American Cinema of the 1970s - Professor Lester D. Friedman

A smug glance at the seventies-he so-called "Me Decade"-unveils a
kaleidoscope of big hair, blaring music, and broken politics-all easy
targets for satire, cynicism, and ultimately even nostalgia. American
Cinema of the 1970s, however, looks beyond the strobe lights to reveal
how profoundly the seventies have influenced American life and how the
films of that decade represent a peak moment in cinema history.

Far
from a placid era, the seventies was a decade of social upheavals.
Events such as the killing of students at Kent State and Jackson State
universities, the Watergate investigations, the legalization of
abortion, and the end of the American involvement in Vietnam are only a
few among the many landmark occurrences that challenged the foundations
of American culture. The director-driven movies of this era reflect this
turmoil, experimenting with narrative structures, offering a gallery of
scruffy antiheroes, and revising traditional genre
conventions.

Bringing together ten original essays, American Cinema of
the 1970s examines the range of films that marked the decade, including
Jaws, Rocky, Love Story, Shaft, Dirty Harry, The Godfather, Deliverance, The Exorcist, Shampoo, Taxi Driver, Star Wars, Saturday Night Fever,
Kramer vs. Kramer, and Apocalypse Now .