Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1545125
44 C I N E M O N T A G E B O O K R E V I E W By Peter Tonguette F rom "Easy Rider" (1969) to "Taxi Driver" (1976), "The Last Picture Show " (1971) to "The Godfather" (1972), the movies that were made possi- ble by the New Hollywood movement of the 1960s and '70s have proven to have a spe- cial sort of resilience. These movies, unlike those produced in earlier decades of Hol- lywood history, seem inoculated against the effects of changing tastes. Though the earliest films among this wave are now ap- proaching 60 years old, the best of them remain fresh and relevant. But if there is anything that has proven even more enduring than New Hollywood movies, surely it is the cottage industry of books about New Hollywood movies. In 1998, when film journalist Peter Biskind wrote his now-classic book "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls," some of the last films that could be considered to have sprung from AGING BULLS WHAT THE 'NEW HOLLYWOOD' WON — AND LOST — AS IT REINVENTED MOVIES New Hollywood — such as Martin Scors- ese's "Raging Bull" and Michael Cimino's "Heaven's Gate," both released in 1980 — were not even two decades old. But just as the movies from that era have remained in our consciousness for the long haul, so, too, has Biskind's book, which is now some 28 years old and shows no sign of losing its influence. "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls" provided the template for a raft of books on the same period and many of the same figures. Ever since, books by and about filmmakers from that era have appeared with regularity, including Mark Harris's "Pictures at a Rev- olution" (2009), director William Friedkin's memoir "The Friedkin Connection" (2013), Sam Wasson's history of the movie "China- town," "The Big Goodbye" (2020), Wasson's portrait of Francis Ford Coppola's dreams and defeats, "The Path to Paradise" (2023), and more. (Disclosure: I have contributed to the subgenre with my book-length in- terview with director Peter Bogdanovich, "Picturing Peter Bogdanovich" [2020]). The latest writer to exploit interest in New Hollywood is film scholar Paul Fischer, whose 2022 book "The Man Who Invented Motion Pictures" — about the earliest iterations of what we would now refer to as moviemaking technology — demon- strated gifts for meticulous research and engaging storytelling, especially important virtues for that relatively esoteric topic. By contrast, "The Last Kings of Hollywood: Coppola, Lucas, Spielberg and the Battle for the Soul of American Cinema" will be familiar territory to cinephiles acquainted with "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls" or its successors. Even so, Fischer wisely does not attempt the comprehensive approach o f B i s k i n d , w h o s e b o o k w a s a k i n d o f P H OT O : P H OT O F E S T THREE AMIGOS: Francis Ford Coppola, left, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg at the Oscars in 2007.