My formative moviegoing experiences are from the 1980s, but as a film-studies student beginning in 1989, I bought into the critique of the 1980s as the "era of the blockbuster" and little more. Yes, I enjoyed many of those blockbusters, and would defend them, but in general, the emphasis on big-budget spectacles during the decade is undeniable. Although there had been a few interesting films from that decade, it took me until late in the 1980s to appreciate some of those "smaller" films that critics had liked but which broader audiences (me included at the time) had found easy to overlook. Granted, I never bought into 1970s cinema as wholly as my professor and film-textbook writers wanted me to, but I did develop a deep appreciation for cinema from the 1960s, and from Hollywood's Golden Age. At the time, I figured that new appreciation came at the expense of my appreciation of films from the 1980s. I was young, immature, didn't know what made for a "great" movie, and settled too easily for the genuine crowd-pleasers above all else.

Now David Bordwell is defending the 1980s, and is letting me know (although I figured this out years ago) that I don't need to be ashamed of cinema from that much maligned decade:

We’re often told that back then [the 1970s], countercultural forces gave us movies of restless auteur ambition like Five Easy Pieces and Nashville and Mean Streets and Shampoo. Meanwhile, The Godfather, Jaws, American Graffiti, and even Star Wars not only rejuvenated the studio system but also reflected something of their directors’ temperaments, providing Hollywood with an enduring new mythology. So far, so plausible.

Then, the story goes, came the age of the blockbuster. Thereafter, moviemaking was simply selling out, winning the weekend, building franchises, and catering to disposable teenage income. Like big hair and padded shoulders and Wham!, the films of the 1980s are apparently something to be ashamed of. ...

[But] you can make a good case that the 1980s gave America a burst of first-rate films and remarkable new talent. At all levels, from ambitious prestige items to dazzling genre pictures, the decade is nothing to be sneezed at. The maw of home video had to be fed, so the demand was for product of all sorts. Videotape rental expanded specialty niches and cult markets. Filmmakers could finance projects through video and foreign presales, and investors took chances at many levels. The era saw a revival of ambitious independent films, which played alongside program pictures, Oscar bait, and summer blockbusters. Romantic comedy, action movies, and science fiction enjoyed a strong run. And many of the people we still consider genuine movie stars—Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Glenn Close, Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson, and Tom Cruise—are ineluctably creatures of the 80’s.

I think my favorite part of his post might be the list of movies he includes toward the end:

There are plenty of other worthwhile items: My Favorite Year, The Dream Team, Valley Girl, Adventures in Babysitting, Excalibur, Earth Girls Are Easy, The Abyss, This Is Spinal Tap, D. C. Cab, The Princess Bride, Total Recall, Day of the Dead, Monkey Shines, Streets of Fire, Housekeeping, Purple Rain, Koyaanisqatsi, The Thin Blue Line, and on and on. Few are perfect, but most offer genuine pleasures, and some are as imaginative and bold as the canonized films of the 1970s, albeit in different registers.

Not every film on my list will convince everybody, but I think there are enough solid achievements to show that the blockbuster era didn’t suffocate creative filmmaking in the U.S. In some cases it enhanced it.

Any film critic who cites Streets of Fire and Monkey Shines as "worthwhile" is someone I want to keep reading.

Hmmm. This thread might have been better placed in "Film Criticism and Appreciation." Sorry 'bout that.

Done.

I assume we're talking specifically Hollywood films, and so not counting, like, Au Revoir Les Enfants, Das Boot, My Neighbor Totoro, etc. And are films like Raging Bull and Scarface somehow honorary 1970s films? Just wondering.

I just realized that all three of my favorite quintessentially 1980s Hollywood movies star (or costar) Harrison Ford: the underrated Witness, The Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark. If only I liked Blade Runner better.

Other noteworthy 1980s films include E.T., Midnight Run, Die Hard, Brazil, Do the Right Thing, The Terminator, When Harry Met Sally..., Crimes and Misdemeanors, Blood Simple and maybe Back to the Future. Some people would also include A Fish Called Wanda and Batman, among others, though I would demur.

Others?

