"A welcome respite from the blistering diatribes of many famous film critics... A thought-provoking work."
With all the upheaval of the 1970s-social, political, sexual, and psychological-it's no wonder that the movies of that decade broke new ground. To the degree that the arts reflect their times, the movies of the 1970s were bound to stretch limits concerning sex ("Carnal Knowledge"), war ("Apocalypse Now"), violence ("Raging Bull"), business ("Save the Tiger"), politics ("All the President's Men"), the media ("Network"), drugs ("Panic in Needle Park"), crime ("The Godfather"), relationships ("Annie Hall"), the environment ("The China Syndrome"), and entertainment ("All that Jazz").
The above list is only a sampler. For a better list, organized chronologically through the spirited decade, consult the Table of Contents in Hollywood's Revolutionary Decade, a newly published collection of film reviews from the Los Angeles Times, by Charles Champlin, the principal film critic for the Times from 1967 to 1980.
As Champlin points out in his Introduction to this book, it wasn't only the social climate of the 1970s that freed the movies to explore new territory. The industry in fact liberated itself: responding to the commercial competition of television and the artistic competition of foreign films, Hollywood dumped the Hays Code in 1968 and adopted a rating system that made possible the braver-and better-movies of the "revolutionary decade."
Did the "revolution" end with the 1970s? Perhaps not, but the excitement of liberation and growth was unique to that decade. There may never again be such fresh expression. As Martin Scorsese said in the New York Times Magazine, "The end of the 70s was the last golden period of cinema in America."
As for now, we live in a fortunate age. For one thing, the movies of our contemporary decade owe a lot to the progress realized by Hollywood in the 1970s. Also, thanks to the advent of video rentals, we have practically the whole library of that exciting decade available to us nightly. And finally, we have, for the record, the thoughtful and insightful reviews of Charles Champlin to guide us as we re-view the movies of Hollywood's Revolutionary Decade.
About the Author. Charles Champlin was a writer-correspondent for Life and Time from 1948 to 1965. He was the Arts Editor for the Los Angeles Times from 1965 to 1991 and the principal film critic from 1967 to 1980, during which time he wrote more than 125 movie reviews a year, two and sometimes three a week. He continues to contribute occasional articles to the Times. For several years he hosted "Champlin on Film," a regular program on cable television. He is the author of six books, including Back There Where the Past Was (Syracuse University Press) and George Lucas: The Creative Impulse (Harry N. Abrams). He is an Honorary Life Member of the Directors Guild of America.
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- CONTENTS
- 1969: The Wild Bunch / Midnight Cowboy / Easy Rider / Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice
- 1970: M*A*S*H / Woodstock / Five Easy Pieces / Little Big Man
- 1971: Carnal Knowledge / Panic in Needle Park / McCabe and Mrs. Miller / The Last Picture Show /
A Clockwork Orange
- 1972: The Godfather / Cabaret / Deliverance / Sounder / Fat City /
- 1973: Save the Tiger / Last Tango in Paris / Paper Moon / American Graffiti / The Exorcist
- 1974: Blazing Saddles / The Conversation / Chinatown / Earthquake / Lenny / The Towering Inferno /
The Godfather, Part II
- 1975: Shampoo / The Day of the Locust / Jaws / Nashville / Dog Day Afternoon / One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
- 1976: Taxi Driver / All the President's Men / Family Plot / Network / Rocky / Bound for Glory
- 1977: Annie Hall / Star Wars / New York, New York / Close Encounters of the Third Kind
- 1978: Coming Home / Interiors / Midnight Express / The Deer Hunter
- 1979: Norma Rae / The China Syndrome / Manhattan / Apocalypse Now / All That Jazz
- 1980: Raging Bull
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