Horror, Sleaze and Trash.

 

The taut, grainy film-making style of 1970s film-makers such as Sidney Lumet, who directed Al Pacino in 'Serpico' (above), inspired Ben Affleck's 'Argo' Photo: Alamy

 

By Jenny McCartney

7:52PM BST 23 May 2013

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When James Caan, who played Sonny Corleone in The Godfather, appeared in Cannes this week, he delivered a stinging slap to modern Hollywood. “Most of the films they’re doing, in Hollywood anyway, are these franchise films,” he said. “I’ve become very negative about the films of today… I was very fortunate in the 1970s to work with the best actors, the best directors, and the best cinematographers.”

One might, perhaps, be tempted to dismiss it as the nostalgia of a veteran actor for his own glory days, except that many other leading figures in cinema seem to share his view. Caan’s latest film, Blood Ties, is set amid organised crime in 1970s Brooklyn – almost as though its director, Guillaume Canet, yearned to dive back into the era and the city that spawned that decade’s gritty masterpieces, from Mean Streets to Serpico.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/10076153/Hollywood-has-never-matched-the-gritty-masterpieces-of-the-1970s.html?platform=hootsuite