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Boring

All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Fine documentary on the changing of the guard in cinema, 1969-1979, when independent film companies began churning out more relevant and successful movies than the major studios, and audiences (young people attracted to counterculture cinema) dictated what was a hit and which actors were the new stars. Many terrific interviews with the filmmakers of the time are included (Sidney Lumet, Paul Schrader, Sydney Pollack, Martin Scorsese, William Friedkin, Jerry Schatzberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Altman, Peter Bogdanovich, John G. Avildsen, Milos Forman, Robert Towne, Roger Corman and Dennis Hopper), yet the two directors who changed the face of '70s cinema (which was changing rapidly, anyway), Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, are absent. Spielberg's "Jaws" in 1975 and Lucas' "Star Wars" in 1977 brought adventure and fantasy back to moviegoers who had been pummeled over the head with Vietnam and Watergate and the sexual revolution. "Star Wars" also brought in a new strategy for making millions of extra bucks, through merchandising. This turned an industry, which seven years before had begun to embrace the anti-establishment tale of the anti-hero, into a money-making monster, with blockbusters designed for the whole family. Although not as concise as 2003's "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex, Drugs and Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood", this document pretty much covers the same territory--and, similarly, under-utilizes the female perspective (here we have production designer Polly Platt and actresses Pam Grier, Ellen Burstyn and Julie Christie relating their experiences from the female point of view, but that's it). Directors Ted Demme (to whom the film is dedicated, posthumously) and Richard LaGravenese make some minor mistakes (for instance, a still from "The Exorcist" is actually that of "Exorcist II: The Heretic"), but their clips are well-used and their interviews are colorful and informative. **1/2 from ****

This documentary is based on the idea that the 70's was the most influential decade in American cinema history; seeing as this is an opinion that I have always agreed with I am essentially on-board right away. The subject matter more specifically is about the emergence of the New Hollywood. Strictly speaking this was a period that began about 1967; it was in full bloom until the early 70's but didn't properly die out until round about the dawn of the 80's. The period was characterised by personal director-led films. These were quite a lot less commercial and a lot more left-field than Hollywood had produced previously. They were effectively a response to the box-office disasters of several big budget studio pictures that had failed to find an audience in the counter-cultural times of the late 60's. Once Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate and Easy Rider were released to huge success, the studios figured that these types of films were the new way forward and would make them a lot of money. It turned out they were only partially right, as while many of the New Hollywood movies were successful in critical terms, not many made a lot of money. And once Steven Spielberg and George Lucas released Jaws and Star Wars, respectively, the age of the blockbuster arrived and it has been thus ever since.As a fan of this period of films I naturally thoroughly enjoyed A Decade Under the Influence. It does have to be admitted though that it is hardly an even handed examination. The view clearly stated is that this was a great time for movies and there is very little in the way of critical counter-views. I don't consider this to be a major problem as this is about shining a torch positively on an interesting period of cinema but it is at least worth acknowledging it. It might have strengthened the documentary overall if there had been some examples of the failures of the movement.Pleasingly, there are clips from many films. It made me realise how many of these films I haven't even seen yet and the segments are certainly well chosen, which is not a given in these types of docs. The structure is of the talking heads format. We hear the views of directors, actors and writers from the period. We learn a lot about their motivations and about the historical context that informed them like Vietnam and Watergate. These were turbulent times in the United States, the upshot is that a lot of great contemporary art was produced, not just in movies of course but also in books and music too. I think all these things came together at one time and the results are there for all to see. If you are interested in the subject then may I suggest also reading Peter Biskind's excellent book on the subject 'Easy Riders, Raging Bulls' – there was a documentary made of that too and while it was good, for my money this one is better.

Because of his access to the heavy weights of the 1970's, film maker Ted Demme gives us a very thorough look at the influences on and of film in the 1970s.However, this ground has been covered so well before, and Demme really does not give us much more insight to that revolutionary decade of film history.Except for some very good and touching interviews with the likes of Jon Voight and Bruce Dern, much of what is covered in this doc has been examined so much more thoroughly in docs such as "Naked Hollywood" and the PBS series "The American Cinema." Demme, however, relies on the actual film makers of the decade to tell it as it was. Though the doc's biggest strength, this lack of studio execs telling their side of the story leaves the documentary a bit unbalanced.

When an artist, particularly a popular artist creates a work, it is not a matter of them creating something which we can then encounter or not. There is a constant collaboration back and forth, a synthesis of preconceptual stuff that is exchanged. The artist creates tentative forms that will be received by us and affect us, and to do that he has to enlist our help as cocreator.It is a complex business and the rules are always changing. No one fully understands what is going on, so usually intuition is what everyone relies on. Movies are more complex than other art forms, and they are younger by a far stretch. No decent film theorist has yet emerged.Even with the high cost of production, there is so much money in the game that there is lots of room for trial and error. And that's how things happen.How quickly we forget that all of our celebrated filmmakers, especially those featured here, had some really, really big failures. And until these dogs were sent out, they thought they were as terrific as the things that we now endorse.The point is that when it comes to explaining things, these might be the very last people to ask, and whose answers may be the least trustworthy.Yes, it probably helps to know what Scorsese now thinks was in his mind when he did something thirty years ago. And it is useful to know some of the factual history about funding and who introduced whom.But none of that gets us closer to understanding film in the 70s. No one knows what the stock market is doing, but everyone seems to have a plausible explanation afterward. I know that Hopper and Schrader have more interesting opinions than expressed here — I've heard them. Those opinions are of the type I credit and have to do with constructed reality. But none of that will be found in this high school level discussion.Look, these are professional storytellers. They've been explaining themselves all their lives, so they've constructed plausible stories about what happened and why. You can't see it here, but if you dig deeper into individual views, you'll find that each person's vision of the real world corresponds to that of the constructed worlds they create.Scorsese believes the whole world is spun by personality. Schrader believes that drug-addled artists can stumble upon an accidental creation if their passion is great enough. Hopper's world is one in which a noir fate simply lays accidents of insight here and there, and so on.Demme was the wrong man to ask these questions. Of major American filmmakers, only one has exhibited his independence from the internal/external trap: Woody Allen. When he does something like this, we should all listen. Meanwhile, stuff like this only confuses history and understanding.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.