A Decade Under the Influence

The documentary covers American cinema in the seventies: the collapse of the studio system, the end of the production code, directors taking control, and the return of box office logic by the end of the decade. It proceeds chronologically, supported by clips from the films of the period. The subject is not nostalgia but why that freedom was possible. The film states the reason plainly: the studios were losing money and handing authority to young people was not a choice but desperation. By the same logic, the space closed once the system started profiting again. The form is standard: interviews, clips and archive. Those speaking include Coppola, Scorsese, Altman, Bogdanovich, Pollack, Julie Christie and Ellen Burstyn. The directors describing their own mistakes is the best of it. The production has a story of its own. Ted Demme died at forty-three before he could finish it; the work was completed by Richard LaGravenese and the film was dedicated to him. It was prepared first as three parts for television and then assembled into a single film. Who it is for: viewers who like American film history and directors talking. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a critical frame; the film looks on the period largely with admiration and says little about who was excluded.