CHAPTER

• HOLLYWOOD'S FALL AND RIS£: 1960-1980

he postwar struggles for racial equality in the United States achieved T some success in the 1960s, during the presidencies of John F Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. Both administrations promoted liberal domestic policies (which Johnson termed the "Great Society"), including the pas­ sage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Johnson's "War on Poverty" insti­ tuted work-study programs in colleges and created the Job Corps. At the same time, these administrations carried on the policy of containing com­ munism within the East-West conception of the cold war. The United States had begun to support the French fight against Ho Chi Minh's Com­ munist fOtces in Vietnam in the 1950s. In 1963, the year in which Kennedy was assassinated, America decisively entered the hostilities. Over the fol­ lowing nine years, the United States would send hundreds of thousands of soldiers into a war that became increasingly unpopular at home. The early 1960s saw a new fra nkness a bout sexual beha vior, accel­ erated by the invention of the birth-control pill and changing vie'vvs of women's roles. A freer socia I milieu encou raged the"cou ntercul ture," that broad tendency among the young to drop out of the mainstream and experiment with sex and drugs. The counterculture also played a role in sustaining the New Left, a radical political stance that distanced itself from both traditional liberalism and 1930s-style SOCialism and communism. Soon, student movements were arguing for more domestic social change and U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam. Between the late 1960s and the early 1970s, social activists clashed with authority to an extent not seen since the Great Depression. The lib­ eral stance of the civil rights movement had given way to the more radi­ cal position of the Black Power movement. Opposition to U.S. involve­ ment in the Vietnam War had intensified. Social cohesion seemed to vanish. Marrin Luther King, Jr., Robert F. Kennedy, and Malcolm X were assassinated. Police attacked demonstrators during the 1968 Democratic

511 512 CHAPTER 22 Hollywooc.l's Fallanc.l Rise: 1960-19S0

Convention in Chicago, and President Nixon widened bia, Disney, and Umversa]-still controlled distribution, the Vietnam War. Campuses exploded; 400 closed or and nearly all money-making films passed through their held strikes during 1970. hands. Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Cleol)atra (1963), The withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam in 1973 Dr. Zhivago (1965), and other historical epics played for could not heal the deep divisions in American society that months. Broadway mUSICals continued to yield such hits the war had created. The New Left collapsed, partly due as West Side Story (1961), The Music Man (1962), and to internal disputes and partly because tlle shooting of The Sound of Music (1965), the decade's top-grossing students at Kent State University in 1970 seemed to prove film. Independent teenl)ics such as Beach Blanket Bingo the futility of organized action. Nixon's successful bid for (1965) catered to the drive-in audience with the lure of the presidency resulted from middle-class voters' resent­ clean fun in the sun. The Disney studios dominated the ment of eastern liberals, the left, and the counterculture. family market with hugely successful films like 101 Dal­ The upheavals of this period led to an international matians (1961), Mary Pol)pins (1965), and The Jungle critical political cinema (see Cha pter 23). In Amenca, Book (1967). Although stars were free agents, many Emile De Antonio, the Newsreel group, and other film­ signed long-term production deals with studios. Para­ makers practiced an "engaged" filmmaking of social mount had Jerry Lewis, Universal had Rock Hudson and protest. At the same time, with diminishing profits from Doris Day, MGM had Elvis Presley. Each studio's output blockbusters, the Hollywood industry tried to woo the sta bilized at between twelve and twenty fea ture releases younger generation with countercultural films. The ef­ per year-a pattern that would hold for several decades. fort brought forth some experiments in creating an The Majors had made peace with television. Networks American art cinema. were paYll1g high prices for the rights to broadcast films, Respondll1g to the U.S. government's turn to the and the studios began making "telefeatures" and series right in the early 1970s, left and liberal activists em­ programs. braced a micropolitics: they sought grassroots social change by organizing around concrete issues (abortion, The Studios in Crisis race- and gender-based discrimination, welfare, and en­ vironmental policy). Many American documentary Despite all the evidence of prosperity, the 1960s proved filmmakers participated in these movements (p. 584). to be a hazardous decade for the studios. Movie atten­ At the same time, however, this activism was fiercely op­ dance continued to drop, leveling out at about I billion posed by the rise of the New Right, conservative orga­ per year. Studios were releasing fewer films, and many nizations that organized local support for school prayer, of those were low-budget pickups or foreign produc­ the abolition of newly won abortion rights, and other tions that would have been passed over in earlier years. issues. The struggle between reform movements and Most of the Majors were stuck with large facilities, New Right forces was to become the central political forcing them to lease sound stages to television. Big drama of the 1970s, and many films (jaws, The Paral­ stars proved a mixed blessing. Once they joined a pack­ lax View, Nashville) bear traces of it. age they usually insisted on control of the script and di­ The drama was played against the backdrop of a rection, along with a percentage of a film's grosses, yet waning U.S. economy, fallen prey to oil embargoes and most star vehicles did not yield profit to the studios. brisk competition from Japan and Germany. The 1970s The bulk of the films released by the Majors were ended the postvvar era of prosperity. This penod coin­ independent productIons, often cofinanced by the stu­ cided with Hollywood's reinvention of the blockbuster dio. What films did the Majors finance, plan, and pro­ and the rise to power of the movie bra ts, the most prag­ d uce on their own? Wlore and more these tended to be matic and infIuential young filmmakers who became the roadshow movies of the sort that had proved enticing new creative leaders of the industry. during the 1950s. During the 1960s, six films were road­ showed per year, and most proved lucrative. The Sound of Music roadshowed at 266 theatres, running for as THE 1960s: THE FILM long as twenty months on some screens. Only 1 percent INDUSTRY IN RECESSION of films released between 1960 and 1968 grossed over $1 millton, but a third of the roadshow pictures sur­ Superficially, Hollywood might have seemed healthy in passed that figure. The success of roadshow films like the early 1960s. The Majors-MGM, Warner Bros., West Side Story, El Cid (1961), How the West Was Won United Artists, Paramount, 20th Century-Fox, Colum­ (1962), and Lawrence of Arabia drove the studios to The 1960s: The Film [ndusrry in Recession 513

risk millions on epic movies. Soon, however, the invest­ lines of bank credit. But nothll1g seemed to stem tbe flow ments were in peril. In 1962, MGM lost nearly $20 mil­ of red ink. Between 1969 and 1972, the major film com­ lion, thanks largely [0 cost overruns on Mutiny on the panies lost $500 million. The studios quickly brought in Bounty (1962), and Cleopatra's protracted production new executives, often with little experience in film pro­ pushed Fox to a loss of over $40 million. duction. Banks forced companies to trim the number of By the late 1960s, every studio faced a financial cri­ releases, avoid big-budget films, and partner with other sis. Most releases lost money, and executives proved studios in coproductions (as when Warners and Fox slow to understand that the big picture was no longer a joined forces for The Towering Inferno, 1974). In 1970, sure thing. Despite Cleopatra's high box-office intake, unemployment In Hollywood rose to over 40 percent, its production costs guaranteed that it would lose an al.l.-time high. As recession gripped the industry, the money on theatriGIi release-as did many other expen­ roadshow era ended. Exhibitors began splitting their sive historical epics, such as The Fall of the Roman Em­ houses lnro two or three screens and building multi­ pire (1964) and The Battle of Britain (1969). Nor was plexes (cheaper shopping-mall. theaters). The result was the mUSical film a guaranteed winner. Although The a generation of narrow auditoriums with poor sightlines Sound of Music was a hit, Doct01' Dolittle (1967), and garbled sound. Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), Star! (1968), and Paint Your Wagon (1969) were expensive fiascos. Styles and Genres The only bright spots were a few low-budget films, usually aimed at the college audience, that yielded re­ With the decline of the studios and the continuing drop markable returns. Bonnie and Clyde (1967) cost $3 mil­ in attendance, 1960s Hollywood was unsure about what lion and returned $24 million domestic rental income [0 the public wanted. When a performer won a loyal audi­ Warner Bros., while lVIidnight Cowboy (1969) cost ence, he or she could count on studio support. Perhaps $3 million and yielded $20 million to United Artists. The the most obvious example is Jerry LeWIS. After teaming winner in the low-budget sweepstakes was the indepen­ with Dean Martin on several hugely successful Para­ dent release The Graduate (1967). It cost $3 million and mount releases in the 1950s, Lewis set out on a solo retumed $49 million to its small distributor, Embassy career-writing, directing, and performing in his own Pictures. This scale of profits made the sophisticated comed ies. In most of his fi lms, Lewis gave his idiot-child young adult film very attractive [0 studio decision mak­ character a spasmodic, demonic frenzy. In The Nutty ers. Soon an entire cycle of youthpics tried to capitalize Professor (1963), he portrayed not only a geeky simple­ on campus activism and counterculture lifestyles. ton but also a suave lady-killer modeled on Dean Mar­ The Majors, at their weakest point slllce World War tin. Lewis displayed considerable visual flair: The Ladies' II, were ripe for absorption lnto healthier companies. In Man (1961) presents a women's boardinghouse as a 1962, Universal was acqUlred by the Music Corporation colossal dollhouse (Color Plate 22.1). of America, but at least the deal remained 111 the Holly­ Studios looked for ways to lure people away from wood family, since MCA was a former talent agency their teleVision sets. Not every movie endorsed family (pp. 336-337). But now conglomerates began circling values; the same theaters that played Disney films also the studios. In 1966, Gulf + Western industries (a firm featured more risque fare. Universal's Doris Day come­ with holdings 111 auto parts, metals, and financial ser­ dies (including Pillow Talk, 1958, and Lover Come Back, vices) acquired the ading Paramount Pictures. \'(!arner 1962) celebrated women's sexual stratagems, often at the Bros. was bought by Seven Arts in 1967, which twO expense of the male ego (usually incarnated in Rock years la ter was absorbed ll1[o Kinney National Services Hudson). Other films snickered at promiscuity (A Guide (an owner of parking lots and funeral parlors). United for the Married Man, 1967), suburban adultery (Boys' Artists was bought by the Transamerica Corporation Night Out, 1962), and aggressive women (Sex and the (car rentals, life insurance) in 1967. In 1968, financier Single Girl, 1964). Kirk Kerkorian gained control of MGM, downsIzed it, Audiences were also intrigued by films from outside and funneled its assets into building the MGM Grand the Hollyv\!ood mainstream. Studios distributed films Hote] 111 Las Vegas. Studios that ,vere used to operating from Europe, not just quickly made costume pictures like as freestanding companies now found themselves small Hercules (1959), but also ambitious and polished efforts slices of large corporate pies. like ZorbG1 the Greek (1965). British imports were par­ The conglomerates could help the ailll1g studios by ticularly successful. The erotic period comedy Tom Jones injecting money from other businesses and guaranreell1g (1963) and the edgy drama Alfie (1966), which traded 514 CHAPTER 22 Hollywood's Fall and Rise: 1%0-1980

22.1 Easy Rider: the long lens 22.2 The /\!Iiracle Wor/::.er: deep focus 22.3 Bonnie and Clyde: during the minimizes the sp

22.4, left Discontinuity in A Hard Days Night: JS "Can't Bu)' Me Love" plays on the sound trJck. Lester shows the Be<1t1es romping in a soccer field ...

