Best Picture Winner: 1971

The French Connection (1971)

I remember, during those wonderful years of watching Siskel and Ebert spar week after week, hearing that the 1970s was the last decade for great movie making. It was the decade of Friedkin, Coppola, and Cimino. Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg would make their first classics. Studios were willing to give certain auteurs free reign because their artistry was winning awards. The subject matter of most of the Best Pictures of this decade was bleak, and would frequently feature less than happy endings. Some of this was informed by a political climate that included the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal. But with the failure of Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate (1980) and the blockbuster that was Star Wars (1977), the 1980s mostly said goodbye to the negative. It was time to accentuate the positive.

One could see the trend starting in the 1960s. Gang violence, Nazism, and poverty were given upbeat presentations in musicals West Side Story, The Sound of Music, and Oliver!, respectively. Racism added the needed element to make In the Heat of the Night more than just a murder mystery, although by film’s end the villain is brought to justice and no harm has come to the heroes. Midnight Cowboy looked at a subculture that involved criminals and hustlers, and these very types would be the heroes of the 1970s. But at least there was plenty of humor to offset the sadness. Even Patton, a film where the title character gets his wish to kick Nazi arse, ends on a down note because this guy isn’t allowed to take on the Russians. But with 1971’s The French Connection, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences would begin regularly honoring films that looked at the darker side of the human experience.

Based on true events, The French Connection deals with two New York City detectives' attempts to stop a heroin shipment from reaching the city streets. In Marseilles, France, Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey), a near-mythic drug smuggler, is arranging for a shipment of heroin into the United States. Detective Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle (Gene Hackman) and his partner Buddy "Cloudy" Russo (Roy Scheider) work the Big Apple narcotics beat when they learn from an informant that a big shipment of heroin is coming in. Soon, a cat-and-mouse game between Doyle and Charnier commences to see which one will win this battle in New York’s looming drug war.

While serious drug stories today are a dime a dozen, this was not the case at the time of The French Connection. Most films dealing with illegal substances (e.g. Easy Rider) saw the users as admirable rebels, or at least as harmless folk just trying to attain a new reality. The French Connection, on the other hand, looked at another side of the equation – how the drugs came to be available. This is quite a different viewpoint from the idea of certain drug use being a victimless crime.

The French Connection is presented as an intense action thriller that boasts several impressive set pieces. Doyle and Charnier engage is an exciting pursuit sequence where Doyle tries to keep up with Charnier through the streets and subways of New York. There is the attempt on Doyle’s life which takes place in a public housing district, where a roof-top sniper kills innocent people in an attempt to eliminate Doyle. This in turn leads to the now-classic car chase where Doyle commandeers a citizen’s car so he can follow the would-be assassin who is attempting to escape via an elevated train. There is virtually no let up in the tension and suspense.

The movie is constantly contrasting the luxurious lifestyle led by Charnier with Doyle’s unglamorous one. The film opens with Charnier shown living at a beautiful villa and presenting an expensive gift to his lovely wife. There is mention of a daughter. Doyle is shown dressed up as Santa Claus on a stake out, which ultimately leads to Russo getting a knife injury. Doyle is alone. While Charnier dines in a elegant restaurant on a multi-course meal, Doyle is shown outside shivering in the cold, wolfing down a slice of pizza and pouring out his cup of foul-tasting coffee. Charnier is elegantly dressed and always moves gracefully and calmly, while Doyle is unkempt and out of breath. Still, while Charnier is a wily fox, so is Doyle. They may have differing pay grades. But they do seem matched with respect to cunning and resourcefulness.

But the real kick in the gut delivered by The French Connection is how the film ends. One authority figure is killed in friendly fire and Charnier gets away. We do not get the satisfaction of seeing the main villain punished. Furthermore, title cards inform us that only the lower level smugglers got any time. The higher-ups escaped justice. Doyle has put his life at risk almost for nothing, even though the drugs will presumably not reach the streets.

And thus begins a trend in the Best Picture winners of the 1970s whereby the audience is told stories that have challenging themes and troubling outcomes. In the two Godfather films (1972 and 1974), the heroes are actually gangsters, and the law can’t touch them. The Sting (1973) deals with low-level criminals taking on the mafia. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) a convict sent to a mental hospital for observation emerges as some kind of savior to the patients with tragic results. Rocky (1976) deals with the brutality of the boxing ring, and while Rocky gets the girl he loses the match. Failed relationships form the storyline for Annie Hall (1977). The Deer Hunter (1978) explores the emotional cruelty of the Vietnam War. Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) looks at divorce. And, in case you still have a spring your step, Ordinary People (1980) tackles suicide.

Apparently that was enough, because the Academy changed its tune for most of the 1980s offering more positive, inspiring choices such as Chariots of Fire (1981), Gandhi (1982), Amadeus (1984), and Rain Man (1988). There would be still be the occasional nod to darker themes (e.g. 1986’s Platoon) and even the aforementioned films had their less-than-sunny plot threads. But there would not be the practically unrelenting focus on life’s dark corners in the 1980s as there was in the 1970s.

The truth is though that the 1970s did deal with realistic themes. Crime does actually pay for some people; people do break up and divorce; and people do take their own lives. These were – and still are – sad realities that, in the '70s, reflected a decade where the United States lost its first war and a president resigned amidst criminal allegations. But these films were quality product, not just cinematic treatises on bleakness. It didn’t hurt that sitting behind the camera for many of these films were gifted, passionate directors who were largely given carte blanche to bring their visions to the screen. And while the following may not serve as any kind of absolute proof, it’s interesting to note that the 1970s is the best-represented decade on the recent AFI 100 Years, 100 Movies. Twenty of the 100 movies are from the ‘70s, more than any other decade. (The 1960s come in second with 17.) And seven of the ten best picture winners of the ‘70s made the AFI list. (The ‘60s came in second, again, with six.) The French Connection placed 93rd.

The French Connection is a finely crafted, well acted, exciting combination of real-life drama and suspense. Today, a film about drug trafficking would, in and of itself, result in shrugged shoulders. But for an industry that as recently as 1968 sang and danced its cares away, mixing lots of sugar with life’s bitter pills, the awarding of its highest honor to a rather downbeat look at society’s drug problem marked a decided turning point. And cinema is all the better for it.