GMD Social Poll: Top Ten Films of 1968

[challenge_everything]

The Great Silence probably would have made my list, except I've never managed to finish the damn thing.
Not a big fan of The Devil Rides Out. Christopher Lee as a good guy? Nah.

 

[CiG]

4th) Once Upon a Time in the West directed by Sergio Leone



Voted for by:
@challenge_everything (1st place)
@CiG (1st place)
@Anom@nder Rake (2nd place)
@RadicalThrasher (2nd place)
@Einherjar86 (3rd place)
@no country for old wainds (unranked)

Spoiler

IMDB
Main cast:

Charles Bronson


Henry Fonda


Jason Robards


Claudia Cardinale

TOTAL POINTS: 51.5

 

[CiG]

3rd) Rosemary's Baby directed by Roman Polanski



Voted for by:
@challenge_everything (2nd place)
@Einherjar86 (2nd place)
@jimmy101 (2nd place)
@Anom@nder Rake (3rd place)
@Krow (3rd place)
@CiG (4th place)
@Slammed (4th place)
@Bloopy (9th place)
@no country for old wainds (unranked)

Spoiler

IMDB
Main cast:

Mia Farrow


John Cassavetes


Ruth Gordon


Sidney Blackmer

TOTAL POINTS: 64.5

 

[CiG]

2nd) Night of the Living Dead directed by George A. Romero



Voted for by:
@Krow (1st place)
@challenge_everything (3rd place)
@CiG (3rd place)
@Anom@nder Rake (4th place)
@Einherjar86 (4th place)
@jimmy101 (4th place)
@RadicalThrasher (5th place)
@Bloopy (6th place)
@Slammed (6th place)
@no country for old wainds (unranked)

Spoiler

IMDB
Main cast:

Duane Jones


Judith O'Dea

TOTAL POINTS: 68.5

 

[CiG]

1st) 2001: A Space Odyssey directed by Stanley Kubrick



Voted for by:
@Anom@nder Rake (1st place)
@Einherjar86 (1st place)
@jimmy101 (1st place)
@Slammed (1st place)
@Bloopy (2nd place)
@CiG (2nd place)
@challenge_everything (5th place)
@RadicalThrasher (9th place)
@no country for old wainds (unranked)

Spoiler

IMDB
Main cast:

Keir Dullea


Gary Lockwood


Douglas Rain

TOTAL POINTS: 71.5

 

[challenge_everything]

No surprises with the top 5 there.

 

[CiG]

This year (and I suspect the rest of the 60's in general) made me feel woefully uneducated on foreign cinema.

 

[challenge_everything]

Not that I'd call myself an expert, but I feel the 60s, more than any other decade, Hollywood really lags behind European cinema (French and Italian in particular). Europe had moved to the auteur model of film-making by that stage while Hollywood was still trying to wean itself off the producer-controlled studio system.

 

[CiG]

Yet at the same time they fundamentally changed the direction of Hollywood with Once Upon a Time in the West. Its influence on New Hollywood at least for me seems very obvious.

 

[challenge_everything]

Yet at the same time they fundamentally changed the direction of Hollywood with Once Upon a Time in the West. Its influence on New Hollywood at least for me seems very obvious.

Leone is just one example but you could pick dozens of others. The French nouvelle vague and polar movements were hugely influential on New Hollywood, as was Italian neorealism and giallo, Antonioni, Bergman, Tarkovsky, Bunuel, Fellini etc etc. And of course a number of new wave directors came out of that European movement themselves eg Polanski.

1967/1968 is about when you start seeing those influences emerge in Hollywood.

 

[CiG]

What other specific films would you say impacted New Hollywood? Like I said, I'm not very educated on 60's foreign cinema.

I think what makes me view Once Upon a Time in the West as one of the prime examples is because it manages to balance being artistic without alienating a wider audience. It probably made a lot of young aspiring filmmakers think they can make something "cool" and marketable without sacrificing too much artistic credibility.

I think spaghetti westerns in general probably had this effect though, not just that one.

 

[challenge_everything]

Well, you could probably write a book on that subject, I'll throw out the following: Repulsion (cited by Romero), Black Sabbath, Blow Up (basically ripped off by de Palma in Blow Out), The Wages of Fear (influenced Friedkin), 8 1/2 (a favourite of Scorsese, though I don't necessarily see it in his films), Peeping Tom, Les Diaboliques, Rififi, Contempt, Persona, Z, Le Samourai.