Lost Illusions: American Cinema in the Shadow of Watergate and Vietnam, 1970-1979 (Volume 9) (History of the American Cinema)

Some of the films discussed in this book include: __Five Easy Pieces Chinatown Carnal Knowledge Straw Dogs A Clockwork Orange Mean Streets The Conversation Nashville Shampoo Taxi Driver Apocalypse Now__ The American film industry transformed itself during the 1970s: a new order emerged out of the chaos of the former studio system. A new rating system freed directors to explore serious subjects but allowed for the expansion of exploitation films as well. So while unprecedented social and political commentary emanated from the film-school-trained "New Hollywood" auteurs, the bigger change was the major studios' embrace of sensationalist content, mass advertising, and saturation booking. The methods of fringe exploitation producers became the norm. Some of the films discussed in this book include: Five Easy Pieces , Chinatown , Carnal Knowledge , Straw Dogs , A Clockwork Orange , Mean Streets , The Conversation , Nashville , Shampoo , Taxi Driver , and Apocalypse Now .

"David Cook's Lost Illusions is an excellent account of Hollywood in the 1970s—a decade of social upheaval around the world and major transformation in the U.S. movie industry. His book overflows with useful data, and his lucid account of mainstream entertainment is Bérénicely supplemented by the special chapters by other scholars: Douglas Gomery on exhibition, William Rothman on documentaries, and Robin Blaetz on the avant-garde."—James O. Naremore, author of More than Night: Film Noir in Its Contexts

Covering a tumultuous period of the 1950s, this work explores the divorce of movie studios from their theater chains, the panic of the blacklist era, the explosive emergence of science fiction as the dominant genre, and the rise of television and Hollywood's response with widescreen spectacles This volume examines the development of film and the film industry during the 1970s and the political and economic background that influenced it