1980s: Blockbusters and a lot of great gems (Part One)

Raging Bull (1980)
Directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert De Niro in a dramatic tragedy based on the real-life story of a stubborn middle-weight boxing champion as he struggles to be a champion. The movie chronicles the rise and tragic self-destructive fall of boxer Jake LaMotta and is loosely based on his own book by the same name. The 1940s boxing champion inflicts wounds upon himself both in- and outside the ring due to his personal and marital life, while he legally brutalizes opponents in the ring. True to life in the Italian ghetto, the film is filled with elements of the first generation of the Italian-American subculture. The film was both praised and hated at the time of its release, but has since been rated as one of the best films of its decade. Robert De Niro completely immersed himself in the role by altering his physical appearance (he gained about 60 pounds, a world-record for most weight gained for a film up until recently) in an ultimate method-acting performance. He rigorously trained with LaMotta for the boxing sequences for several weeks before they started filming. The film was shot entirely in black and white and used several innovative techniques, including slow-motion with varying camera speeds, 360 degree pans and tilted camera angles for various fight scenes. The lighting was delibarately made harsh and stark to provide an expressionistic look and feel of the brutality inside the ring.

Ordinary People (1980)
Robert Redford’s directorial debut tells the story of the disintegration of an upper middle class family in Illinois following the death of their oldest son. Calvin and Beth Jarrett’s two teenage sons, Buck and Conrad, are involved in a sailing accident. Buck dies and Conrag is so tormented by survivor’s guilt and post-traumatic stress disorder that he attempts to take his own life. After a long stay in a psychiatric hospital, Conrad returns home, but feels alienated from his friends and family. After a friend commits suicide, Conrad goes back to being depressed again, and it falls on Calvin’s shoulders to try to salvage the remains of his family. The movie was nominated for six Oscars and won four, including Robert Redford for Best Director.

The Shining (1980)
Director Stanley Kubrick’s intense horror film and haunted house masterpiece starring Jack Nicholson. It is a beautiful, stylish work that distanced itself from the blood-letting and gore of most modern films in the horror genre by using less gore and more subtle and symbolic motifs. The film was based on horror author Stephen King’s best-selling novel by the same name, but bears little resemblance to it, something King was dissatisfied with. Kubrick explores the dimensions of the genre to create a great horror film about writer Jack Torrance, played by Nicholson, while serving as an off-season caretaker of an isolated snowbound hotel with his family. He soon becomes affected by the hotel, where a bloody series of murders were committed. The film expands on the rather simple plot of domestic tragedy and creates lush images of the ornate interior of the main set. Kubrick used a Steadicam in groundbreaking fashion and filmed most of the horror in broad daylight or brightly-lit scenes, and built an unforgettable sensation of terror and the paranormal.

Raiders of The Lost Ark (1980)
Steven Spielberg’s immensely successful summer box-office hit is a spectacular, non-stop action/adventure film and was the first full collaboration between Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. Harrison Ford took the role of the adventurous hero archaeologist when Tom Selleck declined the role and chose to pursue his TV career. Raiders is an entertaining film with some of the greatest technical effects, stunts, and continously chained-together action sequences created at ILM, and has some unforgettable scenes like the underground Egyptian temple filled with snakes, and the retribution visited upon the rival French archaeologist and his Nazi companions when the Ark is opened. The musical score, which was composed by John Williams, added an air of excitement to the movie. The film was nominated for eight Oscars and won four, mostly for technical categories.

Time Bandits (1980)
A fantasy film produced and directed by Terry Gilliam, which also co-wrote the screenplay with Michael Palin. A young boy named Kevin awakes by a noise coming from his wardrobe. Suddenly a knight on horseback bursts through the doors and rides off into an avenue of trees that temporarily replaces one wall. Kevin, eager to see what emerges from the wardrobe next, prepares himself with a flashlight the next night. This time it is a group of six dwarves. As they consult a map trying to find their way out, a wind picks up in the room and the supreme being appears, demanding that they return the map that they have stolen. Pushing a wall in the room, the six dwarves and Kevin escape into a black void. The stolen map shows time portals, holes in the fabric of space/time. It was supposed to help the dwarves repair the space/time fabric, but once they were kicked out of the repair department of the universe, they decided to use it to get stinking rich. The film’s sense of humour is satirical and dark, and it was the first film in which Gilliam’s unique visual style was fully extended.

Das Boot (19801
An anti-war feature film directed by Wolfgang Petersen, adapted from a novel of the same name by Lothar-Günther Buchheim, it is the definite U-Boat movie. The film is about the story of a single mission of one U-boat, U-96, and shows the men serving aboard it as ordinary individuals with a desire to do their best for their comrades and country. The story is based on the real U-96, which was commanded by Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock, one of Germany’s top U-boat aces during the war. He served as a consultant for the movie, along with Hans-Joachim Krug, the former first officer of U-219. Petersen’s meticulous attention to detail resulted in an extremely realistic and historically accurate movie.

