source

Biskind — Easy Riders, Raging Bulls (1998)

The New Hollywood chronicle: how the directors briefly took over the studios, told through interviews and gossip.

  • book
  • industry-history
  • new-hollywood

Peter Biskind, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'n' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood (Simon & Schuster, 1998). Book overview ↗

Good for

The industrial context around Martin Scorsese and Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974): the collapse of the studio system, the brief window when a Mean Streets screening could get a director a Warner Bros picture, the economics and egos of 1967–80. The wiki's standing source for Commerce and Formula (genre revisionism) in the New Hollywood years.

Handle with care

Famously gossip-driven — vivid, sourced to interviews, and disputed by several of its subjects. Use it for the shape of the era and the texture of the deals; verify any specific anecdote before quoting it as fact.