Breakdown: 1975 (2025) Movie Script

1
-["Love To Love You Baby" playing]
-I love to love you, baby
[tape rewinding]
I love to love you, baby
[crowd cheering]
[reporter] And you'll see
lots and lots of celebrants
no matter where you are.
[all] five, four, three, two, one!
Happy New Year!
Uh!
-I love to love you, baby
-[crowd cheering, applauding]
-I love to love you, baby
-Uh!
-[Jodie] New Year's, 1975.
-I love to love you, baby
-[thugs shouting]
-[Jodie] Crime was up.
There were 15 murders the last week
-in this goddamn city.
-That's a lot.
[Jodie] Tensions were higher.
-Dance, motherfucker, dance!
-[group laugh]
[telephone beeping]
[Jodie] Paranoia was rampant.
Maybe there's another CIA inside the CIA.
[Jodie] There were gurus and good times.
I'd like to suck his--
-Run away! Run away!
-[group shouting, clamoring]
The American people are turning sullen.
They've been clobbered on all sides
by Vietnam, Watergate,
the inflation, the depression.
They've turned off, shot up,
and they've fucked themselves limp,
and nothing helps.
[Jodie] And there was one question
on everybody's mind.
-What the hell's going on?
-What the fuck's going on?
[whispers] They wanna know
what the fuck is going on.
[song concludes]
[Jodie] So, what the fuck was going on?
-[eerie music playing]
-[crowd cheering]
[Goldman] We can rebuild him.
We have the technology.
[protesters clamoring]
[Jodie] America was having
a nervous breakdown.
[singing]
[music stops]
[Steven] Guys, we can't shoot
right now, hold on.
Hold something.
This is my second day at sea.
[chuckling] And if I survive this,
I'll have learned a lot.
[inquisitive classical music playing]
[Patton] We had taken
all these big body blows.
Movies were able to embrace that stuff.
Is it safe?
Movies were made back then
that didn't pander to trend.
It was about a personal point of view.
"I have something to say."
[Sidney] You tell me when you're rolling
and I'll get out of the street. Cue that.
[Peter] The filmmakers, they wanted
to help people understand
why society is so fucked up.
'75 was the most important moment
in the history
of the film business, I think.
And it will never happen again.
Do you like to dance?
It's the one time
that the movies were really willing
to show us ourselves,
and that we were willing to see it.
-[groans]
-[players shouting, clamoring]
[Wesley] It was the most honest version
of this country
that we've ever had on screen.
I'll drink to that!
Here's my list.
Jaws, All the President's Men,
Taxi Driver, Barry Lyndon, Nashville.
[tires screeching]
Every single one of them had an aspect
of poking a pin in you somewhere.
-Right, freeze!
-[crowd clamoring]
Jesus Christ, this list is long.
Cuckoo's Nest, Network.
You have meddled with the primal forces
of nature, Mr. Beale!
Hollywood movies were a work of art.
And that was the motivating factor.
People used to really like
good movies. [laughs]
[Jodie] From Watergate
to the Bicentennial,
America unraveled and was reborn.
This film is a portrait
of a nation at the crossroads
told through the movies
that captured its soul.
[car engine revving]
Can I ask you one question now?
-One you can, yes.
-Only one, always the same.
What are you running away from?
Turn your back to the front seat.
[music concludes]
[Martin] 1975.
It's the old story, you had to be there.
It was so alive.
Everything wiped away.
All the old conventions wiped away,
and we were creating a new world.
It was a perfect time.
-["Love To Love You Baby" playing]
-I love to love you, baby
I love to love you, baby
I love to love you, baby
[song concludes]
Good afternoon.
It is said that
the greatest public happiness
is induced by gradual change.
Not rapid change,
not a total lack of change,
but gradual change.
Well, in our recent time,
the change has been so rapid,
it is upsetting.
Our cozy, familiar world
is turned upside down.
[dynamic music playing]
[Jodie] Hollywood, California, 1975.
The John Wayne Westerns
and big-budget musicals
of old Hollywood were dead,
undone by television and a cynical public.
Must be a lot of ghosts around here.
Studios let go.
If you were an independent filmmaker,
that was your chance
to run in and say, "I've got one."
"Okay, make it. We don't know what works."
-The inmates were running the asylum.
-[inmates shouting, cheering]
Gentlemen, stop this. Stop this instant!
[Martin] We saw an opening,
we ran, and we took it.
We didn't say, "Oh, that's happening--"
"Forget it, go."
"Well, if that person said 'No,' go here."
"Well, what did--
Now he said 'Yes' to you? Ah!"
You know, the envy and everything starts.
So, we were savage in that way.
[crowd cheering]
[Jodie] One studio executive said,
"It was like the ground was in flames
and tulips were coming up
at the same time."
[crowd laughing, cheering]
-in my life, that's incredible! [laughs]
-[laughs]
[Jodie] To understand how we got here,
just look at the journey of one actor
who was at the center
of this strange new world.
In 1975, he was at the top of his game.
[music concludes]
[laughs, cheers] Whoo!
-["If You Want to Be a Bird" playing]
-If you wanna be a bird
[Jodie] They called it "New Hollywood."
It all started in the late 1960s
when counter-culture films
like Easy Rider
became unexpected hits.
There's excitement
and passion all of a sudden,
you know,
and I think people can feel that.
And I think that's why
these movies broke through.
They're not, like, a chore to watch.
You don't feel like
you're eating your vegetables.
[upbeat music playing]
I am the motherfucking shore patrol,
motherfucker!
I am the motherfucking shore patrol!
Now, give this man a beer.
[quirky music playing]
Jack wanted to reflect
the times they were living in.
De-glamorizing American life
was a motivating factor.
It's like the veneer was taken off.
-[barks]
-[imitates dog barking]
And Jack was kind of
the leader of that parade.
[Jodie] By the mid-'70s,
Jack was being offered roles
that few actors would ever turn down,
like the leads in The Godfather
and The Sting.
[Jack] Yes, that's true, and I think
I had enough business acumen
to know that both
The Sting and The Godfather
-were going to be huge hits.
-[music concludes]
[suspenseful music playing]
[Jack] At the same time,
I happened to think that Chinatown
was the more interesting of the films.
[Jodie] Chinatown starts
as a typical detective story.
-[switchblade clicks]
-[groans]
[Jodie] But the deeper it goes,
the more rotten things become.
You're a very nosy fellow, kitty cat, huh?
-You know what happens to nosy fellows?
-[pants]
We were writing the script here,
and during those eight weeks,
we were bombarded by all news media
with what was going on.
-[sinister music playing]
-[typewriter clacking]
[Roman] You see, it all happened
at the beginning of the Watergate.
[groans]
Mr. Speaker,
the President of the United States.
[attendees cheering, applauding]
[Jodie] To understand
the attitudes of 1975,
you have to understand the event
that cast a dark shadow on the era.
[sinister music builds]
[dynamic electronic music playing]
[Jodie] "All the President's Men,"
shot in the summer of 1975,
tells the true story
of Washington Post journalists
Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein,
as they investigate a minor break-in
at the Democratic National Committee.
What is this Watergate compulsion
with you guys?
-Compulsion?
-It's a dangerous story for this paper.
[Jodie] Like Chinatown,
All the President's Men
is a detective story.
I can't even be seen talking
to either one of you bastards.
[Carl] Why?
What are you afraid of? Who got to you?
-Who told you?
-[Bob] Are we being set up?
[Gittes] Look, somebody's gone
to a lot of trouble here,
and lawsuit or no lawsuit,
I intend to find out.
I'm not supposed to be the one
who's caught with his pants down.
Don't you understand what you're onto?
You may think you know what your deal is,
but believe me, you don't.
It involves the entire
U.S. intelligence community.
Your lives are in danger.
That's what the district attorney
used to tell me in Chinatown.
[Jodie] Both films expose a feeling
that had been bubbling up since the 1950s,
that underneath the American dream,
whether in sunny Los Angeles
[gunshot]
or the suburbs of Washington, D.C.,
a darkness was lurking.
[Bookkeeper] It's all so rotten.
[music concludes]
It's getting worse.
[Naomi] In essence,
life has become a thriller.
So many people
are conspiracy brained [chuckles]
obviously, but in the case of Watergate,
it was real.
-And it went all the way to the top.
-[tense music playing]
[reporter] According to well-placed
White House sources,
privately confirming stories
carried in today's Washington Post,
the Watergate break-in was plotted
by personal counselor to President Nixon.
Talk of presidential impeachment
no longer sounds like idle chatter.
[Nixon] I welcome this kind of examination
because people have got to know
whether or not their president's a crook.
Well, I'm not a crook.
None of the signals
that you'd been kind of inheriting
from your John Wayne-loving parents
about who the good guys are
and who the bad guys are held anymore.
The national heroes of that year
were Woodward and Bernstein,
courtesy of Robert Redford
and Dustin Hoffman.
