A book all film saviours should own
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Easy Riders, Raging Bulls was a book i came across last year in my local branch of Waterstones amongst the small placid film selection, read some pages and put it back, not thinking on purchase. When i finally found the courage to go to my local Waterstones recently to see if they had one-it was the exact copy i had read the year before!
Although there is quite a lot i know from this period of New Hollywood like Hal Ashby's shift from editor to director, behaving like a hippie and subsquent career decline all within nine years; Hopper's drug use; Beatty bickering with Altman on the set of Mr and Mrs Cabe and Coppola's casting problems on The Godfather as well as trying to steer his own film company forward on and off-Zoetrope with eventual disasterous consquences among other things. I was actually surprised at how much information was familiar to me, but how much wasn't familiar with me for example, the controversy over the writing credits Easy Rider recieved how Southerton was really behind the backbone and left the project empty-handed; the creation of BBS including the career of Bert Schendier and Bob Raelfson plus Scorsese endangering his health as a reaction to the lack of respect for his work.
This is the book that goes in detail about the rivalry of both directors and producers eager to boost their pictures amongst themseleves, their friends and collagues, including the need to win Oscars to show the world what brillant filmakers they were and when a film bombed, they would sink. The desperation of fame was their goal and the obbession to make as many brillant films in a row for as long as possible trying to capture the imagination of the audience to relate with big hits at the Box Office, but didn't always work that way. Many even used their own experiences and personal viewpoints in life for their film scripts including George Lucas with American Graffiti; the political statements Steven uses in Jaws; Bob Schendier's self-auto biographical Taxi Driver of his real-life and near tragic reclusive state. Some had fears and phobias of heights and being stuck in elevators like George Lucas, Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg who was incredibly nervous. The thing is nearly all the wannabe directors like Bob Rafleson, Hal "Captain Wacky" Ashby, William "Bob" Friedkin and Peter Bogdanovinch described in the book petered out when the pressure to create bigger and better pictures destroyed their personalities, purely making them victims of their own success admist marriage breakdowns, suicide intentions (in the case of Bogdanovinch when it became clear that he had never been affected by the violent films he made until someone close to him did) and drug addictions.
Hollywood was rejuvenated thanks to the big hits that both Speilberg and Lucas did (which was retrospectively, Jaws and Star Wars) with widely promotion including tv spots, cinema trails and newpapers and mechandise like toys, t-shirts (Speilberg claims that every country he visited most people were wearing Jaws t-shirts expect for Russia and India) and hats. Speilberg and Lucas just happened to be the people that Hollywood was looking for at the time-providing geniune popcorn entertainment and reinventing adventures films of the 1930s for a new generation. Speilberg for instance went onto become very successful with ET, Indiana Jones and The Color Purple in the 80s. However, the New Hollywood directors made thought-provoking and often depressing films about real-life events that people didn't want to see (they were already fed-up with the constant churn of conspiriciay dramas). The future was rather grim, although the survivors for example, Bob Altman took on a lot of lower budget films to help him get through the decade unscaved. Scorsese on the other hand, knew he had to make a lower budget film when he was really struggling and later on took two projects on, so he could finance two films he really did want to make. Although, Scorsese is well known today, there is a much better appreciation for this work, he has had to work really hard to stay in the position-his determination really did pay off.
A further thing which should be indiciated here that without this influence, maybe there wouldn't have been an American independant movement in the 90s for the sort of people who wanted to see these sorts of films as opposed to the stuff that Hollywood caters for.
Despite the complete lack of no information of Dustin Hoffman or his friendship with Beatty-which could have been very interesting. This is a fascinating read of tinseltown during the days when they relied on the young talent and then gradually disposed of them when their films started to bomb. Although we are inclined to always wanting to know more about this relatively short and often troubled period involving other actors and actresses dilemas-it's probably the best we've ever get on the subject.
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The definitive film book
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Even if you have no idea who George Lucas and William Friedkin are, I would still recommend this book. It's a big entertaining story of how some drugged up hedonists (with only a few exceptions) in the '70's made some the best movies ever made. Movies covered include Star Wars, Chinatown, Apocalypse Now, American Graffiti, Jaws, Exorcist etc.
I've read a lot of film books. This one stands head and shoulders above the rest. So big was its impact that few film books since don't mention it at least twice.
At least two books have been written to argue directly with this book - the excellent "Blockbuster" by Tom Shone and the decent but unremarkable "It Don't Worry Me" by Ryan Gilbey. Also a sequel of sorts was written called "Rebels On The Backlot" by Sharon Waxman, which concentrates on the '90's.
