In When the Movies Mattered Jonathan Kirshner and Jon Lewis gather a remarkable collection of authors to revisit the unique era in American cinema that was New Hollywood. Ten eminent contributors, some of whom wrote about the New Hollywood movement as it unfolded across the 1960s and 1970s, assess the convergence of film-industry developments and momentous social and political changes that created a new type of commercial film that reflected those revolutionary influences in American life. Even as New Hollywood first took shape, film industry insiders and commentators alike realized its significance. At the time, Pauline Kael compared the New Hollywood to the "tangled, bitter flowering of American letters in the 1850s" and David Thomson dubbed the era "the decade when movies mattered." Thomson's words provide the impetus for this volume in which a cohort of seasoned film critics and scholars who came of age watching the movies of this era reflect upon and reconsider this golden age in American filmmaking. Contributors: Molly Haskell, Heather Hendershot, J. Hoberman, George Kouvaros, Phillip Lopate, Robert Pippin, David Sterritt, David Thomson
Jonathan Kirshner is Professor in the Department of Political Science at Boston College and the author of numerous books, including Hollywood's Last Golden Age. Jon Lewis is the Distinguished Professor of Film Studies and University Honors College Eminent Professor at Oregon State University and the author of Hard-Boiled Hollywood, and several other books on film.
Introduction: The New Hollywood Revisited Jonathan Kirshner and Jon Lewis 1. The Mad Housewives of the Neo-Woman's Film: The Age of Ambivalence Revisited Molly Haskell 2. Antonioni's America: Blow-Up, Zabriskie Point, and the Making of a New Hollywood Jon Lewis 3. "Jason's No Businessman... I Think He's an Artist": BBS and the New Hollywood Dream Jonathan Kirshner 4. Robert Altman: Documentaries, Dreamscapes, and Dialogic Cinema David Sterritt 5. City of Losers, Losing City: Pacino, New York, and the New Hollywood Cinema Heather Hendershot 6. The Parallax View: Why Trust Anyone? David Thomson 7. Cinematic Tone in Polanski's Chinatown: Can "Life" Itself Be "False"? Robert Pippin 8. "I Don't Know What to Do with My Hands": John Cassavetes's The Killing of a Chinese Bookie George Kouvaros 9. The Spirit of '76: Travis, Rocky, and Jimmy Carter J. Hoberman Coda: What "Golden Age"? A Dissenting Opinion Phillip Lopate Appendix: Time Line-the New Hollywood Years Notes on Contributors Notes Index
And that's what makes "Mattered" such a fascinating read. This set of random pieces actually reveal how - for one shining moment - the losers ran Hollywood. (The Houston Chronicle) Movie connoisseurs and film students, especially those who relish the pictures of the New Hollywood era, should add this admirable volume to their library (Midwest Book Review) A superb anthology, a volume whose nostalgia for the New Hollywood is refreshingly clear-eyed rather than rose-tinted, and no less infectious for it. (The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory)
