Easy riders, raging bulls : how the sex-drugs-and-rock 'n' roll generation saved Hollywood

This is a must read for lovers of cinema. It's a mixture of gossip which may/may not be true and realities. It reveals the inspirations and motivations of the likes of the likes of Spielberg, Beatty, Hal Ashby, Coppola and Scorcese. Many of these were troubled geniuses who invented a new brand of Hollywood in the process destroyed them.

It doesn't sugarcoat them and many of them are revealed as frankly awful. I think Spielberg and Lucas are the only ones who didn't really live destructive lives. It's a great read for it's blatant honesty and I'd highly recommend although I would take many of the stories with a grain of salt. But they're fascinating nonetheless.

Though the subheading of the book is 'How the Sex n drugs n Rock n Roll Generation Saved Hollywood' it may have more accurately been titled 'How the Sex n Drugs n Rock n Roll Generation Saved Hollywood Before Imploding". The author, in chronicling the tales of the new generation of film-makers that wanted to be 'auteurs' and successfully challenged the studio system in the early 70s, also weaves a cautionary tale of how within success can lie the seeds of one's own undoing. Here we see the scrambling for success and recognition while desperately trying to retain some sort of integrity to one's vision. We also see meglomanical egos clashing, fuelled by sex and drugs and money.

This is an gripping, if sometimes depressing look at the show more turmoil within Hollywood, and the lives of some of the most spectacular directors of the 70s. Its focus is firmly on the lives, relationships, deals, and habits of the film-makers of the era, so while it provides fascinating insights into what was happening on the sets of the films (including M.A.S.H., Jaws, Apocalypse Now, the Exorcist, Chinatown, the French Connection and many others that were spectacular failures) it spends less time analysing the movies themselves. This is a book about the making of movies, rather than movies, and an insightful and startling book it is. show less

I have to say begrudgingly that this was a good book about the rise of the major Hollywood directors after the near extinction of the old studio system of producers and studio heads ruled the moviemaking world. The time period is the late 60’s to later 70’s—early 80’s. The careers of these men are subjected to some Kidd glove handling but there are plenty of other hearsay or direct quotes from other Hollywood characters or “people who heard something” to keep you reading further on to the next chapter. The book to me was frustrating since in my mind it was filled with too many peripheral interests and personalities to make it feel bloated. Biskind stays focused on the main movie men Spielberg, Scorsese, Coppola, Fredkin, and show more Lucas. There are a whole cast of older characters whom I didn’t care to focus on, but this book had lots of interesting things in it. I was happy to have read it slowly to gauge Biskind’s own writing style. Biskind has written others books since this one and has been subjected to only faint skepticism of his absence of hearsay knowledge of Weinstein’s well-known misconduct. He said he had no direct knowledge and so didn’t print anything in that vein. Reading this book and hearing that will make you laugh. In fact, to see this book as anything less than comical behavior is to rob yourself of the greatest pleasure of Easy Riders, Raging Bulls. Biskind offers this apologetic sentiment as one of his conclusions. “The Directors of this decade were not unusual in their self-absorption, ruthlessness, or cruelty…Such behavior goes with the territory.”
This book would be perfect for film students but not so much for movie buffs as it gives lot of the unsavory backgrounds to how some of our favorite scenes and movie concepts came about. I read this as a keen fan of the history of Los Angeles. show less

É um trabalho de pesquisa e entrevista colossal, mas o autor tem um tom bem limitado quando resolve comentar as coisas com sua opinião pessoal, especialmente se tratando da qualidade dos filmes citados, em que diabos de zona além da imaginação ele vive para negar que Apocalypse Now seja uma obra-prima absoluta?!? Ou ainda compactuar com a ideia de Heaven's Gate foi mesmo um fracasso inclusive artístico quando na realidade é uma das grandes obras do Cimino?
Apesar de seus conceitos equivocados sobre qualidade fílmica e tom mais preocupado em obter fofocas sensacionalistas para incrementar seu livro, não deixa de ser um puta livro interessante de ler, mas que pouco trata de cinema afinal.

This book is about the rise and fall of the New Hollywood and, at the same time, is about lessons on how to survive when changes occur in the film industry.

The first lesson is: don't destroy the good relationships you have with your family, especially if they support and work with you on your projects. Peter Bogdanovich can be the best example in this case, because one of the reasons for his success was his wife, Polly Platt. When Bogdanovic's producer asked him if he had an idea for a film, she suggested to them Larry McMurtry's novel The Last Picture Show, and the rest is history. Then he started to have an affair with the star of his film, Cybil Shepherd, during film production. Peter and Polly separated but still worked with each show more other. He had a good run during that period, until Polly finally decided to break up with him creatively. Since then, he hasn't made a movie that was a hit.

The second most important thing is to focus on your field first, strengthen it, and then move to other categories. Francis Ford Coppola can be a good example. The man knew he was good at adapting others works to the screen but hated that and tried to write original scripts that didn't succeed as he hoped. I don't blame him on that one, but I blame him for trying to be a producer on top of writing and directing his movies; it was a bit too early to do so. I know that he wanted total control over his movies, but he still chose to do it the wrong way. I hope his upcoming film Megalopolis is not a repetition of what happened last time, but the writing is on the wall. I wish he'd do something different this time, so we could experience a wonderful movie.

The last one I can think of is to avoid drugs; don't ruin yourself. For this one, you can fix it by quitting the drugs or the addiction that you are suffering from as soon as possible. Scorsese is a good example in this case. He suffered from drug abuse for many years, until he was on the verge of death. He survived and then managed to turn his career around. It took him a decade, but at least he continued to work on what he enjoyed doing. show less

This is supposed to be a history of the change in movie-making from the studio system to the "auteur" method. What I chiefly learned from this book is that Hollywood truly is an amoral swamp and there are no good guys there, and probably never have been. All of the wunderkinds from the 70s are nasty little brats whose sole concern is making their movies and they really don't care what happens to anyone while they do it, including wives and children. I don't generally go to movies because they cost too much and the audience has no manners. I am now thoroughly put off renting or borrowing them because of the wretched moral state of those who make them.

A book like this is why I never ever want to hear the political opinions of any show more Hollywood star. They are silly vapid amoral creatures who think their great wealth qualifies them as intelligent and thoughtful, completely forgetting that they make their living reciting someone else's words. Once I hear the idiotic, and almost invariably hypocritical, opinions of Hollywood folks, I never want to see their movies again.

This book did not help. Making movies seems to be exactly like making hot dogs: one should simply never learn what goes on behind the scenes. show less

You can say Peter Biskind is being a jerk to the generation of filmmakers who revolutionized Hollywood in the 1970s with this gossipy, mean yet thorough retelling of the rise and crash of "The New Hollywood" or you could argue that this group of boy geniuses pretty much got what they deserved as a group of young artists given too much too fast who lost it and ruined others in the process through their own greed and arrogance. Doesn't mean it couldn't have been a better book (there are times when you sense Biskind lost access to someone and simply stopped telling their story without explanation) but it tells a sad soulful story nonetheless.