I’ve always avoided New Year’s resolutions, but this week I remembered one that was brief but decisive: I decided to leave Hollywood.
And I did it. Almost.
That decision seems relevant today for reasons that require a bit of history. Consider January 1975, 50 years ago: It was a Hollywood moment opposite to the present, both in numbers and nuance. It was a great moment to be present and not be present.
The audience was expanding and was determined to be scared: Jaws It was a success. But millions also welcomed the oddities of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. TV fans were baffled by something new called SNL, and music fans continued to discover Elton John (they still are).
As the box office continued to grow, opportunities abounded. Words like “reduction of personnel” or “hiring” were still unknown.
There were hints of a quantum shift, but only hints: Hollywood studios were healthy if they were thinly funded by giants like Sony, Common Electrical or even some telecommunications companies studying the landscape, and “Amazon” simply meant a jungle.
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Oscar Night 50 years ago brought omens of change. Bob Hope returned to preside as he had done since 1940. Fred Astaire won a special honor, as a tribute to Hollywood’s past. The atmosphere seemed sentimental even as the focus was on the new stars and filmmakers of the moment.
Francis Coppola and Steven Spielberg were redefining the box office while their fraternity preferred to talk about modestly budgeted films like Taxi driver oh dog afternoon.
If our movies were about to change, so were our politics. Saigon had just fallen and the Vietnam debacle was finally coming to an end. Richard Nixon had succumbed to the reality of Watergate and Gerald Ford was on vacation in the White House until an unknown Jimmy Carter brought him back to reality.
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At the Oscars after-parties, both the winners and the studio decision-makers seemed very young, very masculine, and also very unaware of change. The decision makers in the party were mavericks such as John Calley, David Picker, Robert Evans and Richard Zanuck.
No one would have imagined a Hollywood ruled by worldly women like Bela Bejaria or Donna Langley. Or a production agenda that was more of a current than a blackboard.
Paramount, where he worked, had assembled an elite fraternity of directors, including Coppola, Roman Polanski, John Schlesinger, Robert Altman and Hal Ashby, who were the envy of other studios. But Paramount also showed signs of implosion. The chaotic structures of the 60s and 70s were no longer working.
Coppola’s contract The Godfather Part II it reflected the atmosphere of desertion. He ordered that he would not speak to anyone in the studio until the final cut was delivered. I spoke with Coppola and his producer, Gray Frederickson, because our personal relationship dated back to pre-production in 1972. the godfather. The planned launch of the first Godfather It had been delayed by three months due to fights with management over editing, a delay that generated negative rumors about the film.
For me, the signs were clear: the period of independent study was ending. Chalkboards now imagined blockbusters and franchises. And in the distant future lurked words like “streamer” and “algorithm.”
The New Year of 1975 needed a smart resolution. And a strong drink. And yes, I left it.