They were Captain America and Superman.
All the President's Men
puts a happy ending on it all,
or a happy res--
"Happy" may be too strong a word,
but, my God, the good guys won.
-Nixon was out. Justice was done.
-[music concludes]
And then, of course,
justice started to unravel.
My fellow Americans,
our long national nightmare is over.
[brooding music playing]
[Jodie] But the nightmare
was only beginning.
Imagine how the audience would feel
if the typewriter kept going.
[Ford] With respect to my predecessor,
I, Gerald R. Ford,
do grant a full, free,
and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon.
He thinks that he is giving
the American people this wonderful gift.
Why are you doing it?
How much better can you eat?
What can you buy
that you can't already afford?
The future, Mr. Gittes, the future.
[Rick] And people say,
"Well, that just proves it."
"Everyone's crooked."
It's the same thing
all these young directors are saying.
Evelyn, put that gun away!
Let the police handle this!
He owns the police!
Chinatown is a state of mind
that represents
the futility of good intentions.
-[gunshots]
-[car alarm blaring]
[Sam] You think you've got power, control.
You think you have a vote.
You think you're in a democracy.
You think justice wins and truth prevails
and love conquers all.
It doesn't.
[Belinda crying] Oh, no!
In 1975, Chinatown is not Chinatown.
Chinatown is America.
The message is that,
like, the bad guys tend to win.
-[brooding music continues]
-[crowd cheering, applauding]
[Jodie] As America awoke
on January 1st, 1975
would they fight back?
Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown.
[music concludes]
[Patton] 1975 was the peak year
of that you could really
give people a bummer movie
and they would flock to go see it.
Like one of the most popular movies,
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
"Hey, sweetie, I got us a babysitter."
"We're going to go out to see--
take a dinner and a movie,
and the movie we're going to see
is about a, like, statutory rapist
that fakes his way into an insane asylum."
"He helps this weird, shy kid get laid,
and then he helps an American Indian,
and then at the end,
the weird, shy kid kills himself."
"He gets lobotomized,
this evil nurse is still in control,
and the American Indian
becomes a fugitive."
And that was a fun night at the movies.
[funky rock music playing]
[Jodie] Movies in 1975
were a perfect distraction
from the chaos of the real world.
[crowd screaming, clamoring]
[Jodie] And if you walked
into a theater on New Year's Day,
you were probably there
to see The Godfather Part II.
But if you were just looking
for something fun, you had a few options,
including Young Frankenstein
[presenter 1]
In black and white! No offense.
or The Man with the Golden Gun, or Benji.
It's not a dog movie.
That dog has emotions.
[Jodie] But if you were worried
about society's impending collapse,
you might find yourself watching
[presenter 2] The Towering Inferno.
[Jodie] New Hollywood may have been
at its peak, but at the time,
there was an alternate golden age
of the disaster film.
-[screams]
-[crowd screaming, clamoring]
[Oliver] Poseidon Adventure,
which I happen to love,
you know, Hackman dies at the end.
People forget that.
You want another life? Then take me!
[Oliver] So, it's a tough movie.
It's not at all a feel-good movie.
Post-Watergate, optimism becomes cynicism,
is what happens
[crowd screaming, clamoring]
and Hollywood
is reflective of that shift.
[muffled explosion]
-We got a fire here!
-Why the urgency?
"Urgency"?
Hey, Dunc, if that fire was caused
by fooky wiring in this building,
we could get fires
breaking out everywhere!
Doug, I think you're overreacting.
[Jodie] He wasn't.
[Paul] What the hell was that?
-[screams]
-[menacing music playing]
[resident screaming]
[Wesley] Whether you were watching
The Poseidon Adventure
or The Towering Inferno
the truth exists
outside the theater, right?
[dramatic music playing]
The fact is, New York City is bankrupt.
The political system
doesn't seem to be able to act
except under a major crisis.
Well, '75 was the year the money ran out.
[Jodie] After decades of deficit spending,
New York City had found itself
unable to continue to borrow money
and unable to pay its bills.
[Martin] I did not notice
the city was at its worst.
So the garbage built up.
Is it nice? No, but it's New York.
I wasn't observing,
"Oh, here's the change in our society."
That was our society. That's who we are.
[interviewer] Why do you kick
all the cans?
Well, you got loaded with rats over here.
And if you don't kick the can,
you pick it up,
a rat will be able to crawl up your arm.
This way, the rat gets
out of the can before you pick it up.
[interviewer] How has the financial crisis
affected your work?
I lost all faith in the job.
How can you work,
you know, when you don't know
whether you're going to get paid
on Friday?
[tense music playing]
[Felix] Well, I've said
that I thought default was a little bit
like stepping into a warm bath
and slashing your wrist.
You really might not feel anything
the moment you did it,
but you'd begin to die
right then and there.
[Jodie] But it wasn't only New York City.
This was a national crisis.
[tense music builds]
[Rick] People grew up believing
that America's prosperity
would last forever.
You know, just for example, the idea
that there could be an energy shortage.
That just did not compute.
[Jodie] In response
to U.S. support for Israel,
Arab nations had imposed an oil embargo.
For the first time since World War II,
gasoline rationing returned to the U.S.
I don't think it should be.
Not in the United States.
[Ford] Our American economy
runs on energy.
Oil production is going down, down, down.
-[screams]
-[helicopter blades whirring]
No energy, no jobs.
[Jodie] Both unemployment and inflation
were close to ten percent and rising,
which was theoretically impossible.
It's all these shocks,
these traumatic shocks.
[residents screaming, clamoring]
[John] President Ford delivered
his State of the Union message today,
and it was
one of the gloomiest assessments
of the American condition
that any president has delivered
in a long time.
[Ford] And I must say to you
that the State of the Union is not good.
[Jodie] Nobody could predict
what would happen next.
[tense music intensifies]
Right, freeze.
Nobody move! Get over there!
Okay, okay.
All right, get away from those alarms.
Come on!
[Sidney] In the making of that movie,
the first obligation becomes,
"Hey, folks, this really happened."
[thrilling chase music playing]
[Sidney] We're having a tough time
keeping up with reality.
Maybe that's why
we're so interested in doing movies
about actual events that did happen.
Cloud!
[Josh] I always loved
something based on a true story.
Pacino running in the bank and sliding.
That's human. This is what it was for him.
The desperation was real.
[Moretti over phone]
Right now I can see it.
-[Cazale] Who is it?
-Cops.
[police sirens wailing in the distance]
[Naomi] And then
people are cheering for him
because they hate the cops.
And they're like,
"Yeah," you know, "stick it to the man."
[crowd shouting, cheering]
[music concludes]
Sonny, you're on the air.
Would you mind
answering a few questions for us?
-[Sonny] Yeah.
-Why are you doing this?
Uh
What? I--
I don't know what you mean by that.
I'm-- I'm robbing a bank
'cause they got money here.
That's why I'm robbing it.
No, no, what I mean is, why do you feel
you have to steal for money?
-Couldn't you get a job?
-Like what? A bank teller?
You know how much
a bank teller makes a week?
-Not much.
-Not much.
A hundred and fifteen to start, right?
I'm here with my partner
and nine other people.
See, we're dying here.
-"I'm dying here, I'm dying here."
-[tense music playing]
How much you make a week?
That's what I wanna hear.
-You gonna talk to me about that?
-Ladies and gentlemen, our transmission
has been interrupted. Please
stand by. We will return to our special
It's all corroding inside of him.
-It's everywhere.
-[tapping on desk]
-[sighs]
-[dial tone ringing]
-[telephone ringing]
-Harry, answer that.
[music concludes]
Want to work uptown tonight?
South Bronx? Harlem?
I'll work anytime, anywhere.
["Psycho Killer" playing]
[Jodie] America was becoming
isolated from itself.
There was an epidemic
of runaways and divorces.
Families were becoming strangers.
From this fracture emerged
one of the '70s most iconic characters.
De Niro we didn't even
have to talk very much about what it is
and what it meant, I didn't--
We just felt it.
[Travis] Loneliness has followed me
my whole life, everywhere.
Bars and cars,
sidewalks, stores, everywhere.
There's no escape.
I'm God's lonely man.
Psycho killer, qu'est-ce que c'est?
I felt it was the underground man.
The underground man
that's going to seep up now.
We've been holding him or her back
and it's going to be war.
Psycho killer, qu'est-ce que c'est?
People were living like that.
New York was that horrible place.
-Take your hands off!
-Okay, then just leave.
-Take off!
-All right, please.
How do you make a movie
when your heart is already broken?
You're in hell, and you go lower.
You're in a hell,
and you're going to die in a hell
-like the rest of us.
-[Tom] Come on now!
What you see in the film
is what I live with all the time.
Get me out of here, all right?
He cannot connect. It's alienation.
[Martin] Being cut off from other people
in the most populous city
in the world,
he explodes.
I'm dying. [sighs]
I'm dying.
