Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 101

Chicago (iittbunt SUNDAY, JANUARY 3, 1971 ENTERTA1TOIENT FEATURES STA3LPS COINS 5 Qi of ritic est Movie oice: 4 Jr Ik "i 1 i I y' '-r to'' I i 1 iff XX 1 7. "My Night At Maud's" 2. "WMSH" 3. "Women in Love" i1, vi a -iv fr ff, 7-" 4 4. "Five Easy Pieces" 5.

'TAe Passion of Anna" '31" intense. A Paramount release. Released in New York and Los Angeles in 1969. son, Alan Bates, Oliver Reed and Jennie Linden highlights a film throbbing with intelligence. A United Artists release.

Gene SiskeFs Favorites 400,000 stays cool set against the most vivid presentation of music on film. A ground-breaking documentary which that documentary material can be adapted to dramatic situations. A Warner Bros, release. 1. "My Night at Maud's" 2.

"lrASH" 3. "Women in Love" 4. "Five Easy Pieces" 5. "The Passion of Anna" 6. "Adalen '31" 7.

"Salesman" 8. "Woodstock" 9. "Trilogy" 10. "The Wild Child" 4. "Five Easy Pieces." I do not find Bobby Dupea's inability to make a commitment to a person, place or thing to be symptomatic of America or any of its generations.

But I do find Bobby as played by Jack Nicholson to be thoroly real. Carolyn Eastman's screenplay, based on a story by director Bob Rafelson, is packed with fully-developed supporting characters. It is rare to find a well-written part for a woman these days, but "Five Easy Pieces" contains three. Actresses Karen Black, Lois Smith and Susan Anspach provide us with the finest ensemble acting in any film this year. A Columbia release at the Esquire Theater.

7. "Salesman." Albert and David Maysles took their portable camera and sound equipment into the heartland of America following real door-to-door sales of plastic coated $49.95 Bibles and have come up with the searing documentary that says more about the condition of American life than any other film I've seen. Incredible emotion is generated by scenes such as a harried salesman trying to get a Florida woman who speaks halting English to buy a Bible she doesn't want and can't afford. And when her husband comes home and finds out that she did, there's going to be an argument and a lot of crying. And how does the salesman feel? He has cajoled, fenced, pleaded and insulted another human being to get his commission.

A Maysles Films release. Released in New York and Los Angeles in 1969. exhibited in Chicago for the first time during 1970. Omitted are films such as "Tristana," "Little Big Man," "This Man Must Die" and "The Confession," all of which have opened in New York, but failed to make it here by the end of the year. 'a 1.

"My Night at Maud's." Director Erich Rohmer has written a supremely intelligent morality play which owes as much success to Rohmer's understanding of human impulses as to his ability to capture the essence of a religious issue. Jean-Louis Trintignant is a bit of an Everyman as he runs between the sensual Maud and a pure Catholic blonde. Each character speaks and listens what a rarity in film today! to the others with quiet intelligence. Rohmer's clean direction is especially refreshing in a year when a shot in focus was threatening to become an endangered species. The best because it is the most intelligent film of the year.

A Pathe Contemporary Films release at the Three Penny Cinema. 9. "Trilogy." Three lean Truman Capote stories are brought to life by the startling performances of Mildred Nat-wick as a haunted old nanny who is living past her grave time; Maureen Stapleton as a widow who is just a little too hungry for the companionship of Martin Balsam; and Geraldine Page as a young boy's closest friend. Two of the stories, "A Christmas Memory" and "Among the Paths to Eden," appeared in slightly longer forms on television. Frank Perry's direction is equal to Capote's elegant style.

An Allied Artists release. Released in New York and Los Angeles in 1969. 10. "The Wild Child." A quiet story of the training of a wild boy who has grown up alone in the forests of France in 1790. Francois Truffaut's disciplined direction and acting as the boy's teacher is a solid statement in favor of civilization.

The silent opening sequence which introduces us to the child is a brilliant piece of filmmaking. A United Artists release. 8. "Woodstock." Glorious entertainment is provided by director Michael Wadleigh's manipulation of his. footage of the three-day love-rock festival.

