I love the huge spaces and the quietness of 70s films - the minimal soundtracks, the slower pace and the pauses, the buildup of tension and the storytelling this allows. We get curious, we get to work out what's going on by seeing it for ourselves. Like Kurosawa (bet he was an influence) Coppola's direction here is full of small, isolated human figures in large, empty places. Oddly it makes me think of Australian painter Christopher Smart, or of de Chirico.
Yeah, I had him mixed up with the the poet who wrote about Jeoffrey the cat!
The Parallax View
*seeks*
I love all those pre-Star Wars SF movies, too. Lots of dysoptias with big white bathrooms. Except Silent Running, which is teh suxx0r, although it was very amusing to see the ship from the movie getting nuked in BSG. >:-)
"The Conversation" was a project Coppola was trying to get off the ground before "The Godfather" (there's a book on Hollywood in the '70s called "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls" by Peter Biskind that gives the background) and I think it was very demonstrative of the alienation from institutions that Americans felt after Watergate - hence the small figures in large landscapes.
It's probably a trope that will resurface if the Bush adminstration ever collapses under its own hubris.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2004-12-06 06:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-06 07:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-06 07:48 pm (UTC)Another interesting film from the period (a personal favourite of mine) is The Parallax View.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-06 08:18 pm (UTC)Yeah, I had him mixed up with the the poet who wrote about Jeoffrey the cat!
The Parallax View
*seeks*
I love all those pre-Star Wars SF movies, too. Lots of dysoptias with big white bathrooms. Except Silent Running, which is teh suxx0r, although it was very amusing to see the ship from the movie getting nuked in BSG. >:-)
no subject
Date: 2004-12-06 07:53 pm (UTC)"The Conversation" was a project Coppola was trying to get off the ground before "The Godfather" (there's a book on Hollywood in the '70s called "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls" by Peter Biskind that gives the background) and I think it was very demonstrative of the alienation from institutions that Americans felt after Watergate - hence the small figures in large landscapes.
It's probably a trope that will resurface if the Bush adminstration ever collapses under its own hubris.