I finally finished reading “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘N’ Roll Generation Saved Hollywood” (written by Peter Biskind in 1998). For those of you who don’t know, it tells the sumptuous story of the rise and fall of New Hollywood: Spielberg, Lucas, Coppola, Scorsese – and how they one-upped the studio system only to swallow the same seeds they worked to spew out. It’s a fascinating tale – not just for cineastes – and I practically ate through the 512 pages (including the helpful who’s who appendix at the end). Here are a couple of notes I scribbled:

1. JAWS, and later STAR WARS, ruined many a dream of the non-blockbuster independent.
2. Francis Ford Coppola was a megalomaniac gangster reminiscent of Jabba the Hutt.
3. George Lucas was a softspoken tyrant - with a vision.
4. Amy Irving was a cold clairvoyant who thought Spielberg was a low-brow loser, even after she married him.
5. Spielberg was an overgrown kid, a whitebread soul beyond wonderbread, a square, a trapezoid wannabe…
6. No one knew that a single day consists of 24 hours, not a decade. For the 70s Hollywood set, there was no tomorrow.
7. Warren Beatty actually had an important role in the shaping of American cinema.
8. People only have faith in you when you make them rich.
9. Margot Kidder used to be coherent.
10. No one really noticed Fassbinder back then either.
11. Without drugs there would be no Dennis Hopper - a borderline psychotic who terrorized his wife and kids.
12. When greedy studio types have too much power, murderous satanic hippies spring from the earth to kill their pregnant wives.
13. Lucas, Coppola, Scorsese and Spielberg were all friends at one point, and they used to think they could change the world…but what happened to their dream?

In short, the slaying of the corporate dragon gave birth to the many-headed hydra of pride and greed. Luke became Darth Vader after all. But the saga continues….

I just had the opportunity to write an article for Release Print Magazine the magazine of San Francisco’s fabulous media arts non-profit Film Arts Foundation. Film Arts, according to its website, is

a non-profit leader in the media arts field, providing comprehensive training, equipment, information, consultations, and exhibition opportunities to independent filmmakers. Now in its thirtieth year, Film Arts has close to 3,000 members working in film, video, and multimedia, and is the largest regional organization of independent producers in the country.

The article is about new ways and organizations that facilitate outreach for social documentaries. Through my research, I’ve realized just how many fabulous organizations are doing amazing work to engage ommunities and find new audiences for documentaries. Among those that I focused on were: Working Films the North Carolina-based organization run by Judith Helfand (director of A HEALTHY BABY GIRL and BLUE VINYL) and Robert West; Just Vision, an organization built around the award-winning documentary ENCOUNTER POINT; and Arts Engine > the non-profit umbrella organization that also houses Big Mouth Productions and MediaRights.org home to the inspiring Media That Matters film festival. In addition to all these fine organizations, there is the Center for Social Media, which provides invaluable resources and advice to documentarians, and the newly formed organization and blog, RenewMedia. It will take folks months to thoroughly explore all of the informative content on these websites, so I’ll leave you to that, but keep in mind that the National Conference from Media Reform is coming up in January! I hope to see you all there!