Cosmoeticadotcom In 2003 the Independent Film Channel produced a nearly three hour long three part documentary called A Decade Under The Influence (a nod to the 1974 John Cassavetes film A Woman Under The Influence), about American cinema during the 1970s. The general posit of the film, co-directed by Ted Demme and Richard LaGravenese, is that the 1970s were a 'tweener period between the collapse of the old Hollywood film studio system and the rise of the Lowest Common Denominator summer blockbuster mentality, ushered in by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, that destroyed the template of directors having control and authorship of their works.Now, anyone that has even a passing interest in film- American or otherwise, cannot disagree with this premise. The problem is that the documentary itself is all style (including a great opening musical track) and no substance. In short, it's an MTV-like hyperreal and scattershot take on the films from that decade which were anything but hyperreal and scattershot. Imagine Steven Spielberg bemoaning the loss of Orson Welles when his career is the utter antithesis of that man's. Hypocrisy is a word that floats to mind. That or an ironic streak beyond sharp. Go with the former, people!The film starts out with an homage to the European greats of the 1960s, who helped inspire the younger Americans. It also has the usual 1970s crowd of filmmakers- from greats like Woody Allen, Robert Altman, and Martin Scorsese to once-greats like Francis Ford Coppola and Hal Ashby, to has-beens like Peter Bogdanovich and William Friedkin, to never weres like Monte Hellman. And there are some classic clips from Easy Rider, The Godfather, Bonnie And Clyde, Chinatown, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Midnight Cowboy, Taxi Driver, The Graduate, Annie Hall, Network, and others, but it's all perfunctory, surface, and vain. Not a single film nor scene is really looked at, analyzed, put into a blender and studied for why it worked, why it worked in the context it did, nor why such scenes are absent from the films of the Peter Jacksons and Michael Bays….This film lacks any real insight and is too fawning, as if a study of a small group of adepts who have a secret they don't want others to know. The problem is that their secret is well known and their acting like they can keep it is just plain silly….A critic like Kenneth Turan or Roger Ebert would likely have remedied those sorts of shortcomings, but, as with many possible fruitful avenues it could have gone down- such as viewing the decade through the lens of a dozen or two key films, and analyzing scenes for what they meant and how they expressed their points, the whole film fails. It lacks the substance and edginess that it claims for its very subject matter, even though some good insight is provided by, of all people, the British actress Julie Christie.Then there is the smugness. Don't get me wrong- guys like Coppola and Scorsese made great films in that decade, and while Scorsese's only gone downhill in the last decade, Coppola's artistic drought is nearing thirty years since Apocalypse Now. And while Scorsese is not totally condemnatory of modern Hollywood, Coppola seems to buy in to the 'Evil Suits' theory of American film destruction. No doubt that that is mostly to blame, but many of these young directors got big egos and vanity took over, resulting in critical and financial disasters like Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate, or the crash and burn personal lives of filmmakers like Peter Bogdanovich (whose career never recovered) and Roman Polanski (whose career did). The only person in the film who even comes close to telling these truths is a production designer from Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show- Polly Platt, who blames the loss of the edginess that the 1970s films had on just this fatness and sassiness, claiming that the young auteurs, especially, got old, rich and lost touch with the very things they and their films once were icons for….A Decade Under The Influence is a so-so attempt to reveal the depths of a subject better left for a ten or twelve hour PBS documentary by one of the Burns brothers. That's because the two directors of this film are too soft and intimately related to the subject matter (as example, Ted Demme's uncle- Jonathan Demme, was one of the young 1960s auteurs). A more objective approach to the film was needed, and this lack of objectivity is the underlying problem that results in all the film's aforementioned problems. In short, while they are the symptoms, a lack of objectivity is the cause, and the best documentaries always strive for objectivity, lest they become Michael Moorean agitprop. And that's a fate and storyline as bad as any lame Hollywood suit could brainstorm.

