Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood [Paperback]

Peter Biskind (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 4, 1999

When the low-budget biker movie Easy Rider shocked Hollywood with its success in 1969, a new Hollywood era was born. This was an age when talented young filmmakers such as Scorsese, Coppola, and Spielberg, along with a new breed of actors, including De Niro, Pacino, and Nicholson, became the powerful figures who would make such modern classics as The Godfather, Chinatown, Taxi Driver, and Jaws. Easy Riders, Raging Bulls follows the wild ride that was Hollywood in the '70s -- an unabashed celebration of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll (both onscreen and off) and a climate where innovation and experimentation reigned supreme. Based on hundreds of interviews with the directors themselves, producers, stars, agents, writers, studio executives, spouses, and ex-spouses, this is the full, candid story of Hollywood's last golden age.

MARTIN SCORSESE ON DRUGS: "I did a lot of drugs because I wanted to do a lot, I wanted to push all the way to the very very end, and see if I could die."

DENNIS HOPPER ON EASY RIDER: "The cocaine problem in the United States is really because of me. There was no cocaine before Easy Rider on the street. After Easy Rider, it was everywhere."

GEORGE LUCAS ON STAR WARS: "Popcorn pictures have always ruled. Why do people go see them? Why is the public so stupid? That's not my fault."

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Not only is Peter Biskind's Easy Riders, Raging Bulls the best book in recent memory on turn-of-the-'70s film, it is beyond question the best book we'll ever get on the subject. Why? Because once the big names who spilled the beans to Biskind find out that other people spilled an equally piquant quantity of beans, nobody will dare speak to another writer with such candor, humor, and venom again.

Biskind did hundreds of interviews with people who make the president look accessible: Scorsese, Spielberg, Lucas, Coppola, Geffen, Beatty, Kael, Towne, Altman. He also spoke with countless spurned spouses and burned partners, alleged victims of assault by knife, pistol, and bodily fluids. Rather more responsible than some of his sources, Biskind always carefully notes the denials as well as the astounding stories he has compiled. He tells you about Scorsese running naked down Mulholland Drive after his girlfriend, crying, "Don't leave me!"; grave robbing on the set of Apocalypse Now; Faye Dunaway apparently flinging urine in Roman Polanski's face while filming Chinatown; Michael O'Donoghue's LSD-fueled swan dive onto a patio; Coppola's mad plan for a 10-hour film of Goethe's Elective Affinities in 3-D; the ocean suicide attempt Hal "Captain Wacky" Ashby gave up when he couldn't find a swimsuit that pleased him; countless dalliances with porn stars; Russian roulette games and psychotherapy sessions in hot tubs. But he also soberly gives both sides ample chance to testify.

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls is also more than a fistful of dazzling anecdotes. Methodically, as thrillingly as a movie attorney, Biskind builds the case that Hollywood was revived by wild ones who then betrayed their own dreams, slit their own throats, and destroyed an art form by producing that mindless, inhuman modern behemoth, the blockbuster.

When Spielberg was making the first true blockbuster, Jaws, he sneaked Lucas in one day when nobody was around, got him to put his head in the shark's mechanical mouth, and closed the shark's mouth on him. The gizmo broke and got stuck, but the two young men somehow extricated Lucas's head and hightailed it like Tom and Huck. As Peter Biskind's scathing, funny, wise book demonstrates, they only thought they had escaped. --Tim Appelo --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

A former executive editor of Premiere on 1970s Hollywood.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1st Touchstone Ed edition (April 4, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684857081
• ISBN-13: 978-0684857084
• Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 1.3 x 8.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (108 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #30,813 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #8 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Movies > Industry
  • #13 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Movies > Reference
  • #21 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Movies > Biographies

More About the Author

Peter Biskind is the author of five previous books, including Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'n' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood. He is a contributor to Vanity Fair and was formerly the executive editor of Premiere magazine. He lives with his family in Columbia County, New York.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Scandalously fascinating insight into 70s Hollywood.... November 29, 2000

By GZA

Format:Paperback

This book is a terrific read: an amazingly revealing insight into the workings of the Hollywood machine and a convincing explanation of why the film industry is the way it is today. Fascinating for any film fan but truly essential for those particularly interested in Coppola, Scorcese, Altman and the other enfants terribles of the 70s. I learned more than I ever thought I would about the strange habits, curious peccadilloes and psychological frailties of these legendary directors and producers. Seminal figures such as Dennis Hopper, William Friedkin, Peter Bogdanovich and Scorsese all come across as frighteningly deranged, emphasising the fine line that separates genius from insanity - and many of these characters clearly ended up on the wrong side of the divide. One of Biskind's great strengths is that he seeks to portray all sides of the story, and it's hard not to believe the majority of what is reported simply for the fact that if wasn't true you can bet your life that lawsuits would have stopped publication in its tracks.

The spirit of the times engendered by the rise of the anti-Vietnam, hippy counterculture, generated a climate where a new form of creativity was allowed to enter the mainstream for the first time. This produced a fabulous glut of films - Bonnie and Clyde, The Godfather, The Exorcist, Taxi Driver, The Deerhunter, Star Wars, MASH and dozens of others. Biskind's belief is that the rise of the super director destroyed this astounding period in Hollywood history - egos and pay checks became so over inflated that eventually the studios realised that they had to seize back control. As a result the industry more or less stopped producing original pictures and opted for the safe bet of formulaic blockbusters which were more likely to draw big crowds - through excessive marketing and merchandising campaigns and extravagant special effects.

