Raging Bull is a 1980 American biographical sports drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Cathy Moriarty, Nicholas Colasanto, Theresa Saldana and Frank Vincent. The film is an adaptation of former middleweight boxing champion Jake LaMotta's 1970 memoir Raging Bull: My Story. It follows the career of LaMotta, played by De Niro, his rise and fall in the boxing scene, and his turbulent personal life beset by rage and jealousy.
Cybill Lynne Shepherd is an American actress and former model. Her film debut and breakthrough role came as Jacy Farrow in Peter Bogdanovich's coming-of-age drama The Last Picture Show (1971) alongside Jeff Bridges. She also had roles as Kelly in Elaine May's The Heartbreak Kid (1972), Betsy in Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976), and Nancy in Woody Allen's Alice (1990).
Peter Bogdanovich was an American director, writer, actor, producer, critic, and film historian. He started his career as a film critic for Film Culture and Esquire before becoming a prominent filmmaker as part of the New Hollywood movement. He received accolades including a BAFTA Award and Grammy Award, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards.
Easy Rider is a 1969 American independent road drama film written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern, produced by Fonda, and directed by Hopper. Fonda and Hopper play two bikers who travel through the American Southwest and South, carrying the proceeds from a cocaine deal. The success of Easy Rider helped spark the New Hollywood era of filmmaking during the early 1970s.
The decade of the 1970s in film involved many significant developments in world cinema.
William David Friedkin was an American film, television and opera director, producer, and screenwriter who was closely identified with the "New Hollywood" movement of the 1970s. Beginning his career in documentaries in the early 1960s, he is best known for his crime thriller film The French Connection (1971), which won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and the horror film The Exorcist (1973), which earned him another Academy Award nomination for Best Director.
Sorcerer is a 1977 American thriller film directed and produced by William Friedkin and starring Roy Scheider, Bruno Cremer, Francisco Rabal, and Amidou. The second adaptation of Georges Arnaud's 1950 French novel Le Salaire de la peur, it has been widely considered a remake of the 1953 film The Wages of Fear, although Friedkin disagreed with this assessment. The plot depicts four outcasts from varied backgrounds meeting in a South American village, where they are assigned to transport cargoes of aged, poorly kept dynamite that is so unstable that it is 'sweating' its dangerous basic ingredient, nitroglycerin.
The Exorcist is a 1973 American supernatural horror film directed by William Friedkin from a screenplay by William Peter Blatty, based on his 1971 novel of the same name. The film stars Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Jason Miller, and Linda Blair. The story follows the demonic possession of a young girl and her mother's attempt to rescue her through an exorcism by two Catholic priests.
Paul Joseph Schrader is an American screenwriter, film director, and film critic. He first became widely known for writing the screenplay of Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976). He later continued his collaboration with Scorsese, writing or co-writing Raging Bull (1980), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and Bringing Out the Dead (1999). Schrader is more prolifically a director-- his 22 films include Blue Collar (1978), Hardcore (1979), American Gigolo (1980), Cat People (1982), Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985), Light Sleeper (1992), Affliction (1997), and First Reformed (2017), with the last of these earning him his first Academy Award nomination. Schrader's work frequently depicts troubled men struggling through an existential crisis that is then punctuated by a violent, cathartic event.
The New Hollywood, also known as American New Wave, New American Cinema or Hollywood Renaissance, was a movement in American film history from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s, when a new generation of filmmakers came to prominence. They influenced the types of film produced, their production and marketing, and the way major studios approached filmmaking. In New Hollywood films, the film director, rather than the studio, took on a key authorial role.
Peter Biskind is an American cultural critic, film historian, journalist and former executive editor of Premiere magazine from 1986 to 1996.
Berton "Bert" Jerome Schneider was an American film and television producer.
Samuel John Bottoms was an American actor and producer.
Marcia Lou Lucas is an American film editor. She is best known for her work editing the Star Wars trilogy (1977–1983) as well as other films by her then-husband George Lucas: THX-1138 (1971) and American Graffiti (1973). She also edited Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1973), Taxi Driver (1976), and New York, New York (1977).
Mary Marr "Polly" Platt was an American film producer, production designer and screenwriter. She was the first female art director accepted into Hollywood's Art Director's Guild. In addition to her credited work, she was known as mentor as well as an uncredited collaborator and networker. In the case of the latter, she is credited with contributing to the success of ex-husband and director Peter Bogdanovich's early films; mentoring then, first-time director and writer Cameron Crowe, and discovering actors including Cybill Shepherd, Tatum O'Neal, Owen Wilson, Luke Wilson and director Wes Anderson. Platt also suggested that director James L. Brooks meet artist and illustrator Matt Groening. Their subsequent meeting eventually resulted in the satiric animated television series The Simpsons.
Daisy Miller is a 1974 American drama film produced and directed by Peter Bogdanovich, and starring Cybill Shepherd in the title role. The screenplay by Frederic Raphael is based on the 1878 novella of the same title by Henry James. The lavish period costumes and sets were done by Ferdinando Scarfiotti, Mariolina Bono and John Furniss.
Apocalypse Now is a 1979 American epic war film produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The screenplay, co-written by Coppola, John Milius and Michael Herr, is loosely based on the 1899 novella Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, with the setting changed from late 19th-century Congo to the Vietnam War. The film follows a river journey from South Vietnam into Cambodia undertaken by Captain Willard, who is on a secret mission to assassinate Colonel Kurtz, a renegade Special Forces officer who is accused of murder and presumed insane. The ensemble cast also features Robert Duvall, Frederic Forrest, Albert Hall, Sam Bottoms, Laurence Fishburne and Dennis Hopper.
Mardik Martin was an American screenwriter of such classics as Mean Streets, New York, New York and Raging Bull directed by his lifelong friend Martin Scorsese and starring Robert De Niro. Mardik Martin is among the revered screenwriters on Writers Guild of America list of 101 Greatest Screenplays.
A Decade Under the Influence is a 2003 American documentary film, directed by Ted Demme and Richard LaGravenese. It was produced by Independent Film Channel.
Laurent Bouzereau is a French-American documentary filmmaker, producer, and author.
