BY THE NUMBERS: FAVORITE DIRECTORS OF THE 1970S

A mentally unstable Vietnam War veteran works as a night-time taxi driver in New York City where the perceived decadence and sleaze feed his urge for violent action.

1972 film by Peter Bogdanovich

1978 film by Nagisa Ōshima

A couple of high school graduates spend one final night cruising the strip with their buddies before they go off to college.

Based on one of the most important and popular works of Portuguese literature, Doomed Love was recently revealed to North American audiences as one of de Oliveira’s greatest works. Closely following Camilo Castelo Branco’s eponymous novel from 1862, de Oliveira creates a radical and unprecedented fusion of theatre, literature and cinema, which, according to Jonathan Rosenbaum, is rivaled only by von Stroheim’s Greed. In this doleful tale of forbidden passion, the doomed love of the title belongs to Teresa Albuquerque and Simão Botelho, whose feuding aristocratic families pave the way for a deadly ménage- à-trois when another woman steps in to take Teresa’s place. De Oliveira credits Straub-Huillet’s Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach as one of the major influences on the film, which is told through a bold series of tableaux vivants. Like the other works in his “Tetralogy,” Doomed Love makes great use of omniscient narration and a host of distancing effects (static camera, lack of close-ups), “paring things down to the unspectacular, so that when something dramatic does flare up . . . the result is tremendous” (Elliott Stein). The film was originally shot on 16mm and made for Portuguese TV where it unsurprisingly floundered and was subjected to scorn. But its mythic status grew and when a 35mm blow-up was theatrically released some time later, this film maudit was hailed as a European masterpiece, ensuring that de Oliveira was “recognized as one of the great modern filmmakers” (Randal Johnson). No cinephile can afford to miss this date with Doomed Love. (Cinematheque Ontario)

1975 film by Chantal Akerman

A young man, eternally 20, walks through history, through poverty, squalor and death. Eternally 20 and killed so many times -- killed because he has been protesting and has remained an agent-provocateur. He comes and goes, between stories, each story having an independent set-up and new characters, but all stories harping on the eternal reality: Poverty and Degradation. While the physical look of poverty and hunger remains unchanged, it is the mind and attitude that keeps on changing. At the end, the young man of 20 appears on the screen again, just killed, and “incites” the spectators to react.

A petty criminal fakes insanity to serve his sentence in a mental ward rather than prison. He soon finds himself as a leader to the other patients—and an enemy to the cruel, domineering nurse who runs the ward.

Pierre and Paul, journalist and writer respectively, team up to write a screenplay based on the real story of a young woman accused by her uncle of trying to kill him. They decide to meet her.

El Topo decides to confront warrior Masters on a trans-formative desert journey he begins with his 6 year old son, who must bury his childhood totems to become a man.

When the seaside community of Amity finds itself under attack by a dangerous great white shark, the town's chief of police, a young marine biologist, and a grizzled hunter embark on a desperate quest to destroy the beast before it strikes again.

In 1968 California, a Marine officer's wife falls in love with a former high school classmate who suffered a paralyzing combat injury in the war.

Ana, an eight-year-old girl living in Madrid with her grandmother and two sisters, mourns the death of her mother.

This controversial film was the first Filipino film invited to Cannes. Insiang endures abuse from her mother and betrayal from her lover. The town scamp Dado moves in with her mother to get to Insiang and eventually rapes her. But her mother blames her instead. Her innocence scattered, Insiang plans some unpredictable vengeance. With a realistic view on the lower depths of the Philippines, pioneer director Lino Brocka presents an astonishing cinematic experience in which a simple story flows richly to a dramatic twist.

The Ceddo try to preserve their traditional African culture against the onslaught of Islam, Christianity, and the slave trade. When King Demba War sides with the Muslims, the Ceddo kidnap his daughter, Princess Dior Yacine, to protest their forcible conversion to Islam. After trying to rescue the princess, various heirs to the throne are killed, and the King is murdered during the night. Eventually the kidnappers are killed and the princess is brought back to the village to confront the Imam, as all the villagers are being given Muslim names.

Four seedy criminal outcasts risk their lives in pursuit of redemption, both legal and moral, by driving unreliable trucks stocked with nitroglycerine through dangerous landscape to cap an oil well fire in a Central American banana republic. Featuring a trance-like score by Tangerine Dream and a visceral, astonishing performance by Roy Scheider, Friedkin's reinterpretation of Clouzot’s 1953 masterpiece is perhaps the best remake of all time and is among Friedkin’s most daring works. Three sequences alone –a chaotic car crash in Boston, the unloading of charred bodies in a Central American village, and the explosives laden trucks crossing a rickety storm-blown bridge – render Sorcerer a classic and retain their power to make audiences gasp. Released the same year as Star Wars, Friedkin's audacious masterpiece represents the braver road abandoned by the studio system.

An Irish rogue uses his cunning and wit to work his way up the social classes of 18th century England, transforming himself from the humble Redmond Barry into the noble Barry Lyndon.

The film chronicles Perceval's knighthood, maturation and eventual peerage amongst the Knights of the Round Table, and also contains brief episodes from the story of Gawain and the crucifixion of Christ.

It has been fifteen years since the death of her father, Agamemnon, and Elektra still burns with hatred for Aegisztosz, who conspired with Elektra's mother to kill him.

After returning from an errand to get bread, a young boy encounters a dog that frightens him making the journey to get home more difficult than he could’ve imagined.