[song concludes]
[Travis] Someday a real rain will come
and wash all this scum off the streets.
[thunder cracking]
[Jodie] And in the skyscrapers
above Manhattan,
another film showed
that the madness was spreading.
How do you do, Mr. Beale?
-[Howard] I must make my witness.
-Sure thing, Mr. Beale.
I don't have to tell you things are bad.
Everybody knows things are bad.
-I want you to get up now.
-[brooding music playing]
[breathes heavily] I want all of you
to get up out of your chairs.
I want you to get up right now
and go to the window,
open it and stick your head out and yell,
"I'm as mad as hell,
and I'm not gonna take this anymore!"
I want you to get up right now.
Stick your head out of the window.
Open it, then stick your head out
and keep yelling and yell,
"I'm as mad as hell! I'm not"
I'm mad as hell!
I'm not going to take it anymore!
I'm mad as hell!
I'm not going to take it anymore!
I'm mad as hell
and I'm not gonna take it anymore!
[both]
I'm not going to take it anymore!
[thunder rumbling]
You know, I really wanna-- I got some
bad ideas in my head, I just
[residents shouting, clamoring]
[thunder cracking]
A film can either put you to sleep nicely,
or it can wake you up.
And I'm interested
in the "wake you up" part. [chuckles]
Our favorite flavors,
vanilla and strawberry.
-Thank you.
-[ice cream man] You're welcome.
[suspenseful music playing]
Hey, this is regular vanilla.
[tense music playing]
[Jodie] Films like John Carpenter's
Assault on Precinct 13
put the nation's anxieties on screen.
It was said that there was
more violent crime on the streets
than any time since the 15th century.
I was hit for no reason.
Just beat up.
They didn't even want my money.
[protesters chanting] Save our village!
What do you want me to do, call the cops?
Well, the cops don't do nothing,
you know that.
[Jodie] People longed to feel safe.
They marched in the streets
and took self-defense classes.
[students shouting kiai]
It was the period when you first
started getting the urban vigilante.
[protester] The police need help.
Why don't we form
some sort of a citizens action group?
It's a dirty word. It's a bad word.
But if we have to protect ourselves,
let's do it.
There was a slew of vigilante movies.
-[door creaks open]
-[tires screeching]
[James] One person taking it on.
-[car engine revving]
-[tires screeching]
You talking to me?
You talking to me?
What?
Who the fuck do you think
you're talking to?
Hit the deck, you son of a bitch!
I'm trying, you fuck.
[James] There was this sense of, like,
"We've all gone too far."
"We're coddling the criminals,
somebody's working off their anger."
Anyone doing anything [chuckles]
was probably viewed as very aspirational.
[Jodie] One critic dubbed the films
"Revenge-amatics."
[groans]
[presenter] This is the story of a man
who decided to clean up
the most violent town in the world,
Death Wish.
What was seen as kind of a throwaway movie
with this kind of B-list star,
Charles Bronson,
who plays an architect who's liberal,
and his wife and daughter
are raped and murdered.
What do you want?
Don't judge, mother.
You know what we want.
He literally, in the film,
goes to a Western ghost town
and learns to be
a John Wayne-like Avenger,
comes back to New York
and begins shooting criminals.
[Rick] People see it again
and again and again.
[gunshot]
[Rick] The theater would erupt in cheers.
[Wesley] What would you do?
What would you do?!
Would you do what Charles Bronson does
in Death Wish?
Probab-- Well, perhaps.
Death Wish wasn't that extreme.
It was clean violence.
When I shot a man, he was shot.
That was the end of it.
[music concludes]
You know what's frightening to me?
I saw the cartoon Roadrunner last week
with my little girl.
They drop a rock on on the wolf
or the coyote, and he goes flat.
That is shocking to me.
This is really violence to me.
-[suspenseful music playing]
-But who does he kill?
He killed the right people.
And so he's perceived to be a hero,
even though he clearly is
everything but a hero.
-[pedestrians shouting, clamoring]
-[dramatic music playing]
[Wesley] The thing
with '70s Hollywood was missing
with this energy of challenging corruption
and capturing the national mood
and responding to the times
was Black people. [laughs]
I think people just got tired
because there wasn't enough
variety in films.
[indistinct chatter]
[Richard] I don't like movies
when they don't have no niggas in them.
[audience laughing]
[Richard] They had a movie
in the future called "Logan's Run."
Ain't no niggas in it.
I said, "Well, White folks
ain't planning for us to be here."
-[audience laughing]
-[crowd cheering]
[Richard] That's why we gotta make movies.
-[audience cheering, applauding]
-[Jodie] So, they did.
[upbeat music playing]
[crowd yelling, clamoring]
[Lawrence] The Blaxploitation thing,
that was an accident.
And Melvin Van Peebles comes along
with this 150,000-dollar movie
that he scraped together,
and it makes 16 million dollars,
and they go, "Wait a minute."
And then they found
that they had a whole other audience,
and they would say it was a whole
urban audience of Blacks,
but everybody was in that theater.
[rioter] Crazy bastard!
There was White guys, there was a bunch
of Jewish guys all the time,
and the Puerto Rican guys, you know.
And it was like,
"Yo, man, that flick is on."
[grunts, groans]
[Jodie] "Sweet Sweetback's
Baadasssss Song"
became the largest-grossing
independent film ever made.
Hollywood learned
that success is not Black or White.
-It's green.
-[Shaft theme music playing]
Who's the cat that won't cop out
When there's danger all about?
-Shaft!
-Right on
[Jodie] Shaft was so successful,
it saved MGM from bankruptcy.
[Todd] Super Fly knocked The Godfather
out of the top spot at the box office.
That's an amazing feat.
-That sucker's gonna get us killed.
-[song concludes]
A lot of the time,
it was crime and sex,
which was thrilling for a while,
but I think people kind of got tired
of shooting and fucking.
It's a mistake to assume
that Blaxploitation is a genre.
It's many genres.
[exciting rock music playing]
[Jodie] On one hand, you had Blacula.
On the other,
kitchen sink dramas like Cooley High.
Mr. Mason gonna have my ass
missing class all this week. [snorts]
That ain't nothing new.
It was a coming-of-age story.
"I want to make something out of my life
but I don't know what I'm doing
and I don't have a clue."
That's who my character was.
He saw beyond the hood.
He was gonna get what he's gonna get
and nothing was gonna stop him.
[Jodie] This wasn't exploitation.
Like the rest of New Hollywood,
many Black films
were reflecting a nation on edge.
Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!
[Jodie] And the most
explosive voice in America
belonged to a comedian.
[music concludes]
He was originally someone
who was trying to imitate Bill Cosby,
but when he started to find his own voice,
-he became a cultural phenomenon.
-[audience laughing, applauding]
Every time you read the paper,
"Nigger accidentally shot
22 times in the face."
[audience laughing]
I mean, how do you accidentally shoot
a nigger eight times in the chest?
You know, and the guy goes,
"Well, Judge, Your Honor,
he just fell down
and went crazy, Your Honor."
[audience laughing, applauding]
[Wesley] He was a great
kind of minstrel figure, but in reverse.
He was showing White people
-what they looked like to him.
-[tense music playing]
I think you're probably
pretty ready for this job.
We got one more kind of
psychological test we always do here.
It's just a word association.
I'll throw you out a few words.
Anything that comes to your mind,
just throw it back at me, okay?
-"White."
-[Richard] "Black."
-[audience laughing]
-[Chevy] "Negro."
-[Richard] "Whitey."
-[audience laughing]
-"Tar baby."
-[audience laughing]
[Jodie] In 1975, liberal communities
across the country
tried to promote racial integration
by busing Black students
into White schools.
But not everyone was on board.
[reporter] The most visible
anti-busing figure
is Sue Connor, a suburbanite.
Matthew Connor does not go
to school in the morning!
[crowd cheering, applauding]
Boycott! Boycott! Boycott!
Boycott! Boycott! Boycott!
I am not a racist, I'm not a bigot.
But if I were
it's unimportant.
-"Colored."
-"Redneck."
[audience laughing]
-"Jungle bunny."
-"Peckerwood."
[protesters shouting, clamoring]
[student] Going over there to me,
it's like going to a war.
You can't get an education
and watch your back at the same time.
-"Burrhead."
-"Cracker."
[audience laughing]
[protesters]
They ran us on the buses,
and they ran us off to school--
And then we had to go down
the back stairs someplace else.
-[Chevy] "Jungle bunny."
-"Honky."
-"Nigger."
-"Dead honky."
-[music concludes]
-[audience laughing, applauding]
Okay, Mr. Wilson, um
I think you're qualified for this job. Uh
How about a starting salary of $5,000?
-Yo mama.
-[audience laughing]
[Todd] After Richard's appearance
on Saturday Night Live,
he's the hippest cultural figure
in existence at that moment.
-[funky music playing]
-[Todd] He's able to take volatile topics
and make people laugh at it.