22.5, right .. , and immediately cuts to them rel<1xing.

on the fashionable "swinging London" image, proved five years later the much flatter imagery in his color Bon­ popular, as did the Beatles films. Julie Christie, Peter Sell­ nie and Clyde (22.3) resul ted from extremely long lenses. ers, and Albert finney became Hollywood stars, and di­ By the late I 960s, long lenses were used for most medium rectors Tony Richardson and John Schlesinger would shots and close views, whether filmed on location or in soon come to Los Angeles. The most durable English im­ studio sets. port was the James Bond series. After t\vo screen adapta­ During the same period, in contrast with the long­ tions of Ian Fleming's novels, 007 became a proven com­ take tendency of the immediate postwar years, directors modity with the phenomenally successful Goldfinger expenmented with faster and flashier editing. Richard (1964; see 15.24). Lester's A Hard Day's Night (1964) and Help! (J965) fractured the Beatles' musical numbers Into scores of Modifying the Classical Studio Style discontinuous shots (22.4,22.5). Lester's zany tech­ nique derived from the French New \Xlave, televLsion Most HolJywood products of the early 1960s had a glossy commerc13ls, and British eccentric comedy. He pushed studio look, but some filmmakers broke with thiS style. fast cutting even further in A Funny Thing Happened The Pawnbroker (1965) and other New York-based films on the \\'lay to the Forum (1966), but he exploited it in offered a harsh, ethnically inflected realism. Location film­ drama as well, as in The Dirty Dozen (1967), which av­ mg became more frequent, even within cramped bars and eraged 3.5 seconds per shot. apartments. Long-focal-length lenses, which acted like

songs into scenes became a staple of American cinema. films it rejected. Theaters screenll1g Who's Afraid of Vir­ Film studios became a ffilia ted with musIc companies, ginia Woolf? (1966) reqUIred that under-eighteen pa­ saw the benefits of cross-plugging movies and record­ trons be accompanied by an adult, and the film earned ings, and made the sound-track album a source of profit. huge profits. The Code was dead. Lester's eye-catching techniques were applied to In 1966, the MPAA stopped issuing certificates. In­ volatile content by Arthur Penn in Bonnie and Clyde stead, films that failed to conform to its guidelines were (1967). With an average shot length of less than four sec­ labeled "Suggested for Mature Audiences." Backing onds, the film also popularized the use of slow motion to down from this toothless policy, the MPAA companIes render extreme violence. The climax, showll1g the title created a rating system coded by letter: G (general: rec­ couple cur down by a hail of bullets, turns into a spas­ olllmended for all ages), M (mature: recommended for modic dance through rhythmic slow motion (see 22.3). viewers over sixteen), R (restricted: viewers under six­ Sam Peckinpa h pushed Penn's approach further by ren­ teen to be accompanied by parent or guardian), and X dering blood bursts and falling bodies in slow motion (no one under sixteen admitted). and a hail of shots. The Wild Bunch (1969) celebrates an The rating system allowed the Industry to present anarchic band of robbers who are tracked by an obses­ itself as being sensitive to public concern while glVll1g sive lawman. The film begins and ends with harrowing filmmakers lIcense to treat violence, sexuality, or un­ firefights in which innocents are gunned down merci­ orthodox ideas. The new latitude helped make hits out lessly. Straw Dogs (1971), with its portrayal of an inef­ of Bob & Carol 6 Ted & Alice, The Wild Bunch, and fectual professor taking bloody revenge for the rape of Midnight Cowboy (all 1969). Subsequent films suc­ his wife, outraged critics even more. Peckinpah's critics ceeded by pushing the standards of acceptability fur­ still debate whether his lyrical treatment of carnage dis­ ther. Eventual.ly the rating system was revised, raising tances us, arouses us, or invites us to reflect on our own the age for R and X films and replacing the M category appetites. After Bonnie and Clyde and The Wild Bunch, with PG (parental gUidance suggested). fast cutting and slow motion became standard ways of Producers noted that The Graduate and Bonnie and presenting violent action. Clyde had appealed to young audiences, and rhey learned Innovations like these arrived as most old-guard that half of all moviegoers were aged 16 to 24. Studios filmmakers were in their final creative years. John Ford, launched a cycle of youthpics, which offered young audi­ Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, William Wyler, ences entertainment unavailable on television. The pro­ Raoul Walsh, and many others who had started in silent totype was f,asy Rider (1969), a chronicle of two drug cinema or the early days of sound were no longer at the dealers' motorcycle Hip across America. Made for less forefront. When Ford a nd Walsh retired, they had been than $500,000, it became one of the most successful films making movies for nearly fifty years. Their solid tech­ of its year. The yourhplcs cycle Included films of campus l1lque looked staid, their attitudes old-fashioned. Hawks rebellion (The Strawberry Statement, 1970), countercul­ remarked of Peckinpah's slow-motion filming and over­ tural dramas (Alice's Restaurant. L969; Joe, 1970), nos­ lapping cutting, "Oh hell, I can kill and bury ten guys In talgia pieces (The l-ast Picture Show, ] 971), and anM­ the time it takes him to kill one." ] "Hollywood now IS chic comedies (M 'A "S'H, 1970; Harold and Maude, run by Wall St. and Madison Ave., who demand 'Sex 1971). When Yellow Submarine (Great Britain, 1968, and Violence,'" wrote John Ford after completing his George Dunning) became a phenomena I hit by offering a last feature, Seven Women (1965). "This is against my string of "psychedelic" vignettes illustrating Beatles conscience and religion. "2 songs, producers realized that anima non could also win college audiences. Ra!ph Bakshi aimed Fritz the Cat Identifying the Audience (1972), the first cartoon to receive an X rating, at view­ ers comfortable wirh the drugs-and-free-Iove ethos of un­ Ford was right: many boundaries of taste had come derground comICs (Color Plate 22.2). down. Throughout the 1950s, the power of the Hays In the same years, the industry also benefited hom Office to dictate film content had been eroding (p. 216). a few old-fash ioned hits targeting the general audience: In the 1960s, major films such as The Pawnbroker and the war film Patton (1970), the musical Fiddler on the Alfie were distributed without the Production Code Roof (1971), a cycle of "disaster" pictures starting with seal, while others carried a seal despite nudity and pro­ The Poseidon Adventure (1972), two films pairing Paul fanity. It became apparent that the Code not only was Newman and Robert Redford (Butch Cassidy and the ineffectual but was creating lucrative publicity for the Sundance Kid; The Sting, 1973), and the adapration of 516 CHAPTER 22 Hollywood's Fall and Rise: 1960-1980

NEW PRODUCTION AND EXHIBITION TECHNOLOGIES '. :

The return of Hollywood cinema owed something to new with enthusiasm. There soon arose a fashion for self­ ways of making images and sounds. By 1967, the studios conscious zooming, as in The Train (1964). By the 1970s, depended on selling TV rights to features. As color televi­ filmmakers felt that such sudden enlargements or reduc­ sion became common, the networks demanded color films tions of imagery called too much attention to the mechan­ for broadcast, and Hollywood committed itself to almost ics of shooting, so zooming was found mostly in low­ entirely color production. Eastman Color became the film budget films. Still, many cinematographers kept the zoom stock of choice for most films and release prints, although lens on the camera to allow them to frame a shot precisely some prints were made from Eastman using Technicolot's without changing camera positions. dye-imbibition process. Hollywood filmmakers also borrowed the hand-held The industry had explored various versions of wide­ shot from Direct Cinema The shakiness of the hand­ screen cinema in the 1950s, and by the mid-1960s a few held camera could suggest a documentary immediacy had become dominant. Most films were shot in 35mm and (such as the opening of Seven Days in May, 1964) or a ner­ masked during shooting or projection to a 1:85 aspect ratio. vous energy (the roadhouse dance and fight in Virginia To obtain a wider image with 35mm, the image would usu­ Woolf) Cinematographers liked the maneuverability but ally be anamorphically compressed, as in CinemaScope also wanted to make the hand-held imagery steadier. (p. 331). But there were optical problems with the original Lighter-weight cameras, such as the 15-pound Arriflex 35 CinemaScope design, particularly its tendency to make faces BL, became available at the beginning of the 1970s. fatter in close-up (" 'Scope mumps"). The Panavision com­ Though somewhat heavier, Panavision's Panaflex could still pany designed a better anamorphiC system, first used on be braced on the operator's shoulder, and this allowed Jailhouse Rock (1957). The two systems coexisted in the shooting in cramped circumstances. John A. Alonzo used 1960s, but. by the end of the decade, CinemaScope was de­ the Panaflex for meticulous Wide-angle long takes in funct and Panavision became the anamorphic standard. For Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974; 22.6). For Steven still more grandeur, big musicals or historical epics would be Spielberg's Sugarland Express (1974), cinematographer Vil­ shot on 65mm stock and printed to 70mm to allow for multi­ mas Zsigmond obtained tight and steady shots inside a track sound. Exodus (1960), Lawrence of Arabia, and other moving car by sliding a Panaflex along a board. films were both 70mm and anamorphiC, thanks to Super The Steadicam, first publicized on Bound for Clary Panavision 70. (1976), was a camera support that used a system of coun­ Influenced by both European films and Direct Cinema, terweights to suspend the camera on a brace attached to Hollywood cinematographers adapted zoom lenses (p. 484) the operator's body It created smooth, floating tracking

