Vintage Sand Episode 26: Alternate Oscars - 1970's Edition

Vintage Sand

Once again, Team Vintage Sand returns to pay tribute to Danny Peary’s wonderful 1993 book "Alternate Oscars"; this time, our focus is the 1970’s, which many call the greatest decade in the history of American film. If this is so, it’s because for a brief shining moment, from "Easy Rider" to the birth of the tyranny of opening weekend grosses engendered by films like "Jaws" and "Star Wars", the most powerful figure in Hollywood was the director. The studios had collapsed under their own weight at the end of the ’60’s, and the Film School Generation of directors, inspired by American mavericks and the French New Wave alike, were handed the keys. This was the generation of Scorsese, Coppola, De Palma, Spielberg, Lucas, Bogdanovich, Friedkin, Rafelson and some kindred spirit Hollywood vets like Altman and Ashby. Can you imagine a system that was able to produce "Godfather, Part II" and "Chinatown" in the same year? As Peter Biskind relates in his essential "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls". it was all over by the middle of the decade, as the money people regained control with the rise of the likes of Eisner and Ovitz, CAA and package deals. There was never anything like the “Hollywood New Wave” before, and chances are we will never see anything like it again. So come celebrate along with us as we battle it out amongst ourselves to select the very best of a brilliant bunch–Yeah, we’re talkin’ to you!