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A Paradox
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This book is a paradox.
On the one hand, Biskind holds up the 70s auteur as the only American filmmaker worth taking seriously and on the other, proceeds to tear each and every one of them down with tales of debaunchery, drugs, megalomania or (the ultimate criticism) selling out.
This would be understandable if it were done in a tongue-in-cheek, light-hearted way, but there is a viciousness in the writing that seems to indicate an underlying axe to grind.
Many of those featured in the book (understandably) take an intense dislike to Biskind and having seen some of them interviewed, it is not hard to see why.
Biskind has a talent for selective story-telling, as I'm sure many of his Hollywood journalist contemporaries of past and present do. But there comes a point when the reader needs to question his motives. If he admires these filmmakers so much, why does he insist on making them look like such assholes.
For example, saying that 'Easy Rider is a movie that would have directed itself' does a great injustice to Dennis Hopper. Perhaps he was completely bonkers, perhaps he did go off on these tyrannical rants, but the fact remains, Hopper directed one of the most influencial films ever made. That deserves credit, which Biskind seems to only acknowledge in passing.
'Down and Dirty Pictures', a sequel of sorts, is about a much more recent era which most people will have a better recollection of. The same faults as those in 'Easy Rider, Raging Bulls' become much more apparent. Biskind devotes huge chapters of the book to Tarantino, neglecting a great many other independent film directors of the 90s. Tarantino may have inspired a generation of copy cats, but it was directors like Roberts Rodriguez who inspired a generation of filmmakers.
Ultimately, Biskind comes across as jaded and cynical. Much more so than the filmmakers he so readily criticizes. Perhaps, in his opinion, this is something he would consider a compliment...
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Masterpiece!!!
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Less a triumph of prose writing,more a triumph of painstaking reportage,Easy Riders,Raging Bulls is,without doubt the daddy of any and all books on the subject of that business we call show.
With 30 years as a hollywood journo under his belt,Peter Biskind is ideally placed to re-examine the '70s in Hollywood,a period which produced a rich and satisfying body of work,while consigning almost all of it's creators into drug induced career burnout.The only real survivors,Spielberg and Lucas,were the ones who gave up on indie cinema and embraced the mainstram with open arms,giving birth to the modern summer blockbuster in the process,whilst other more edgier talents such as Scorcese,were forced to start again at the bottom.
The scandal in this book is deliciously juicy and spares us little or no detail,but it's matched with a fine sense of history and what seems to be genuine regret in Biskinds eyes that the single most exciting and creative period in recent Hollywood history was burned out in less than a decade,as the '80s saw the rise of the uber producers like Joel Silver and Don Simpson.
This is the fall of the Roman Empire,Hollywood style.Without doubt the finest book ever written about Tinseltown.Lap it up,because it could be 20 years before we see another period so rich,or another book so good.
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Excellent
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If there is a better book about film then I’d like to read it. This is, quite simply, the best, most interesting book about film ever written. The book provides a (largely) chronological account of film making in the 1970s – a wonderfully fertile period where ‘New Hollywood’ attempted, and for a while succeeded, in making the director king. The book is an amazing concoction of sharp analysis about film and filmmaking mixed with scurrilous gossip and titbits about the major players. Quite how he persuaded all these film legends to speak to him with such candour remains a mystery; I suspect few will do so again. Amongst the cast of characters are directors Robert Altman, Hal Ashby, Peter Bogdanovich, Francis Ford Coppola, William Friedkin, George Lucas and his wife Marcia Lucas, John Milius, Paul Schrader, Martin Scorcese, Steven Spielberg and Robert Towne; actors Warren Beatty, Dennis Hopper, Cybill Shepherd and Jack Nicholson covering landmark films such as The Godfather I & II, Taxi Driver, Jaws, Star Wars, The Exorcist and The Last Picture Show. Biskind writes beautifully, handling a huge topic with an enormous cast of characters deftly. He is assisted by the fact that many of the players and the films are already well-known to the reader but he has a wonderful talent for the one-line character profile (often a one-line character assassination) and he chooses his quotes well. If you are interested in film, and particularly if you share Biskind’s view that the 1970s was a golden era of film, then you will probably enjoy this book. There are a couple of caveats: he plays a little fast and loose with the facts and he loves gossip. He is hard on his subjects: few escape unscathed and some are characterised as positively evil. An excellent book, worth reading if you can tolerate some of your heroes being tarnished.
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