A Decade Under the Influence (2003)

You won't be disappointed!

Strong and Moving!

An Exercise In Nonsense

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

When an artist, particularly a popular artist creates a work, it is not a matter of them creating something which we can then encounter or not. There is a constant collaboration back and forth, a synthesis of preconceptual stuff that is exchanged. The artist creates tentative forms that will be received by us and affect us, and to do that he has to enlist our help as cocreator.It is a complex business and the rules are always changing. No one fully understands what is going on, so usually intuition is what everyone relies on. Movies are more complex than other art forms, and they are younger by a far stretch. No decent film theorist has yet emerged.Even with the high cost of production, there is so much money in the game that there is lots of room for trial and error. And that's how things happen.How quickly we forget that all of our celebrated filmmakers, especially those featured here, had some really, really big failures. And until these dogs were sent out, they thought they were as terrific as the things that we now endorse.The point is that when it comes to explaining things, these might be the very last people to ask, and whose answers may be the least trustworthy.Yes, it probably helps to know what Scorsese now thinks was in his mind when he did something thirty years ago. And it is useful to know some of the factual history about funding and who introduced whom.But none of that gets us closer to understanding film in the 70s. No one knows what the stock market is doing, but everyone seems to have a plausible explanation afterward. I know that Hopper and Schrader have more interesting opinions than expressed here — I've heard them. Those opinions are of the type I credit and have to do with constructed reality. But none of that will be found in this high school level discussion.Look, these are professional storytellers. They've been explaining themselves all their lives, so they've constructed plausible stories about what happened and why. You can't see it here, but if you dig deeper into individual views, you'll find that each person's vision of the real world corresponds to that of the constructed worlds they create.Scorsese believes the whole world is spun by personality. Schrader believes that drug-addled artists can stumble upon an accidental creation if their passion is great enough. Hopper's world is one in which a noir fate simply lays accidents of insight here and there, and so on.Demme was the wrong man to ask these questions. Of major American filmmakers, only one has exhibited his independence from the internal/external trap: Woody Allen. When he does something like this, we should all listen. Meanwhile, stuff like this only confuses history and understanding.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

The Presentation is VERY shabby. (to my notion) as documentaries often are. Michael Moore's "documenatry" - Farenheit 911 is FAR more convincing but has FAR too much media and political influence. Cant wait till Saturday when I get to see the docudrama "The Game of their Lives" . IFC goes right of center. I have started a collection of IFC movies from off the internet due to "TGOTL" *** out of ********** on "Decade". Wanna see good documentaries? Stick to the History Channel.. Or try docudrama. You cant go wrong with them my friend. Cant go wrong. The seventies were ten years of reruns. Or so the old times would have you to believe. Disco died and it is gone forever. When Elvis died o yes we all did grieve

As it stands for right now, Ted Demme and Richard Lagravenese's valentine to 70's film and their makers is an almost average, almost dull look at an incredible moment in the history of cinema; I think even hardcore film buffs will be a bit disappointed, especially if they've seen Raging Bulls, Easy Riders which covers exactly the same territory with much more thoroughness and compulsively compelling narrative. It doesn't seem fair to judge what they've done considering this is a gutted version of what will be a three-part, three hour show on IFC sometime in August but as it stands 'Decade' serves as a celluloid 70'S MOVIES FOR DUMMIES for those who are curious.It walks the typical tightrope of grainy movie clips from beloved classics --The Godfather, Chinatown, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest-- intercut with that decade's most famous (and beautifully lit) characters --Robert Altman, Peter Bogdonovich, Francis Ford Coppola-- and yet there's no new observations or insight into that time or its films. For the first hour or so, you're slammed over the head again and again with their "We needed to shake up the old studio system, man!" message and the back-slapping, self-congratulatory machismo that runs rampant yet when shown the result of their anger and angst, it looks almost silly --i.e. Midnight Cowboy, Panic in Needle Park, Easy Rider-- and ADUTI comes dangerously close to nearly capsizing.The only moment where something fresh seems to be said comes when both Julie Christie and Ellen Burstyn comment on the lack of roles for women during this reverential pissing contest. A brief salute to Jane Fonda for They Shoot Horses, Don't They and Klute and Jill Clayburgh for An Unmarried Woman and suddenly it felt like the filmmakers were taking you down a street that's been closed for quite some time but then it was back to the world of Martin Scorsese, Paul Schrader, Peter Bogdonovich, William Friedkin, and Coppola. (Christie and Burstyn are only two out of four women interviewed for this documentary --the others being Polly Platt and Pam Grier-- and it makes you wonder why Gena Rowlands, Faye Dunaway, Diane Keaton, Liv Ullman, Shelley Duvall, and Fonda herself either declined or weren't even approached.)The best thing about ADUTI is its never-given-its-full-due undercurrent in how most of today's filmmakers and actors are confronted with the same b******* these mavericks were in their struggle for personal vision and expression. Where are our "Klute"'s and "Scarecrow"'s and "Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice"'s and "Network"'s in this A Beautiful Mind/Gladiator/Braveheart/Chicago movie world.Maybe the full, unedited show will be more satisfying.

A DECADE UNDER THE INFLUENCE (2003) **** (Featuring interviews with: Robert Altman, Peter Bogdanovich, Marshall Brickman, Ellen Burstyn, John Calley, Julie Christie, Francis Ford Coppola, Roger Corman, Bruce Dern, Milos Forman, William Friedkin, Pam Grier, Dennis Hopper, Sidney Lumet, Paul Mazursky, Mike Medavoy, Polly Platt, Sydney Pollack, Jerry Schatzberg, Roy Scheider, Martin Scorsese, Robert Towne, Jon Voight) Excellent documentary about the last true Golden Age of Cinema: The '70s with interviews of those who made seminal films intercut with footage of the movies providing an interesting time-line of how the influences of previous filmmakers changed the face of filmmaking, the advent of the auteur, the dawning of the age of the blockbuster and the amazing array of unbridled, raw talent of actors providing a bumper crop of truly classic films. A must for all film buffs and those who are on the way to becoming a new age of cinema. Directed by Richard La Gravenese and Ted Demme (who passed away prior to its completion; this his fitting swan song to the art form).