John Carpenter's Escape from New York (1981)
A science-fiction action film directed, scored and co-written by John Carpenter which is arguably the first example of the cyberpunk genre. The film is set in a dystopian future of 1997 where World War III has broken out. Due to an overwhelming wave of crime, the government built a wall around Manhattan and turned it into a maximum security prison. Air Force One is deliberately crashed inside the prison zone and the president is held hostage. At the same time, “Snake” Plissken is about to be processed on Ellis Island for attempted robbery. He has an impressive military record and is a skilled Special Forces veteran who has received many awards. Plissken is offered a full pardon in exchange for saving the president.

Blade Runner (1982, Director’s Cut)
One of the most influential and enduring science-fiction films of all time, directed by Ridley Scott with a screenplay written by Hampton Fancer and David Peoples, based on the novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” by Philip K. Dick. Originally it was a box-office disaster, much due to the happy ending and a dull voice-over that was forced to be inserted into the film by the studio, and that it faced Spielberg’s E.T. at the opening weekend. It wasn’t until ten years later that a director’s cut would appear, dropping the voice-over, removing the happy ending, and restoring the film’s original darker and contemplative vision. The enigmatic, visually-complex film is a futuristic film noir detective thriller in the cyberpunk genre. The film takes place in a dystopic Los Angeles in 2019, with the main chracter being a former police officer/bounty hunter who is reluctantly dispatched by the police to search for a group of renegade android replicants that have been created with limited life spans. The complex theme in the film deals with the quest for immortality, the nature of humanity, and what it means to be truly human. The film is filled with fantastic, imaginative visual effects of a future dystopic Los Angeles conceived by futuristic design artist Syd Mead. It has inspired dozens of other movies, including “Batman”, “Johnny Mnemonic”, “Strange Days”, “The Fifth Element”, “Dark City”, “The Matrix”, “Artificial Intelligence”, “I , Robot”, and many more.

Gandhi (1982)
Directed by Richard Attenborough, it is a biography or documentary about the life of Mohandas K. Gandhi, the leader of the non-violent resistance movement against British colonial rule in India during the first half of the 20th century. Starring Ben Kingsley as Ghandi, the film begins with his assassination and funeral in 1948, then goes back to the first point in his life where he experiences his biggest humiliation. He campaigns for equal rights for all Indians in South Africa, and at a later time in life he proceeds to do the same in his home-country of India by using the same tactics of non-violent and non-cooperative means. The film was nominated for eleven Oscars and won eight.

The Thing (1982)
John Carpenter’s science-fiction film was his first venture into studio film-making and also a rare instance in which Carpenter was not scoring his own film, which was instead done by composer Morricone. The story takes place in Antarctica during the winter of 1982. An American research station receives a surprise visit from two seemingly insane Norwegian team members from another scientific research station who are chasing and trying to kill a dog, while screaming “That’s no dog, it’s some sort of thing!” in Norwegian. When investigating the other research station, the Americans discovers that the Norwegians found the remains of something massive buried under the ice. After a shocking incident involving the dog back at their own base, one of the Americans concludes that what they are dealing with is an organism that imitates other lifeforms perfectly. The possibility that one of them may be the thing grows bigger, and claustrophobia and paranoia spreads among the scientists.

Scarface (1983)
Directed by Brian De Palma, written by Oliver Stone, and starring Al Pacino in arguably his best role ever as Tony Montana, a fictional Cuban refugee who comes to Florida via a mass immigration of refugees. Tony becomes a gangster during the 1980s cocaine boom, and the movie chronicles his rise to the top of Miami’s criminal underworld and subsequent downfall. It was first released to little fanfare and being critized for its controversy regarding violence and colorful language, but despite this it grossed $65 million worldwide. Since then, however, the movie has re-emerged and is celebrated for being one of the best movies of all time.

War Games (1983)
A science-fiction film directed by John Badham. The film stars Matthew Broderick in his first major film role, co-starring Barry Corbin and John Wood, among others. The movie starts with a psychological test of a missile combat crew where they have to turn the key when given a launch order. It turns out 20% of the crew failed to launch during the exercise, and so it is decided to replace human missile crews with a computer called WOPR. A high-school hacker accidentily hacks into WOPR to play games. He discovers what he believes to be a simulation game called “Global Thermonuclear Warfare” and starts to play it. Not known to him, WOPR sets in motion preparations for a real attack against the Soviet Union. The movie was a hit, grossing in over $60 million after five months in the US. At that time, the NORAD set was the most expensive single movie set built, which cost $1 million.