Francis Ford Coppola	William Friedkin
Ellen Burstyn	Robert Altman
Robert Towne	Sidney Lumet
Paul Schrader	Roger Corman
Peter Bogdanovich	Milos Forman
Dennis Hopper	Sydney Pollack
Paul Mazursky	Martin Scorsese
. . . And many more

Directed by Ted Demme and Richard LaGravenese
Documentary. USA. 108 Minutes.

Those who remember the decade and its movies and those who don't, but have become familiar with the films, will find this documentary abundantly appealing. Although there are no new revelations about the period, roughly 1968 to 1976, there is lots of enthusiasm in the clips, stills, and interviews, all put together with aplomb by co-directors Ted Demme and Richard LaGravenese. The late 1960's and 1970's were the salad days of many filmmakers who went on to become icons of the industry, turning out the cream of the crop in a decade that saw the old Hollywood studio system erode into a shadow of its former self. As the studios emptied, this fertile and fresh season of independents burst on the scene producing many of the boldest, most audacious films of the century, including Midnight Cowboy, Bonnie and Clyde, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Chinatown, and The Conversation, to name but a few. In fact, naming the films and watching their accompanying clips is the meat of this feature length theatrical release that will be expanded and shown in three parts on IFC television later this year.

The rest of the 108 minutes are filled with interviews and anecdotes from a host of directors and actors (Julie Cristie, Jon Voight) who are clearly sentimental about the decade. The thrust of the interviews is a buoyant nostalgia for the all too brief period where the defining phrases that are repeated from everyone are "endless possibilities", "unbelievable energy", "moral ambiguity", and "total freedom". Although more than a touch of the cockiness that defined this generation is obvious, it is in large measure that confidence, combined with the new, driving freedom of the times, that allowed them to take the risks and make some masterpieces. While not all the films have held up equally well, Easy Rider, for example, at the time of its release was an awesomely powerful voice for a huge generation of college age, draft age, kids. Suddenly, in film after film, there were characters that they could identify with. With this abrupt shift away from the escapist fare that had been the bulk of Hollywood movies, these films echoed the mood of new freedoms brought on by The Pill, pressing social justice issues, the war in Vietnam, and worldwide student revolt.

Striving to provide a little historical framework, the assemblers of this documentary, provide links to what came before and after. Some of these directors came from 1960's live TV (John Frankenheimer) or the New York stage (Arthur Penn), helping to establish the thread of creativity and the background (the French and British new wave of the 1960's) that set the stage and made this filmic explosion possible. Beginning his career as an assistant to low budget king, Roger Corman, Francis Ford Coppola learned how to make movies with no money. Others just went out and shot film, without permits or a clear plan.

In these years of rapid change, just as the rules were thrown out overnight regarding sex, duty to country, and unquestioned authority, movies that simply entertained suddenly seemed stale. Big musicals, Doris Day comedies, melodramatic crime and love stories were not cutting edge or cool. People (read anyone under 30) went crazy for the realism of movies and movie stars who talked and acted real. The Graduate's Benjamin, floating in the pool, clueless about what to do with his life, and what's more, unconcerned about it, generated great vicarious emotion among a huge mass of boomers whose friends were dying in Vietnam or dropping out. In addition to the explosive freedom of being out from under contract restraints of the studios, the decade's movies were reflections of the times. For viewers of A Decade Under the Influence (the title homage to John Cassavettes), there is pure pleasure in the parade of stills, mostly in sparkling black and white, and made me want to go back to watch these films again in the places I first saw them.

The too brief period came to a rather screeching halt with the rise of the blockbuster moneymakers beginning with "Jaws". The focus shifted heavily on making money and huge returns on investment by making sequels that were perceived as sure things. Of course making the same movie over and over stifled creativity and the 1980's became a pretty dry decade for movies, but the filmmakers here stay clearly and fondly on their subject and do not explore the bookend decades of this decade under the influence.