The film has all the elements of a traditional drama introduction preparing Max Yasgur's farm; crisis the rain storm; and resolution nearly every one of the 5. "The Passion of Anna." Rarely has Ingmar Bergman's intensely self-critical nature been as apparent as in this story of four unfulfilled lives on a Swedish island. Bergman interrupts the story to have the actors discuss their characters as if to acknowledge his inability to communicate any insights he may possess. The fighting between Max Von Sydow and Liv Ullman and the fighting they do inside themselves indicates our desperate need for self-respect and the difficulties inherent when it is attained. All of which makes Bergman's self-doubt totally appropriate.

A United Artists release. 2. "MASII." From the opening helicopter shot with "Suicide is Painless" playing in the background to the final announcement over the hospital's loudspeaker, director Robert Altman has given us a totally original comedy that delights, transfixes and hurts. Altman evokes Elliott Gould's finest performance and displays an ability to select supporting actors as a fine artist chooses his paints. In one year, with "Brewster McCloud" and "MASH," Altman has made an indelible mark on American film.

A 20th Century -Fox release. isn't begging Gen. Omar Bradley for another chance to command, he is scaring the hell out of his troops. There was more to the man than that. "Joe" really has nothing to do with 1970.

It is a clever exploitation film which got lucky when a bunch of hard hats pounded some long hairs in New York City. Each of the film's major characters is overdrawn. Selecting the 10 best films doesn't allow for recognition of all of the year's fine work. Omitted outstanding efforts include Federico Fellini's "Fellini Satyricon," a troubling view of debauched Rome, which is diminished only by its lack of internal order; William Friedkin's adaptation of Mart Crowley's searing comedy, "The Boys in the Jean-Luc Godard's "Sympathy for the Devil 11," a call to action for those who would make the revolution; Robert Altman's "Brewster Mc-Cloud," an uplifting film about flight which gets in trouble when it tries to be a satire; and Mel Brooks' "The Twelve Chairs." It was a weak year for comedy. and westerns.

Sam Peckinpah had the best oater with "The Ballad of Cable Hogue," and Bud Yorkin and Norman Lear deserve some award for writing pure, unadultered zaniness with "Start the Revolution Without Me." And that should hedge enough bets. Here, then, are the top 10 films BEST doesn't necessarily mean most important. From the point of view of the movie industry, the three most important films of 1970 were "Woodstock," "Cotton 'Comes to Harlem" and "Love Story." Each is or will be an enormous financial success in a fresh category of film. As a result, each will inspire similar productions in 1971. "Woodstock," a film record of established popular music stars, is the new movie musical.

Hollywood has begun buying popular musicians rather than Broadway plays. By setting house records at the Woods Theater in Chicago, "Cotton Comes to Harlem" demonstrated that the market for "black" movies in urban centers is large indeed. And, in a year in which seemingly everyone in Hollywood was dropping his pants, "Love Story" indicated a vast sob-sister audience which apparently wants clean melodrama. And now for the year's best. A 10-best list is as notable for its exclusions as for its inclusions.

"Palton" and "Joe" are not on my list. Both have achieved unwarranted praise. The second half of the story of General George tells us nothing more than the first half: He was a classical warrior out of touch with the times. We continually watch the general try to bail himself out of trouble he gets into by opening his mouth. And if he 6.

"Adalen Ml." Bo Widerberg's craft as a director-writer is evident in bis controled dramatization of a labor strike in Sweden in 1931. I shudder to think what some "now" filmmakers might have done to this story. But Widcrberg wisely elects to tell a story of people, not politics. We get to know the strikers and their families thru a scries of fascinating episodes. The strikers torment a fellow worker who wants a drink, small children attach cardboard wings to their bodies and jump off a roof, another youth tries to seduce a girl thru hypnosis, while the workers debate their proper reactions to the scab labor.

By creating a warm portrait of a town, Widcrberg makes the final horror of the town's protest march that much more Pi Ki 1 fx -'J I k.w..j8. ttttmmmi tmtrnm mrm 3. "Women in Love." D. H. Lawrence never has been treated as well on film as in director Ken Russell's adaptation of his novel-as-essa on the realities and possibilities of interpersonal and communal love.

Larry Kramer's screenplay retains all the rich symbolism of Lawrence's mind. Lakes, trains, tunnels, figs, horses, bulls and mountains are all employed to satisfy even the most Jung-at-heart. A quartet of richly-textured performances by Glenda Jack f-r -W ..11 I if. I id? 7 ft' I rife, i 5. 1 1 if; 8.

"Woodstock" Wild Child" i.