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.
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
Julian Petley is emeritus and honorary professor of journalism at Brunel University London. He is the principal editor of the Journal of British Cinema and Television. His books include Film and Video Censorship in Modern Britain (2011), Censorship: A Beginner’s Guide (2009) and the co-authored Culture Wars: The Media and the British Left (2019). Xavier Mendik is Professor of Cult Cinema Studies 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), co-editor of Alternative Europe (2004) and Underground USA (2002).
Reviews for Shocking Cinema of the 70s
Mendik and Petley's new volume unearths little-suspected histories and sub-genre cycles hidden in plain sight and material from darker recesses of criminality and fantasy. Contributors challenge conceptions of cinema and how and why academics study it, disturbing both conservative and radical sensibilities as much as do the films themselves. -- Nigel Morris, University of Lincoln, USA. This exciting collection advances significant new research in 70s cult cinema, especially fascinating work in international cinema including Japan. With an introduction rightly interrogating what is meant by 'shocking' and asking us to rethink our commonly held assumptions, this is compulsory reading for all film scholars and those interested in cult cinema and television. -- Jason Lee, De Monfort University, UK A collection as electrifying and as essential as the wild, diverse range of films from the 1970s it explores, authored by some of the most vital and exciting voices in cult film studies today. -- Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, author of Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study (2021)