a best-seiling novel, Love Story (1970). But the tide Show; What's Up Doc?, 1972) and former television di­ would really turn in the mid-1970s, when a string of rector Bob Rafelson (Five Fasy Pieces, 1970; The King modestly budgeted films by yo Ling, largely unknown di­ of J'v1aruin Gardens, 1972) did not. Some were fastidi­ rectors would become stupendously profitable. ous ll1tellectua Is, li ke Terrence Malick (Badlands, 1973; Days of Heauell, 1978), while others were cOllntercul­ turat movie mavens, such as Brian De Palma (Greeti7'/gs, THE NEW HOLLYWOOD: 1968; Sisters, 1973), John Carpenter (Dark Star, 1974; LATE 1960s TO LATE 1970s Assault 07'/ Preci7'/ct 17, 1977), and John Milius (Dil­ linger, J973; The Wind and the Lion, 1975). While these As the older directors retired, a new generation eventu­ directors established themselves in the early 1970s, ally took their place. The directors identified with the others about the same age came to prominence a IJttte "New Hollywood" were a diverse lot. Many-the movie later: screenwriter Paul Schrader (Blue Collar, 1978), brats-were in their late twenties and early thirties. MichJcl Cimino (The Deer Hunter, 1978), David Lynch Others, like Robert Altrnan and Woody Allen, were sig­ (Eraserhead, 1978), and Jonathan Dernme (Melvin and nificantly older. Some directors, like George Lucas and Howard, 1980). Francis Ford Coppola, went to film school, but critic­ Many of the New Hollywood dit"ectors self­ turned-filmmaker Peter Bogdanovlch (The Last Picture consciously returned to the traditiOn> of the classic81 stu­ The New Holl)'woud: L1[c[ %Os [0 LHC 1970s 517

22.6 Chinatown. in a long Panaflex take, detective Jim Gittes confronts his adversaries.

shots and allowed the operator to stride through crowds synchronize the film strip with one or more audio recorders. and narrow doorways as well as up and down stairways, Time-coded editing made sound mixing and rerecording none of which was possible with a studio dolly. Adding to much easier. the flexibility of moving shots was the Louma crane, a In sound reproduction, the principal innovations came remote-controlled aluminum arm that could lift a Panaflex from the laboratories of Ray Dolby Dolby introduced digi­ high above a set. Both the Steadicam and the Louma crane tal noise-reduction techniques to the music industry in the used video monitors for viewfinding. mid-1960s. A Clockwork Orange (1971) was the first film The 1970s also saw a revolution in sound recording to employ them. Several movies used Dolby magnetic and reproduction Robert Altman's California Split (1974) sound for multitrack theater reproduction, but Dolby's op­ pioneered multitrack recording during production, planting tical stereo system did not prove feasible until Star Wars radio microphones on the actors to create up to fourteen (1977) More and more theaters converted to stereo and distinct channels. During the same period, the "time code" surround-sound layouts to take advantage of the more designed to identify frames on videotape was modified to powerful sound tracks.

dio genres, paYing respects [() venerated filmmakers With the late 1960s recession and the se8rch for college (p. 527). During the receSSion, however, srudios also audiences, Hollywood became more hospitable to the granred filmmakers the opporrunity ro create somethll1g storytelling techniques pioneered in the European art cin­ like EuropeanHt films. Someomes a single filmmaker ema. One cme fOt Hollywood's slump seemed to be the like Coppob might participate In both trends. Both were 8ft film dwelling on mood, characren:wtion, 8nd psycho­ characterized by "movie consciousness," an intense logical ambiguity. aW,1feness of fi.1111 hisrory and its continuing influence 011 A case in pOint IS Richard l.ester's much-praised contemporary culture. Petlllw (1968). In one scene, tbe eccentric and ahL1seci Petulia confronts her lover Archie cH hiS apartillent. Toward an American Art Cinema Lester Interrupts their conversation with brief shots: 8 flashback of Archie trying to return the tuba Petulia had When P8ramount Pictures 8sked FranCIS Ford Coppola brought h 1111 and a "false" flashback of Petulia steal ing ro mc1ke 8 film b8sed on the novel The Godfather, he ,vas the tuba (22.7-22.10). Overall, the film's p!cty with in desp81L "They want me ro direct this hunk of trash," (hal'acrer subjectlvlty and temporal ordering is reminis­ he told his F8ther. "] don't want to do it. I want to do an cent of Ala 111 Resnais. films." l That Coppola could h,Hbor such hopes reflects ,1 Stanley Kubrick's 200L: A Space Odyssey (1968), boef but important moment In American filmmaking. while on one level a revival of the science-fiction genre, 518 CHAPTER 22 Hollywood's hJlI and Rise: 1960-J 980

22.7, left PetLllia: Archie explains that he tried to return the tuba Petulia had left with him ...

22.8, right ... and Lestel' intel'CLlts a flashback of Archie doing so.

22.9, left Soon f\rchie learns that Petulia paid for renting the tuba ...

22.10, right ... and Lester inserts a shot of her breaking a pawnshop window to sreal rhe ruba. This visualizes a lie rhar she rold Archie ea rI ieT.

22.11.22.12 Dennis Hopper's Easy Rider assimilated the Jump CUtS that Jean-Luc Godard had pioneered in A bOllt de souffle.

on 8nother exploits the enigm8tic symbolism of Euro­ Other road movies rook a loose, open approach ro pean 8ft cinema. Lengthy scenes of antiseptic d8ily life narrative, as in Bob Rafelson's Five Easy Pieces and on the spacecraft (Including many stretches empty of Monte Hellman's Two Lane Blacktop (1971), the latter drarnatic values), an ltonic use of music, and a teasing, remarkable for irs sparse dialogue and minimal charac­ 811egorical ending ll1vite the sort of thematic interpreta­ terizations. Brian De Palma's Greetings (1968) and Hi, tion usually reserved for films by Federico Fellinl or Mom! (1970) were episodic counterculture films that Michel8ngelo Antonioni. merged rock mUSIC, raunchy humor, and reflexive stylistic Some youthpics 81so experimented with arr-f1lm tra­ devices borrowed from Franc;ois Truffaut and ]ean-Luc ditions. Easy Rider's rock sound track and drug-laced Godard. Haskell Wexler's Medium Cool (1969; 22.13), tour of America may have attracted young audiences, Paul Williams's The Reuolutionary (1970), and Michelan­ but its style IS quite Jolting (22.11, 22.12). Transitions gelo Antonioni's Zabriskie Point ('1970) offered a para Ilel are choppy: a few frames from the last shot of one scene to the critical political cinema emerging in Europe (see Jlternate with a few frames of the first shor of the next. Chapter 23), and they often relied on ambiguous narra­ (Dennis Hopper, 8 fan of underground fiJms, may have tives and open endings. I\!lelvin Van PeepIe's Sweet borrowed the deVice from Gregory Markopoulos SweetbacR. 's Baadassss Song (1971), a frenetic call to lp. 496J.) An ell1gmatic flashforward shot of a burning black revolution, exploited a variety of New Wave tech­ bike punctuates the narrative, foreshadowing the end niques. Hopper's The Last Movie (1971), about a Kansas of the drug dealers' odyssey. cowboy eking out a living 111 Peru, employed cryptic sym­ The New Hollywood: Lare 1960s to LHe 19705 519

with a Iiena ting widescreen compositions reminiscent of Anronioni (22.14). The auteur approach to film criticism had become Widely knovm in the United States (see "Notes and Queries" at the end of this chapter), and many movie brats who began their careers in the 1960s had learned of it in film school. Some harbored dreams of becoming artists like the venerated Eumpe

22.14 The decenrered compo­ sitions and dominaring architecrure of The Parallax View. 520 CHAPTER 22 Hollywood's Fall and Rist:, 1960-1980

anxiety is charted through dreams and fragmentary 22.15 The flashbacks. The murder is presented in disorienting CUl1ucrsaticm: as shards, as Harry glimpses and overhears it. Eventually, Harry wa tcht:s tht: mysterious the audience discovers that parts of the original conver­ younger pwplt: sa tion have been filtered through Harry's mind. As It:ave the corpor­ Harry realizes the true situation, Coppola intercuts shots ation undn press of him with shots of the murder, perhaps as he now scruti ny ... imagines it to have taken place (22.15-22.17).

. . " . - . ., . ;" ".. - .. PERSONAL CINEMA: ALTMAN AND ALLEN .,'.'•• ,.' ". • • • • • • • • I

After the mid-1970s, efforts to maintain a Hollywood art adaptations (Secret HanOI; 1984; Fool for Love, 1985). His cinema were much less common, One director who per­ career was rejuvenated through his handling of the dark sisted was Robert Altman. Altman directed some fairly or­ Hollywood comedy The Player (1992), which allowed him thodox features before his career was energized by the late to return to more mainstream production and continue his 1960s recession, the youth pies cycle, and the vogue for off-kilter, bitterly anarchic handling of theme, genre, image, Hollywood art cinema. His films travesty their genres, from and sound. the war film M 'A "S*H to the anti musical Popeye (1980) Altman's contemporary Woody Allen created a per­ They radiate a distrust of authority, a criticism of American sonal cinema from a production base in New York A tele­ pieties, and a celebration of energetic, if confused, idealism. vision gag writer and a stand-up comedian, Allen wrote Altman also developed an idiosyncratic style. He relied plays and starred in films during the 1960s, His first direc­ on shambling, semi-improvised performances, a restless torial effort, Take the Money and Run (1969), became an pan-and-zoom camera style, abrupt cutting, multiple­ immediate success, sustaining the wisecracking absurdist camera shooting that kept the viewpoint resolutely outside tradition of the Marx Brothers and Bob Hope. Allen's early the character action, and a sound track of unprecedented films also appealed to young audiences through their cine­ density. His long lenses crowd characters in on one another matic in-jokes, such as the homage to Potemkin's Odessa and lock them behind reflecting glass (22,18). Nashville Steps in Bananas (1971), (1975), for many critics Altman's major achievement, fol­ With Annie Hall (1977), Allen launched a series of films lows twenty-four characters over a weekend, often scat­ that blended his interest in the psychological problems of teri ng them across the widescreen frame (22,19), In Alt­ the urban professional with his love for American film tradi­ man's films, characters mumble, interrupt each other, talk tions and for such European filmmakers as Fellini and simultaneously, or find themselves drowned out by the Bergman. "When I started making pictures, I was interested droning loudspeakers of official wisdom. in the kind of pictures I enjoyed when I was younger. Come­ Without a major hit after M'A*S'H, Altman found dies, real funny comedies, and romantic comedies, sophisti­ himself adrift in the 1980s, but he still managed to be quite cated comedies. As I got a little more savvy, that part of me prolific, skewering American values in bare-bones play which I'esponded to foreign film started to ta.ke over."4

22.18 In The Long Goodbye, a dense window reflection shows the detective Philip Marlowe on the beach while inside the house novelist Roger Wade quarrels with his wife. The New Hollywood: Late L960s to Late 1970s 521

22.16, left ... Coppola interrupts the scene with glimpses of the murder ...