[Jodie] But there was one topic
nobody wanted to talk about.
[music concludes]
[Jodie] In 1975,
the only on-screen critique of Vietnam
was a sitcom about Korea.
[scream, groan]
I'm telling you, we're being shelled!
Impossible.
My latest intelligence map shows
there are no enemy units in your sector.
You are not being shelled, young man.
-[audience laughing]
-[tense music playing]
[Hawkeye]
-[crowd clamoring]
-[Jodie] The TV series MASH
was a spin-off of Robert Altman's
black comedy of the same name.
[Hawkeye] I can't really see.
It's like the Mississippi River
down there.
Action!
I wanted it to be about the Vietnam War.
But they were adamant
that it couldn't be that.
So, when they saw
the picture cut together,
they made us put a little disclaimer
to say that this was in Korea.
[Frank] MASH, even though
it was not set in Vietnam,
everyone knew
what they were talking about.
[Hawkeye] War isn't hell.
War is war and hell is hell.
And of the two, war is a lot worse.
It took a long time
till Vietnam movies started to kick in.
People did not want to deal with it.
[Jodie] For the first 15 years of the war,
only one Vietnam film
had come out of Hollywood.
-[patriotic music playing]
-[presenter] Green Berets.
[Jodie] John Wayne took
a different angle than MASH.
Why is the United States
waging this ruthless war?
Communist domination of the world.
[Oliver] Nobody could believe that film.
I mean, we laughed at it when we saw it.
And it was all lies, all lies.
I mean, the concept that we're winning.
-[soldier screams]
-That's what it's all about, Mr. Beckwith!
John Wayne, he represented
that it was okay to be in Vietnam.
That was the worst thing he did,
in our opinion.
People my age had to go and die.
-[dramatic music playing]
-[Oliver] It really was an ugly war.
We were bombing the shit out of everybody.
We were spending a fortune.
My first wound came
from an asshole sergeant
who threw a grenade.
and he didn't throw it
far enough. [laughs]
[protesters chanting]
[Jodie] Americans were
deeply divided over the war,
and Hollywood was no different.
[reporter] Here comes
Big Duke himself, John Wayne.
[Jodie] At the 1975 Academy Awards
that divide took center stage.
[upbeat music playing]
Thank you.
[Jodie] The hosts
and presenters that night
were a who's who of old Hollywood royalty.
Thank you.
[Jodie] But as they passed the torch
to the next generation of filmmakers,
the viewing public got a taste
of how each really felt about the other.
I fear that the Academy Award
doesn't mean anything anymore.
There's just something
so grotesque about it.
-They're beauty pageants.
-[interviewer] Yeah.
They're demeaning somehow.
They really show the worst aspect
of this country, I think.
And contrary
to what Dustin Hoffman thinks,
it is not an obscene evening.
It is not garish,
and it is not embarrassing.
-[audience cheering, applauding]
-[tense music playing]
[Jodie] Finally, the generational battle
came to a head at an unlikely moment.
For feature-length documentaries,
the winner is Hearts and Minds.
[Jodie] Columbia Pictures had refused
to release Hearts and Minds.
Its focus on the human cost
of the war was too controversial.
-[plane engines roaring]
-[indistinct chatter]
[speaks in Vietnamese]
[translator, in English]
"The planes again."
[speaks Vietnamese]
[translator, in English]
"That is the bomb crater."
"The bomb struck there
and destroyed everything I had."
[Bert] It is ironic that we are here
just before Vietnam
is about to be liberated.
I will now read a short wire
that I have been asked to read
by the Vietnamese people.
"Please transmit to all our friends
in America our recognition
of all that they have done
on behalf of peace."
"Greetings of friendship
to all the American people."
Thank you very much.
[melancholic music playing]
Obviously, it was extremely tense.
We all kind of held our breath.
[Biskind] Bert Schneider
produced Easy Rider.
Schneider was one of the most radical.
He scandalized the Academy.
The Academy
was a very conservative organization.
You know, they didn't want
somebody on stage saying stuff like that.
-[tense music playing]
-[Jodie] All hell broke loose backstage
as John Wayne and Sinatra
confronted Bert Schneider.
[Martin] I wound up backstage.
I saw Sinatra walk by me.
And I just moved out of the way
because I didn't know
I didn't know what to do back there.
I could feel the chill.
[Jodie] Bob Hope insisted
on a retraction from the Academy.
The Academy is saying, quote,
"We are not responsible
for any political references
on this program
and we are sorry
that they had to take place this evening."
[audience cheering, applauding]
[rapid gunshots firing]
[Jodie] Three weeks later,
as the North Vietnamese surrounded Saigon,
armed forces radio played
White Christmas, which meant
[radio broadcaster] the report
from the embassy that all Americans
-are to be evacuated immediately.
-[feedback screeching]
-I'm dreaming of a white Christmas
-I'm dreaming of a white Christmas
[dramatic music playing]
[reporter 1] And then it was a mad dash
to the waiting helicopter.
[prisoner of war] Probably the most
terrifying experience
that I've ever gone through.
[reporter 2]
[reporter 3] U.S. Marines
having to use tear gas
to keep these people behind,
people that the Americans had promised
would get out of Vietnam.
These people up here
are committing suicide staying up here,
but what can you do?
[citizens clamoring, shouting]
[citizens cheering, applauding]
-[music concludes]
-The war in Vietnam is over.
It was sad and tragic in many respects.
But the United States
is strong militarily,
despite our current problems,
and we want
any potential adversaries to know
-that we will stand up to them.
-[both grunt, exclaim]
[Black Knight] Now stand aside,
worthy adversary.
-'Tis but a scratch.
-[King Arthur] A scratch?
-Your arm's off!
-[Black Knight] No, it isn't.
[King Arthur] Well, what's that then?
-[Black Knight] I've had worse.
-[King Arthur] You liar!
[Black Knight] Come on, you pansy!
[tense music playing]
[Jodie] But just two weeks
after the fall of Saigon,
an American container ship, the Mayaguez,
was seized by communist forces
in Cambodia.
It triggered a massive
U.S. military response.
The Ford administration was determined
to prove that America
was still a force to be reckoned with.
[Black Knight screams]
It's just a flesh wound.
[Jodie] In the aftermath,
the ship was saved
and Ford's popularity skyrocketed.
[reporter] The overwhelming support
of the public is behind the president.
[Black Knight]
Right, I'll do you for that!
-You'll what?
-[Black Knight] Come here!
What are you going to do, bleed on me?
[reflective music playing]
[Jodie] But like much of the Vietnam War,
the truth was more complex.
-[crowd cheering]
-[Rick] It's quite explicit.
We have the notes of the NSC meetings,
and Henry Kissinger is saying things like,
"We need to kick ass somewhere,
and it doesn't matter if it's real,
we just have to show
that America can't be messed with."
[Oliver] Of course, everything backfired.
We lost a lot of Marines for nothing.
It was a mess.
[Rick] But it's celebrated in the media
as if it's the Battle of the Bulge.
American military narcissism
at its very worst.
It's madness.
[Black Knight gasps]
All right, we'll call it a draw.
[Jodie] A few months later,
as the real story emerged,
many Americans began to wonder
who they could trust.
Trust is not having to guess
-what it can and can't mean.
-[distant gunfire]
[Ford] Trust must be earned.
[presenter] Neither the cherry bombs
of a misguided prankster
nor all the memories of recent years
can keep the people
and their president apart.
["I'm Feeling Good About America" playing]
I'm feeling good about America
[presenter] When a limousine can parade
openly through the streets of Dallas,
there's a change that's come over America.
After a decade of tension
the people and their president
are back together again.
I'm feeling good about America
It's something great to see
I'm feeling good about America
-I'm feeling good about
-[gunshot]
[crowd clamoring]
[reporter] Then came
the two assassination attempts.
In Sacramento, it was a member
of the infamous Manson Gang,
"Squeaky" Fromme.
In San Francisco,
a shot was actually fired.
-[gunshot]
-[bodyguard] Whoa! Hey!
The guy's distinguished
by the fact that he faced
two assassination attempts
within three weeks of each other.
That kind of says it all.
[chuckles]
-[gunshot]
-[crowd screaming]
[Jodie] In 1975, political violence
was shockingly common.
And there was one assassination
that was still at the forefront
of the American mind.
-[tense music playing]
-This is Dealey Plaza in Dallas.
On the 22nd day
of November 1963, a shot rang out.
[Jodie] In the 12 years
since the Kennedy assassination,
many had questioned
the official account of a lone gunman.
Geraldo Rivera broke the story wide open
when he played the Zapruder film
on national television for the first time.
[Gerald] And as you can see,
the head is thrown violently backwards.
[audience gasping]
[Oliver] It was really awful
to see Kennedy's head blown off,
but it was important.
It made me see the world in another way.
[Jodie] The release of the film
reignited questions over his death,
furthering distrust
of the official account,
and raising suspicions
about other assassinations.
