American Films of the 70s

<p>While the anti-establishment rebels of 1969's <i>Easy Rider</i> were morphing into the nostalgic yuppies of 1983's <i>The Big Chill</i> 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.</p> <p>Examining forty films thematically Lev explores the conflicting visions presented in films with the following kinds of subject matter:</p> <ul> <li>Hippies <i>(Easy Rider Alice's Restaurant)</i></li> <li>Cops <i>(The French Connection Dirty Harry)</i></li> <li>Disasters and conspiracies <i>(Jaws Chinatown)</i></li> <li>End of the Sixties <i>(Nashville The Big Chill)</i></li> <li>Art Sex and Hollywood <i>(Last Tango in Paris)</i></li> <li>Teens <i>(American Graffiti Animal House)</i></li> <li>War <i>(Patton Apocalypse Now)</i></li> <li>African-Americans <i>(Shaft Superfly)</i></li> <li>Feminisms <i>(An Unmarried Woman The China Syndrome)</i></li> <li>Future visions <i>(Star Wars Blade Runner)</i></li> </ul> <p>As accessible to ordinary moviegoers as to film scholars Lev's book is an essential companion to these familiar well-loved movies.</p>