22.17, right ... and suggests that these images could be either Harry's imaginings or fragments of the real action.

r ~ • ~ • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • ~ • ~ ~

22.19 Several major characters pass each other unawares in the bustling airport scene at the beginning of Nashville.

Allen's most influential films have thrown his comic per­ sona-the hypersensitive, insecure Jewish intellectual-into a tangle of psychological conflicts. Sometimes the plot cen­ ters on the Allen figure's confused love life (Annie Ha/!; Manhattan, 1979). In Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) and Crimes and Misdemeanors (1990), the plot consists of in­ tertwined romantic relationships among several characters, played for contrasts between verbal comedy and sober drama. Hannah, for instance, mixes marital infidelity, a can­ cer scare, and satiric observation of New York intellectual life (22.20). Allen built many of his films around the ques­ tions that preoccupied him, and he unabashedly recorded his loves (jazz. Manhattan), dislikes (rock music, drugs, Cali­ fornia), and values (love, friendship, trust). A unique production arrangement allowed Allen to re­ tain control over the script, casting, and editing; he was even permitted extensive reshooting of portions of his films. He explored a range of styles, from the pseudo-documentary realism of Zelig (1983) to the mock German Expressionism 22.20 Middle-class couples debate artificial insemination: romantic satire in Hannah and Her Sisters. of Shadows and Fog (1992). Allen also paid homage to a number of his favorite films and auteurs. Stardust Memories (1980) is an overt reworking of Fellini's 8'h; Radio Days gatherings of Hannah and Her Sisters evoke Fanny and (1987), in its glowing evocation of period detail, re­ Alexander Few of his films made a profit. but into the calls Amarcord. Interiors (1978) and September (1987) are 2000s Allen attracted major stars willing to take part in his Bergmanesque chamber dramas, while the holiday family personal universe. 522 CHAPTER 22 Hollywood's Fall and Rise: 1960-1980

Hollywood Strikes Gold During the 1970s, new forces were at work to salvage the U.S. film industry. In 1971, a new law allowed film com­ panies to claim tax credits on investments in U.S.-made films and to recover tax credits from the 1960s. This leg­ islation not only returned hundreds of millions of dollars to the Majors, it also allowed them to defer tax on sub­ sidiaries' activities. In addition, a tax-shelter plan allowed investors in films to declare up to 100 percent of their in­ vestment as exempt from taxes. The latter provision helped successful, offbeat films like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and Taxi Driver (1976) to be made. The tax-shelter provision was rescinded in 1976, and the 22.21 The Exorcist, an adaptation of a best-selling horror studios' tax-credit benefits were abolished in the mid­ novel, aroused controversy with its blasphemous language 1980s, but they had been crucial to the industry's recovery. and its shocking special effects. Here, thanks to a life-sized A more visible force was a fresh burst of highly suc­ puppet, the possessed Regan mockingly rotates her head. cessful films. Although many of the new generation of Hollywood directors-especially the movie brats-con­ very healthy profits, but records were broken again by sidered themselves artists, few wanted to be esoteric. George Lucas's Star Wars (Fox). Costing $11 miIJion, it Most enjoyed satisfying the demands of a large audience. began as a summer movie, ran continuously Into 1978, And some made not just ordinary hits but films that and was rereleased in 1979. Star Wars earned over broke records year after year. The top-grossing films of $190 million in U.S. remals and about $250 million 1970 and 1971 (Love Story, Airport, M':A ':-S"H, Pat­ worldwide, on a total ticket sales of over $500 million. ton, The French Connection, Fiddler on the Roof) had yielded between $25 million and $50 million to the stu­ No cluster of films had ever made so much money dios from U.S. box-office returns-strong profits, bur on lninal release. S Studios on the brink of bankruptcy lackluster in comparison with what was to come. The found their profits hitting unprecedented levels. Richard Godfather ushered in an era of box-office income on a F. Zanuck, the son of long-time 20th-Century Fox boss scale no one had imagined. The following figures are Darryl F. Zanuck, produced The Sting and.faws. When rentals, not box-office grosses; the rentals are the rev­ the receipts came in, he realized that "I had amassed enues returned to the studio after the theaters have taken more money with one or two pictures than my father their percentages of gross ticket sales: had in a lifetime of work."6 During the boom of the early and mid-1970s, most Majors had ar least one top 1972: The Godfather, directed by Francis Ford Cop­ hir, so the ll1dustry as a whole mainrained its stability. pola, returned over $81 million to Paramoum in the OveraJl rentals from domestic and foreign release in­ U.S. marker. Two years later, its global rentals and TV creased about $200 million per year, reaching $2 billion sales amounted to $285 milJion. in 1979. Television networks and cable companies 1973: William Friedkin's The Exorcist (Warners; began paying large sums for righrs to broadcast rhe new 22.21) surpassed The Godfather's U.S. rentals by blockbusters. The 1970s resurgence catapulted several $3 million. In the same year, Universal reluctantly re­ filillmakers to fame, with three becoming major pro­ leased a small-budget film called American Graffiti, ducer-directors (see box). directed by George Lucas; it reaped over $55 million. 1975: Jaws (Universal), directed by Steven Spielberg, The Return of the Blockbuster earned $130 million in domestic remals. The 1970s blockbusters made producers far less willing 1976: Rocky, made without major stars and by little­ to let filmmakers experiment wirh plot, tone, and style. known director John Avildson, earned United Artists During the recession of the early 1970s, studios wel­ $56 million at the U.S. box office. comed even a small hit; directors were nor expected to 1977: Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third create big pictures. By the late 1970s, however, compa­ Kind (Columbia; $82 million) and John Badham's Sat­nies did not want to risk money on untried subjecrs or urday Night Fever (Paramount; $74 million) generated approaches. The New Hollywood: Lare 19605 ro L1[(' [9705 523

THE 1970s BIG THREE: COPPOLA, SPIELBERG, AND LUCAS • • • • • • • • •

Three directors who emerged at the beginning of the in the film, and he held dinners in which the actors ate and 1970s became powerful producers and redefined what drank and talked in character. For The Godfather, Part II he Hollywood cinema might be. Like other novices of the added New York stage legends like playwright Michael time, they were less directors than "filmmakers" who had Gazzo and Lee Strasberg, the dean of the Actors Studio. tried their hand at every aspect of the craft, from writing This interest in performance was balanced by a risk­ to postproduction. They understood movies as total cre­ taking cinematic senSibility. The Godfather was remarkably ations, and they sought to put their personal stamp on poised, partly because it refused the fast cutting and camera everything they did. They were also well acquainted with movements of the early 1970s. Coppola and his cinematog­ each other: Francis Ford Coppola acted as producer and rapher, Gordon Willis, settled upon a "tableau" style that em­ mentor for George Lucas on American Graffiti, and later phasized a static camera and actors moving through rich, Lucas and Steven Spielberg collaborated on several pro­ often gloomy, interiors (Color Plate 22.3). In contrast. the jects, notably Raiders of the Lost Ark (1980). Still, their fragmentary montage of sound and image in The Conversa­ paths diverged. With The Godfather, Coppola proved that tion sets the audience adrift in alternative times and mental he could turn out a mainstream masterpiece, but he spaces. In Apocalypse Now, Coppola would strive to give the wanted to go further, to turn Hollywood into a center of Vietnam War an overpowering visual presence, with psyche­ artistic cinema. Lucas and Spielberg wanted to modernize delic color, surround sound, and slow, hallucinatory dissolves. the system without disturbing it. Coppola had founded his company, American Zoetrope, Coppola broke through first. His youth comedy You're in 1969 in order to nurture his personal projects. After years a Big Boy Now (1967) borrowed the flashy techniques of of yearning for a facility, he bought the Hollywood General Richard Lester's Beatles films and the SWinging-London pic­ studio in 1979, renamed it Zoetrope Studios, and announced tures. Coppola came to know the collapsing studio system that it would be a center of new technology for feature films, from the inside, moving from Corman's American Interna­ an "electronic cinema" based on high-definition video sent tion'al Pictures to screenwriting (the Oscar-winning script for out by satellite. He rebuilt the stages and directed perfor­ Patton, 1970) and then to directing, with the unsuccessful mances from his trailer via video feeds. The main result was Broadway musical Finian's Rainbow (1968). The Godfather One from the Heart (1982), a flamboyantly artificial musical yielded him great financial rewards, but instead of promptly drama filled with stunning pictorial effects (Color Plate parlaying his success into a commercial career, he plunged 22.4). One from the Heart would influence the French into an intimate, ambivalent art movie, The Conversation. cinema du look of the 1980s (p. 620), but the cost overruns He turned The Godfather, Part 1/ (1974) into a complex, and public indifference led to a massive failure. Soon time-juggling piece. Then he embarked on the vast, exhaust­ Coppola was forced to sell his facility to satisfy his creditors. ing, budget-shattering Apocalypse Now (1979). What followed were twenty years of difficulty. Coppola Coppola's was bravura filmmaking on a grand scale. In launched some intriguing projects such as the teenage dra­ college he wanted to direct theater, and in many respects mas The Outsiders (1983) and Rumble Fish (1983), as well he remained an actor's director. For The Godfather he as the brash Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988, pro­ fought Paramount to hire Marlon Brando and AI Pacino duced by Lucas). He never ceased to experiment with eye­ and gave prime roles to James Caan, Robert Duvall, his sis­ catching compositions (22.22) and offbeat storytelling tech­ ter Talia Shire, and other little-known actors. During re­ niques, such as the use of a fake publicity film in Tucker and hearsals he had actors improvise scenes that would not be (continued)