If the 1980s were the era of the "blockbuster", they were also the era of the "independent" film and its rise to prominence, notably at the Oscars. William Hurt winning an Oscar for Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985) is sometimes cited as a milestone in this regard, right? It was moments like that, and the later rise of Miramax etc., which helped to break the studios' stranglehold on the "prestige" pictures. Indeed, by now, the studios have pretty much abandoned the sort of mid-level films that were once both popular and a staple of the Oscars. These days there is a somewhat significant -- not absolute, but significant -- division between the indie-ish films that win the awards and the studio-driven blockbusters that rake in the big bucks -- and that dichotomy arguably goes back to the 1980s. (The defining characteristic of the 1970s is that the studios THEMSELVES were taking the risks that would later be associated with the independents.)

The 80's definitely get a bad rap as all empty blockbusters. Like Christian, I'm a child of the 80's so I just don't see it that way. It's been pointed out elsewhere, but the artistic freedom that 70's directors enjoyed could not last forever when the films got more and more expensive. Cimino's Heaven's Gate, seems to take all the blame for ending that, although I'm not sure that's completely fair.

Still there are plenty of artistically worthwhile films from the 80s'. Manhunter, Thief, Do the Right Thing, Brazil, Dances With Wolves, and White Hunter Black Heart all come to mind. I'll even stick up for the first Lethal Weapon and Die Hard as worthy examples of their genre. Lethal Weapon is one of the best buddy cop movies and Die Hard became it's own sub-genre. Speed is Die Hard on a bus, Passenger 51 is Die Hard on a plane, Under Siege is Die Hard on a boat, and so on. The action film was our version of the western. (I've grown to love westerns since then.) They just got dumber and dumber as they got more financially successful until no one could take them seriously.

I'm not sure I buy that. Don't most Best Picture winners "rake in the big bucks" these days, and hasn't that been the case for some time? It's unusual now when a Best Picture winner isn't a $100 million earner.

His blog is well worth subscribing to, the previous post on depth of focus is fascinating stuff.

He really tears Biskind a new one, which is fine on all counts. There are only a few of Biskind's treasured directors that I enjoy watching more than once (like Bogdanovich and Cassavetes), as many of his "auteurs" ended up shilling out Hollywood genre stuff anyway. He notes that Biskind overlooks: Cronenberg, Michael Mann, Oliver Stone, Tim Burton, the Coens, Spike Lee, Robert Zemeckis, James Cameron, George Miller, Barry Levinson, John Sayles, Gus Van Sant, Jim Jarmusch, Katherine Bigelow, David Mamet, Steven Soderbergh, Lumet, Leone, Lynch. And then there are all the Hollywood imports of the 80s like Weir, Scott, Kubrick, Gilliam, Malle. I guess there was similar Hollywood crossbreeding in the 70s, but what an impressive list.

I take Bordwell's post not to mean that the 80's are better than the 70's, in reversal of Biskind's book. But that it is useless to hold one decade against another as there is far too much fluidity, and film is always renewing itself. On the balance though, I have far more favorite films from the 80's than the 70's.

"These days there is a somewhat significant -- not absolute, but significant -- division between the indie-ish films that win the awards and the studio-driven blockbusters that rake in the big bucks -- and that dichotomy arguably goes back to the 1980s."

What defines this division?

Christian wrote:
: I'm not sure I buy that. Don't most Best Picture winners "rake in the big bucks" these days, and hasn't that been the case for some time? It's unusual now when a Best Picture winner isn't a $100 million earner.

Less unusual than it used to be. And of course, $100 million isn't what it used to be, either. Let's just say things have changed from the Golden Age of Hollywood when, as was the case last year, the only Best Picture nominee to gross $100 million is a low-budget indie like Juno. (And the prize itself went to some OTHER film.)

More details here, where you can see that the Best Picture winners were almost always in the Top 10 at the box office for their respective years, whereas for the past dozen years the situation has been reversed, and now it is unusual for a Best Picture winner to be one of the Top 10 hits of that year. (What's more, it has happened three times in the past four years that the Best Picture winner wasn't even in the Top 20!)

MLeary wrote:
: What defines this division?

Pondering how to answer this question. Bit pressed for time, though. Spent too much time dawdling on my Aardman post.