How Film Directors Bogdanovich, Coppola & Friedkin Fell from Greatness

As the calendar changed into the new decade of the 1970’s, the winds were changing in Hollywood. With the release in 1969 of “Midnight Cowboy” and “Easy Rider” it was becoming evident that old time Hollywood was on the way out and a new generation of young, renegade filmmakers were on their way in to tell new, personal and controversial stories.

Legendary directors such as George Cukor, Alfred Hitchcock, Elia Kazan, Stanley Kramer, Billy Wilder and William Wyler were in the autumn years of their careers and while they continued working it was evident their best work was behind them. The baton was about to be passed to a group of new directors that would help to revolutionize a new era where the studio system rules would be thrown out the window.

Studio heads were no longer so much in charge that they controlled every aspect of a director’s work, particularly a young director who had the creativity, fight and ego to create the films they envisioned, but they still attempted to prevent these directors from carrying out their visions. Out of this came some of our best directors including Woody Allen, Robert Altman, Hal Ashby, Brian DePalma, George Lucas, Terence Malick, Paul Mazursky, Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg. 

Each of these men had their struggles but persevered and created some of the great films of the decade. It wasn’t easy for any of these men as the studios weren’t “hip” enough to quite understand the new wave that was being created. Upon its first preview the head of production at Universal informed director George Lucas that his movie “American Graffiti” was a monumental failure and would never see the light of day. Francis Ford Coppola, producer of “Graffiti,” offered to buy the film from Universal at that moment but the offer was refused. “Graffiti” would go on to be the third biggest moneymaker of 1973 behind “The Exorcist” and “The Sting” grossing over $55 million.