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A Decade Under the Influence (2003)
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Reviews Counted:30
Fresh:23
Rotten:7
Average Rating:6.7/10
Runtime: 3 hrs
Genre: Education/General Interest
Synopsis:
The 1970s was an extraordinary time of rebellion, of questioning every accepted idea: political activism, hedonism, protests, the sexual revolution, the women's movement, the civil rights movement,...
The 1970s was an extraordinary time of rebellion, of questioning every accepted idea: political activism, hedonism, protests, the sexual revolution, the women's movement, the civil rights movement, the music revolution, rage and liberation. Every standard by which we set our social and cultural clocks was either turned inside out or thrown away completely and reinvented. For American cinema, the 1970s was an era during which a new generation of filmmakers created work for a new kind of audience - moviegoers who were hungry for stories that reflected their own experiences and who were turning their backs on aged old studio formulas. As a result, emerging filmmakers influenced by foreign directors such as Godard, Kurasowa and Fellini coupled with the social climate and a struggling studio system, converged to create a new kind of moviemaking. Through their choice of material, filmmakers such as Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, Peter Bogdonovich, William Friedkin, Roger Corman and Paul Schrader revolutionized mainstream movies and for the first time personal visions were coming out of the studio system.
An IFC Original produced by the network, A Decade Under the Influence will be distributed in theaters by sister company IFC Films in Spring 2003. Following, the film will be broadcast this August in an expanded format as a three part television series on IFC TV, with additional interviews and behind the scenes material. -- © IFC Films
Starring: Robert Altman, Peter Bogdanovich, Ellen Burstyn, Julie Christie
Starring: Robert Altman, Peter Bogdanovich, Ellen Burstyn, Julie Christie, Francis Ford Coppola, Roger Corman, William Friedkin, Pam Grier, Dennis Hopper, Paul Schrader, Martin Scorsese, Robert Towne, Jon Voight
Director: Ted Demme, Richard LaGravenese
Director: Ted Demme, Richard LaGravenese
Producer: Ted Demme, Richard LaGravenese, Gini Reticker, Jerry Kupfer
Composer: John Kimbrough
Studio: IFC Films
Reviews for A Decade Under the Influence
Succeeds as both a primer for newcomers and as eye candy for established film fans.
When Coppola bellyaches you want to ask, Hey buddy, who forced the studios to give up on radical filmmakers by going insanely overbudget and past schedule with Apocalypse Now?
A breezy but incomplete valentine to the most fertile period in American film
It's as if we're watching the equivalent of a VH1 special edited for an in-flight movie.
It's an entertaining pastiche, a slice of movie history that's both fun and educational (if slightly myopic about what has come since).
Demme and LaGravenese are just as happy to let the directors bask in their past glories and reminisce about those crazy days.
It's so reverentially heavy-handed in evoking the era that it can't help playing like Forrest Gump without Tom Hanks.
It does little but reinforce the romantic notions about 70's filmmaking that seem to have taken root among the current generation of Hollywood's young Turks.
The past is so bright here, co-directors Richard LaGravenese and the late Ted Demme must have worn shades.
Unlike many documentaries about movies, it's neither underfunded nor perfunctory, but thoughtful and bracing.
An excellent introduction to the subject, and a movie buff's delight.
It's gratifying and exhilarating enough -- the movie's a foolproof greatest-hits clips package. But Christie is its major coup.
The decade under discussion in this enjoyable documentary is the 1970s, a period that changed Hollywood forever.
What's missing is anything resembling a point of view ... or the slightest sense of critical discrimination.
Should be required viewing not only for all film students but also for everyone working on an executive level in the current studio system.
an entertaining introduction of the "auteur directors" that emerged from 1968 to 1978
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