosawa, Kagemusha; David Lynch, The Elephant Man; Richard Rush, The Stunt Man; Walter Hill, The Long Riders; Alan Parker, Fame)



NON-ENGLISH LANGUAGE FILM: KAGEMUSHA (Japan, Akira Kurosawa) (2nd: Berlin Alexanderplatz (West Germany, Rainer Werner Fassbinder), followed by: Mon Oncle d’Amérique (France, Alain Resnais); Spetters (Netherlands, Paul Verhoeven); The Last Metro (France, François Truffaut))  



LIVE ACTION SHORT: A JURY OF HER PEERS (US, Sally Heckel) (2nd: Act of God (UK, Peter Greenaway), followed by: Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (US, Les Blank); Making The Shining (US, Vivian Kubrick); Closet Cases of the Nerd Kind (US, Rick Harper and Bob Rogers))



ANIMATED SHORT: THE FLY (Poland, Farenc Rofulsz) (2nd: The History of the World in Three Minutes Flat (Canada, Michael Mills), followed by: Le Menage (France, Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet)



ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, USED CARS (2nd: Bill Bryden, Steven Smith, Stacy Keach and James Keach, The Long Riders, followed by: Bo Goldman, Melvin and Howard; Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker, Airplane!; John Sayles, Return of the Secaucus Seven)

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Paul Schrader and Mardik Martin, RAGING BULL (2nd: Alvin Sargent, Ordinary People, followed by: Christopher DeVore, Eric Bergen and David Lynch, The Elephant Man; Jonathan Hardy, David Stevens and Bruce Beresford, Breaker Morant; Valerie Curtin and Barry Levinson, Inside Moves)

CINEMATOGRAPHY: Freddie Francis, THE ELEPHANT MAN (2nd: Vilmos Zsigmond, Heaven‘s Gate, followed by: Michael Chapman, Raging Bull; Takao Saito and Shoji Ueda, Kagamusha; John Alcott, The Shining)

ART DIRECTION: THE SHINING, Heaven’s Gate, The Empire Strikes Back, The Elephant Man, Kagemusha 

COSTUME DESIGN: THE ELEPHANT MAN, Kagemusha, Somewhere in Time, Heaven's Gate, Popeye



EDITING: RAGING BULL, Fame, The Long Riders, Coal Miner's Daughter, The Blues Brothers

SOUND: RAGING BULL, The Empire Strikes Back, Fame, The Elephant Man, Altered States 



ORIGINAL SCORE: Ry Cooder, THE LONG RIDERS (2nd: John Williams, The Empire Strikes Back, followed by: John Morris, The Elephant Man; John Corigliano, Altered States; John Barry, Inside Moves)



SCORING FOR A MUSICAL/ADAPTATION SCORING: Paul Simon, ONE TRICK PONY (2nd: Michael Gore, Fame, followed by: Harry Nilsson, Popeye)



ORIGINAL SONG: “Out Here On My Own” from FAME (Music by Michael Gore, lyrics by Leslie Gore) (2nd: “How The Heart Approaches What It Yearns” from One Trick Pony (Music and lyrics by Paul Simon), followed by: "Magic" from Xanadu (Music and lyrics by John Farrar); “On The Road Again” from Honeysuckle Rose (Music and lyrics by Willie Nelson); “On The Radio” from Foxes (Music by Giorgio Moroder, lyrics by Donna Summer); “Late in the Evening“ from One Trick Pony (Music and lyrics by Paul Simon); "Fame" from Fame (Music by Michael Gore, lyrics by Dean Pitchford); "Call Me" from American Gigolo (Music by Giorgio Moroder, lyrics by Debbie Harry); “Is It Okay If I Call You Mine?” from Fame (Music and lyrics by Paul McCrane); "Could I Have This Dance" from Urban Cowboy (Music and lyrics by Wayland Holyfield and Bob House); "America" from The Jazz Singer (Music and lyrics by Neil Diamond); "I Sing The Body Electric" from Fame (Music by Michael Gore, lyrics by Dean Pitchford); "Look What You've Done to Me" from Urban Cowboy (Music and lyrics by Boz Scaggs and David Foster); “Looking for Love” from Urban Cowboy (Music and lyrics by Wanda Mallette, Patti Ryan and Bob Morrison); “Nine to Five” from Nine to Five (Music and lyrics by Dolly Parton); "I'm Alright" from Caddyshack (Music and lyrics by Kenny Loggins); "Love on the Rocks" from The Jazz Singer (Music and lyrics by Neil Diamond); "He Needs Me" from Popeye (Music and lyrics by Harry Nilsson))

SPECIAL EFFECTS: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, Altered States, Superman II

MAKEUP: THE ELEPHANT MAN, Altered States, Raging Bull

The Encyclopedia of Cinematography (E-F)

Early Summer (Yuharu Atsutsa, 51)
Atsutsa's black-and-white photography highlights Ozu's masterful use of shape, line, and space.

