“The Last Waltz” (1976)
Quick: how many music documentaries can you think of that blew you away purely on a visual level? Of course, there’s Jonathan Demme’s joyous, avant-garde masterpiece “Stop Making Sense,” as well as the infectious, in-your-face aggression of Penelope Spheeris’ “Decline of Western Civilization” series, but if we’re talking about all-out immersion here, we have to give it to “The Last Waltz,” Martin Scorsese’s chronicling of The Band’s farewell concert at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom. For the gig, The Band were joined by a who’s who of rock n’ roll royalty, a group that included Neil Young, Dr. John, Muddy Waters, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and the Staples Singers, and more. To be sure, “The Last Waltz” can be enjoyed on its own terms as a rollicking, stylish time capsule. And yet, Chapman, as always, is committed to finding the grimy honesty in the sweat-coated, bug-eyed faces of these burnt-out rock gods, some of whom were indulging in narcotic binges with the film’s director when the cameras weren’t rolling. It’s also worth mentioning that Chapman is one of a few brilliant cinematographic legends handling the 35mm camerawork behind-the-scenes of “The Last Waltz;” the others, believe it or not, were Vilmos Zsigmond and László Kovács. “The Last Waltz” effectively erases the boundary that separates the performer from the spectator, making it one of the most groundbreaking concert docs of its time, or any time. – NL
“Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (1978)
There are enough incarnations of the “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” story to suit whatever your taste might happen to be, from Don Siegel’s ’50s-set adaptation of Jack Finney’s pulp sci-fi novel to Abel Ferrara’s characteristically hard-boiled 90’s reimagining. The 1978 version, directed by “The Right Stuff’s” Philip Kaufman, is notable for being one of the better renditions of this tale: it’s stylish, engrossing, paranoid, and quite a lot of fun. Chapman lends a moody, lived-in noir template to an otherwise heightened story; apparently, he and Kaufman had their own shared coding system that allowed them to lend splashes of otherworldly color to scenes that might not otherwise call for it (the classic scene at the S.F. Embarcadero is a noteworthy example of this). Chapman’s crisp, transportive visuals work in sync with the film’s unsettling sound design, which is to say nothing of the reliably watchable performances from the likes of Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, and Leonard Nimoy, not to mention Kaufman’s own steady directorial hand guiding the proceedings. “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” isn’t exactly the most exciting credit on Chapman’s IMDB page, but we should never take for granted those rare instances of real artists elevating a studio movie above its station using commercial moviemaking tools. That is very much its own kind of magic trick. – NL
“Fingers” (1978)
Though he’s an undeniably toxic and problematic person, James Toback has done some worthwhile work over the course of his troubled, turbulent career. One of our favorite, more under-heralded works from the controversial multihyphenate is his directorial debut, “Fingers”: the film is a uniquely Tobackian, wildly unsentimental urban drama about bad men, unpaid debts, and desperate underworld figures on a brutal crash course with one another. Harvey Keitel is electric as the film’s namesake antihero, the aptly named Jimmy Fingers. Jimmy is another one of Keitel’s mercurial, hot-blooded neighborhood toughs, and Chapman is even more perceptive than usual in how he manages to capture the two separate worlds that Jimmy occupies – the disreputable underground criminal milieu where he makes his money, and a more upright moral landscape where he’s simply a gifted pianist – without ever straying from the sordid, cohesive nature of Toback’s vision. “Fingers” was loosely remade in 2005 by the great French director Jacques Audiard, in the form of his humanist crime masterpiece “The Beat That My Heart Skipped,” but if you wish to see the genesis of this uncouth street origin story, “Fingers” is where it’s at. That Chapman found such beauty in such a grubby, hostile world is a true testament to his gifts. – NL
“King: The Martin Luther King Story” (1978)
The great Martin Luther King has cast a shadow over the lives of everyday Americans since his tragic assassination in 1968. If anything, King has become increasingly ubiquitous in the ongoing, deeply polarized political discourse that is currently engulfing our country, whether it’s certain misguided folks invoking his name to discourage protestors from displays of civil unrest (a problematic stance, to say the least), or “MLK/FBI,” which recently bowed at this year’s New York Film Festival. “King,” subtitled “King: The Martin Luther King Story,” is a curious, engaging fictional document of the life and times of the Civil Rights icon, one that features consistently arresting cinematography from Chapman. The four-hour-plus dramatic epic aired in three separate installments back in 1978, and while it suffers from some problems that are not at all uncommon when it comes to high-profile biopics, Chapman’s tactile grasp of the period helps the viewer overlook some of “King’s” wobblier storytelling decisions (it helps that “Terminator” actor Paul Winfield, playing Dr. King, is mostly terrific). Directed by Abby Mann, the filmmaker responsible for “Judgment at Nuremberg,” “A Child Is Waiting,” and others, “King” is at times unwieldy and occasionally feels overlong, but it remains a fascinating example of Chapman working actively to broaden his artistic horizons and applying his one-of-a-kind skill set to evoke a particularly volatile period in American history. – NL