22.22 Tucker: an in-camera optical effect connects Tucker with his wife as they talk on the phone. 524 CHAPTI.R 22 Hollnv()od's 1,111 ,mel Rise: J %O-I980

THE 1970s BIG THREE: COPPOLA, SPIELBERG, AND LUCAS, continued " "' .. <. .. or

22.23 Ingenious depth staging in Spielberg's Jaws.

22.24 The heroes of Star Wars rewarded.

the silent-film-style special effects in Bram Stoker's Dracula and Spielberg revived the family film of adventure (Willow, (1992). Yet he failed to restart his career. Even a seq uel, 1988), fantasy (Gremlins, 1984), and. cartoon comedy Godfather 11/ (1990), to his biggest hit did not redeem him, (Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, 1988; Color Plate 22.5). and he became a director for hire. Coppola began to be While the Disney studio was floundering, two baby known not for his movies but for the wine cultivated at his boomers recaptured the old magic. Many critics noted that Napa Valley vineyard. Walt himself would have loved to make Star Wars or E. T By contrast, Lucas and Spielberg sought to recover Spielberg divided his attention between what he called their' boyhood pleasure in movies. They tried to re-create "fast-food movies" (Jaws, the" Indiana Jones" series) and the uncomplicated fun of space opera (Star Wars), action­ more upscale directorial efforts (The Color Purple, 1985; packed serials (Raiders of the Lost Ark), and fantasy (Close Empire of the Sun, 1987). These dignified adaptations of Encounters, E. L The Extraterrestrial, 1982). In making Star best-selling novels had a nostalgic side, too, recalling the Wars, Lucas pulled together the most exciting portions of Hollywood prestige picture of the 1930s and 1940s. Look­ several air battles from Hollywood combat pictures, story­ ing back to the great tradition, Spielberg filled his films with boarded the compiled sequence, and then shot his space reverent allusions to the studio program picture (Always, dogfights to match the older footage.·As producers, Lucas 1989, is a remake of Victor Fleming's A Guy Named Joe,

it had become clear that the Industry's success 'vvas began rele~1sing thelr big-budget films in the peak leisure based on very few films. In any year, only ten or so "must­ periods, summer and Christmas. FoliowlI1g the lead of see" pictures comprised the bulk of admissions, while exploitation companies like AlP, Ul1lversal filled televi­ most of the Malors' releases failed to break even. The in­ sion with ads for Jaws and released the film to hundreds dustry therefore sought to 11lll1imize the risks. Comp<'\nies of theaters simultaneously. In the decades to come, most The New Hollywood: Lare 19605 ro Lare 19705 525

v t • ~ ~ • • • • • • • • • • • G • • • ~ ~ • ~ ~ ,

1943) and to Disney (Close Encounters; Hook, 1991; and characters wholly on computer. This dream, the ultimate film A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, 2001). extension of the comic-book aesthetic, was realized first in In one respect, Spielberg proved himself heir to the stu­ Star Wars Episode I. The Phantom Menace (1999), in which dio directors; with the right material, he could make a story Jar Jar Binks was the first wholly computer-generated char­ come grippingly alive for his audience. The cleverly con­ acter in a major live-action feature film. structed Jaws balanced its thrills with a skeptical attitude Lucas often called himself an independent filmmaker, toward political leadership. Against the money-grubbing and in some sense he was. The triumph of Star Wars al­ businesspeople of Amity, the film offers three versions of lowed him to dictate terms to any studio in town. After fre­ male heroism: the grizzled man of action Quint, the scien­ quent clashes with Fox on The Empire Strikes Back (1980), tific rationalist Hooper, and the reluctant pragmatist Sheriff which ran over schedule and budget, he vowed that he Brody. Each sequence hits a high pitch of emotional tension, would never compromise again. Retreating to his own fief­ and scene by scene the audience's anxiety is ratcheted up dom, Skywalker Ranch, Lucas oversaw a high-tech won­ through crisp editing, inventive Panavision compositions derland based on a saga that gripped the imagination of (22.23), and John Williams's ominous score. Likewise, in the millions around the world and spawned Star Wars novels, "Indiana Jones" and"Jurassic Park" series, Spielberg re­ toys, games, action figures, and video games. Skywalker vamped the traditions of Raoul Walsh and Jacques Tourneur staff maintained a volume, "The Bible," that listed all the for the blockbuster age. events occurring in the Star Wars universe. Spielberg's New Age-tinted spirituality, often expressed Yet Lucas continued to believe that he was spinning a as mute wonder at glittering technological marvels, proved simple tale grounded in basic human values. Like Spielberg, even more popular. Over and over the young man from di­ Lucas hit on a resonant New Age theme: the Force, repre­ vorced suburban parents replayed the drama of a family's senting God, the cosmos, or whatever the viewer was com­ breakup and a child's yearning for happiness. He found em­ fortable with. Beneath all the hardware, he claimed, Star blematic images-spindly aliens communicating through Wars was about "redemption." Spielberg remarked, hy­ music, a boy bicycling silhouetted against the moon-that perbolically, that Star Wars marked the moment "when the ver'ged on kitsch but also struck a chord in millions. Spiel­ world recognized the value of childhood."? berg became New Hollywood's reliable showman, recalling All three directors had colossal hits in the 1970s, but Cecil B. DeMille, Alfred Hitchcock, and the director whom only Spielberg and Lucas continued to rule over the next he claimed he most resembled, Victor Fleming, the contract twenty years. At one point in the early 1980s. the pair were professional who had a hand in both Gone with the Wind responsible for the six top-grossing films of the postwar pe­ and The Wizard of Oz. riod. Coppola foresaw the multimedia future but believed Less of a movie fan than Coppola and Spielberg, Lucas that Zoetrope Studios could become a vertically integrated spent his youth watching television, reading comic books, firm on its own. His two peers saw deeper, letting the stu­ and tinkering with cars. The world of cruising and rock'n'roll dios remain distributors while they provided content. Lucas­ was lovingly depicted in American Graffiti, whose meticu­ film and LucasArts produced theatrical films, television se­ lously designed music track and interwoven coming-of-age ries, commercials, interactive games, computer animation, crises presented the real teen picture that studios had been and special effects, as well as new editing and sound sys­ craving. Star Wars offered chivalric myth for 1970s teens, a tems. Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment produced some of quest romance in which young heroes could find adventure, the era's most popular films (Back to the Future, 1985; pure love, and a sacred cause (22.24). Not surprisingly, Star Twister, 1996). Later, DreamWorks SKG, which Spielberg Wars was published as a comic book before the film was re­ founded with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, leased. Coppola loved working with actors, but Lucas churned out features and television shows to be distributed avoided talking with them except for the occasional by Universal. By 1980, Lucas and Spielberg had become the "Faster!" He looked forward to creating his scenes digitally, most powerful director-producers in the industry, and they shooting isolated actors against blank screens, or creating remained at the top into the new century.

major releases would receive saturation advertising and and series that were based on successes, such as the booking, pinning their fates on one opening weekend. Rocky films and the Star Trel< saga. Moreover, Jaws had When vIewers returned to Jaws over and over, stu­ been made with little concern for merchandising, but in dios learned that it was profitable to extend runs for big negotiating his stake in Star Wars, Lucas had shrewdly films.ln planning productions, studios opted for sequels obtained a large percentage of the rights to toys, 526 CHAPTER 22 Hollywood's Fall and Rise: 1960-] 980

