Vintage Sand

The end of 1974 saw the implosion of the Director’s Company, founded just a year earlier by three of Hollywood’s hottest directors: Francis Coppola, Peter Bogdanovich, and William Friedkin. Funded by Paramount, the idea was that within a certain budget, these directors would make whatever they wanted, have final cut on their work, and split the profits on each other’s films. Its rapid collapse, amid artistic failure and hubris and egged on by corporate intrigue, signaled the beginning of the end of what later came to be known as the Hollywood New Wave. A year later, the phenomenon that was "Jaws" recentered the narrative so that blockbuster weekend box office was everyone’s sole and explicit goal. This in turn led to the return of the money people to power, and they have barely relinquished any of that power in the ensuing half-century. It's not a coincidence that 1974 also saw "Hearts and Minds", one of the great antiwar films ever made in this country, win the Oscar for Best Feature-Length Documentary. The