Where were you when Kennedy got shot?
[crickets chirping]
Which Kennedy?
Many now suspect that the thread
that binds the crimes together
is in a series of conspiracies.
Perhaps even one giant conspiracy.
[gunshot fires]
[Lee, in shaky voice]
Since the assassination,
six of these people have died
in some kind of an accident.
And whoever killed them
is going to try to kill me.
Hey.
[unsettling music playing]
When I make a film,
I am not interested, basically,
in how people perceive it.
I'm interested in telling the truth.
[Jodie] Warren Beatty had one of the most
politically charged voices in Hollywood,
someone who was both a sex symbol
and antagonist to Richard Nixon.
The Parallax View, for instance,
you know, where Warren Beatty
is a reporter who uncovers
this political assassination plot,
the paranoia was justified.
What once seemed far-fetched
[successive gunshots]
in this moment, actually is coming
to light as completely real.
-[crowd screaming, clamoring]
-[Warren] It's a very important subject.
The reopening on the entire fabric of
the last 25 years of our life.
[Jodie] Not long after, Seymour Hersh
at the New York Times reported
that the CIA had been spying
on anti-war Americans for years.
[pensive music playing]
Liberal Senator Frank Church
took it upon himself to investigate.
[Church] There has never been
a full public accounting
of domestic intelligence operations.
Therefore, this committee
has undertaken such an investigation.
There was a sense of dread
that the government
had become too powerful,
that there were dark forces out there
being unleashed by the government.
That just snowballed from there.
-[tapes rewinding]
-[dramatic music playing]
Look at that. Holy shit.
[Jodie] Over the next several months,
the nation was riveted
as the Church committee revealed
for the first time
secrets about foreign assassinations,
the drugging of American citizens,
and the wiretapping
of civil rights leaders.
Now we're getting the truth
about some truly wicked stuff.
-[tape rewinding]
-[Patton] Everything that we were against
is actually stuff we're also doing.
He'd kill us if he got the chance.
[Jodie] Films like The Conversation
and Three Days of the Condor
showed that the paranoia was real.
[Risen] Three Days of the Condor,
about the CIA killing people,
came out right as the hearings
were going on.
[muffled gunshot]
What are you doing?
[groans]
The parallels were eerie.
You think not getting caught in a lie
is the same thing as telling the truth?
No.
[Risen] I think of the Church committee
as kind of the end of the '60s.
What institutions can you trust
to do the right thing?
[Church] If this government
ever became a tyranny,
if a dictator ever took charge
in this country,
the technological capacity
that the intelligence community
has given the government
could enable it to impose total tyranny,
and there would be no way to fight back.
["Breakdown" playing]
[man over speaker]
Welcome to the testing room
of the Parallax Corporation's
Division of Human Engineering.
[Jodie] What happened to our country?
A certain idealism and a certain hope
that we thought that we had,
that was extinguished.
[Jodie] Were we living the American dream
or an American nightmare?
Baby, breakdown
Go ahead and give it to me
Breakdown, honey
Take me through the night
Baby, baby, breakdown!
Breakdown, now I'm standin' here
Can't you see?
-Ooh-whoo-hoo
-Breakdown, it's all right
"Wow, everything is wrong,
I need to start over."
It's all right
-Ooh, ooh
-It's all right
What we inherited from our parents
is not useful to us,
and we don't really have anything
to replace it with.
[Jodie] The era, as one author theorized,
was post-everything and pre-nothing.
For many people, the only way out was in.
[song concludes]
[Jefferson] I think
that the ultimate text of the 1970s
is Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
[majestic music playing]
[Jefferson] It's about a seagull
who breaks away from the pack,
who can be an individual,
and then who can soar and fly,
and it was a massive bestseller
made into a movie.
[music concludes]
[Elder Gull] Jonathan Livingston Seagull,
you do not fly as we fly.
You are henceforth and forever outcast!
[Jonathan] Outcast
[pensive electronic music playing]
[Jefferson] It's the idea
that self-actualization
is about removing yourself
from the community.
That the community
is a source of oppression,
the community is a source of limitation,
and you need to get out,
and to be an ultimate free gull.
You can't help anyone else
before you help yourself.
It's the first turn
towards the idea of a "Me" generation,
rather than a "We" generation.
That whole dream of the late '60s faded.
We say that if the government
of the United States
does not stop the war,
we intend to stop the government
of the United States.
I think that, you know--
I think that whole period
was really a search outside ourselves,
you know, a search in the external world,
and I think we came to see that
that actually our own human mind
is what is creating war.
If there can't be peace of mind,
we can't have peace on Earth.
[Jodie] Films like Tommy
and Brian De Palma's Carrie
explored the hidden potential
locked inside.
Creepy Carrie, Creepy Carrie! [laughs]
[screams]
[Wesley] What happens
when you're controlled
by a force that wants you
to give yourself over
and make this thing
that you're going through,
that you can't understand, go away?
[Jodie] And in 1975,
there was a new path
to self-actualization.
One that was not quite a religion
and not quite a cult.
It was uniquely American.
A business.
And the self was for sale.
Being centered
is being able to tell the difference
between your ass
and a hole in the ground, that's all.
You're an asshole
because you can't tell the difference
between your ass and a hole in the ground.
[audience applauds]
[presenter] This man is Werner Erhard,
founder and guru
of a new movement called EST.
People get bored.
"Hey, maybe I should work on myself."
Who would even say that during old times?
[presenter] EST may not be doing
psychotherapy,
but it does appeal to people
who seek happiness,
who have trouble making their lives work.
The '60s asked a lot of questions,
that the '70s went,
"Yeah, don't worry about that."
"Don't worry about that."
Those questions were never answered.
When I was a little girl,
my parents put me
in an orphanage several times.
-And--
-[Werner] Isn't that beautiful?
-[attendee] It hurts.
-No, it doesn't hurt. You make it hurt.
What's the payoff for being hurt?
People to care.
Now, let's find out
why you put yourself in an orphanage.
You put yourself in an orphanage
because orphan was the best racket
you could figure out.
You could not figure out a better racket.
Now, what was the payoff?
What do you get out of being an orphan?
I get to be better
than anybody in the world.
You bet your ass.
[uplifting music playing]
[Patton] "This thing happened to you
'cause you secretly wanted it to happen."
That is so fucking creepy,
but it's also weirdly comforting,
'cause it means there was a reason.
And it also means,
"Well, I can think it another way."
[Werner] Wars and exterminated peoples,
too much for you to confront.
Confront your own goddamn soap opera.
Life doesn't have any satisfaction
and you've tried everything
and nothing works,
and you're just desperate
to make it work and you're shit.
Your feelings aren't related
to the rest of reality necessarily.
That's the way it's gotta be
for you to survive.
-["Crazy On You" playing]
-[screams] Stop! Stop it! Stop it!
[attendees screaming]
-[eagle screeches]
-[seagull screeches]
[Jodie] It was
the perfect message for the time,
that people had total control
over their destiny.
That reality was based on feelings
rather than facts.
But if we are in total control
of our fates,
then others must be
in total control of theirs.
Crazy on you
Crazy on you
[Jodie] Which led
some EST followers to say
that the North Vietnamese
must have wanted to be bombed.
That rapes, starving children,
even the Holocaust, were all willed
to happen by the victims.
All of the self-actualization,
it was all just a hustle.
I'm going to get realized, man,
and it's because of you. [laughs]
[Kurt] You had whole fractions
of America feeling,
"Truth is whatever I want it to be."
Anything can be true.
Anything we want to be true can be true,
even if it manifestly is not.
[Jodie] To some,
the era felt like a disco ball
where hundreds
of little me's swirled around.
Tom Wolfe called it "The Me generation."
-Crazy
-[song concludes]
And what came out of it was terrible.
The loss of communication
with human beings.
[Jodie] But a new tool was about to emerge
that would push people further in.
[Bartholomew] He's the central brain,
the world's brain.
I'd like, uh, some information
about corporate decisions, uh
how they're made and who makes them.
-[Bartholomew] Answer him.
-[computer trilling]
-[Zero] Negative.
-Answer.
-[Zero] Negative, negative
-[water burbling]
negative, negative, negative,
-negative, negative, negative
-You have to, Zero!
-[dynamic music playing]
-[fax machine whirring]
[presenter] The information revolution
expanded the strength of man's brain,
changing forever the way Americans work,
play, and even think.
[Jodie] At the time,
computers were mostly used
by governments and large corporations.
But to some young people,
the future looked bright.
[Bill] There's a lot of people
who are forecasting
that there'll be software stores,
just like there are record stores today,
and that there'll be thousands
and thousands of those.
And I think I'd have to agree with that.
[music concludes]
I was a student at Harvard University.
In '75, we played, uh, Breakout.
You knock these bricks down
and eventually, you try to get the ball
behind the bricks, anyway.