ShootingShark A documentary dealing with American films made in the nineteen-seventies, with major emphasis on experimentation with new styles of cinematic expression and departure from the traditional style of film production.It's tough to generalise, but I think the seventies is my favourite decade of film. This is a quality documentary about that period, which correctly identifies my reasons for feeling that way - the waning big studios giving rise to the auteur, non-prohibitive costs and the first "movie-brat" generation of film school graduates. However, it then turns into an all too predictable film critics' textbook examining how cinema reflected the social upheaval of the period and champions the usual directors - Altman, Hal Ashby, Bogdanovich, Coppola, Pollack, Scorsese and so on - and their de-Hollywoodised, European-influenced approach. It even goes so far as to hint that the huge successes of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas (who had the temerity to make imaginative, exciting, crowd-pleasing genre pictures) killed artistic creativity and put the studios back on top, a suggestion which pisses me off to no end. Everybody has different tastes - I love Coppola and I can't stand Altman - but I find it ironic that although the films discussed and the interviewees are almost always championing anti-establishment stances, by doing so the documentary is virtually a propaganda film for cinema's Critical Establishment. Some of the comments are spot-on (Dern's analysis of the difference between his acting generation and the preceding one, Schrader's synopsis of the big studios' transition from factories to banks), some are wildly inaccurate (MASH was not the first film to treat war as comedy by a long chalk), but all are interesting and almost all the talking heads are witty and erudite, particularly Corman, Friedkin, Grier, Lumet, Mazursky and Platt. At the end of the movie there is a politely amusing slide which reads, "I can't believe they didn't mention (insert filmmaker here).". I could insert specific filmmakers (Ralph Bakshi, Mel Brooks, John Carpenter, Larry Cohen, Michael Crichton, David Cronenberg, Walter Hill, Peter Hyams, John Landis, many others), but what I'd rather insert is, "Anybody who was either vaguely disreputable, made scuzzy genre movies, didn't have artistic pretensions or didn't receive critical approval.". If you evaluate the movies of the seventies which still show up constantly in revival houses and on TV, they are all genre movies; horror, science-fiction, crime, action and comedies. This documentary completely ignores them and says that the films we should be remembering are things like McCabe & Mrs Miller and Shampoo. I'm sorry, but no way. A pivotal seventies movie like George A. Romero's Dawn Of The Dead has just as much social relevance as any of the movies discussed in this documentary but, unlike them, is bloody good fun too and what's more, people still want to see it today. All this narking aside though, this is a very well-made and intelligent film, featuring many interesting filmmakers, and not to be missed by moviehounds - just remember that it only reflects a very small, critically-approved niche of seventies cinema. Sadly, co-director/co-producer Demme, who made some nice offbeat flicks (The Ref, Snitch, Blow) died of a heart-attack not long after production wrapped.

jotix100 In retrospect, the 1970s was a golden era for the American cinema, as demonstrated and explored by this documentary directed by Ted Demme and Richard LaGravenese. This IFC effort serves to illustrate and clarify the main idea of what that time meant for the careers of these illustrious people seen in the documentary.The amazing body of work that remains, is a legacy to all the people involved in the art of making movies in that period. The decade was marked by the end of the Viet Nam war and the turbulent finale of those years of Jimmy Carter's presidency.One thing comes out clear, films today don't measure against the movies that came out during that creative decade because the industry, as a whole, has changed dramatically. The big studios nowadays want to go to tame pictures that will be instant hits without any consideration to content, or integrity, as long as the bottom line shows millions of dollars in revenues.The other thing that emerges after hearing some of America's best creative minds speak, is the importance of the independent film spirit because it is about the only thing that afford its creators great moral and artistic rewards.This documentary is a must see for all movie fans.

cinebuff-3 The 1970s opened the door to the largest, most diverse era of film in its history. Some films were great ("The Godfather", "The Conversation", "Mean Streets", Chinatown", "The French Connection", "Five Easy Pieces", "Jaws", "McCabe And Mrs. Miller") Others were not so great ("The Getaway", "The Outfit", "Badge 373", "Joe", "The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three", "Brewster McCloud", "Castle Keep") And others were barely worth the price of admission.Yet every one was a fresh breath of air compared to today's Corporate Hollywood. Where every film is given a Big Weekend to recoup its cost. Or go straight to HBO and rental.What "Decade" does so well is to relate the sudden and rarely experienced sensation of freedom to be given money to make and direct a film. Perhaps personal. Perhaps not. Sometime with a clutch of extras. Sometimes, in the middle of a busy street before the cops show up. Long before the Corporate Overseers, Suits, Committees and Lawyers ever became part of "The System".The commentaries are superb. Especially Julie Christie and Dennis Hopper. Though as you listen, you'll slowly discover just how many Big Directors today (Coppola, Scorsese, Ron Howard, Dennis Hopper, Peter Bogdonovitch) got stated as "Roger Corman Commandos". Working long hours with short pay. Shooting a film in under a month. Learning all the steps and tricks of the trade by doing it themselves. Turning in product that was on-time and under-budget.See "Decade" for its message. And for a long and varied list of films to watch made through those wondrously turbulent years.Though, I would not complain if IFC decided to devote another documentary solely to that most under-rated Grand Pioneer of film, Roger Corman.