biskind slides back-and-forth between old grouch and sleaze-obsessed slanderer.

"Directors don’t have much power anymore, the executives make unheard of amounts of money, and budgets are more out of control than they ever were. And there hasn’t been a classic in ten years."
- Francis Ford Coppola

After Bonnie and Clyde opened, Stefan Kanfer defined the New Hollywood in the most perfect way: "disregard for time-honored pieties of plot, chronology, and motivation; a promiscuous jumbling together of comedy and tragedy; ditto heroes and villains; sexual boldness; and a new, ironic distance that withholds obvious moral judgments."

The history of cinema is chock-full of interesting people, tidbits, and large entities that every cinema lover should be aware of to understand why films are what they are. Biskind recounts with vividness (albeit with an unpolished touch) the story of rebellious New Hollywood. It was like a shooting star that shined brightly for a while but which ended up in a crater somewhere in the desert. It was a concept that bit itself in the leg despite the best of intentions, and "the last time Hollywood produced a body of risky, high-quality work—as opposed to the errant masterpiece—work that was character-, rather than plot-driven, that defied traditional narrative conventions, that challenged the tyranny of technical correctness, that broke the taboos of language and behavior, that dared to end unhappily." In this case, it's vital to understand the context of 70s and late 60s movies to fully grasp their ideas and potential.

New Hollywood boiled down to the ambitious goal to override the studio system and give talented people the chance to explore their ideas in a new artistic, auteurish, way, making the 70s the era of directors. It's when Biskind tries to venture to the business side does the text shrivel into mere detailed listings of budgets and how much of the cut each one involved got. He, does, however, manage to convey the feeling that the era was the time for young people to take away the power from the giants of the John Ford era and to take advantage of the executives' confusion about the changes of the social climate, and go completely berserk with their ideas (and personal lives).

Despite having a pretty varied taste in movies, it was fantastic to find out that the NH directors were inspired by (and in some cases even aspired to be) the great auteurs of the European cinema. Arthouse requires a specific kind of attention and the utmost focus of the viewer, but Scorsese et.al. injected their films with their own sense style. Perhaps not always as recognisable as Europeans' (especially Antonioni and Bergman), but slightly more approachable for the big audience (although I still can't believe Raging Bull (1980) bombed).

Not only that, but the small changes in the movie making process Biskind discusses all make sense when watching the movies (Taxi Driver (1976) etc.). Script writers ceased to be disposable and it was important for them to dive headfirst into their work, instead of considering it as a some sort of cheap job on the way to literature. Cast on the other hand was no longer comprised of polished cookie cutter people, but (apart from a few exceptions of course) average looking theatre people that lended realism to the movies. Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate (1967) is a prime example. No one was especially looking for stars.

Biskind suggests that NH was partly about anger at authority and celebration of counterculture (like in Easy Rider (1969)). This tapped into a new audience, but unfortunately it didn't last long. Biskind's tone feels slightly derogatory, especially towards Lucas and Spielberg. He also seems to draw his own conclusions and interprets some movies in a way that it's represented as fact instead of as his own opinion. I'm not a fan of non-fiction authors who make their stances known, especially if the manner is bitter and unfairly inculpatory.

That being said, I understand what Biskind perhaps wants to say. The enthusiasm for making art gradually yielded when the studios started to recover. Spielberg and Lucas can't be the only ones to blame, but they did contribute involuntarily to the blockbuster era. Biskind makes a convincing claim that Spielberg's leanings towards conservatism and commercialism, occasional twelve-year-old-like behaviour, affinity with not crediting whoever helped him in his current movie (Rob Cohen thinks Verna Fields was responsible for the idea of showing only little of the shark in Jaws (1975) etc.), and favoring regressed adults and nostalgia for authority lead to tasteless and odourless cinema.

It may not be Spielberg's fault that after Jaws the studios were hungry for equally lucrative profits, but he chose to be part of the establishment. "Us" turning into an all-inclusive everyman instead of the counterculture kids is not necessarily only a bad thing, but it gave way to diluted family fares. Biskind says that Lucas had wanted a wholesome (Jesus Christ I hate that word) tone for Star Wars (1977), claimed it was a Disney movie, favoured happy endings along with straightforward storytelling and accessible two-dimensional characters. I agree with Biskind regarding Lucas and Spielberg bringing back small-town and suburban values. Lucas even said that "Words are great in the theater, but that’s not movies". Chilling.

Can you imagine what Apocalypse Now (1979) would have looked like if it had been directed by Lucas like it was initially intended? Pauline Kael said it well: "Discriminating moviegoers want the placidity of nice art — of movies tamed so that they are no more arousing than what used to be called polite theater. So we’ve been getting a new cultural puritanism — people go to the innocuous hoping for the charming, or they settle for imported sobriety, and the press is full of snide references to Coppola’s huge film in progress... [They were] infantilizing the audience, reconstituting the spectator as child, then overwhelming him and her with sound and spectacle, obliterating irony, aesthetic self-consciousness, and critical reflection." Friedkin compares the change with McDonald's getting hold of the nation. Lucas claims that he and Spielberg "understood what people liked to go see", but that just smells calculating as hell, not to mention that his claim that he destroyed the Hollywood film industry by making films more intelligent is just complete and utter bullshit. He even "believed that the most important parts of a film are the first five minutes and the last twenty. Everything in between is filler, and if there is enough action, no one will notice that the characters aren’t particularly complex, or that the acting is wooden".