-[intriguing music playing]
-[Jodie] In early 1975,
Bill Gates decided to drop out of Harvard
to develop software
for a brand new product,
the personal computer.
His new company would change the world.
[Bill] The Microsoft slogan was,
"A computer on every desk
and in every home."
And we actually suppressed the second part
depending on where we were
because it just seemed so weird.
They weren't viewed
as something for the individual.
[TV host] It's so complicated,
it's so confusing,
I mean, where do you start?
[Bill] Mostly, it's a very positive thing
that there was this new tool,
information at your fingertips.
[presenter] With the complete computer
in front of him,
Horace Enya trains it to recognize sounds.
Jingle and snap.
Given another program,
the 20th-century machine
recreates a little music.
-["Jocko Homo" playing]
-[bell jingling]
Are we not men?
We are Devo!
Are we not men?
D-E-V-O
[Jodie] In film, technology was
rarely seen as a tool of progress,
but rather as a source of oppression.
[automated voice] Programming ready.
-[computer chiming]
-The moment of truth.
[computer chiming]
Some people feel threatened by them,
some think they tend to dehumanize,
and others fear they may eventually
take over their jobs.
[Bill] In 1975,
there was a lot of self-doubt,
but that was kind of good self-doubt.
It solves a lot of problems,
but doesn't bring
a lot of problems along with it.
[Jodie] People were uneasy
about the future.
We were more connected than ever,
but at the same time,
drifting further apart.
[song concludes]
[car engine revving]
[Jodie] It's a feeling
that was perfectly captured
in Robert Altman's Nashville.
-[car engines revving]
-[intriguing music playing]
[Jodie] The film doesn't have a plot.
It's a collection of moments
in middle America.
[Altman] My primary job,
I try to reflect what I see.
It's like a painting, I
It's my vision of what it is
that I'm dealing with and that's all.
I have nothing to say. I have no comments.
And it's a slow movie.
Would that movie ever be made today?
Probably not.
'Cause you're supposed to have
the protagonist and the antagonist
go head-to-head.
That's the bow that everybody says,
"We don't want that bow."
And then you give them no bow
and they go, "Where's the bow?"
But you're invested, you're in it.
[Joan] Nashville is a story
of 24 characters,
but you, the audience,
were the 25th character.
-You bring your own preconceived ideas.
-[music concludes]
[Thomas over megaphone] Fellow taxpayers
and stockholders in America,
let me go directly to the point.
-I'm for doing some replacement.
-[uplifting techno music playing]
The Replacement Party,
the truck throughout the whole thing,
doesn't say anything
about what it actually is going to do
or what it promises or anything.
It's just gonna replace things.
[Thomas over megaphone]
We have some problems
that money alone won't solve.
When the movie opened,
I received a cold call at home,
and this man said, "I want to sign up."
"I wanna vote for this man,
he's wonderful."
[chuckles] I said, "Well, sorry,
but it's not quite real yet."
[Jefferson] Nashville's sort of
an amazing vivisection
of American authenticity.
It's more than a lack of coherence.
It's a lack of substance.
[Jodie]
Nashville was a critical darling,
but not everyone was impressed.
As one moviegoer in Kansas put it,
"Someone told me
that I didn't like Nashville
because I didn't understand it."
"That may well be,
but there seem to be some filmmakers
and critics who don't understand America."
[director] Action!
The thing with these country people
is they have a real grassroots appeal.
Well, hell, they got fans.
And they're the people
that elect the president.
[Jodie]
Nashville was a box office disappointment.
The divide between middle America
and the coasts was growing.
You get your hair cut.
You don't belong in Nashville.
I stopped in a gents room the other day,
so help me,
there was a guy in there with a ponytail.
-[audience laugh]
-My heart nearly turned over in me.
-I thought I was in the wrong toilet.
-[audience laughing]
-[whimsical music playing]
-[Jodie] In 1975,
the spirit of New Hollywood
found its way to television,
and the most popular sitcom in America
gave the growing divide a voice.
Between the recession and inflation,
this administration
is taking you to the cleaners!
-Ah, get away!
-You can't walk away
All in the Family changed television.
Beamed straight into your living room
were questions of civil rights,
family dynamics
when the family's divided over politics,
in a way the cowboy shows
and the procedurals
and the medical shows
and all that did not do.
Everybody watched All in the Family.
-But not everybody saw the same thing.
-[pensive music playing]
Some people sided
with Mike and Gloria.
Archie, if you don't care
about school bonds,
then you don't care
about the future of your country.
And you call yourself an American?
Yes.
[Jefferson] A lot of people
sided with Archie,
the reactionary, bigoted,
somewhat lovable,
a little bit of the loser of history.
Archie Bunker represented their worldview.
They saw him as a mouthpiece.
Now I suppose you're gonna tell me
that the Black man
has had the same opportunity
in this country as you?
More. He's had more.
I didn't have no million people out there
marching and protesting to get me my job.
-No, his uncle got it for him.
-[audience laughing, applauding]
[Jefferson] Archie, at that moment,
looks like the past.
[hesitates] But now he's looking
a lot more like the future.
Oh, yeah, ho!
-[explosion booming]
-[patriotic music playing]
[Jodie] Films like Harlan County, USA,
about coal miners' attempt to unionize,
showed that the White working class
was being left behind.
What about your high cost of living?
What about your sick leave?
Five goddamn days.
-[man] Have you been off sick?
-I can't afford to get sick.
[Jefferson] From the '30s to the '70s,
not only did the economy work,
but it was shared.
1972 was the most equal year
in American history.
[Oliver] Small town jobs,
a sheet metal factory
or a Budweiser plant,
those were the best jobs,
and the whole thing had dried up.
The economy was shit.
It became all about
making money off finance,
not making money with productivity.
The economy kept the apple,
it threw us to the core!
-That's what they did!
-[workers cheering, applauding]
[Albert] There was no "Me" generation
for a guy working
on a factory floor building a Ford.
America can work nicely
if you leave that dream alive.
If there actually is a way
to get from there to there.
When that stops, I think you have trouble.
You know something?
If you Liberals go on getting your way,
-we're all gonna hear one big loud flush.
-[audience laughing]
That's the sound
of the USA going down the toilet.
As class as a category
is beginning to kind of fall apart,
culture becomes the expression
of White working-class interests.
National political organizations
like The Heritage Foundation,
this new think tank,
send emissaries to organize these people
and tell them
that there's an answer to their woes.
And the answer to their woes
is called "conservative republicanism."
[patriotic music builds]
[Jodie] Borrowing strategies
from the Left,
they organized protests and marches.
In 1974, the March for Life
attracted 20,000 people.
In 1975, it was 50,000.
-[protesters chanting]
-[reporter] One of their targets,
pro-busing senator,
Edward Kennedy, tried to speak.
-Are you gonna-- Listen, part of our--
-The people don't care to hear you!
[protesters clamoring]
[protester]
[reporter] As Senator Kennedy
retreated towards his office,
the crowd began to
[protesters shouting, clamoring]
-[gunshots]
-[crowd screaming, exclaiming]
[Kathy] We have always
given to our country.
Everything that's ever been asked of us,
we've given because we love America.
And I can't think of a more asinine way
to celebrate
the 200th anniversary of America
than to just hand our children
over to those social planners
without a fight.
[David] But some Republican conservatives
are dubious of President Ford
and fear he may be
some kind of closet liberal.
So, they would like, in '76,
a convention open to all candidates
of whom Mr. Ford
would be only one of many.
[Carson] My first guest tonight
is a rather phenomenon
on the political scene.
There are those who would say that 1975
may only be the beginning.
Would you welcome, please,
the former governor of California
-Ronald Reagan.
-[music fades]
[audience cheering, applauding]
[Carson] Nice to see you.
Nice to be here, John.
And nice of you to have me here
after well, a little more
than two months unemployment.
-That's right, uh
-[audience laughing]
I felt he did not know
where he stood on important issues.
He was an actor looking for a gig.
-[audience cheering, applauding]
-[uplifting music playing]
[Jodie] In 1975,
Ronald Reagan had a realization.
The Republican Party
had been unpopular for years.
So, why not treat politics like a movie
and sell the American dream?
[Reagan] First of all,
the American people, if they would just
take a little inventory and look around,
you triple our troubles
and we're better off
than any other people on Earth.
In a lot of ways,
what Ronald Reagan was about
was feeding this public wish
to believe that what was happening
was not, in fact, happening.
[audience laughing]
[Reagan] Part of it is because
we're being bludgeoned every day.
We keep hearing the bad things,
we hear the accusations,
and we're kind of used to accepting
the accusations as proof of guilt.
[Rick] This is the reason why
he's so attractive to so many Americans
who just wanna believe
that everything's gonna be all right.
That somehow,
through the sheer force of will,
America's innocence could be recovered.
Why should we become frightened?
No people who have ever lived
on this Earth have fought harder,
paid a higher price for freedom,
or done more
to advance the dignity of man.
