Top Ten Movies of the 1980s

# 10
Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

1980

Directed by: Irvin Kershner
Written by: Lawrence Kasdan and Leigh Brackett
Story by: George Lucas
Cinematography by: Peter Suschitzky
Edited by: Paul Hirsch
Music by: John Williams
Starring: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams and Frank Oz

I hope nobody is upset that this classic blockbuster only made it to number ten on my list. It probably seems like more of an insult than praise to many people. Don't get me wrong, I love this movie. It has been a part of my life longer than any other movie on this list. Those who see any of the original Star Wars movie as kids know that the movies stay with you forever. And you can probably quote every scene without too much trouble. As much as I love it though, I could not justify placing it higher than number ten. Maybe the other movies don't match the scope and popularity of The Empire Strikes Back but they are all a lot more thought provoking and deserving of a higher ranking. I owe an explanation.

The whole Star Wars saga is a pastiche. It is an imitation or a copy of other stories, whether they be in movies, television or comics. Think about it in the university setting. George Lucas is just copying and pasting pieces of articles and essays by renowned academics in order to write his own paper. That would be considered plagiarism at university. This is essentially what he did when writing Star Wars. George Lucas is very open about paying tribute to his influences, but I think there is a bit of a problem when you copy something so closely, and the similarities are startling. For example, the basic characters of the movies are all taken from the Flash Gordon comic series. Also, of my favourite things about The Empire Strikes Back is Cloud City. As a child, the city floating in the clouds fascinated me and was one of my favourite things about the movie. What an imagination Lucas must have had. Or so I thought. Unfortunately, that idea too came from Flash Gordon. I can't help but think that there's something sleazy about pretty much taking credit for someone else's work. All of the influences are listed on Wikipedia if you want to look at them for yourself: . Now you may say it's homage, which of course is completely acceptable. It's possible to pay homage though without copying story lines and re-shooting famous scenes shot for shot though - see Tarantino.

Anyway, I didn't put The Empire Strikes Back on my list to rant about how much I hate Star Wars. I love Star Wars and this is definitely the finest of all of the installments. Notice that Lucas is only credited with the story too. Like the other Star Wars movies, this one has amazing interstellar scenes coupled with the amazing score by John Williams. Together they take you to a place that really feels like a galaxy far, far away. This asteroid field scene is a great example of this:



More than A New Hope in The Empire Strikes Back I think you really begin to identify with the characters a lot more too. The movie has a powerful emotional punch to go along with it. In particular as Han Solo and Princess Leia, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fischer do a great job of showing their budding romance throughout the movie. It's really fun to watch them go through all of the stages from hate to love. And this makes it all the more heartbreaking when they are separated after their first kiss in another classic scene:



Apparently the script had Han Solo replying with, "I love you too." So the story goes, Harrison Ford thought it was too cheesy and ad libbed on the spot with, "I know." Much more memorable.

Another reason why many people (including me) think this is the best of the trilogy is that it ends on such s down note - see Kevin Smith. Han's frozen in carbonite, Darth Vader is Luke's father, Luke lost his hand, the rebels are on the run, etc. When the movie first came out in 1980 it received mixed reviews. I imagine that many people were upset with the cliffhanger sad ending. Nowadays though, that is one of the main reason's that it's considered the best of the trilogy. The Empire Strikes Back may be pastiche but it's still a fantastic movie and will always have a special place in my heart. Whoops, sorry, I forgot to include the spoiler alert. If you haven't seen this movie though, you are not reading my blog. No worries. Here's that great final scene to end this installment:

For being the best of an amazing trilogy and a great sci-fi ride, Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back is in my opinion the 10th greatest movie of the 1980s.

Top Ten Movies of the 1970s

#1
Taxi Driver

1976

Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Written by: Paul Schrader
Cinematography by: Michael Chapman
Music by: Bernard Herrmann
Starring: Robert DeNiro, Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel, Cybill Sheperd, Peter Boyle, and Leonard Harris

So this is it. My favourite movie of the 1970s and possibly the greatest movie of all time. I'm not exactly sure how to explain what makes this movie so incredible so I'll take things one step at a time. Travis Bickle (Robert DeNiro) is a Vietnam War veteran who, being unable to sleep at nights, takes a job as a night shift taxi driver. After attempts to be a normal sociable human being fails and becomes more distressed and displays increasingly erratic behaviour. Eventually he gets mixed up in a plot to assassinate a Presidential candidate and in a prostitution ring involving a 12 year-old girl (Jodie Foster). His fall from grace is due to his uncontrollable behaviour and increasingly fragile emotional state.

One of the greatest things about this film is the character of Travis Bickle himself. As a character study, this is what pushes the film forward. Paul Scrader wrote the screenplay for this film while he was unemployed and living on the streets. At this time he was completely removed from the world with no social contacts and in a downward spiral of loneliness and depression. Travis is a reflection of the writer at this moment. He is completely disillusioned with life. Perhaps as a victim of the 1970s economic slump, he sees the whole world around him degenerating into chaos due to immorality and selfishness. Through his voice over monologues we here him express this:



From this clip you can also see that something is not right with Travis. He suffers from severe paranoia and delusions of grandeur. He sees himself as some sort of martyr for a cause which he cannot even articulate. Instead, he just focuses all of his negative feelings onto those around him to make himself feel better.