The NH era was in a lot of ways wild, in good and in bad. The BBS offices smelled of pot, most were in a democratic mood and ready to help in friends' movies, everyone wanted to go to Peru to work with The Last Movie (1971) so that they could smuggle drugs back to L. A., Hopper's drug problem caused the directors to make notes in the script what kind he could take in each scene, there were some directors with huge egos and some (like Coppola) were simply megalomaniac crazies, women (who often contributed in some way to their men's films) had to cope with their men acting like assholes and thinking the open relationships of the 70s gave permission for cheating (Bert Schneider to Candice Bergen: "I’m sorry it’s so threatening to you, Bergen, but you have to understand that I’m a love object for every woman who walks into my office.... Start dealing with that. It’s time you began growing up."), on the set of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) the actors were provided with pot as a kind of takeaway so that they wouldn't have to go to the street etc.

We can all agree, though, that most films that resulted from this mayhem are good, and distinguishable as 70s and late 60s films. Biskind says that after their recovery, studio executives are now mostly businessmen who are interested about commercialism and money. Were now in a situation where it's difficult to brief an idea that doesn't promise huge profits. Indie movies do find their audience, but compared to the blockbusters, their market is much smaller. Star salaries are higher than ever. New faces are easier to be pushed around, and when one of the greats got an opportunity to make a comeback, they resorted to a mainstream film and failed.

Altman is not optimistic: "You get tired painting your pictures and going down to the street corner and selling them for a dollar. You get the occasional Fargo, but you’ve still got to make them for nothing, and you get nothing back. It’s disastrous for the film industry, disastrous for film art".

Who knows what will happen in the future. It's clear that we need all kinds of movies, and everyone has their own taste. I still wish there were more brave filmmakers who would get the opportunity to showcase their talents, no matter how wacky their ideas might be, and maintain their distinctive style through the years. I also wish that the movie business would slow down their hunger for money and would actually stop and smell the flowers, and see the talent out there.

Fortunately, these days we have our moments as well. With the explosive Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) Miller succeeded in lighting the screen on fire. It was magical and different. Ripped my guts out with its energy and beauty, and that's what I'm personally looking for in a movie. Godard showed that anything is possible, and even Lucas said that "Emotionally involving the audience is easy. Anybody can do it blindfolded, get a little kitten and have some guy wring its neck".

An interesting read, however it was different book than I was expecting. It has been a few years since I have read "Down & Dirty Pictures," by Biskind, and forgot about my gripes with that book, which is really all my fault.

The worst parts of the book read like TMZ from the seventies, in which you find out who banged who, who did what drug, and why this person is an asshole. I understand the fascination of that, but I was hoping to read more about the actual films that were created. When this occurs, I found myself really loving the book, because I never knew the weird history of "Easy Rider," (or to that extent, the history of BBS despite owning the boxset of their films), or that George Lucas could have directed Apocalypse Now!, just to name two examples.

Also, Woody Allen is curiously absent from this book. I understand why he wasn't a focus, mostly because he doesn't really fit into the narrative that Biskind was trying to create (New Hollywood ate itself, and only a few directors survived once they learned to play nice with the studios), but he would have been a great counterpoint to New Hollywood.

I both liked and disliked this book. It had everything I expected - great stories about the New Hollywood filmmakers of the early 70s who took on the studios and created a glut of groundbreaking masterpieces (Easy Rider, Bonnie & Clyde, Five Easy Pieces, The Godfather x2, French Connection, Mean Streets, The Exorcist, Apocalypse Now, etc). But also a whole load of frustration - intricate accounts of budgets, financial points, box office totals; tales of innumerable bit part players; quoted conversations that could never have taken place; pretentious & opinionated writing.

Worth reading for the salacious details, though I must admit some of my film heroes are heroes no longer - what a bunch of sleazy, misogynistic, egotistical, drugged up, scary people. Could have been so much better at half the length & copiously edited.

I often wondered why I hadn't finished this after buying it when 1st published in 1998, sitting forlornly on the shelf. Now I know....

While it's a damn entertaining read, Biskind gets some of his facts wrong, making most of this book suspect as a work chronicling the history of the generation of movie brats that revolutionized Hollywood in the late sixties through the early eighties. Biskind also gets lost reporting lurid details of decadence among the Hollywood hippies during this time, which have a sleazy appeal but ultimately adds up to dated gossip. However, I do appreciate how Biskind refuses to coddle and praise this generation the way most authors and documentarians do. Rather than just blaming Michael Cimino the way everyone seems to do, he points out the shortcomings of these filmmakers, and how most of them inadvertantly brought on the doom of this creative period themselves, which is something to be commended.