T-shirts, and other tie-ins. Studios watched as the Star showed. The most notorious failure of the system in­ Wars merchandising income exceeded its box-office volved Michael Cimino's ambitious Western, Heaven's take, and they subsequently created their own merchan­ Gate (1980). The budget rose to $40 million, the high­ dising divisions. est production cost of the 1970s. After the director's cur Despite some inroads made by independent distrib­ had a disastrous premiere, United Artists released a utors, the market was ruled by familiar players. The shortened version. It earned less than $2 million in major distribution companies garnered 90 percent of aU rentals, and soon UA collapsed as a Major, eventually to theater revenues. A film financed outside the studios be absorbed by MGM. could not get widely screened unless it was distributed Studio executives began to complain that every by a top company. The standard distribution fee, 35 per­ young director wanted to be an auteur, free of all finan­ cent, came directly from gross rentals, so Jaws and Star cial constraints (see "Notes and Queries" at the end of Wars earned distribution income for Universal and 20th this chapter). Ironically, the rise of the New Hollywood, Century-Fox over and above any investments the stu­ a director-centered trend, led to a general mistrust of dios made in the productions. The major distributors directors. The 1980s would see studios strain to keep also controlled international circulation of U.S. films. the filmmaker on track. Executives would provide notes Still, the Majors needed filmmakers. While some stu­ on scripts and rushes, and test screenings would sample dios, notably Disney, prided themselves on generating audiences' reaction to the director's cut. their own projects, most came to rely on direcrors and A new era of blockbusters, built on packages and producers with strong track records. Spielberg and Lucas deals and bolstered by stars and special effects, had became powerful producers who could find financing begun. Superman: The Movie (1978) was two years in easily and could even demand reductions in distribution the making. This independently produced film wound up fees. Studios cultivated long-term relationships with pro­ costing somewhere between $40 million and $55 mil­ ducers who could bring together a script, a director, and lion. Gene Hackman demanded a salary of $2 million, stars. Increasingly, agents were funcrioning as quasi­ while Marlon Branda received $3 million for two weeks' producers by gathering their clients into packages, a work. Mario Puzo, author of The Godfather, was paid strategy pioneered by Lew Wasserman (p. 336-337) and $350,000 for the Superman script plus 5 percent of the developed by Sue Mengers in assembling Ryan O'Neal, gross receipts. Millions more were invested in the elabo­ Barbra Streisand, and director Peter Bogdanovich for rate sets and special effects, prepared at England's Pine­ What's Up, Doc? (1973). The year 1975 saw the forma­ wood Studios. Aware of the value of a franchise series, tion of two powerful talent agencies, International Cre­ the producers shot two films in one stretch of studio time ative Management and Creative Artists Agency, both of so as to have a sequel ready. The film featured a score by which would become prime packagers in the 1980s. the certified mega-hit composer John Williams (jaws, Many of the most adept moguls were TV-trained, Star Wars, Close Encounters). Released in December, like Paramount's Barry Diller and Michael Eisner, and Superman: The Movie eventually grossed over $80 mil­ understood how to broker talent. Studios also hired lion in its U.S. run, becoming the top hit of 1979 and agents as executives beca use they had show-business ex­ Warner Bros.' most profitable film to date. It spawned perience though they lacked corporate MBAs. Accord­ three sequels and millions in merchandising, along the ingly, the 1970s initiated an era dominated by "the deaL" way spurring new interest in superhero comic books. Development deals generated income for the agents, pro­ Directed by Richard Donner, a man with no auteurist pre­ ducers, scriptwriters, and stars, but few films resulted. tensions, it pointed the wa y to the megapicture stra tegy Overall deals paid stars and directors to develop "vanity of the 1980s and 1990s. projects" for studios, and housekeeping deals gave their production companies an office on the studio lor. Every Hollywood Updated participant in a package tried to hold out for the maxi­ mum, so a project might take years to reach the screen. No 1970s studio could afford to concentrate completely Filmmakers complained that shooting pictures had be­ on big-budget pictures. Each firm made only two or come secondary to deal making. three of these per year. But since the studio's distribution As successful filmmakers gained more control over wing needed from twelve to twenty pictures each year to their projects, budgets often inflated. Coppola's Apoca­ pay for itself, the rest of the program was filled out with lypse Now took three years to shoot and cOSt over less costly items-often, genre fare reva mped for young $30 million. Even highly successful directors were not audiences. Comedy was pushed toward gross-out slap­ immune to cost overruns, as Spielberg's 1941 (1979) stick by directors and performers associated with Na­ The New Hollywood: LHe 1960s to Late 1970s 527

22.25 The return of wide-angle shots: Close F.71COllJ1ters of the Third Kind. 22.26 Debt collecting in Little Italy: the "mook" scene from Mean Streets.

22.27,22.28 In Catch-22 (1970), Mike Nichols inter'cuts exaggerated deep-focus shots with images taken with a much longer lens.

tional Lampoon magazine and television's "Saturday swashbuckling action film in The Wind and the Lion Night Live" in Animal House (1978). Musicals were up­ (1975). These directors often cultivated a style that rec­ dnted to Incorporate disco (Saturday Night Feuer, 1977) ognizably borrows from the masters. Carpenter's rhyth­ or to playfully mock 19505 teen culture (Grease, 1978). mic cutting in Assault em Precinct] 3 is indebted to Now that SImply updating genres occnsionally pro­ Hawks's Scarface. De Palma's overhead shots, startling vided hits, many directors steered away from the experi­ deep-focus imagery, and split-screen handling of action mentation encouraged by the art-cinema vogue of the recall Hitchcock's swaggering ingenuity. In Jaws, Spiel­ late 1960s and endy 1970s. Most young directors did berg borrowed Hitchcock's zoom-inltrack-out technique not rry to challenge mainstream storytelling. Instead, from Vertigo, a device that was to be used cOlllmonly in they followed Spielberg and Lucas in reworking estab­ 1980s film to sho\-v a background eerily squeezing around lish.ed genres and referenCIng hallowed classics and di­ an unmoving figure. rectors. In several 'vVa ys, the New Hollywood defined it­ During the late 1960s and early 1970s, direcrors self by remaking the old. "~Te were very much concerned had become reliant on long lenses; entire scenes might with making the Hollywood film," recalled Joh.n !\flilius, be shot with the depth-flattening telephoto. By contrast, "not to make a lot of money, but as artists. "g Spielberg, De Palma, and other New Hollywood direc­ Many films became Ironic or affectionate tributes to tors reintroduced wide-angle-Iens compositions remi­ the studio tradition. John Carpenter's Assault em Precinct niscent of Orson Welles, William Wyler, and film noir. 13 updates Hnwks's Rio Brauo, pitting a stoic code of The results were often strikIng depth of focus and dis­ cond uct against contemporary urban violence. Bria n De tortion of figures (22.25,22.26). Yet directors did not Palma became famous for his pastiches of Hitchcock: abandon long lenses. From the 1970s onward, they Obsession (1976) IS Vertigo with an Incestuous tWiSt; mixed occasional deep-focus shots with flatter telephoto Dressed to Kill (1980) confronrs Psycho with. contempo­ shots (22.27,22.28). As the films' scripts often gave rary sexual mores. John Milius sought to revive the 1940s and 1950s genres a contemporary treatment, so 528 CHAPTER 22 Hollywood's Fall and Rise: 1960-1980

their style became a synthesis of techniques deflved and then to movie stardom in Sergio Leone's spaghetti from many eras. Westerns (p. 454). Returning to Hollywood, Eastwood Several films of the New Hollywood revisited tradi­ deepened his star image by working with veteran action tional genres. The Godfather movies revived the clas­ director Don Siegel in Coogan's Bluff (1968) and Dirty sic gangster film but gave the formula some fresh twists. Harry (1972). Eastwood's screen persona had a cynical, The Godfather (1972) emphasizes the genre's conven­ even sadistic, cast that set him apart from Paul Newman tional ethnic divisions (Italian/lrish/Jewish/WASP) and and John Wayne, his main box-office rivals. He turned its machismo values but adds a new stress on family to directing with Play Misty for Me (1971), which cast unity and intergenerational succession. Michael Cor­ him as a late-night disc jockey stalked by an obsessive leone, at first remote from the "family business," be­ fan. Eastwood directed conventional action fare like The comes his father's rightful heir, at the cost of distancing Eiger Sanction (1975), but he also brought a sour, mythic himself from his wife Kay. The Godfather, Part II feel to the Western in The Outlaw Josie Wales (1976) and (1974) shows how Michael's father became a success, experimented with his image in The Gauntlet (1977) and harking back to another genre formula, the emigrant Bronco Billy (1980). He shrewdly starred in other direc­ gangster's rise to power. This earlier time period is in­ tors' genre efforts, which gave him big hits like Any tercut with Michael's expanding authority and ruthless­ Which Way But Loose (1978). ness in the 1950s. Whereas the first Godfather ends Eastwood shot his films fast and cheap, which with Michael's full assimilation into the male line of the yielded solid profits but sometimes made them look staid family, Part II closes with him locked in autumnal in an age of hyper-produced extravaganzas. Yet his re­ shadow, alone and brooding, unable to trust anyone. spect for genre conventions and the trim efficiency of his The Godfather did not lead to a renaissance of the style stood as a reminder of the solidity of the classic stu­ gangster film, but two other genres were revived on a dio picture. During the 1980s and 1990s, Eastwood was major scale. The horror film, long associated with low­ the most prolific major director in Hollywood, and he budget exploitation, was given a new respectability in represented its traditions at their purest, in his sober The Exorcist and became an industry mainstay for treatment of the military film (Heartbreak Ridge, 1986), twenty years. Carpenter's Halloween (1978) spawned the Western (Pale Rider, 1985; Unforgiven, 1992), the a long cycle of stalker-slasher films in which the vic­ romance (The Bridges of Madison County, 1995), and tims, usually voluptuous teenagers, meet gory ends. the crime drama (True Crime, 1999). He also won ac­ Adaptations from best-selling novels by Stephen King claim for Bird (1988), a testament to his love of jazz. yielded Carrie (1976, De Palma) and The Shining Eastwood's calm craftsmanship seemed distinctly (1980, Stanley Kubrick). unhip alongside the satires and parodies pouring out of The other significant genre to be revived was science the studios in the 1970s. Woody Allen parodied the caper fiction. Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey was the major film (Take the Money and Run, 1969) and the science­ forerunner, but it was Lucas and Spielberg who im­ fiction film (Sleeper, 1973). Mel Brooks made raucous, pressed Hollywood with the profit possibilities of a genre bawdy farces of the Western (Blazing Saddles, 1973), the previously identified with kiddie matinees and teenage Universal horror film (Young Frankenstein, 1974), the exploitation. Star Wars showed that space adventure, Hitchcockian thriller (High Anxiety, 1977), and the his­ mounted with updated special effects, could attract a new torical epic (History of the World, Part I, 1981). David generation of moviegoers, and its unprecedented success and Jerry Zucker, along with Jim Abrahams, savaged the triggered not only its own film series but one based on disaster film ill Airplane! (1980). Such zany treatment of the television program Star Trek. Close Encounters of genre conventions had already been employed in silent the Third Kind turned the 1950s "invasion film" into a slapstick and in the comedies of Bob Hope and Bing cozy, quasi-mystical experience of communion with ex­ Crosby and Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Mocking traterrestrial wisdom. After these films, science fiction Hollywood was itself a Hollywood tradition. would remain a dominant Hollywood genre, often as a showcase for new filmmaking technology. Scorsese as Synthesis The young directors acquired a taste for tradition from film school or late-night television, but an older fig­ A few filmmakers managed to express personal concerns ure came to it more spontaneously. Starting as a studio by adapting aspects of the European art film, and sev­ contract player, Clint Eastwood moved from movie bit­ eral more did so by reviving the studio tradition. Very parts to a successful 1960s television series (Rawhide) few, however, were a bJe to do both. Coppola ma naged The New Hollywood: Lare 1960s to Lare 1970s 529

22.29, 22.30 Two different £ignts in Raging Bull, each wirh a disrincr cinema ric rexrure.

