When Movies Weren’t “Product”

The Golden Age of movies in the 70s, writes David Ansen, differed significantly from today’s movies in an important way. “The great thing about back then, when the likes of Coppola and Scorsese, Altman and Bogdanovich, Friedkin, Mazursky, Polanski, Ashby, Woody Allen and Peckinpah radically altered the American cinematic landscape, was the fact that their movies weren’t merely ‘product.’ They were rule-breaking personal visions that connected with the audience in ways studio movies had rarely attempted before. Instead of mere escapism, the audience wanted relevance.”