American Films of the 70's

Conflicting Visions

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by Peter Lev

Type

Studies

Subject

On Films > Per period

Keywords

1970s, New Hollywood

Publishing date

2000

Publisher

University of Texas Press

Language

English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Paperback • 260 pages
6 x 9 inches (15 x 23 cm)

ISBN-10
ISBN-13

0-292-74716-0
978-0-292-74716-6

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Book Presentation:
While the anti-establishment rebels of 1969's Easy Rider were morphing into the nostalgic yuppies of 1983's The Big Chill, Seventies movies brought us everything from killer sharks, blaxploitation, and disco musicals to a loving look at General George S. Patton. Indeed, as Peter Lev persuasively argues in this book, the films of the 1970s constitute a kind of conversation about what American society is and should be—open, diverse, and egalitarian, or stubbornly resistant to change.

Examining forty films thematically, Lev explores the conflicting visions presented in films with the following kinds of subject matter:
Hippies (Easy Rider, Alice's Restaurant) Cops (The French Connection, Dirty Harry) Disasters and conspiracies (Jaws, Chinatown) End of the Sixties (Nashville, The Big Chill) Art, Sex, and Hollywood (Last Tango in Paris) Teens (American Graffiti, Animal House) War (Patton, Apocalypse Now) African-Americans (Shaft, Superfly) Feminisms (An Unmarried Woman, The China Syndrome) Future visions (Star Wars, Blade Runner)

As accessible to ordinary moviegoers as to film scholars, Lev's book is an essential companion to these familiar, well-loved movies.

About the Author:
Peter Lev is Professor of Electronic Media and Film at Towson University.

See the publisher website: University of Texas Press