for a time, but Martin Scorsese blended both possibili­ other movie brats created spectacle through high-tech ties more consistently. Brought up on Hollywood fea­ special effects, Scorsese engaged the viewer by a bold, tures, Italian Neorealism, and "Million Dollar Movie" Idiosyncratic style. TV broadcasts, Scorsese studied filmmaking at New Like Allen's films, Scorsese's had strong autobio­ York University. He made an underground reputation graphical undercurrents. Mean Streets drew upon his with several shorts and two low-budget features before Italian American youth (see 22.26). After years of seJf­ his Mean Streets (1973) drew wide attention. Alice destructive behavior, he felt ready to tackle Raging Bull: Doesn·t LIVe Here AllY More (1974) and Taxi Driuer "1 understood then what Jake was, but only after having (1975) propelled him to fame. Raging Bull (1980), a bi­ gone through a similar experience. 1 was just lucky that ography of prizefighter Jake LaMotta, won still greater there happened to be a project there ready for me to ex­ nonce; many critics consider it the finest American film press this.,,9 Perhaps as a result of his emotional absorp­ of rhe 1980s. Scorsese's later films (notably King of tion 111 his stories, Scorsese's films center on driven, even Comedy, 1982; The Last Temptation of Christ, 1988; obsessed, protagonists, and his technique often putS us GoodFellas, 1989) cemented his reputation as the most firmly 111 their minds. Rapid point-of-view shots, flicker­ critically acclaimed American direcror of his generation. ing glances, slow-motion imagery, and subjective sound As a movie brat, Scorsese was heavily indebted to the heighten our identification with the prizefighter Jake Hollywood tradition. TaXI Driuer was scored by Bernard LaMotta, the taxi driver Travis Bickle, and the aspiring Herrmann, Hitchcock's composer, and, as preparation stand-up comedian Rupert Pupkin (22.31). For many for shooting New York, New Yod:. (1976), Scorsese stud­ critics, Scorsese showed that a filmmaker could skillfully ied 1940s Hollywood musicals. Later, with Cape Fear (1991), he would remake a classic thriller. Like Altman and Allen, hovvever, he was also influenced by European cinema. A shot change in Raging Bull is as likely to de­ rive from Godard as from George Stevens's Shane, and the exploration of Rupert Pupkin's world in King of Comedy creates a felJiniesque ambiguity about what is real and what IS fantasy. Scorsese's film consciousness a Iso emerges in his vir­ tuosic displays of technique. His films alternate intense, aggressive dialogue scenes designed to highlight the skills of performers such as Robert De Niro with scenes of physical action served up with dazzling camera flour­ ishes. The action sequences are often abstract and word­ less, built out of hypnotic imagery: a yellow cab gliding through hellishly smoky streets (TaXI Driuer), billiard balls ricochetIng across a pool table (The Color of 22.31 In his basement, aspiring talk-show host Rupert Money, 1986). Each of the boxing scenes in Raging Bull Pupkin interviews cardboard cur-ours of Liza Minnelli and is staged and filmed differently (22.29, 22.30). Whereas Jerr)' Lewis (King of Comedy), 530 CHAPTER 22 Hollywood's Fall and Rise: 1960-1980

blend experimental impulses with the renewed crafts­ new company, New World Pictures, created cycles and manship that characterized the 1970s. trained new directors (Jonathan Demme, John Sayles, James Cameron). In some venues, the cheaper films could find an au­ OPPORTUNITIES FOR INDEPENDENTS dience denied to the glossier studio product. Sunn Inter­ national discovered, to the Majors' surprise, that there The difficulties and recovery of the Majors were bound was still a family audience who could be lured from the up with the fate of independent production in the United television set with ,vddJife adventures and quasi-religious States during this period. The 1948 Paramount decision documentaries. Tom Laughlin, the enterprising director­ and the rise of the teenage market gave independent com­ producer-star of Billy Jack (1971), showed that smaJl­ panies like Allied Artists and American International Pic­ town viewers would stiJl come to films that mixed senti­ tures (AlP) an entry into the low-budget market (p. 338). ment, action, and populist themes. Meanwhile, teenagers During the late 1960s, the low-budget independents and college students began flocking to outrageous movies grew stronger, partly through the relaxing of the Pro­ like John Waters's Pink Flamingos (1974). Theaters found duction Code and partly through the decline of the Ma­ that midnight movies would attract a young crowd; The jors. With the slackening of censorship controls, the Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) and Eraserhead (J 978) 1960s saw growth in erotic exploitation. "Nudies" sur­ became profitable almost solely through such shows. faced from the 16mm stag film world and could be seen The Majors responded by absorbing the sensational in decaying picture palaces in America's downtown elements that had given independent films their edge. neighborhoods. Eroticism became mixed with gore in Big-budget films became more sexually explicit, and for Herschell Gordon Lewis's Blood Feast (1963) and 2000 a time Russ Meyer, exploiter of erotica, found himself Maniacs (1964). Russ Meyer began in nudies before dis­ working for a studio (Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, covering his idiosyncratic blend of hammering editing, 1970). The Exorcist traded on blasphemy and visceral gruesome violence, and parodically overblown sex disgust to a new degree. Star Wars and Close Encoun­ scenes (Motorpsycho, 1965; Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kil/!, ters incorporated elements of low-budget science fiction 1966). Meyer blazed the trail for "mainstream" 1970s (Silent Running, 1971; Dark Star, 1974), while Alien pornography with films such as Vixen (1968). (1979) and other films reflected the new standards of The youthpics craze was fed by AlP's cycle of gory violence established by independent directors such motorcycle-gang movies and Wild in the Streets (1968). as Carpenter and David Cronenberg (Rabid, 1977; The The films of ALP's main director, Roger Corman, had a Blood, 1979). "'Exploitation' films were so named be­ strong influence on young directors of the late 1960s, cause you made a film about something wild with a and AlP gave opportunities to Coppola, Scorsese, Bog­ great deal of action, a little sex, and possibly some sort danovich, John Milius, De Palma, Robert De Niro, and of strange gimmick," wrote Corman. "[Later] the ma­ Jack Nicholson. The low-budget independent film Night jors saw they could have enormous commercial success of the Living Dead (1968), rejected by AlP as too gory, with big-budget exploitation films." 10 went on to become a colossal cult hit and launched the Apart from the mass-market independents, there career of director George Romero. emerged a more artistically ambitious independent sec­ During most of the 1970s as well, independent pro­ tor. New York sustained an "off-Hollywood" tendency. duction proved a robust alternative to the Majors. As Shirley Clarke, known for her dance and experimental the studios cut back production, low-budget films helped shorts, adapted the play The Connection (1962) and fill the market. Firms began to specialize in certain made the semidocumentary The Cool World (1963; genres-martial-arts films, action pictures, erotic pictures 22.32). Jonas and Adolfas Mekas modeled Guns of the (sexploitation). Films aimed at African Americans Trees (1961) and Hallelujah the Hills (1963) on the ex­ (blaxl)luitation) showcased young black performers and, periments of European new waves. sometimes, black creative personnel like directors Gor­ The most famous member of this off-Hollywood don Parks, Sr. (Shaft, 1971) and Michael Schultz (Coo­ group was John Cassavetes. A New York actor commit­ ley High, 1975; Car Wash, 1976). In the wake of Night of ted to Method acting, Cassavetes made a career on the the Living Dead and The Exorcist, the teenage horror stage and in films and television. He scraped up dona­ market was tapped with films like Tobe Hooper's gro­ tions to direct Shadows (1961). "The film you have just tesque Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and John Car­ seen was an improvisation": this curt closing title an­ penter's more sober and expensive Halloween. Corman's nounced Cassavetes's key aesthetic decision. The story, Opportunities for Independents 531

22.32 Shirley Clarke dlrecting The Cool World.

22.33 The roughly shot beating of Ben (Shadows).

about two black brothers and their sister in the New a pair of ill-fated Hollywood projects. He returned to York jazz and party scene, was unscripted; the actors Independent cinema, financing his films by acting in shared creative choices about dialogue and delivery with mainstream pictures, and became an emblematic figure the director. Although shooting in a semiclocumentary for younger filmmakers. style, with a grimy, grainy look (22.33), Cassavetes also Basing his aesthetic on a conception of raw realism, relied on deep-focus compositions and poetic interludes Cassavetes created a string of films featuring quasi­ familiar from contemporary Hollywood cinema. Shad­ improvised performances and casual camerawork. ows won festival prizes and led Cassavetes to undertake Faces (1968) and Husbands (1970), with their sudden 532 CHAPTER 22 Hollywood's Fall and Rise: 1960-1980

zooms to close-up and their search for revelatory detail, and Rob Nilsson's Northern Lights (1979), set in 1915 use Direct Cinema techniques to comment on the bleak North Dakota during labor unrest. It won the best first­ disappointments and deceptions of middle-class Ameri­ film award at the Cannes Film Festival. can couples. Characteristically, his counterculture com­ Slowly, alternative venues were emerging for inde­ edy Minnie and Moskowitz (1971) centers on the love pendent film. In addition to New York's Anthology Film affair of a middle-aged hippie and a lonely museum cu­ Archive (founded in 1970), several festivals were estab­ rator. In A Woman under the Influence (1974), Open­ lished in Los Angeles (known as Filmex, 1971), Telluride, ing Night (1979), and Love Streams (1984), the drama Colorado (1973), and Toronto and Seattle (1975), as alternates between mundane routines and painful out­ weIl as the U.S. Film Festival (1978), later known as bursts that push each actor to near-hysterical limits. Sundance. At the same time, enterprising filmmakers or­ ThIs spasmodic rhythm, and his focus on the anxieties ganized the Independent FeatLIre Project (IFP) as an asso­ underlying adult love and work, made Cassavetes's ciation of independent film artists, and the IFP estab­ midlife melodramas seem experimental by 1970s and lished, in 1979, the Independent Feature Film Market as 1980s Hollywood standards. a showcase for finished films and works in progress. The The New York scene received a further burst of en­ American independent cinema was poised for takeoff. ergy from Joan Micklin Silver's Hester Street (1975), a drama of jewish life in late-nineteenth-century New York. During the 1960s, the failing studios searched for Filmed for less than $500,000, it was released nationwide new corporate identities and business models. After and earned more than $5 million. When it received an some winnowing, the 1970s set in place patterns that Academy Award nomination, the film sparked a new would dominate American film for the rest of the cen­ awareness of off-Hollywood filmmaking. tury. A new generation of moguls would partner with a The independent impulse spread to regional film­ new generation of producer-directors, typified by Lucas makers, who managed to make low-budget features and Spielberg, under the auspices of a conglomerate. centered on territories seldom brought to the screen. The studios would concentrate on funding and making john Waters revealed Baltimore as a campy PeytOn must-see movies. Alongside the expanding industry was Place (Female Trouble, 1975), while Victor Nuiiez's Gal an independent sector whose fortunes Auctuated but Young 'Un (1979) tOok place in Florida during the De­ whose commitment to alternative stories and styles in­ pression. Another histOrical drama was john Hanson creased the variety of U.S. film cu lture.