East of Eden (Ted McCord, 55)
McCord and director Elia Kazan goose up some truly sumptuous Technicolor work with often jarring dutch angles and sneaky camera placements.

Edvard Munch (Odd-Geir Saether, 74) 
A troubled artist's life, seen through a restless, detail-oriented, documentary-like eye. 

Ed Wood (Stefan Czapsky, 94)
The film's evocative black-and-white work--some of the best ever, in my opinion--makes this low-budget world look incredibly lively and rich.

8 ½ (Gianni Di Venanzo, 63)
Di Venanzo's work here best captures Fellini's unique blending of the real and the surreal, with immutable blinding whites and startling blacks.  

Electra Glide in Blue (Conrad Hall, 73)
Hall's heroic Cinemascope work pits one man against an unforgiving, dwarfing desert backdrop. 

Elephant (Harris Savides, 2003)
With Savides' trained eye, we glide in and out of the halls of this doomed, eerily lit school, stalking both victims and perpetrators from fore and aft.  A surprising radiant movie! 

The Elephant Man (Freddie Francis, 80)
Francis' images seem as if they've been directly beamed from 19th Century Britain; despite the widescreen, each shot seems like absolutely authentic Dagurreotype work.  

Elvira Madigan (Jorgan Persson, 67)  
Incredibly influential and romantic photography; it left its eternal stamp on epics and commercials alike.  Its effects are being felt on movies even today.

The Emerald Forest (Phillippe Rousselot, 85)  
Gorgeous cool greens and blues overtake this strange trip into tribalism.  

Empire of the Sun (Allan Daviau, 87)
War as seen through a child's wide eyes, with epic movement and fantastic emotion.  

The End of Summer (Asakazu Nakai, 61)
Uncharacteristically open and colorful work at Ozu's behest.  

Enter the Void (Benoit Debie, 2009)
Absolutely dazzling POV camerawork, which floats up above us and truly gives us a God's eye view; the dazzling colors on display here are continually not to be believed. 

Eraserhead (Frederick Elmes and Herbert Caldwell, 77)
Lynch's dream of dark and troubling things is given life with the stark contrasts and bland greys of Elmes and Caldwell's superb lensing.  

The Escape Artist (Stephen Burum, 82)
Though set in the 80s, Burum's photography (under the direction of another great cinematographer, Caleb Deschanel) makes our lead character's world into one dominated by memory and nostalgia.  

E.T. The Extraterrestrial (Allen Daviau, 82)  
Daviau's lovely camerawork gives a warm glow to Spielberg's fairy tale, punctuated with mysterious and even disturbing dark interludes.

Excalibur (Alex Thompson, 81)
Absolutely beautiful in every respect, and a pick of mine for some of the most impactful photography ever in movies.  Just a tremendous look to this film, matched with its stupendous art direction and costume design!

The Exorcist (Owen Roizman and Billy Williams, 73) 
Roizman's nearly trademarked blue tints are all over the autumnal Georgetown sequences, while Williams blazes through with bright oranges in the Iraq prologue.  Also excellent in its role in helping sell the special effects and makeup.  

Eyes Wide Shut (Larry Smith, 99)
Kubrick's last cameraman infuses this dreamlike tale with a surplus of reds, pinks, and purples--the colors of passion--while maintaining a continually light-dappled look appropriate for its Christmas-time setting.
 

The Fabulous Baker Boys (Michael Ballhaus, 89)  
Another example of an overwhelming sense of nostalgia, while in the present. 

Fahrenheit 451 (Nicolas Roeg, 66)
Ridiculously bright primary colors; an example of the photography being better than the actual film.

Fail-Safe (Gerald Hirchfeld, 64)
Shocking contrasts, lens choices, and angles. The use of black-and-white here sears itself into your brain, particularly in its dreamy beginning and its dreary end.

Falling Down (Andrzej Bartkowiak, 93)
The downside of L.A., perfectly and believably captured.

The Fall (Colin Watkinson, 2006) 
Superbly huge and astounding. An underrated epic that rightfully should take its place alongside all the most notable film adventures.

Fame (Michael Seresin, 80)
I love the New York-y work here. This film looks like no other. It's simply marvelous to look at.  

Fanny and Alexander (Sven Nykvist, 83)
Definitely among the greatest of all examples of not only Nykvist's work, but of all cinematic photography, ever. 

Far From Heaven (Edward Lachman, 2002)
Absolutely incredible colors all throughout, in deft tribute to the Douglas Sirk look.  

Far from the Madding Crowd (Nicolas Roeg, 67)
Roeg, taking a break from the bright colors, nailing the gloriously authentic visage of the story's time period.  

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Nicola Picorini, 98) 
Trippy brilliance. 

