A smug glance at the seventies-the so-called Me Decade-unveils a kaleidoscope of big hair, blaring music, and broken politics-all easy targets for satire, cynicism, and ultimately even nostalgia. American Cinema of the 1970s, however, looks beyond the strobe lights to reveal how profoundly the seventies have influenced American life and how the films of that decade represent a peak moment in cinema history. Far from a placid era, the seventies was a decade of social upheavals. Events such as the killing of students at Kent State and Jackson State universities, the Watergate investigations, the legalization of abortion, and the end of the American involvement in Vietnam are only a few among the many landmark occurrences that challenged the foundations of American culture. The director-driven movies of this era reflect this turmoil, experimenting with narrative structures, offering a gallery of scruffy antiheroes, and revising traditional genre conventions. Bringing together ten original essays, American Cinema of the 1970s examines the range of films that marked the decade, including Jaws, Rocky, Love Story, Shaft, Dirty Harry, The Godfather, Deliverance, The Exorcist, Shampoo, Taxi Driver, Star Wars, Saturday Night Fever, Kramer vs. Kramer, and Apocalypse Now. Lester D. Friedman is the Senior Scholar-in-Residence in the Media and Society Program at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and the author of numerous books on film.
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Contributors acknowledge the difficulty of characterizing a decade that birthed both the young (mostly male) auteur and the commercial blockbuster. Discussions of blaxploitation and sexploitation films and the increase in films celebrating male power and authority are particularly strong. Recommended. --Choice
About the Author
Lester D. Friedman is the Senior Scholar-in-Residence in the Media and Society Program at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and the author of numerous books on film.
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This review is from: American Cinema of the 1970s: Themes and Variations (Screen Decades: American Culture/American Cinema) (Paperback)
This is not the equal of David A. Cook's "Lost Illusions," which examines 1970's American cinema for the 'History of the American Cinema' series. It is decidedly more superficial and constrained to theoretical fragmentation. The text breaks the decade up not only by year but also by concept, which is an almost impossible construct to uphold. (For example: "Jaws," which came out in 1975, is ideologically posited against Altman's "Nashville." Well, oh my. Eureka.) Despite this, the text is often illuminating about the background of the films discussed and their cultural implications. It simply tries too hard to links its narrative to the general cultural highlights of the decade. (Cinema and Hank Aaron breaking the home run record?) In all, a worthwhile text and a solid introduction to cinema in the 1970's, but not a theoretically groundbreaking work.
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Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs):
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deep throat, saturation booking, extreme long shot, disaster films Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, Star Wars, Vietnam War, United States, Barbara Jean, African American, Jerry Ohlinger's Movie Material Store, Los Angeles, The Godfather, World War, New Hollywood, Gal Young'Un, Dirty Harry, Saturday Night Fever, Easy Riders, Taxi Driver, Days of Heaven, Warner Bros, Zabriskie Point, Robert Altman, Coming Home, United Artists, The Parallax View, All the President's Men, White House Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
deep throat, saturation booking, extreme long shot, disaster films Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, Star Wars, Vietnam War, United States, Barbara Jean, African American, Jerry Ohlinger's Movie Material Store, Los Angeles, The Godfather, World War, New Hollywood, Gal Young'Un, Dirty Harry, Saturday Night Fever, Easy Riders, Taxi Driver, Days of Heaven, Warner Bros, Zabriskie Point, Robert Altman, Coming Home, United Artists, The Parallax View, All the President's Men, White House Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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