We're Americans,
and we have a rendezvous with destiny.
[Jodie] As Nikita Khrushchev
once said to Richard Nixon,
"If the people think
there's an invisible river,
don't tell them it's not there."
"Build an invisible bridge."
[music concludes]
[audience laughing]
Hi, Kimosabe.
["Love Will Keep Us Together" playing]
Love
Love will keep us together
[Jodie] All in the Family
eventually lost its spot
as the number one show on television.
In its place was a sitcom
that saw America with a warmer glow.
Like, if you look at something
like Happy Days,
it doesn't look like the movies.
It just empties out all the politics
and just wants to think about nostalgia.
Nostalgia has always been a part
of the American character all along.
And this is nostalgia
for something that happened
like the day before yesterday.
"Wasn't it great
when teens were just teens back in '62?"
[Jodie] Period movies, music,
even throwback restaurants
were all fueling the desire
to relive the happy days.
Look in my heart
And let love keep us together
[Jodie] It even seemed like a good idea
to make a Cole Porter musical
starring Burt Reynolds.
-You're the top
-How can you sing? I'm dizzy.
-You're a dancing ballet
-[perky music playing]
You're the top
You're a hot tamale
You know, it might be the fast food
of American emotions,
but it's also you can kind of see it.
-[drumroll]
-[crowd cheering, applauding]
[Jefferson] "What was it like
before Vietnam,
before Watergate,
before all the darkness?"
[crowd cheering]
"Oh, there was another time
when things were expansive and hopeful."
-[tires screeching]
-[crowd screaming, clamoring]
Am I dead?
-[ominous music playing]
-We want the lie, 'cause it feels good.
[announcer over TV] And there he goes!
[Wesley] We want the heroes.
We want the happy ending.
-[announcer over TV] He made it!
-Oh, man!
-Come on, that was a great jump.
-That was terrific.
[Wesley] Happy Days really wanted you
to kind of turn your brain off.
And I totally get it.
It's very difficult to keep the line
between the past and the present.
You know what I mean?
[Biskind] One of the dangers
of nostalgia is that it's selective.
It's a kind of distortion
of what the solutions
for today's problems are
that seem true,
because "Look, we had it good."
[Jodie] One author described this feeling
as radical nostalgia,
the idea that the present
can't compete with a memory,
and that people would prefer to forget.
But for much of the country,
life didn't look like Happy Days.
-Donald! Donald!
-That's okay, Roy!
That's okay, you run!
Alice, if you'd show
a little respect around here,
-it just may rub off on him. [huffs]
-[scoffs]
[grumbles]
[Jodie] For many women,
the real world was a place
where they abandoned their dreams
and felt trapped by their reality.
[inspiring music playing]
[Ellen] I met Marty, and I said to him,
"I want this movie told
from a woman's point of view."
"What do you know about women?"
And he said,
"Nothing, but I want to learn."
And that was kind of great.
That was fun
because all the barriers broke down.
Alice deals with problems
that are different from the way
a man has to deal with it.
[Ellen] You had to be married.
A single woman was like an old maid.
Every girl that I knew,
their goal was to get married
and have kids, and that was it.
Party's over.
[Jodie] When her husband dies,
Alice sets out to pursue her dream
of becoming a lounge singer.
But when she can only get work
as a waitress,
she begins to question her place
in the world.
[Ellen] We made that film
when women were coming to the realization
that they're a whole entity
all by themselves,
not just in relation to a man.
Yeah, I know, but it's my life.
You know, it's my life.
It's not some man's life
that I'm gonna help him out with.
No, ma'am.
[Ellen] It was an awakening.
[Jodie] This was the era
of women's liberation,
when women fought
to redefine their place in society.
Whether or not society would listen
was another matter.
[Joan] I had a business manager
that said, "If you were a man,
you would've been able
to make your first film after Nashville."
[groans] I think people were scared.
[Jodie] Films from that era
rarely focused on women,
and even rarer were portraits of women
in positions of power.
[Wesley] Mahogany.
I mean, the great Diana Ross.
I don't care
what the Academy said. That is
that is, like, one of the top three things
anybody did in 1975.
"I need you." [chuckles]
Sure, you need me.
You want to know why?
'Cause I'm a winner! I'm a winner, baby!
Like, you're not alive
unless you're in power.
Like, Faye Dunaway in Network
played one of
the baddest women in the '70s.
Howard Beale went up there last night
and said what every American feels,
that he's tired of all the bullshit!
He's articulating the popular rage.
I want that show, Frank.
I can turn that show
into the biggest smash on television.
[Faye] This is a real departure.
She has wit, enormous creativity, talent,
and she marshals them all toward this job
that she's doing, and she loves it.
I've got to warn you,
I I don't do anything on my first date.
We'll see.
[interviewer] I've heard it said, though,
that the woman you've created in Network
might set the woman's movement
back 50 years.
Do you have
any fear of that?
What we've been trying to get away from
is stereotypical women's roles
that reflect an inaccurate view
of what a woman really is.
You cannot then say,
"Well, yes, but she always has to be
nice at the end."
-[laughs]
-[interviewer laughs]
[Jodie] However, not all women
were eager for change.
[audience applauding]
Fire at will.
The Equal Rights for Women movement
has been running into increasing trouble
around the country.
The latest example
was a defeat at the polls this week
in New York and New Jersey.
[brooding music playing]
[Jodie] The ERA
was a constitutional amendment
that guaranteed gender equality
for all Americans.
Women wanted to be something more
than housewives.
You see, doctor, my problem is
that given complete freedom of choice,
I don't wanna squeeze the goddamn Charmin.
Stepford Wives,
it's a kind of, like, feminist tale
layered over the kind of paranoid plot.
The loyal, pretty, competent housewife,
the idea that
they were actually soulless robots
really was tearing up the old script.
And something striking happens.
You begin to see the activism
of basically ordinary housewives
fighting for traditional moral values.
[Jodie] And their target was the ERA.
They warned of a future
where women would be sent to combat,
there would be gender-neutral bathrooms,
and that the ERA could pave the way
for legalized gay marriage.
Until you can make it equal for men
to have the babies just like women,
then it is a double burden to the women
to say that the rules for family support
should be equal on the husband
and the wife.
Dave works hard all day long,
and what does he come home to?
A slob.
Bobby, it's gotten to you now.
Nothing's gotten me.
I just want to look like a woman
and keep my house looking decent too.
[Jodie] The conversation
reached a flashpoint in the summer,
triggered by the unlikeliest of figures.
I told my husband,
"If we have to go to the White House,
okay, I will go
but I'm going as myself."
"If they don't like it,
they'll just have to throw me out."
-[thrilling music playing]
-[Jodie] Betty Ford,
a former dancer for Martha Graham,
turned reluctant First Lady,
went on 60 Minutes for a routine interview
in support of the ERA.
But her liberal stances
on abortion, marijuana,
and infidelity stunned the nation.
You've also talked about young people
living together before they're married.
-Well, they are, aren't they? [chuckles]
-[Morley] Indeed, they are.
Well, what if Susan Ford
came to you and said
-"Mother, I'm having an affair."
-[Betty] I, certainly
Well, I wouldn't be surprised.
I'd want to know pretty much
about the young man
that she was planning
to have the affair with.
[Jodie] She was open
about her breast cancer treatment
and drug addiction,
at a time when those topics
were rarely mentioned in public.
By leaning into her own brokenness,
-she was equally celebrated and reviled.
-[music concludes]
[Mike] Betty Ford said certain things
to my colleague,
Morley Safer, on television.
How would you have handled
that kind of question?
[hesitates] I don't think
I'd have answered the question.
[Jodie] Ford's poll ratings
began to plummet.
-[uplifting music playing]
-[reporter] There are some new indications
that Ronald Reagan's strength
is on the increase.
[Connie] The confrontation
promised to sharpen in '76,
as Reagan suddenly topped
President Ford by eight points.
[Rick] You know, Gerald Ford
was a very conservative president.
Why did he come to represent
this kind of cat's paw of the Left?
But I think a lot of the reason
was cultural
you know, that Gerald Ford's family
was a real American family, warts and all.
They had this incredibly sturdy,
loving, coherent family.
And Ronald Reagan's family was a shambles.
His daughter, Patti Davis,
changed her name
so she wouldn't be associated with them.
Nancy Reagan, she was "Just Say No."
Took the same kind of drugs
Betty Ford did too.
[uplifting music builds]
[Rick] But he was able
to kind of turn that around
and make his family the Stepford Wives.
[in robotic voice] I was just going
to give you coffee.
I thought we were friends.
I thought we were friends.
I thought we were friends.
[Rick] The Reagan family
was a perfect '70s family
in that they were
completely dysfunctional.
It really represented
one of these hinge moments.
Are we going to face our flaws
as people, as a nation?
Or are we just going to pretend
that real Americans
don't have messy families?