Something else important is shown in this clip though. Travis is the narrator for this story, we see it unfold through his point of view. He's completely untrustworthy though due to his paranoia and delusions of grandeur. This is one aspect of the film that I think goes unnoticed by most people who watch it. Scorsese's genius direction gives us subtle hints to this fact though. In the previous clip Travis begins speaking only to fumble over his words and begin his tirade again. This shows just how much control the character has over what is being presented to the viewer. He is able to start over again after making a mistake so that his message will come across exactly the way he wants it to. This is one of the most fascinating things to me about the movie, and why it's one of my favourites.

Robert DeNiro is incredible as Travis. He takes up the challenge of playing such a demented character and does it with ease. In the long running battle between Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro, this is the role that for me turns battle in DeNiro's favour as a better actor. This improvised clip here has become legendary:



DeNiro's performance was so realistic and convincing that it influenced one of the most famous assassination attempts in history. On March 30th, 1981, John Hinckley Jr. almost killed President Ronald Reagan in Washington. In one of the most famous cases of real life imitating art, Hinckley was obsessed with Taxi Driver. He became fixated with Jodie Foster and actually began to stalk her in real life. When all of his advances failed, he decided to further mimic Travis Bickle's behaviour and tried to kill the President. He believed that if he did this, it would make him her equal and that then she would fall in love with him. In the trial that followed, all of this information came to public light. In the end, Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity. This is, understandably, one of the things that the movie is most famous for now.

Related to this, Travis' disillusionment with politics is one of the key themes of the movies. One of the subplots is that the primary campaign of Senator Palantine (Leonard Harris) who is expected to be a front runner in the next Presidential election. In his better moments, Travis is supportive of the Senator. This can be seen in this scene here:



Mistrust of politicians was at it's peak around this time. It was only two years after the Watergate scandal that forced President Nixon to resign from office. Concurrently, as mentioned in other blog entries, the 1970s was one when the United States was in decline. The economy was contracting due to the oil shocks and, especially in cities like New York, unemployment was rampant. People like Travis expect their political leaders to fix the problem hastily, but as Palantine says, "It's not gonna be easy, we have to make some radical changes." This answer and all of the rhetoric spouted by the Senator is not especially comforting to somebody who sees their whole world crash around them. Indeed, as in the case of Travis, it can make you focus all of your anger on a politician for seeming to cause or anyway not prevent your troubles. Travis and the whole country at this time though were in a hopeless situation. With such a plethora of problems it's hard to know where to start. Travis can't even articulate the problems he sees and just relies on calling New York a filthy city. This is such an important dilemma because if you can't focus your attention on one issue than you can't solve any. With this comes a sense of hopelessness that leads people to resort to extremism. This extremism is especially common during recessions and/or depressions. Travis' solution was to assassinate the Senator.

The film has countless layers which you can deconstruct. Every time I watch Taxi Driver I notice something new and interesting. Besides the story though, all of the pieces of the film fall in place perfectly. The score by legendary movie composer Bernard Herrmann (his last before his death) is amazing and combines the steely sounds of the urban decay of New York City along with the romantic harps of Travis' delusions. As mentioned, the acting is all top notch. The cinematography is memorable as well, capturing New York City at night.

What shines here the most though, is the brilliant direction of Scorsese. Every panning shot, overhead shot, slow motion shot, zoom, etc., is perfectly placed. It's almost like you're watching a composite of all over the innovations in film up to this point in time. But it's not a stylistic overload, every unique shot adds to the story in ways that the setting, plot and dialogue could not do on it's own. Like all good directors, he uses the camera to tell a story rather than just relying on the screenplay. This climatic scene is one of the more heavily loaded scenes in the whole movie as well is being the most violent. It is not the end of the movie though so I do not hesitate at putting it in my blog. You may consider it a spoiler to see it, in which I recommend you watch the movie in it's whole first. But this scene is incredible so either way you must watch it:



That overhead shot is just amazing isn't it. By the way, that clip was not just bad quality. The scene was so violent that Scorsese had to desaturate the colours in order to get an R rating for the movie. I think it's appropriate though. The dream like colours add to the uncertainly of the scene itself. Back to the idea of Travis as an untrustworthy narrator, we don't know if this is exactly the way the situation went down. What follows this scene, the actual ending is even more fantasy like. Again, we have to question whether an unstable character like Travis is telling us the truth. What of the tricky things that I love about this movie. What a great movie.

Taxi Driver is set in New York City. Looking back at my top ten movies of the 1970s, four others are also set in at least partially in New York (Husbands, Dog Day Afternoon, Annie Hall, and the Godfather part. II). The 1970s was the decade for New York I suppose. Taxi Driver takes the cake though for the best movie ever set in New York. Like La Dolce Vita did for Rome in the early 1960s, Taxi Driver does the same for the declining New York in the 1970s.

For it's great character study of 'God's lonely man' gone insane, Taxi Driver is in my opinion the greatest movie of the 1970s.