Sabin wrote:[
Off-topic: was 1975 really seen as a great year overall or just a great roster? Because expanding the roster to ten and including the likes of, sure, Amarcord, but also Day of the Locust, Shampoo, The Sunshine Boys, and whatever else would mean that nobody would look to 1975 as one of the great rosters. That distinction would be instantly void.
In fact I remember, at the end of 1975, a conversation with a still-friend, where he made the argument that, though he loved the few top movies of the year, he didn't think there was much beyond them (Shampoo was the only one that didn't represent a steep drop-off in quality) -- whereas, in the year prior, once you got past the best picture list (disregarding The Towering Inferno), there was still Murder on the Orient Express, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Day for Night, A Woman Under the Influence, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Badlands, The Sugarland Express, Harry and Tonto... A roster of ten might have made a better argument for 1974 as the pinnacle. Which matters more -- peak value, or line-up depth?
1972 might actually challenge 1975 for supremacy, if only I thought more highly of Sounder (it's a pleasant-enough movie, but I never got all the hoo-ha). Both '72 and '75 are to be commended for their defiance of the era's worst tendency: sticking in one true white elephant every year -- Dr. Dolittle, Airport, NIcholas and Alexandra, A Touch of Class (1969 had two, Hello, Dolly! and Anne of a Thousand Days). The Towering Inferno was pretty much the last such entry, until Ghost 16 years later -- not that there weren't bad movies nominated subsequently, but they were bad in a normal dreary-taste range, as opposed to "we don't care how big and dumb these movies are, we want to nominate them". The scary thing is, today, people are actually pushing for the inclusion of such films. I'll always remember the cheer I heard when The Blind Side was read out as nominee.
If you don't insist on December-to-December year designations, I'd argue the greatest period of movie releases (on a NY schedule) of my lifetime was March 1971 to March 1972. This encompassed The Conformist, Carnal Knowledge, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Klute, Sunday Bloody Sunday, The Last Picture Show, The French Connection, Straw Dogs, A Clockwork Orange, Cabaret, The Godfather and (if you extend just a few days) The Sorrow and the Pity. (With, as supporting contenders, Taking Off, Bananas, The Go-Between, Who is Harry Kellerman...?, Billy Jack, Fiddler on the Roof, Dirty Harry, The Hospital, and The Garden of the Finzi-Continis.) That's a decade of great stuff on today's calendar.
And, yeah, I still stick by American Beauty. As I'm sure I've said here many times before, when people say a film's reputation has collapsed, it generally only means people who never liked it have bullied their taste through and made it accepted wisdom in certain circles. I'm always going to march to my own drummer.