The Last Great American Picture Show: New Hollywood Cinema in the 1970s

by Thomas Elsaesser (Editor), Noel King (Editor), Alexander Horwath (Editor)

The Last Great American Picture Show brings together essays by scholars and writers who chart the changing evaluations of the American cinema of the 1970s, sometimes referred to as the decade of the lost generation, but now more and more recognized as the first New Hollywood, without which the cinema of Francis Coppola, Steven Spielberg, Robert Zemeckis, Tim Burton or Quentin Tarantino could not have come into existence.
Identified with directors such as Sam Peckinpah, Arthur Penn, Peter Bogdanovich, Monte Hellman, Bob Rafelson, Hal Ashby, Robert Altman and James Toback, American cinema of the 1970s is long overdue for this re-evaluation. Many of the films have not only come back from oblivion, as the benchmark for new directorial talents. They have also become cult films in the video shops and the classics of film courses all over the world.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction, History

392 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Thomas Elsaesser was a German film historian and professor of Film and Television Studies at the University of Amsterdam.

Reviews

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a grab-bag of essays on the history and criticism of American films from 1967-1975. I enjoyed the historical, informational essays much more, and am now determined to check out some of the works of Monte Hellman and Barbara Loden's Wanda. Apparently, all the brainpower I had back in college to delve through the heavy lit crit essays has left me, as those basically went in one eye and out of the other. Still, I feel a little more informed about filmmaking in the 1970s, and I'm gladder for that.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mixed bag of academic essays. If you're a big fan of this era of films, there are a few gems in here that are worth seeking out.