AFI Silver is teaming up with Silver Spring-based author, producer and screenwriter George Pelecanos to present a selection of unsung gems of popular 1970s cinema, curated by Pelecanos, who will introduce select shows. George Pelecanos, graduated from Northwood High School and has worked with fellow MCPS alumnus, David Simon, on various projects including HBO’s The Wire, Treme, The Deuce, and We Own This City, and more. This event will take place from February 3 until April 23.
“If the 1970s was the last decade of artistic, renegade Hollywood filmmaking, as some believe it to be, it was also true that it was a time of quality, under-the-radar B pictures and ‘programmers.’ Our series explores films of the ’70s that have enjoyed a growing reputation amongst film buffs, movies which were originally looked upon as disposable entertainment to many in the cinema’s critical establishment. We’ll look at prime examples of actioners, car films, Blaxploitation and populism that were made for the very working- and middle-class audiences who lived in the world that the films’ characters inhabited. Like the Poverty Row noirs of decades past, out of low budgets and low expectations came a kind of tarnished art. Written by masters like Elmore Leonard and Paul Schrader, adapted from source material by respected authors such as Donald Westlake and Jack Schaefer and directed by now-revered helmers like Don Siegel, Phil Karlson, John Flynn and Michael Schultz, here is a group of films fondly remembered by audiences lucky enough to have seen them in movie theaters at the time of their release. Many of them were shown in the old Silver Theatre, long before AFI arrived. We’re pleased to bring them back to the big screen.” – George Pelecanos
