Cinema of the 1970s as Public Urinal

The French Connection, which I watched most of, again, last night, as I was flossing my teeth (it was a long floss) is the grittiest police procedural every made.

Dirty snow in July. That was what I took away from it.

Actually, dirty snow in October -- from the previous winter.

And the movie had a dank feeling, the feeling of a public men's room in a large city on the Eastern seaboard.

The film was not afraid to be completely, utterly unglamorous. Particularly the scenes where the police are ripping apart the Continental Mark III and where Hackman hunts down Fernando Rey in that abandoned crematorium. The set was a shambles. It gave the distinct impression of being filmed just as they'd found it. Not a pretty film.

I'm going to go on to say that that was the strength of films in the '70s -- unprettiness. Grittiness. Hardness. Hollywood has utterly lost that. Everything has to be glowing, made up, perfect. Even when they try to show grittiness and hardness it's pretty and softly lit. Indie films, mostly because of their low budget, have taken over that role.

There was a graininess to the film quality in the '70s, too. Which brought out more grit, more of that dank, toiletty quality.

God, the East Coast is foul. Oh, yes, there is a sense of place. I mean, you go there, and it makes sense. There's a dynamism. There is energy, and culture, of sorts, and that can be a powerful attractor. Yet compared to Telegraph Hill, Marin or the coastline of Sonoma, it is, on the face of it, resolutely awful.

I really want to write a multi-volume tome about dirty snow in July and the dank, toiletty quality.