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A DECADE UNDER THE INFLUENCE
by Peter Sobczynski

June 6, 2003

(Out of 4 stars)

FILM CREDITS: Directed by Richard LaGravenese & Ted Demme. 108 minutes. Rated R. An IFC Films release.

Every once in a while, the stars mysteriously align and the American film industry hits a golden period of a year or so in which an unusually strong crop of pictures suddenly appear and give a brief glimmer of hope to weary, burned-out audiences who have grown tired of the same old stuff and are yearning for something new. 1939, for example, saw such films as "Stagecoach", "The Wizard of Oz", "Gone With the Wind", "Wuthering Heights", "Ninotchka", "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" and "Gunga Din", to name a few, and the last half of 1999 saw such instant classics as "Fight Club", "Eyes Wide Shut", "Boys Don’t Cry", "The Blair Witch Project", "Magnolia", "American Beauty" and "Being John Malkovich". It is a measure of the greatness of the films listed above that the films that received the Best Picture Oscars in their respective years ("Gone with the Wind" and "American Beauty") are actually the weakest of the ones I have cited.

However, the most sustained period of excellence in American film history is, without a doubt, the decade of the 1970’s. Something was in the air at the time and an astonishing array of films emerged that not only rewrote film history but which also expanded notions of what a film could do. Of course, not every film was a work of genius (this was the same period that gave us "Orca the Killer Whale", "The Way We Were" "Lucky Lady" and "Billy Jack Goes to Washington", after all) but it is hard to argue against the achievements of a decade that debuted (selecting only one film per year and one per director) "Five Easy Pieces", "McCabe and Mrs. Miller", "The Godfather", "The Exorcist", "Chinatown", "Jaws", "Taxi Driver", "Annie Hall", "Days of Heaven" and "All That Jazz".

As bold and exciting as the films themselves were the people behind them and that has proven to be a problem when it comes to chronicling the cinematic accomplishments of the decade. Most of the accounts (most infamously the shoddy 1998 best-seller "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls") tend to ignore the films themselves in order to concentrate on the more salacious details about the filmmakers-the egocentric tantrums of William Friedkin and Peter Bogdanovich, the drugs taken by Martin Scorsese and Hal Ashby, the bridge-burning antics of Robert Altman and the megalomania of Francis Ford Coppola. Sure, hearing about such behavior is entertaining in a lurid sort of way but for anyone interested in the films themselves, such accounts leave much to be desired.

Perhaps in response to "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls", directors Richard LaGravenese and Ted Demme (who died in 2002), fans of 1970’s films, have attempted to right the balance with "A Decade Under the Influence", a feature-length celebration of the films and filmmakers of the decades that spends its time analyzing the films in question instead of the psyches of their makers. It is a flawed, imperfect film that inevitably leaves out as much as it uncovers but it comes closer to hitting on the impact of the decade’s output than anyone else has to date.

As the film demonstrates, it was a peculiar collision of events that led to such a prodigious output. During the 1960’s, the Hollywood studio system was collapsing under the weight of big-budget bombs trying to recapture the box-office of "The Sound of Music" and were at the end of their ropes. At the same time, colleges were beginning to offer serious course in filmmaking so that eager newcomers could study their craft. During this time, boundary-breaking films from Europe by Godard, Bergman, Antonioni and Fellini were expanding the students notions of what film could say. Finally, low-budget producers like Roger Corman were willing to give newcomers a chance to make a feature film with relative freedom as long as they made them cheap and included enough sex and violence to secure playdates. And with the world in tumult, as Sydney Pollack points out in the film, audiences wanted films that reflected the world around them instead of those that acted as an escape. These new filmmakers were in the right place at the right time and things just clicked.

Most of the unquestioned highlights of the decade are cited-the "Godfather" films, "Mean Streets", "MASH", "Star Wars", "Shampoo", "Dog Day Afternoon", "Midnight Cowboy", "Coming Home", "Easy Rider", "The French Connection" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest"-and they are augmented by commentary from many of the notable figures of the era; directors like Scorsese, Friedkin, Altman and Coppola; writers like Robert Towne and Paul Schrader and actors like Jon Voight, Bruce Dern and Pam Grier. There is a danger in a film like this, which is essentially aimed at film fanatics, to simply regurgitate well-known facts and show familiar clips but LaGravenese & Demme has chose some canny clips and interviewers who, for the most part, have genuinely interesting things to say. The most fascinating interviewee is Julie Christie, who analyzes films here with a laser-like precision that puts most real film critics to shame.

The one flaw with "A Decade Under the Influence" is that for all the information that it packs into two hours, there are countless people, films and themes that are left totally unexplored and while a credit card near the end tries to explain this, it doesn’t make up for some startling absences. Although they are discussed, there are no interviews with notables like Spielberg, Lucas, Warren Beatty and Jane Fonda and too many others are almost completely ignored (including such notables as Brian DePalma, Michael Cimino Monte Hellman, Bob Fosse, Mike Nichols Michael Ritchie and Terrence Malick)-to be fair, such lesser-known directors as Jerry Schatzberg and John Avildsen are included. And while there is a brief acknowledgment by Peter Bogdanovich that some directors wound up spending too much money and made some bad movies while a still photo of "At Long Last Love" is displayed (which is an understatement along the lines of noting that Laetita Casta looks okay in a bikini), the film neither studies these downfalls nor does it offer a fresh perspective on any of these flops-several of which ("New York, "New York", "Sorcerer", "Exorcist II", "Catch-22" and "1941") have grown in stature over the years.

There are also developments that occurred over the decade that are utterly ignored. Considering that horror films have always flourished during times of unease, why no mention of the classics of the genre that emerged (the films of Tobe Hooper, George Romero and John Carpenter, to name three uncited examples). And considering the fact that LaGravenese got his start in the business as a writer, it seems odd that the film never mentions the phenomenon of writers parlaying their skills into directing gigs (such as Schrader, Towne, John Milius, Walter Hill). These are significant notions and I would have rather seen them explored than another look at how "Star Wars" changed the industry. (Perhaps a longer DVD edition will make up for some of these omissions).

Nevertheless, there are plenty of treats here to entertain buffs and neophytes alike; William Friedkin explaining how a Magritte painting influenced one of the key visuals of "The Exorcist" and his displeasure over the original ad campaign idea for the film, Bruce Dern doing a hilarious impression of Jack Nicholson and the sight of Coppola expounding "You fall in love with the movies that you have to make" (which still doesn’t explain "Jack"). Just make sure that when you see "A Decade Under the Influence" that you have a DVD store nearby because the collection of clips on display here are going to inspire the desire to see many of these films again as soon as possible.

-- PETER SOBCZYNSKI

Copyright © 2003 Peter Sobczynski
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While the views expressed by Peter Sobczynski do not necessarily reflect the views of Criticdoctor.com, the Critic Doctor will occasionally examine Mr. Sobczynski's film reviews to bring forth an honest examination of those views expressed.