Easy Riders, Raging Bulls follows the wild ride that was Hollywood in the '70s — an unabashed celebration of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll (both onscreen and off) and a climate where innovation and experimentation reigned supreme. Finally, the dream of the New Hollywood transcended individual movies. This was an abrupt heaving and falling that was terrifying in its intensity and duration, threatening to go on forever. Even the wimpiest Harvard students harbor dreams of Muhammed Ali glory. Seeing old archive footage of Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and more hanging out is grin inducing and the sheer level of excess, creativity and fun on display of the era is infectious. "Everything was shaking. Many excellent studies and innumerable biographies with exactly this approach already exist. As well as veterans like Don Siegel, Sam Peckinpah, and John Huston, who suddenly found the freedom to do some of their best work, pictures like Dirty Harry, Straw Dogs, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, The Man Who Would Be King, and Fat City. In 1967, two movies, Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate, sent tremors through the industry. Try again. The buzz around movies attracted the best and the brightest of the boomers to the film schools. Directors as a group enjoyed more power, prestige, and wealth than they ever had before. He is a contributor to Vanity Fair and was formerly the executive editor of Premiere magazine. An unabashed celebration of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll (onscreen and off), Easy Rider heralded a heady decade in which a rebellious wave of talented young filmmakers invigorated the movie industry. Every age gone by is lit up by a retrospective glow of nostalgia, and the specialness of the '70s was by no means evident at the time. Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N Roll Generation Saved Hollywood is a book by Peter Biskind, published by Simon & Schuster in 1998. Easy Riders, Raging Bulls. But Airport, The Poseidon Adventure, Earthquake, and The Towering Inferno to one side, the '70s was truly a golden age, "the last great time," in the words of Peter Bart, who was vice president of production at Paramount until mid-decade, "for pictures that expanded the idea of what could be done with movies." By the late '60s and early '70s, if you were young, ambitious, and talented, there was no better place on earth to be than Hollywood. Not Coppola, not Bogdanovich, not Ashby or Lucas or Spielberg or Scorse. A high of 71 degrees was expected. By the time I pulled on my cowboy boots, got my money and the key to the motel room, and made it to the door, it was over. Easy Riders, Raging Bulls follows the wild ride that was Hollywood in the '70s -- an unabashed celebration of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll (both onscreen and off) and a climate where innovation and experimentation reigned supreme. It deals with the late 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s: heady days, when a youthful, energetic, free-thinking generation of film directors rose up, seized the reins of Hollywood, and attempted a revolution. Before the dust settled, sixty-five souls had perished in the quake. With Martin Scorsese, Dennis Hopper, Peter Bogdanovich, Sam Peckinpah. Use up arrow (for mozilla firefox browser alt+up arrow) and down arrow (for mozilla firefox browser alt+down arrow) to review and enter to select. However a lot of this I personally already knew and the documentary does feel overlong and could have put more focus on more key moments. Everything old was bad, everything new was good. The New Hollywood lasted barely a decade, but in addition to bequeathing a body of landmark films, it has a lot to teach us about the way Hollywood is run now, why today's pictures, with a few happy exceptions, are so unrelievedly awful, why Hollywood is in a perpetual state of crisis and self-loathing. Even watching films at invitational drive-in showings…even that doesn’t get it. This has to be one of the best books I have ever read. He ranked directors in hierarchies, which had an instant appeal for the passionate young cineastes who now knew that John Ford was better than William Wyler, and why. In 1969, a low-budget biker movie, Easy Rider, shocked Hollywood with its stunning success. I really enjoyed getting inside films that I grew up with in the 70s but, for me reading this book as a fan of the films not the background machinations, far too much of the book covered endless squabbles between various players in the industry. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 30 June 2011. Get unlimited DVD Movies & TV Shows delivered to your door with no … In fact, a lot of the energy that animated the New Hollywood came from New York; the '70s was the decade when New York swallowed Hollywood, when Hollywood was Gothamized. We use cookies and similar tools to enhance your shopping experience, to provide our services, understand how customers use our services so we can make improvements, and display ads. Easy Riders, Raging Bulls follows the wild ride that was Hollywood in the '70s -- an unabashed celebration of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll (both onscreen and off) and a climate where innovation and experimentation reigned supreme. Then came, pell-mell, a series of premonitory shocks the civil rights movement, the Beatles, the pill, Vietnam, and drugs that combined to shake the studios badly, and send the demographic wave that was the baby boom crashing down about them. Peter Biskind is the author of five previous books, including Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'n' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood. In 1969, a low-budget biker movie, Easy Rider, shocked Hollywood with its stunning success. Marty was staying at the Toluca Motel, across the street from the lot. Lots of great anecdotes about the most interesting time in American film history, Easy Rider, Raging Bulls isn't as comprehensive as the book it's adapted from, but it's a fun watch for fans of that era of American filmmaking. The great directors of the studio era, like John Ford and Howard Hawks, regarded themselves as nothing more than hired help (over-) paid to manufacture entertainment, storytellers who shunned self-conscious style lest it interfere with the business at hand. 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