1970s in Film - Events

Events

The films in the 1970s came in many different varieties, as the socially-conscious directors that emerged in the late 1960s grew in very different ways, influenced by music, literature, crime and war. The decade is most known for excelling in the crime-drama genre. The early part of the decade focused on increasingly realistic, gritty films, including Coppola's first two Godfather pictures and Robert Altman's black comedy MASH. A trend that lasted through the decade was the popularity of disaster films, starting with Airport in 1970. Another trend was the birth of the blockbuster horror film, initiated by William Friedkin's The Exorcist, which spawned numerous imitators. A pivotal moment in films was the release of Steven Spielberg's first blockbuster hit, Jaws, was considered to be the birth of the blockbuster motion picture (a trend sealed two years later with the release of Star Wars). The end of the decade saw two epic Vietnam War films, from directors Michael Cimino (The Deer Hunter) and Coppola (Apocalypse Now).