Biskind's style is compelling and the anectdotal evidence at times hilarious, at others horrific (Peter Bogdanovich's fall from grace is particularly gruesome). `Easy Riders Raging Bulls' must be one of the best books yet written about Hollywood and one of the best non-fiction books I have read in many years.

27 of 33 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars The Rock and Roll Generation loses the keys to the kingdom. August 3, 1998

By Steve C.

Format:Hardcover

While quite a readable page-turner, in the final analysis this is a book more for a Access Hollywood type fan than cinema lovers. Surprisingly few reviewers have called Biskind on the carpet for what is essentially a cut and paste job cobbled together from past articles he published in Premiere magazine. It goes a long way in explaining the rather pell-mell, Pulp Fiction-esque chronology (although I did like the breather one gets from the biography for each major player not appearing until he was upon their first significant foray into filmmaking). But in trying desperately for this middle ground he fails on each front. Gossip and tabloid fans will find the scrawny photo section leaves much to be desired with many oft-cited figures without any pics, others too many. The more serious cinemaphile would be at a loss to explain many of the figures' appeal without actually knowing their work or habits. He might tell you , in the case of Hal Ashby, "actors killed to wo! rk with him" but I'd be damned if I could tell you why from reading Easy Riders, Raging Bulls. And the structure must have baffled even the author as dramatic tension is lost as he introduces facts too early. In a prime example, Biskind first introduces us to Melissa Mathison as "[the person] who would go on to marry Harrison Ford and be nominated for an Oscar.." instead showing her "arc" that went from babysitter, to assistant, to writer, to chief mistress before she took up with Harrison Ford which he fails to point out happened on Apocalypse Now. He also entirely skips the drama and the chance to draw meaning out of the release of E.T. The Extraterrestrial (the critical and commercial success, the Oscar race - not to mention Mathison's huge settlement over merchandising rights), possibly due to the fact that would undercut his whole Spielberg-the-destroyer-of-all-things-art theme. Which brings me to what probably what is the book's biggest stumble! , Biskind's muddle-headed attempt to affix blame for the en! d of his beloved New Hollywood. As several other reviews have pointed out, Biskind's roots are showing in his pretty naked adoration for this period. "...rock and roll generation saved Hollywood..." only works if you toss out these inconvenient and rather typical top grossing studio pictures from '68 to '75: Bullitt, Funny Girl, the Odd Couple, Romeo and Juliet, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, Hello, Dolly! The Love Bug, Airport, Love Story, Patton (while written by Coppola, way too straightforward and patriotic. Hell, it even has a neo-upbeat ending), Diamonds Are Forever, Fiddler on the Roof, Summer of '42, The Poseidon Adventure, Papillon, The Way We Were, Blazing Saddles, Earthquake, The Towering Inferno, and Young Frankenstein. He also downplays the fact that while they were made by his New Hollywood group some are not what one would call typical 70's fare like The Sting, What's Up Doc? He undercuts his own arguments by showcasing the out-of-control na! ture he seems to want to blame away on mountains of cocaine, while turning the Studios into the Empire each with a Darth Vader at the helm. If these directors had wanted to remain in positions of power, they should have taken the responsibility they had to the execs that supported them seriously. Also is ignored is the fact that collapse of this generation created a vacuum for films of a serious nature that was supplied by new centers of filmmaking, most notably New York Independent and Great Britain. Think about the significance of 1981's Academy Awards when Beatty won best director for Reds, while best picture went home with the producers of Chariots of Fire which started four straight years of UK nominations or wins for Picture or Director. Considering the dismal output from Hollywood over the last couple of years, those blockbusters and irresponsibility have reached their nadir with the present corporate owners so incapable of producing even decent summer popcorn flicks! that they have snapped up every former independent like cr! eative transplant operations. Instead of establishing a way in once they got their foot in the door so other young American up and comers could get in, they saw to it that way was sealed up but good. Biskind follows the same trajectory, starting off with great promise before losing his way after the decade ends and finds he has only sputtering moments of merit. I found myself rooting for the phlebitis to finish off Ashby, as I had little sympathy for someone who'd rather indulge his passion for drugs than that other bringer of euphoria: art. An editor in fact is what Biskind needed the most, who most certainly would have told him to bring it to a close with Raging Bull and put the rest into an epilogue. "We blew it." Boy, did they ever.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars We blew it Billy March 19, 2003

By J. Remington

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This appropriately titled expose`places both the praise and blame for the glorious Hollywood renaissance on the brilliant, creative and fearless but ultimately selfish, self absorbed, debauched and decadent 60's generation that burned themselves out before they really could build a lasting empire. To quote Peter Fonda's drug addled psuedo-anti-hero in the beautifully misshapen but stunningly and ironically prophetic "Easy Rider": "We blew it Billy".

Biskind does much to certainly promote the cult of the most overrated generation in history. But he does so by articulating and defending his point in a fast paced entertaining manner. Filling his pages with gleefully geeky tidbits of juicy bad behavior, Biskind edifys his position by balancing praise with vicious criticism. He calls the players all on the carpet and takes them to task for burning out in their own pathetic yet arrogant fires of ego-centric excess while managing to celebrate their true works of ground breaking film art.

Biskind appropriately bookends his journey with the equally self centered and no less destructive Jake LaMotta in Scorsese's brilliant film "Raging Bull". Biskind makes a fascinating point that Wyatt and Jake form a symbollic summation of a decade that could have been.

"Easy Riders and Ragin Bulls" pulls few punches and makes for an excellent summer read for anyone interested in Hollywood History.