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Title: Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood by Peter Biskind ISBN: 0-684-85708-1 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 04 April, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.92 (79 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Scandalously fascinating insight into 70s Hollywood....
Comment: This book is a terrific read: an amazingly revealing insight into the workings of the Hollywood machine and a convincing explanation of why the film industry is the way it is today. Fascinating for any film fan but truly essential for those particularly interested in Coppola, Scorcese, Altman and the other enfants terribles of the 70s. I learned more than I ever thought I would about the strange habits, curious peccadilloes and psychological frailties of these legendary directors and producers. Seminal figures such as Dennis Hopper, William Friedkin, Peter Bogdanovich and Scorsese all come across as frighteningly deranged, emphasising the fine line that separates genius from insanity - and many of these characters clearly ended up on the wrong side of the divide. One of Biskind's great strengths is that he seeks to portray all sides of the story, and it's hard not to believe the majority of what is reported simply for the fact that if wasn't true you can bet your life that lawsuits would have stopped publication in its tracks.
The spirit of the times engendered by the rise of the anti-Vietnam, hippy counterculture, generated a climate where a new form of creativity was allowed to enter the mainstream for the first time. This produced a fabulous glut of films - Bonnie and Clyde, The Godfather, The Exorcist, Taxi Driver, The Deerhunter, Star Wars, MASH and dozens of others. Biskind's belief is that the rise of the super director destroyed this astounding period in Hollywood history - egos and pay checks became so over inflated that eventually the studios realised that they had to seize back control. As a result the industry more or less stopped producing original pictures and opted for the safe bet of formulaic blockbusters which were more likely to draw big crowds - through excessive marketing and merchandising campaigns and extravagant special effects.
Biskind's style is compelling and the anectdotal evidence at times hilarious, at others horrific (Peter Bogdanovich's fall from grace is particularly gruesome). 'Easy Riders Raging Bulls' must be one of the best books yet written about Hollywood and one of the best non-fiction books I have read in many years.
Rating: 2
Summary: A great decade of filmmaking, or nasty, spiteful gossip?
Comment: I'm very puzzled by the purpose and intent of this book. The author seems to have a genuine appreciation for the revolution in extraordinary, personal filmmaking in American film in the 1970s. Yet the book itself is filled with the nastiest, pettiest, disgusting portrayals of the remarkable filmmakers, writers, actors, and cinematographers who made those films. The basis of the entire book appears to be extensive interviews with hundreds of people in the industry -- all of whom have personal vendettas and scores to settle (because they are all ex-husbands, ex-wives, ex-lovers, or bitter competitors). The result is that the portrayal of every director, producer, filmmaker, and actor is that of a loathsome, arrogant, egotistical, infantile monster. Personally, it was no pleasure for me to see Robert Altman, Warren Beatty, Pauline Kael, Francis Coppola, Martin Scorcese, Terry Malick, and dozens of others presented as inhuman, venal, insane, and vicious. Some of the gossip is no doubt true, and I imagine the world of producing and making movies is quite unpleasant. But there is no balance, or insight, to counter the ugly gossip that Biskind exclusively relies upon. Most surprisingly of all, there is no appreciation of the greatness, the sensitivity, the richness of the films that were made. At the very least, the book would have been much more fascinating if Biskind demonstrated how out of all the Hollywood self-indulgence, back-biting, arrogance, and egotism arose the sensitive, powerful, complex, humane, and moving, and often funny works of art, like The Godfather films, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Chinatown, Cabaret, Nashville, Taxi Driver, Days of Heaven, Five Easy Pieces, Bonnie & Clyde, Reds, The Last Picture Show, and The Deer Hunter. There is virtually no discussion about how, despite the ways in which the people who worked on these films appeared to be out of control, half-insane on drugs, climbing over each other's backs, betraying friends, lovers, husbands and wives, the end result was films of great beauty. Nor is there any sense of what any of the subjects of the book brought to the films they made, or what special talents or visions they may have had. The subject matter, and the unrelenting gossip and nasty stories, make for very engaging reading, I'll admit -- but I wanted to take a shower when I had finished the book. This is NOT the book that the filmmakers of the nineteen-seventies deserve.
Rating: 4
Summary: Gossipy look at 70's Hollywood
Comment: While Easy Riders/Raging Bulls is a very interesting book, and does tend to keep you turning the next page, it may not appeal to everyone. Someone looking for an in-depth analysis of the film industry in the 70`s may be a little disappointed. Biskind`s main point is that a new group of directors temporarily destroyed, or at least disrupted, the Hollywood studio system of the previous decades, and were able to make a handful of classic movies in the process. They then basically handed the power back to the studios in the 80`s due to overblown egos and budgets to match. There does tend to be a lot of gossip-like material in it and the detail sometimes verges on lurid.. So, if you want to know the various girlfriends of some director, look no further. A little more technical information here and there might have been nice to sate the film student readership. However, that`s not what this book is about. It really is a good indication of the atmosphere of Hollywood in the 70`s and does show up some of these big names to be quite un-likeable characters. And that is quite an understatement. You may find yourself never wanting to watch some of these directors' movies again, based only on their personalities.
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Title: Down and Dirty Pictures : Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film by Peter Biskind ISBN: 068486259X Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 06 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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Title: The Studio by John Gregory Dunne ISBN: 0375700080 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 14 April, 1998 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Kid Stays in the Picture by Robert Evans ISBN: 1893224686 Publisher: New Millenium Pr Pub. Date: 01 July, 2002 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Hollywood Animal : A Memoir by JOE ESZTERHAS ISBN: 0375413553 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 27 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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Title: You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again by Julia Phillips ISBN: 0451205332 Publisher: New American Library Pub. Date: 02 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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