1973 in American Film

I would think, hope actually, that we all have opinions on what was happening in film in the early 1970's - so much had been unleashed technologically, socially and in film itself by 1969 that developments in cinema were pushing (us) forward as only art can. But perhaps none of those opinions would be as informed as that of UGA film historian and theorist Richard Neupert, which is why this cinema roundtable on Friday is not to be missed:

"The Way We Were in 1973: From Mainstream Nostalgia to New Hollywood, Blaxploitation, and Foreign Art Cinema," the latest in an ongoing series of Cinema Roundtables sponsored by the University of Georgia Jane and Harry Willson Center for Humanities and Arts, will be Oct. 25 at 4 p.m. in Room 150 of the Zell B. Miller Learning Center.

Richard Neupert, Wheatley Professor of the Arts in the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences department of theatre and film studies, will serve as moderator. The panelists are Freda Scott Giles, associate professor of theatre and film studies and African American studies; Rielle Navitski, assistant professor of theatre and film studies; and Christopher Sieving, assistant professor of theatre and film studies.

The discussion expands on the "Now and Then: 1973" exhibit at the Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries. The exhibit examines the converging and often conflicting American political events of that pivotal year, which saw the unfolding of the Watergate scandal, the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision and the Arab oil embargo.

"Hollywood was truly in transition during the early 1970s," Neupert said. "The old studio system had crumpled, and downtown theaters were being abandoned for boring suburban malls."

Indeed they were and this cultural foreshadowing unleashed other dark currents in recent American history with which we are only now beginning to reckon and grapple.

Image: from the 1973 film Serpico directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Al Pacino.