American Cinema of the 1970s: Themes and Variations

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American Cinema of the 1970s AMERICAN CULTURE / AMERICAN CINEMA Each volume in the Screen Decades: American Culture/American Cinema series is an anthology of original essays exploring the impact of cultural issues on film and the impact of film on American society. Because every chapter presents a discussion of particularly significant motion pictures and the broad range of historical events in one year, readers will gain a systematic and progressive sense of the decade as it came to be depicted on movie screens across North America. We know that our series represents just one approach to the growth of the American cinema: to organize by decades establishes somewhat artificial borders and boundaries, and each author’s thematic choices are but one way to understand the culture of a particular year. Despite such limitations, this structure contextualizes the sprawling progression of American cinema, especially as it relates to historical and cultural events. We hope that these books, aimed at scholars and general readers, students and teachers, will shed valuable new light on, and will provide a better understanding of, American culture and film history during the twentieth century. LESTER D. FRIEDMAN AND MURRAY POMERANCE SERIES EDITORS Ina Rae Hark, editor, American Cinema of the 1930s: Themes and Variations Wheeler Winston Dixon, editor, American Cinema of the 1940s: Themes and Variations Murray Pomerance, editor, American Cinema of the 1950s: Themes and Variations Lester D. Friedman, editor, American Cinema of the 1970s: Themes and Variations Stephen Prince, editor, American Cinema of the 1980s: Themes and Variations S C R E E N D E C A D E S American Cinema of the 1970s Themes and Variations EDITED BY LESTER D. FRIEDMAN RUTGERS UNIVERSITY PRESS N E W B R U N S W I C K , N E W J E R S E Y L I B R A R Y O F C O N G R E S S C ATA L O G I N G - I N - P U B L I C AT I O N D ATA American cinema of the 1970s : themes and variations / edited by Lester D. Friedman. p. cm. — (Screen decades) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN–13: 978–0–8135–4022–1 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN–13: 978–0–8135–4023–8 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Motion pictures—United States—History. 2. Motion pictures—United States—Plots, themes, etc. I. Friedman, Lester D. II. Series. PN1993.5.U6A8577 2007 791.430973’09047—dc22 2006021859 This collection copyright © 2007 by Rutgers, The State University Individual chapters copyright © 2007 in the names of their authors All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 100 Joyce Kilmer Avenue, Piscataway, NJ 08854–8099. The only exception to this prohibition is “fair use” as defined by U.S. copyright law. Manufactured in the United States of America For Marc, Jessica, Ethan, and Gabriel Unto the succeeding generations ...