![]() ![]() Biskind’s clearly done his research (more on that in a moment), and the book is peppered with anecdotes, quotes, data, stories, and details that bring not only the era to life, but each of these figures, many of whom loom larger than life in the minds of many cinephiles. ![]() In other words, there’s a lot going on, and even in a dense read like this, it would be easy to lose track of the story.īut Biskind’s organized, careful approach pays off incredibly well here, with each chapter primarily focusing on a single figure, even as the book proceeds year by year through the decade and beyond. After all, Biskind isn’t just telling the story of a slew of directors – Dennis Hopper, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Hal Ashby, Paul Schrader, Terrence Malick, William Friedkin, Steven Spielberg, and George Lucas, just to hit the main focuses – but of the studio system of the time, key figures in the decade (Jack Nicholson, Robert Evans, Robert Towne, etc.), and even politics and other key social moments. Beginning with Bonnie and Clyde and ending with Heaven’s Gate (more or less), Biskind’s book covers so much ground, and so many careers, that it would be easy for the book to fall into chaos. ![]() ![]() Peter Biskind’s Easy Riders, Raging Bulls tells the story of that decade, explaining just what led to an era in film so dominated by directors who were given free reign to make their own unique pictures, and what happened by the 1980s that brought that to a close. From big-budget pictures like The Godfather to personal stories like Mean Streets, from the revolutionary Easy Rider to the predecessor of the modern blockbuster Jaws, the 1970s was a time of incredible growth and change for the film industry, and there are no shortage of films from the decade that can be held up among the greatest films of all time. If you were to ask me what the best period for American film was, I’d be hard pressed to argue that it wasn’t the 1970s, a period where a slew of factors gave us some of the most personal – and most interesting – films of all time. ![]()
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