1975 Film Project: Black Gold

The documentary, A Decade Under the Influence, inspired my group's 1975 film project. After watching bits of the documentary, I knew I wanted to do something with the oil crises. When I think of the 70's, the awesome music comes to mind, then all the turmoil and change. I was aware that oil was scarce in the U.S., and I also know that Russia had (and still has) a ton of it. So, I needed to come up with a story line surrounding this issue. I came up with a loose story line: Our main character, De Niro, gets involved with the oil business in the states, becomes rich, thus showing the corruption of the U.S. Government. What I needed help with was sort of an important part: How does De Niro do this? I actually asked my dad, because he is really knowledgable about all this political/social stuff of the 70's and 80's. He told me that Russia was making a whole lot of money by selling their abundant supply of oil to Europe on the black market. So, from there, David helped fill in the blanks. Here is the final story line:

OAPEC Oil crisis: Our lead man, De Niro, leaves his home country of Russia for America.  Upon arriving, De Niro is jobless, until his personal ties with Breshnev bring the opportunity to get into the oil business. They construct a plan to become rich off of the oil embargo occurring at the time.

At this time, 1973-4, Russia is selling oil--and they have a ton of it--on the black market to Europe and making tons of money. De Niro’s character sees this and he sees a lucrative business back in the states where fuel is very scarce. He sees an opportunity to make himself and his little brother/good friends incredibly rich.  But what starts out as earning money for his friends and family becomes a full-on fixation on climbing to the top of the oil business.  De Niro delves deeper and deeper into the oil business, looking for more power and more money, connecting himself with shady characters and his younger brother (Jack Nicholson) warns him of his obsession, but De Niro, now entranced by thoughts of being incredibly wealthy and powerful, ignores the warning.  Once he has almost complete control of the oil industry in America, De Niro looks for even more in Kenny (Ray Liotta) who approaches De Niro, asking for money as an investment in a drug ring.  Nicholson, upon discovering this, becomes very angry and concerned for his brother’s safety and sanity, and he attempts to dissuade De Niro from getting involved in the drug business.  Nicholson and De Niro argue until De Niro swears off his brother completely.  The U.S. gov’t finds out about the whole business, both the oil and the drugs, and De Niro is taken in. What the audience doesn’t expect is the U.S. gov’t to want to make a deal with him. So, De Niro’s character is allowed to continue his mini black market trade as long as he gives a certain cut to the U.S. government each month.  They justify the protection by saying that they are “protecting their business investments,” and they turn a blind eye to De Niro’s part in the drug business.

The end highlight’s De Niro’s assassination by the Russians because they want the U.S. money for themselves, highlighting both America and Russia’s greed.

Director: Sidney Lumet: known for Dog Day Afternoon which Pacino starred in, also won an academy award for 12 Angry Men

Cinematographer: Victor J. Kemper: worked on The Candidate in 1972 with Robert Redford, and Dog Day Afternoon with Sidney Lumet.

Actors:

Lead: Robert De Niro (we chose him because of his acting in Mean Streets)

Supporting: Jack Nicholson, Robert Duvall (both of these men are up and coming young actors who have already played some impressive roles in movies like The Godfather and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest).

The style we are going for is gritty. Oil is dirty, and the oil business back then was dirty, so we want the film to reflect this. In order to achieve this, we wanted Sidney Lumet to direct. He directed Dog Day Afternoon with Al Pacino, and that movie has a gritty, hardcore feel to it. The cinematographer will be Victor J. Kemper, who worked with Lumet on Dog Day Afternoon, so the two know each other and they work well together. Production will be done by Artists Entertainment Complex, and the distribution will be done by Warner Brothers. Warner Brothers is the ideal choice because they distributed films such as Mean Streets and Deliverance, both of which are riveting films. This will be a medium to larger scale production due to the main actors we have in it.

The genre will be a combination of crime and drama. The underground trading/selling of oil fits into the crime aspect, but the family relationships and conflicts that arise will add to the drama aspect of it.

Our film will be R rated. We don't want to sensor some of the violence/drug culture just to get access to the younger audience.

The aspects of 70's film we are covering will include the 70's drug culture, the anti-hero (De Niro is doing bad things to get money and doing drugs, but we are still rooting for him), and that the government is seen as corrupt/evil (this is evident with the U.S. Government turning a blind eye to De Niro's black market activity as long as they get a cut of the money). This last aspect is part of the message we wish to convey. It shows that greed is not good, and this is further emphasized with De Niro's demise and eventual assassination by same hand that lifted him up to "greatness". We also want to make some sort of commentary on the drug culture. We put drugs in a bad light because they influence the falling out between De Niro and Nicholson.

I worked with the same group, Mark and David, for the 1935 film project, and both are very easygoing and open to discuss any aspect of the film we are working on. I knew I wanted to win the best movie award with the 1975 project as well, and I knew this was the group to do it with. We came up with an interesting plot historically, and the poster was fun to make. Overall, I wouldn't change anything or do anything differently within this group for this movie project.