Fellini Satyricon (Giuseppe Rotunno, 69) 
Shot by shot, totally incredible. How was one person able to do this?  I ask you? 

Fiddler on the Roof (Oswald Morris, 71)
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful--perhaps some of the best cinematography ever. Each and every shot, you just want to eat it up. 

Fight Club (Jeff Cronenweth, 99)
Stupendous in its portrayal of both tremendous wealth and supreme squalor. 

The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T (Frank Planer, 53)
Incredibly vidid!  Like nothing else out there...the supreme representation of Dr. Suess on film.

The Flight of the Phoenix (Joseph Biroc, 65)
A gorgeous, multi-colored adventure film, with Biroc's surprisingly lively lighting and camera angles. 

Flashdance (Donald Peterman, 83) 
Along with Ridley and Tony Scott's movies, the progenitor of that smoky 80s look, and extremely influential in that regard. 

Floating Weeds (Kazuo Miyagawa, 59) 
More sharp angles and vivid colors from the Ozu camp.

Fly Away Home (Caleb Deschanel, 96)
Director Carroll Ballard reteamed with his Black Stallion photographer Deschanel, with similarly sublime and inspiring results.

The Fountain (Matthew Libatique, 2006)
A fantastic story with equally glorious imagery, spread out over a millennium's expanse. 

Frankenstein (Arthur Edeson, 31) 
Iconic photography which defined what horror was to look like for many years to come.  

Full Metal Jacket (Douglas Milsome, 87)  
Deep greens, beiges and cobalt blues dominate the first half, with reds, oranges and greys taking over the final portion of Kubrick's descent into the madness of Vietnam.  

Funny Face (Ray June, 57)
June's ridiculously adventurous and colorful camerawork constantly feels as if it's too unureal to actually exist.  

Forgotten Movie Songs #15: "Is It Okay If I Call You Mine?" from FAME

It's a tiny little scene in a sort of great big movie. It stars only one character--not the scads of kids we remember pouring out of the front of New York's High School for the Performing Arts during the performance of its #1 Oscar-winning title song. And, yet, Paul McCrane's single solo musical performance seen in 1980's Fame remains a fan favorite in a picture filled with great music. The score's main writer, Michael Gore, picked up two Academy Awards for his work on Fame (and was nominated for a third, for writing the moving "Out Here On My Own" for Irene Cara to sing at the piano midway through the movie). But, even though McCrane wrote the precise music and lyrics to this lonely ballad, he hardly got any recognition for it (he did get a Grammy nomination out of the deal, though, as a contributor to the soundtrack; he also sang the vocals to another track called "Dogs In The Yard").

In the film, McCrane plays Montgomery Macneil, a soft-spoken acting student whom we think has a crush on one of our female leads (the cute Maureen Teefy as Doris Finsecker). Seeing them together, a mutual friend--comic actor Ralph Garci (the always reliable Barry Miller)--decides to sharpen his wits on the boy, especially after Montgomery reveals his homosexuality to the class in a soul-baring monologue (where would the TV show Glee be without this movie?). While Doris and Ralph are out one night, getting stoned and taking in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Montgomery is left alone in his Times Square flat to ponder his seclusion, with only a guitar in which to take comfort. I love this relaxed, urban taste to this scene--how it begins with a beautiful late 70s Times Square vista (complete with ads for the Broadway productions of Grease and Annie), and then centers in on this little red dot way up in the sky, where Montgomery sits, lit by a flashing red neon sign. This IS the definition of isolation on film. By the way, there is nothing in Fame that hints at McCrane's future in portraying two notable villains--the doomed Emil in Paul Verhoeven's RoboCop, and the sharp-tongued Dr. Robert Romano on the long-running TV drama ER.

Interestingly, the song would not have been included in the film had director Alan Parker not heard McCrane singing it on-set; McCrane had written the song in high school and, sensing its teenagery perfection, Parker instantly crafted a scene around it. The song is called "Is It Okay If I Call You Mine," and its words and music are by singer Paul McCrane. Judging from all the gushy videos up on YouTube for this song--like this one I've included (because MGM has blocked all other clips, damn them)--there are more than a few people who agree with my loving this song:



Is it okay if I call you mine?
Just for a time
And I will be just fine
If I know that you know that I'm
Wanting, needing your love
Oh

If I ask of you is it all right
If I ask you to hold me tight
Through a cold, dark night
'Cause there may be a cloudy day in sight
And I need to let you know that I might
Be a-needing your love
Oh

And what I'm trying to say isn't really new
It's just the things that happen to me
When I'm reminded of you

Like when I hear your name,
Or see a place that you've been
Or see a picture of your grin,
Or pass a house that you've been in
One time or another.

It sets off somethin' in me I can't explain.
And I can't wait to see you again.
Oh, babe, I love your love
Oh

And what I'm trying to say isn't really new
It's just the things that happen to me
When I'm reminded of you