100 MOVIES of the 1970S

For many film lovers, the 1970s represent a high point in creativity, a golden age of individualist directors making their marks. In this newly revised and updated book, you'll find a host of key movies of the era that saw a flowering of talent and the arrival of the blockbuster. Each film, each illustrated with screengrabs and expert commentary from Jürgen Müller, chair of Early Modern and Modern Art History at the Technical University of Dresden and the editor of Taschen's "Movies by Decade" series. The 1970s: that magical era between the swinging '60s and the decadent '80s; the epoch of leisure suits and Afros, the age of disco music and platform shoes. As war raged on in Vietnam and the Cold War continued to escalate, Hollywood began to heat up, recovering from its commercial crisis with box-office successes such as Star Wars, Jaws, The Exorcist, and The Godfather. Thanks to directors like Spielberg and Lucas, American cinema gave birth to a new phenomenon: the blockbuster. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, while the Nouvelle Vague died out in France, its influence extended to Germany, where the New German Cinema of Fassbinder, Wenders, and Herzog had its heyday. The sexual revolution made its way to the silver screen (cautiously in the U.S., more freely in Europe) most notably in Bertolucci's steamy, scandalous Last Tango in Paris. Amid all this came a wave of nostalgic films (The Sting, The Last Picture Show) and Vietnam pictures (Apocalypse Now, The Deer Hunter), the rise of the antihero (Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman), and the prestigious short-lived genre, blaxploitation. I can trace my moviegoing history back to the late '60s, with trips to the Citrus Heights Drive-In with my family, seeing the latest Disney movie or comedies like The Ghost & Mr. Chicken with Don Knotts. Heck, I even saw Easy Rider at the tender age of 6(!) from the back seat of the family Pontiac (it was my brother's night to choose the movie, and he claimed ER on a double bill with Little Fauss & Big Halsy, starring Robert Redford and Michael J. Pollard). As the decade rolled on to the '70s, the movies got bigger, and titles like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Jaws, Animal House, and Star Wars changed my perception of everything. If you're of a certain age, like me, you're going to find some great information — and great memories — in this 824-page edition. ~Marty