About the Author

Vincent LoBrutto is the author of four books on filmmaking, including Principal Photography: Interviews with Feature Film Cinematographers and Sound on Film: Interviews with Creators of Film Sound. His articles have appeared in American Cinematographer and Films in Review. He teaches in the film, video, and animation department at the School of Visual Arts in New York City and lives in Mount Vernon, New York.

Reviews

Both a who's who of the film industry in a decade that changed American cinema forever and a personal recollection of the films that changed the author's life, The Seventies by Vincent LoBrutto is an enjoyable and informative read for those who have a passion for films. It made me want to go and (re)watch the revolutionary masterpieces, looking back on a lost time when films mattered and challenged art, culture, and society.--Filippo Ulivieri, author of "Stanley Kubrick and Me" and "2001 between Kubrick and Clarke"

Film buff LoBrutto takes a revealing look at the cinematic movement that grew out of the turbulent 1970s. He presents a detailed analysis of the film world year by year, starting with "a long string of failures" of big budget films in the '60s that indicated the "Golden Age of Hollywood" was over. From this came a vanguard of young, innovative directors who subverted the "beauty and glamour" of the first half of 20th-century film and created complex movies that treated the medium more like art, reacting to the fraught political and social climate caused by the war in Vietnam. These films "were unflinching in their approach to difficult content," LoBrutto writes, and yielded a more realistic, if sometimes somber, style, bringing to the fore such talents as Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, and Martin Scorsese and encompasing cult classic movies like The Exorcist (1973), Chinatown (1974), and Taxi Driver (1976). Charting the rise of stars including Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson, Robert De Niro, and Jane Fonda, LoBrutto leaves no stone unturned in making his case. Movie geeks won't be disappointed.-- "Publishers Weekly"

LoBrutto tells readers on the opening page that he and his wife have gone "to every movie [they] could possibly see" since the 1970s. This volume confirms that claim with its nonstop flow of fascinating details about hundreds of American films, their casts, and their crews from 1970 through 1979--one year per chapter.-- "Choice Reviews"

The 1970s have long been heralded as one of the greatest eras of American filmmaking, and countless books have been written about films and figures of the period such as Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, John Cassavetes, and Steven Spielberg. LoBrutto's contribution is a highly detailed narrative breakdown of the major films and players of the decade, in a year-by-year format.-- "Library Journal"

Vincent LoBrutto has devoted his life to film. That devotion shines through on every page of this, a book itself devoted to a decade that changed cinema forever.--David Marchese, staff writer, New York Times Magazine

Vincent LoBrutto is a one-man library of the American cinema. The author of definitive oral histories of key creative personnel, director biographies, and film studies textbooks sinks his formidable teeth into what is probably Hollywood's greatest unsung decade of artistic and commercial film-making.--Patrick McGilligan, author of "Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light"