American Cinema of the 1970s

Themes and Variations

Edited by Lester D. Friedman

SERIES: Screen Decades: American Culture/American Cinema

Rutgers University Press

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 .

‘There is nothing like this series. Screen Decades firmly situates American cinema in the realms of material culture, popular culture, cultural narrative, reception analysis, and industrial history.’ American Quarterly

Cinema TodayA Conversation with Thirty-nine Filmmakers from around the WorldElena Oumanocinematic rhythm, cinematic structure, Box: film, auteur, film directors, auteur directors, filmmaking, film and culture, cinema and culture, film and society, cinema and society, filmmakers and filmmaking American Quarterly

‘There is nothing like this series. Screen Decades firmly situates American cinema in the realms of material culture, popular culture, cultural narrative, reception analysis, and industrial history.’ American Quarterly

Cinema TodayA Conversation with Thirty-nine Filmmakers from around the WorldElena Oumanocinematic rhythm, cinematic structure, Box: film, auteur, film directors, auteur directors, filmmaking, film and culture, cinema and culture, film and society, cinema and society, filmmakers and filmmaking American Quarterly

LESTER D. FRIEDMAN is the Senior Scholar-in-Residence in the Media and Society Program at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and the author of numerous books on film.

1970 : Movies and the movement / Mimi White
1971 : Movies and the exploitation of excess / Mia Mask
1972 : Movies and confession / Michael DeAngelis
1973 : Movies and the legacies of war and corruption / Frances Gateward
1974 : Movies and political trauma / David Cook
1975 : Movies and conflicting ideologies / Glenn Man
1976 : Movies and cultural contradictions / Frank P. Tomasulo
1977 : Movies and a nation in transformation / Paula J. Massood
1978 : Movies and changing times / Charles J. Maland
1979 : Movies and the end of an era / Peter Lev
Select Academy Awards, 1970-1979

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