Film Discussion Brunch: The Films of 1975

(UPDATE 7/14: More movie discussion possibilities from member suggestions posted to list below!)

This July, The Chicago Film Discussion Group continues our tradition of looking back 50 years, which means it's time to talk about the films of 1975! At the midpoint of movies' most creative and adventurous decade, we got unique takes on science fiction, sports movie, film noir, period romance, spy thriller, and especially the musical. Plus several superlative entries from the New Film Waves here (Hal Ashby, Robert Altman, Arthur Penn) and abroad (Milos Forman, Rainer Fassbinder). And let's not forget the film focusing on facing off against a deadly animal threat - the killer rabbit from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail".

There's such an overabundance of cinematic gold in this year that though we'll provide a list of some of the more notable ones below we want to emphasize that in no way are we going to go through all of them nor are there expectations people have seen a particular one. It will be a more free-form discussion where people bring up the films of 1975 that most interest them, and the list below serves as an inspiration for the variety and quality of films from that remarkable movie year!

Notable 1975 films:

· Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick)
· A Boy and His Dog (L.Q. Jones)
· Dersu Uzala (Akira Kurosawa)
· Dog Day Afternoon (Sidney Lumet)
· The Eiger Sanction (Clint Eastwood)
· Fox and His Friends (Rainer Fassbinder)
· Jaws (Steven Spielberg)
· The Man Who Would be King (John Huston)
· Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Terry Jones / Terry Gilliam)
· Nashville (Robert Altman)
· Night Moves (Arthur Penn)
· One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Miloš Forman)
· The Return of the Pink Panther (Blake Edwards)
· The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Jim Sharman)
· Rollerball (Norman Jewison)
· Shampoo (Hal Ashby)
· Smile (Michael Ritchie)
· Three Days of the Condor (Sydney Pollack)
· Tommy (Ken Russell)

Other films recommended from members:

· Cooley High (Michael Schultz)
· The Lost Honor of Katarina Blum (Volker Schlöndorff & Margarethe von Trotta)
· The Passenger (Michelangelo Antonioni)
· Shivers (David Cronenberg)
· The Stepford Wives (Bryan Forbes)
· Trilogy of Terror (Dan Curtis)