"The Story of Film: An Odyssey" American Cinema of the 70s (TV Episode 2011) Poster

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7/10
A Rather Limited Look at American Cinema
Hitchcoc22 April 2015
A look at what was going on in American cinema during the sixties and seventies. The directors zoomed in on include Mich Nichols (for "Catch 22" of all choices and "The Graduate" which is much superior). Robert Altman, mainly for MASH. Milos Forman for "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" among others. Dennis Hopper, who I'm not sure belongs in this episode although there are good things about him. We get the heavyweights, Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola. There is Paul Schrader and Woody Allen and Peter Bogdonavich. For violence and cinematography of a whole different variety, we have Sam Peckinpaugh. Roman Polansky really comes into his own at this time (particularly the masterwork, "Chinatown." But there are so many that are left. Somehow Truffaut's "Jules and Jim" make it into this offering.
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7/10
American Cinema of the 1970s
gavin694210 July 2013
We now venture into the 1970s, with the wide lens of Robert Altman and "MASH". (Oddly, although a few Altman films are mentioned, "Nashville" is not one of them.) We are presented "The Graduate", with Benjamin shown as an everyman -- caught between school and Vietnam. The 1970s as a whole were a time of uncertainty.

The decade had dissidents who challenged the style, lead by Dennis Hopper and "The Last Movie". Hopper had already broke away with "Easy Rider". Francis Ford Coppola also rose out of the dissident culture. Coppola was a student of Roger Corman, as was another man: The greatest American director of the 1970s was Martin Scorsese, according to Marc Cousins. (Cousins has repeatedly come back to Scorsese.) We briefly get into Charles Burnett and "black cinema", though this is not dealt with fully and could be an episode all its own. Woody Allen provided very stereotypical Jewish characters, with "Annie Hall" being a descendant of Chaplin's "City Lights".

We even get a peak at Terence Malick, the reclusive director who studied philosophy, and his collaboration with Haskell Wexler.
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