A total knockout. Loved every page. It’s been fun to rewatch as many of the films discussed in the book as possible. I’ve also been reading along from a big book of collected essays and reviews by Pauline Kael.

Оскар за тази книга.

A handful of mavericks dream of breaking the studios' stranglehold, of making Art that will be screened across the world, but they are beguiled by mountains of cash and their own megalomania and by the time Star Wars hits, they're finished. Roll credits.
It's hard to warm to anyone in this book - the hubris of Coppola, the wife-beating Hopper, Lucas the nerdy bore, Scorsese the paranoid brat, or Spielberg the money-grabbing sellout. You'd think such decadence would be an interesting read but for the most part it is inexplicably dull. The Schrader brothers' upbringing was an eye-opener though, and there were a few vignettes (Dunaway won't flush) that were entertaining. A molehill posing as a mountain.

Es muy divertido, fácil de leer y aporta muchos datos contextualizados para entender mejor el fenómeno del New Hollywood. Ideal para cualquier cinéfilo.

There’s a chapter where each paragraph cuts back and forth between Coppola doing nothing in San Fran and Altman doing nothing in Canada, and I’ve never felt more alive while reading a book.

3.5/5

A look back at the Hollywood scene of the 1970s, from the heydays of the counterculture in the late 60s to the conservative Reagan era in the early 80s. Like most film lovers I agree early to mid-70s was the greatest period for American movies. It happened because the director stopped being a hired hand and was put in charge of the whole film. I find auteur theory overrated, it regards successful directors who don’t fit the description as phony hacks. But there is no doubt empowering directors created a raw, real, grittier American cinema.

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls traces the key architects of New Hollywood – writers, directors and producers; swimming in and out of the lives of a large cast of characters. It dishes more dirt than a gossip magazine as it lays out the background to some of the most chaotic productions like Bonnie and Clyde and The Godfather. It is too detailed often wasting time on the wall décor of a producer’s house or who was dating whom. Biskind tries to find a connective thread – self-destructiveness, lot of the directors did not live up to the initial promise. William Friedkin (The French Connection, The Exorcist), Peter Bogdanovich (The Last Picture Show, Paper Moon), Robert Altman (MASH, The Long Goodbye), Hal Ashby (Harold and Maude) , even Francis Coppola, who became one of the greats in a single decade with the two Godfathers and Apocalypse Now failed to repeat those levels of success. Biskind suggests it was drugs and egotism, even the one director who escaped the curse – Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull) became a drug addict.

Cocaine, greed, megalomania, and success of Jaws and Star Wars killed the movement. Star Wars and Jaws showed there is more money targeting families. It would lead to the popularity of summer blockbusters and finally destroy risk- taking. The anything goes environment which supported the creative risks would never re-emerge. Funny Scorcese disses Marvel but stays mum on Star Wars which was the first franchise that made movies commodities than artworks.

The problems are mainly its length. Most of the chapters are variation of talented people messing up their lives, it gets stale after a while. The cast of characters is so large that it’s tough to follow. Chinatown is one of my favorite movies so I did not mind knowing Robert Towne felt more comfortable re-working others’ scripts than to complete his own. But other snippets about people I did not care about, mainly the producers, bored me. Some of it is self-mythologizing, for example it calls Lumet a journeyman director. Lumet has made more good movies than a few of these New Hollywood directors put together. If you love movies it’s a must read, if you are not it really gives you the fly on the wall feeling. It might be structured as celebrity gossip but it is astute and insightful about one of the most innovative periods in the American film industry.

Quotes:

Money—how much who was getting paid for what—was a private affair, but sex was a publicly traded commodity among the Raybert guys, sexual exploits a variation on who could piss further.

These three guys know they’re being assholes, but it’s all in fun. This is the way Hollywood is supposed to be.

Scorsese on women They put up with us until they find out who we are, and then you have to get another one.

On Coppola, He is like what they said of Napoleon, he was great as a man can be without virtue.

Because the fact of the matter is that although individual revolutionaries succeeded, the revolution failed.

This is not a book about filmmaking. It's about culture, society, and everyday life in one of the wildest times in the modern history of the U.S. and its representation in cinema.

tBiskind showing us the end of the Holly wood studio system and the beginning of the period that will be named as New Hollywood. He pictures the life of the main players in the 70-s cinema. Mostly he writes about film directors because it was a short time when they played the most significant role in Hollywood cinema and American culture. He shows not only the process of making movies but how times of sex, drugs, rock-n-roll, and Vietnamese war inspired their works.
tIt's not a story with a happy end, and Biskind showing how it was and how it never be. 1970-s was the time of great revolution in the cinema and the most violent reaction. But his book ends with the film of Scorsese film Raging Bull. And carer Michael Scorsese shows that true fighters can survive in the world of business sharks and to remain, true artists.