[Jodie] In November,
the winner of the 1976
presidential election
was an outsider
who was barely mentioned in 1975.
And I pray that I can live up
to your confidence
-and never disappoint you.
-[crowd cheering, applauding]
[Jodie] Ronald Reagan's
populist movement
would go back under the surface for now.
A few months earlier,
29-year-old director Steven Spielberg
was at a preview screening
of his new film.
At one point, a terrified audience member
ran into the lobby and threw up.
[gasps, pants]
[Jodie] And instead of leaving,
the viewer returned to his seat.
[Jaws theme music playing]
[Jodie] That was the moment
Spielberg knew he had a hit.
-[audience screaming]
-[dramatic music playing]
I like taking people into a dark theater
with a thousand strangers
and giving them
an experience they'll never forget.
I certainly want to involve myself
with intimate storytelling
and people's fantasies
and people's relationships.
But by the same token,
I like buttered popcorn.
I can't help it. I just like it.
You're going to need a bigger boat.
"You've got to get a bigger boat."
Well, yeah, I would think.
I mean, I'm not gonna go
in the water anyway,
so you're talking to the wrong person.
I was really good friends with Steven.
The day it opened, we got into a taxi cab.
There was a line
seven blocks from the theater.
I had never seen anything like that.
In our lifetime, that was the blockbuster.
People coming out, they were ecstatic.
Beautifully bloody. That's what it was.
You know, they just [growls, chuckles]
The best I've seen in my life. Best movie.
I didn't want to turn the light out
in the bedroom at night
because somehow
a shark was gonna jump out of the water
and get up to the eighth floor
and devour me.
[Josh] What is Jaws about?
-[upbeat music playing]
-It's a perfect Watergate era allegory.
You know, Jaws has a cover-up.
It's mostly about the logistics
surrounding closing beaches.
I really think it's about camaraderie.
An ultimate confronting of yourself.
A sort of existential panic.
Bullshit. Jaws is a monster movie.
You go to see Jaws because it's scary.
-[thrilling music playing]
-[screams]
[Sam] It's a movie about nothing.
The reason Jaws went through the roof
is because it is great.
But Hollywood learned
that through marketing Jaws,
-the audience would love it.
-[pensive music playing]
That affects what movies are made.
"What movies can we sell?"
-[presenter] Jaws. Jaws.
-[gasps]
-[presenter] Jaws.
-[child gasping]
Sharks' business has been terrific.
We were getting anything we could.
If it even looked like a shark,
it could sell.
[Jodie] But even if it was
just a monster movie,
-it tapped into a growing feeling.
-[unsettling music playing]
The shark is this kind of symbol
of what it was like to live in 1975.
"What, America lost the war?"
"America has a president who's a crook?"
"The Arabs in the third world
are controlling our economy now?"
[grunts, screams]
[Rick] And so, in true Hollywood fashion,
they blow them up,
just like John Wayne would have.
[gunshot]
The simple movies do the best.
Jaws is one of the classics. It will last.
[Martin] When he's looking
at the pictures of the shark victims
and it's reflected in his glasses
that's filmmaking.
And I don't think
as Steven was making it, he was like,
"I'm going to create a financial bar
that people will have to destroy art
in order to attempt to meet
time after time again," you know?
[Jodie] By the end of the year,
Jaws had made more money
than any film in history.
But the record wouldn't last for long,
because the era
of the blockbuster had arrived.
[exciting music playing]
Smile, you son of a
[gunshots]
[laughs hysterically]
[Patton] Hollywood is very aware
of picking up vibes.
They're like,
"People want to see a winner."
What a difference a couple of years makes.
I think it's about time
we had a good fantasy movie.
I mean, we've just had
so many kind of burned out
on all the social commentary movies
we've had.
[interviewer] What do you like
about a movie like Jaws?
I don't know.
The villain isn't winning anymore.
He's losing.
[Jodie] New Hollywood was over.
-[Rocky theme music playing]
-[crowd cheering, applauding]
[commentator] And there's the bell
for round one
[Jodie] As 1975 came to an end,
people had one question on their mind.
Does America still work?
Studs Terkel?
-[inquisitive music playing]
-The big question, George, is for whom?
[commentator] I-- I don't believe it!
The champ is down!
[Heffner] When we're talking about
this 200-year-old man,
-this 200-year-old entity
-[interviewer] Yeah.
known as an American,
he is too individualistic,
puts his emphasis
upon "me" rather than "us,"
puts its emphasis upon the "I"
rather than the "we."
[commentator] Apollo unloading on Rocky
We can do very much better by ourselves,
learning to get along
very much better with people.
This is one of the major problems
we face in the world today.
[Chevy] The year is almost on its way out.
Let's take a brief look back
at 1975, shall we?
[audience laughing, applauding]
It's been a rotten year,
-I'm glad it's gone.
-[coughs]
'76 should be much better, boy,
cause [spits] to '74.
[Jodie] 1976 was America's 200th birthday.
But some wondered
if they should call off the bicentennial.
Perhaps, there was nothing to celebrate.
We hold these truths to be self-evident
that all men are created equal.
That they are endowed by their creator
with certain unalienable rights.
-That among these are life, liberty
-and the pursuit of happiness.
[Jodie] But on July 4th,
the nation came out for its birthday.
[Kurt] The bicentennial,
it was a goofy Fourth of July celebration
times a thousand.
Yeah, it seemed fakey
and Disney-esque and all those things,
but also, cool! It was great!
[Jodie] Maybe it was something
about the five-story cakes,
the Freedom Train,
the parades.
[Kurt] Part of me always liked
the Disney version of America.
That is the world in which we live.
[uplifting orchestral music playing]
[spectators shouting, clamoring]
[Jodie] One of the feel-good stories
of 1976
was of a struggling actor
who sold a screenplay about an underdog
that became the biggest hit of the year.
But when you break down
the feel-good narrative, who is Rocky?
What does he represent?
Working-class White guy
who's displaced
by this loudmouth Black guy.
[commentator] Right to the chin!
Oh, he's going all
[Jodie] At the Oscars,
some of the great films of the mid '70s
were up for Best Picture.
Taxi Driver. Network.
All the President's Men.
And the winner is
-Rocky. Irwin Winkler
-[audience cheering, applauding]
and Robert Chartoff, producers.
Rocky wins the Oscar.
That night was the end. That was it.
Stuff changed,
because people went to the movies
to see which movie had made
the most money.
As the '80s appeared,
the companies got their power back.
These are people
who just don't care about movies
and who only care about money.
[Ellen] Once you change an art form
to a product of capitalism,
it loses something.
[Jodie] Unique voices
in filmmaking never went away.
They just became the exception
rather than the rule.
To all the Rockys in the world,
I love you.
-[audience cheering, applauding]
-Thank you.
1975 was the closest America came
to saying, "Hey, I got flaws too."
And for a little, brief moment,
cinema and pop culture
was able to look at that,
but it was too much,
and we turned the hell away.
But you go back to those films
and they're like,
"You don't go back and watch them again."
"They're there,
they're part of your life."
Like, how grateful are we to our parents
for being that irresponsible
[chuckles] and taking us to traumas,
like, literally visual traumas?
God, that moment.
You could never recreate the '70s.
[music crescendos, stops]
[Coach Buttermaker]
Well, my boys would like to say
something to your team. Boys?
We just want to say
you guys played a good game.
And we treated you
pretty unfair all season.
We want to apologize.
We still don't think
you're all that good a baseball team.
You got guts. All of you.
[Coach Buttermaker] Ready? Okay.
[all chanting in unison] Two, four,
six, eight, who do we appreciate?
Bears! Bears! Yay!
Hey, Yankees, you can take your apology
out of your trophy
and shove it straight up your ass!
["Why Can't We Be Friends?" playing]
And another thing,
just wait until next year.
Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo
[Jodie] 1975 felt like an ending,
but it wasn't.
It was just another chapter
in the story of America.
We are one nation, indivisible,
with liberty and justice for all.
What could go wrong?
Why can't we be friends?
Why can't we be friends?
Why can't we be friends?
Why can't we be friends?
I seen you 'round
For a long, long time
-Yeah!
-[men laughing]
I really 'membered you
When you drink my wine
Why can't we be friends?
Why can't we be friends?
Why can't we be friends?
Why can't we be friends?
-I seen you walkin' down in Chinatown
-[cheers]
I called you
But you could not look around
Why can't we be friends?
Why can't we be friends?
Why can't we be friends?
Why can't we be friends?
-I bring my money to the welfare line
-Whoa!
I see you standing in it every time
Why can't we be friends?
Why can't we be friends?
Why can't we be friends?
Why can't we be friends?
Why can't we be friends?
Why can't we be friends?
Why can't we be friends?
Why can't we be friends?
Why can't we be friends?
-[background singers] Whoo, whoo, whoo
Why can't we be friends?
-[background singers] Whoo, whoo, whoo
-Why can't we be friends?
-[song fades]