François Roland Truffaut was a French filmmaker, actor and critic, widely regarded as one of the founders of the French New Wave. As a young man, he came under the tutelage of film critic Andre Bazin, who hired him to write for his Cahiers du Cinéma. It was there that he became an exponent of the auteur theory, which said the director is the true author of the film. The 400 Blows (1959), starring Jean-Pierre Léaud as Truffaut's alter-ego Antoine Doinel, was a defining film of the New Wave. Truffaut supplied the story for another milestone of the movement, Breathless (1960), directed by his Cahiers colleague Jean-Luc Godard.
McCabe & Mrs. Miller is a 1971 American revisionist Western film directed by Robert Altman and starring Warren Beatty and Julie Christie. The screenplay by Altman and Brian McKay is based on the 1959 novel McCabe by Edmund Naughton. Altman referred to it as an "anti-Western" film because it ignores or subverts a number of Western conventions. It was filmed in British Columbia, Canada in the fall and winter of 1970, and premiered on June 24, 1971.
An Unmarried Woman is a 1978 American romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Paul Mazursky and starring Jill Clayburgh, Alan Bates, Michael Murphy, and Cliff Gorman. The film was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Actress (Clayburgh).
Pauline Kael was an American film critic who wrote for The New Yorker from 1968 to 1991. Known for her "witty, biting, highly opinionated and sharply focused" reviews, Kael often defied the consensus of her contemporaries.
Irwin Lawrence "Paul" Mazursky was an American film director, screenwriter, and actor. Known for his dramatic comedies that often dealt with modern social issues, he was nominated for five Academy Awards for Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969), An Unmarried Woman (1978), Harry and Tonto (1974), and Enemies, A Love Story (1989). He is also known for directing the autobiographical Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976), Moscow on the Hudson (1984), Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986), Moon over Parador (1988), and Scenes from a Mall (1991).
The New Hollywood, Hollywood Renaissance, American New Wave, or New American Cinema, 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.
Margaret Ruth Kidder was a Canadian–American actress and activist. She amassed several film and television credits in her career spanning five decades, including her best known portrayal of Lois Lane in the original Superman films (1978–1987). Her accolades included two Canadian Film Awards, an Emmy Award, a Genie Award and a Saturn Award.
Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice is a 1969 American comedy-drama film directed by Paul Mazursky, written by Mazursky and Larry Tucker, who also produced the film, and starring Natalie Wood, Robert Culp, Elliott Gould, and Dyan Cannon. The original music score was composed by Quincy Jones. The cinematography for the film was by Charles Lang. The film received four Academy Award nominations, including ones for Gould and Cannon. Patricia Welles wrote the paperback novel from Mazursky and Tucker's screenplay.
Personal Best is a 1982 American drama film written, produced and directed by Robert Towne. It stars Mariel Hemingway as track runner Chris Cahill and real-life track star Patrice Donnelly as fellow runner Tory Skinner, along with Scott Glenn as their coach Terry Tingloff. The film is about the lesbian relationship between two track-and-field teammates whose relationship might interfere with their performance.
Michael Ontkean is a Canadian actor, long-based in the United States, now retired.
The Fury is a 1978 American supernatural horror thriller film directed by Brian De Palma and starring Kirk Douglas, John Cassavetes, Amy Irving, Carrie Snodgress, Charles Durning, and Andrew Stevens. The screenplay by John Farris was based on his 1976 novel of the same name.
Alex in Wonderland is a 1970 American comedy-drama film directed by Paul Mazursky, written with his partner Larry Tucker, starring Donald Sutherland and Ellen Burstyn. Sutherland plays Alex Morrison, a director agonizing over the choice of follow-up project after the success of his first feature film. The situation is similar to the one Mazursky found himself in following the success of Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969) and he casts himself in a role as a new-style Hollywood producer. His daughter Meg Mazursky appears as Amy, one of Morrison's daughters. Noted teacher of improvisational theater Viola Spolin plays Morrison's mother. The film also features cameo appearances by Federico Fellini and Jeanne Moreau, and seems to be inspired by their work. In particular, Fellini's 8½ (1963), about a film director who's artistically stuck, is referenced. Moreau sings two songs on the soundtrack, "Le Vrai Scandale" and "Le Reve Est La."
Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a 1978 American science-fiction horror film directed by Philip Kaufman, written by W. D. Richter, and starring Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Veronica Cartwright, Jeff Goldblum, and Leonard Nimoy. It is based on the 1955 novel The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney. The novel was previously adapted into the 1956 film of the same name. The plot involves a San Francisco health inspector and his colleague who over the course of a few days discover that humans are being replaced by alien duplicates; each is a perfect biological clone of the person replaced, but devoid of empathy and humanity.
Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills is a 1989 American black comedy film co-written and directed by Paul Bartel. The film re-unites Bartel with his Eating Raoul co-stars Mary Woronov and Robert Beltran. It also stars Jacqueline Bisset, Ray Sharkey, Ed Begley Jr., Wallace Shawn, Paul Mazursky, and Rebecca Schaeffer. Schaeffer's appearance in the film served as the catalyst for her murder one month after its release.
Mrs. Soffel is a 1984 American drama film directed by Gillian Armstrong, starring Diane Keaton and Mel Gibson and based on the story of condemned brothers Jack and Ed Biddle, who escaped prison with the aid of Kate Soffel, the warden's wife.
A Guide for the Married Man is a 1967 American bedroom-farce comedy film directed by Gene Kelly and starring Walter Matthau, Robert Morse and Inger Stevens. It features many cameos, including those by Lucille Ball, Jack Benny, Terry-Thomas, Jayne Mansfield, Sid Caesar, Carl Reiner, Joey Bishop, Art Carney and Wally Cox. The title song, performed by the Turtles, is composed by John Williams, with lyrics by Leslie Bricusse.
The Iceman Cometh is a 1973 American drama film directed by John Frankenheimer. The screenplay, written by Thomas Quinn Curtiss, is based on Eugene O'Neill's 1946 play of the same name. The film was produced by Ely Landau for the American Film Theatre, which from 1973 to 1975 presented thirteen film adaptations of noted plays.
Love and Money, also known as Love & Money, is a 1982 American drama film directed by James Toback and starring Ray Sharkey.
Songwriter is a 1984 American film directed by Alan Rudolph. At the 57th Academy Awards, it received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song Score and Its Adaptation or Adaptation Score for Kris Kristofferson.
The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith is a 1978 Australian drama film directed, written and produced by Fred Schepisi, and starring Tom E. Lewis, Freddy Reynolds and Ray Barrett. The film also featured early appearances by Bryan Brown, Arthur Dignam, and John Jarratt. It is an adaptation of the 1972 novel The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith by Thomas Keneally.