Notes and Queries

THE AMERICAN DIRECTOR AS SUPERSTAR press. Young directors self-consciously sought to create per­ sonal films modeled on European art cinema or the HoJly­ The auteur theory of film criticism and history held the in­ wood classics of Hitchcock, Ford, and Hawks. The results dividual director to be the primary source of the film's for­ of this strategy are discussed in Noel Carroll, "The Future mal, stylistic, and thematic qualities. This theory, reinforced of Allusion," Octoher 20 (spring 1982): 51-81, and David by the prominence of postwar directors in Europe and Asia, Thomson, Overexposures: The Crisis in American Film­ was applied by Cahiers du cinema to Hollywood directors making (New York: Morrow, 1981), pp. 49-613. as well, and Andrew Sarris introduced it to English­ language readers (see "Notes and Queries," Chapter 19). Collections of interviews such as Sarris's Interviews with FILM CONSCIOUSNESS AND FILM PRESERVATION Film Directors (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1967) and Joseph Gelmis's The Film Director as Superstar (New York: American filmmakers' new awareness of film history coin­ Doubleday, 1970) reinforced the impression that the direc­ cided with a growing need to safeguard the country's tor was the central figure in the creation of a film. By the motion-picwre heritage. During the 1970s and 1980s, ni­ 1980s, this belief was taken for granted even in mass jour­ trate copies were decomposing and Eastman Color prints nalism and fan magazll1es. hegan to fade. There were new efforts to preserve films (that Niany directors who came to prominence in America is, keep good negatives and prints in archival conditions), to during the 1970s and 1980s knew the auteur theory restore films (to bring deteriorated material bock to some­ through its promulgation in film schools and the popular thing approaching its origll1al quality), and to reconstruct Further Reading 533 films (to gather lost or discarded footage to enable viewers EXPLOTTATION FILMS AND to see more complete or more original versions of films). CONNOISSEURS OF "WEIRD MOVIES" The American Film Institute, founded in 1967, took as part of its charter the preservation and restoration of films. Since the 1970s, exploitation movies have become cult The Library of Congress, the Academy of Motion Picture items. Some fans find hilarity in the overblown dialogue, Arts and Sciences, the Museum of Modern Art, the George stiff performances, and awkward technique. ThiS so-bad­ Eastman House, and other archives saved hundreds of films it's-good attitude was popularized in Harry and .vlichael with the financial assistance of the AFI. Duong the 1980s, Medved, The Golden Turkey Awards (New York: Putnam, the UCLA Film Archive restored Becky Sharp and For 1980). Other aficionados consider the exploitation films a Whom the Bell Tolls, and MaMA reconstructed Intolerance. direct challenge to the idea of normality presented by the (See Robert Gitt and Richard Dayton, "Restoring Becky Hollywood mainstream. Arising at the time of Punk and Sharp," American Cinematographer 65, no. 10 [November No Wave music, thiS notion of the subversive potential of 19841: 99-106, and Russell Merritt, "D. W. Griffith's Intol­ rough technique and bad taste was exemplified in the erance: Reconstructing an Unattainable Text," Film History "famines" Film Threat and That's Exploitation! With the 4, no. 4 [19901: 337-75.) Individual specialists also took new availability of exploitation items on video, a "psy­ pa rt. Rona Id H~lVer fou nd new footage for a longer version chotronic" subculture grew up around violent films, both of A Star Is Born (1954; see A Star Is Born: The Making of old and more recent. the 1954 Movie and Its 1983 Restoration [New York: "Incredibly Strange Films," Re/Search 10 (1986) gath­ Knopf, 19881), and Robert Harris restored Lawrence ofAra­ ers information on exploitation items of the 1960s. The bia and S'Jartacus ("HP Interviews Roben Harris on Film magazine Video Watchdog specializes in companng versions Restoration," Perfect Vision 12 (winter 1991/1992): 29-34). of exploitation horror films. Rudolph Grey's Nightmare of Martin Scorsese helped finance the 1993 restoration and Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, .fl'. (Los rerelease of EI Cid (1961, Anthony Mann). Angeles: Feral, 1992) compiles attractively odd interviews. The 1980s also saw a new public for older films, made Autobiographies of more successful exploitation filmmakers available at special events or on video. Kevin Brownlow's include William Castle, Step Right Up! l'm GOIma Scare the series of silent films for Thames television led to gala the­ Pants Off America: Memoirs of a B-Mouie Mogul (New atrical showings of new prints of The Wind, Greed, and York: Pharos, 1992 [originally published in 1976]); Roger other classics. Brownlow and David Robinson discovered Corman (with Jim Jerome), How I Made a Hundred Movies precious material from Charles Chaplin's outtakes and in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime (New York: Random made them available III vIdeo formats as The Unknown House, 1990); and Sam Arkoff (with Richard Trubo), Fly­ Chaplin. Studios, recognizing the financial benefits of rere­ ing through Hollywood by the Seat ofMy Pants (New York: leases, cablecasting, and video versions, have become some­ Birch Lane, 1992). what more willing to preserve and restore their films.

• •

REFERENCES 8. Quoted in Michael GoodwIn and Naomi Wise, On the Edge: The Life and Times of Francis COlJpola (New 1. Quoted in Peter Bogdanovich, Who the Devil Made It York: Morrow, 1989), p. 30. (New York: Knopf, 1997), p. 250. 9. Quoted in David Thompson and Tan Christie, eds., 2. Quoted in Tag Gallagher, .John Ford: The Man and Scorsese on Swrsese (London: Faber and Faber, "989), His Films (Berkeley: University of California Press, pp.76-77. 1986), p. 437. 10. Roger Corman and Jim Jerome, How I Made a Hun­ 3. Quoted in Peter Cowie, Coppola (London: Faber and dred Movies in Hollywood and Neller Lost a Dime Faber, 1990), p. 61. (New York: Random House, 1990), p. 34. 4. Quoted in Eric Lax, Woody Allen: A Biography (New York: Knopf, 1991), p. 255. FURTHER READING 5. Gone with the Wind and the Disney animated classics had higher all-time returns, but they were rereleased Bach, Steven. Final Cut: Dreams and Disasters in the Mak­ at interva Is over many years. Still, if rentals are ad­ ing of Heaven's Gate. New York: New American Li­ Justed for inflation, Gone with the Wind remains the brary, 1986. highest-earning film of all time. Biskind, Peter. Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex­ 6. Quoted in Stephen M. Silverman, The Fox That Got Drugs-and-Rock 'n'Roll Generation Saved Holly­ Away: The Last Days ofthe Zanuck Dynasty at Twen­wood. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998. tieth Century-Fox (Secaucus NJ: Lyle Stuart, 1988), Gomery, Douglas. "The American film Industry of the p.303. 1970s: Stasis in the 'New Hollywood.'" Wide Angle 7. Quoted in Bernard Weinraub, "Luke Skywalker Goes 5, no. 4 (1983): 52-59. Home," In Sally Kline, ed., George Lucas Interviews Hoberman, J., and Jonathan Rosenbaum. Midnight (jackson: UnIversity Press of Mississippi, 1999), p. 217. Movies. New York: Harper and Row, 1983. 534 CHAPTER 22 Hollywood's Fall dnd Rise: 1960-1980

Jenkins, Gary. Empire Building: The Remarkable Real Life 694-97, 714-29; 62, no. 8 (Augusr 1981): 792-99, Story of Star Wars. 2nd ed. New York: Citadel, 1999. 816-22. Kline, Sally. George Lucas Interviews. Jackson: University Paul, William. "The K-Marr Audience at the Mall Movies." Press of Kentucky, 1999. Film History 6, no. 4 (winter 1994): 487-50'1. Lax, Eric. Woody Allen: A Biography. New York: Knopf, Pirie, David. Anatomy of the Movies, New York: Macmil­ 1991. lan, 1981. Lebo, Harlan. The Godfather Legacy. New York: Simon Pnnce, Stephen. Savage Cinema: Sam Peckinpah and the and Schuster, 1997. Rise of Ultra violent Movies. Austin: University of Levin, Lear. "'Robert Altman's Innovative Sound Tech­ Texas Press, 1998. niques." American Cinematographer 61, no. 4 (April Pye, Michael, and Lynda Myles. The Movie Brats: How 1980): 336-39,368,384. the Film Generation Took Over Hollywood. New Lewis, Jon. Hollywood v. Hard Core: How the Struggle York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, ] 979. over Censorship Saved the Modern Film Industry. Schatz, Thomas. "'The New Hollywood." In Jim Collins, New York: New York University Press, 2000. Hilary Radner, and Ava Preacher Collins, eds. Film ---. Whom God Wishes to Destroy . .. : Francis Cop­ Theory Goes to the Movies. New York: Routledge, pola and the New Hollywood. Durham, NC: Duke 1994, pp. 8-36. University Press, 1995. Stuart, Jan. The Nashville Chronicles: The Making of McBride, Joseph. Steven Spielberg: A Biography. New Robert Altman's Masterpiece. New York: Simon and York: Simon and Schuster, 1997. Schuster, 2000. Patterson, Richard. "The Preservarion of Color Films." American Cinematographer 62, no. 7 (july 1981):