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This collection focuses on 1970s films from a variety of countries, and from the marginal to the mainstream, which, by tackling various 'difficult' subjects, have proved to be controversial in one way or another. It is not an uncritical celebration of the shocking and the subversive but an attempt to understand why this decade produced films which many found shocking, and what it was that made them shocking to certain audiences. To this end it includes not only films that shocked the conventionally minded, such as hard core pornography, but also those that outraged liberal opinion - for example,
Death Wish and
Dirty Harry.
The book does not simply cast a critical light on a series of controversial films which have been variously maligned, misinterpreted or just plain ignored, but also assesses how their production values, narrative features and critical receptions can be linked to the wider historical and social forces that were dominant during this decade. Furthermore, it explores how these films resonate in our own historical moment - replete as it is with shocks of all kinds.
List of contents
New Shocks to the System: An Introduction to the Second Edition of Shocking Cinema of the Seventies
Xavier Mendik and Julian Petley
Section One: International Visions of the Extreme
1. Walerian Borowczyk: Seventies Sexploitation through Sublimation
Aga Skrodzka
2. A Woman’s Grudge: Figuring Female Resentment in Japanese 1970s Grindhouse Cinema
Laura Treglia
3. Rethinking Representation, Race and Rape in the 1970s Women in Prison Movie
James Newton
Section Two: From the Vigilante to the Violated
4. Death Wish: A Vigilante’s Journey, An Urban Tragedy
William Gombash
5. Rough Justice: Lone Cops, Vigilantes and Penal Populism
Julian Petley
6. Small Screen Shockers: Rape-Revenge Narratives in the TV Movie
Jennifer Wallis
Section Three: State Sponsored Shocks
7. Tax Shelter Terrors: Cinépix and the Hidden History of 1970s Canadian Horror Cinema
Xavier Mendik
8. Shocking Canadian Cinema of the Seventies: An Interview with William Fruet
Xavier Mendik
9. ‘You miserable, no good, dirty sons of bitches!’: Queer(y)ing ‘Canuxploitation’ revenge narratives in the films of John Dunning and André Link
Robin Griffiths
Section Four: Family-sploitation and Threats to the Family
10. Family Entertainment: Psychotic Slaughter in the 1970s Charles Manson Movies
Bill Osgerby
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Julian Petley, Professor of Journalism and Screen Media, School of Arts, Brunel University, London, England.Xavier Mendik is Professor of Cult Cinema Studies within Birmingham School of Media at Birmingham City University, UK, from where he runs the Cine-Excess International Film Festival. He is editor of Shocking Cinema of the Seventies (2002) and co-editor of Alternative Europe (2004) and Underground USA (2002).
Summary
This collection focuses on 1970s films from a variety of countries, and from the marginal to the mainstream, which, by tackling various ‘difficult’ subjects, have proved to be controversial in one way or another. It is not an uncritical celebration of the shocking and the subversive but an attempt to understand why this decade produced films which many found shocking, and what it was that made them shocking to certain audiences. To this end it includes not only films that shocked the conventionally minded, such as hard core pornography, but also those that outraged liberal opinion – for example, Death Wish and Dirty Harry.
The book does not simply cast a critical light on a series of controversial films which have been variously maligned, misinterpreted or just plain ignored, but also assesses how their production values, narrative features and critical receptions can be linked to the wider historical and social forces that were dominant during this decade. Furthermore, it explores how these films resonate in our own historical moment – replete as it is with shocks of all kinds.
Foreword
This collection offers a range of fresh perspectives on a wide body of work from a cinematic decade still in need of critical re-evaluation, reclamation and revision.
Additional text
Shocking Cinema of the 70s offers a range of opinion and insight on films which caused public outcry, upset the critics, or troubled governments. Whereas some of these films, looked at almost fifty years later, might make that seem like an overreaction, others might still make for uncomfortable viewing today. This collection enables us to understand what a ‘Shocking’ film is, and what there still is to learn from them. Highly recommended.
