George Lucas and the movie brats

Hello all. I've been trying to do some research on the so-called "Movie brats," the gang of George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Brian De Palma, John Milius, and their friends who would go on to be the great filmmakers of the age. It's crazy to think that these guys all knew each other.

So far, my research has been frustrating. I just ordered the book "The Movie Brats," which was published in 1979. I watched the documentary "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls," which is more about the whole New Hollywood scene. And I watched the documentary "Milius" which was great.

What's frustrating me is that I can't seem to find how all these guys came into contact with each other. I know that Lucas and Milius went to USC together and, as a USC grad student, Lucas got the opportunity to observe a USC grad direct a film, and so he met director Francis Coppola on the set of Finian's Rainbow and became friends.

I'm told that Spielberg, who frequented USC student film screenings, saw Lucas' film THX 1138 around 1967,and talked to him afterwards. But apparently they didn't become friends until 1971, when Lucas saw "Duel" on TV, remembered Steven, and gave him a call. That seems like a strange story, like he would remember that guy four years later and just be able to contact him. (for some reason, Lucas' individual friendships with Spielberg and Coppola are the most well-known. I always wondered about the other relationships, like Spielberg and Coppola apart from Lucas.)

What I can't find is how they became associated with Scorsese and De Palma, who went to schools out east before coming to California. Apparently they were all really good friends. George's wife at the time Marcia edited on Scorsese's early works. Coppola tried to get Scorsese the job to direct Godfather Part II when he wasn't interested, and gave his mother a cameo in Godfather Part III (speaking very fondly of her in the commentary). I even heard a story that George Lucas was on the set of Gangs of New York, decades later, looked around the big giant set, and said "You know you can do things like this with computers now."

Anyway, if anyone knows anything, or where I might look, help would be appreciated.

 

The original book of Easy Riders, Raging Bulls would be a good place to start (it's very different to the documentary), although take a lot of the gossipy stuff with a grain of salt - Biskind can often play fast & loose with the facts. There's also a good doco series on the era called A Decade Under the Influence, Martin Scorsese's autobiography, Scorsese on Scorsese, and Dale Pollock's 1983 bio of GL, Skywalking. Skywalking is pretty inaccurate when it comes to the development of the scripts of SW (for various reasons), but it's very thorough when it comes to GL's college years and early career.

It really just came down to the USC and film buff scene, these film geeks gravitated towards each other. Off the top of my head, I'm not entirely sure how the East Coast 'brats' became so close with the West Coast mob, but it probably just came down to them being at the Hollywood studios now and then, and as you already pointed out, Marcia Lucas worked with Scorsese as an editor. Early on, GL worked on the Rolling Stones doco Gimme Shelter, Scorsese on Woodstock. They were in the same circles, and had the same obsession with cinema. There was also the Roger Corman connection - most of the 'movie brats' got their first jobs with him on various B-movies. Coppola, Scorsese, Bogdanovich, Jack Nicholson and so on.

With the studios desperate to try anything to get people into theatres, and this new generation of film students all looking to make their mark, it was simply the planets aligning in the right time and place for New Hollywood to be born, plus in that era they were all more likely to encourage and help each other with their projects, rather than try and climb over each other to get the latest deal.

 

You see, I went to film school, I learned about so much of this, and today I'm still confused as to what was so "new" about the new Hollywood. Essentially they point out how "Easy Rider" portrayed rugs, but that's about all I get.

People always talk about how "Jaws" and "Star Wars" changed everything, and ushered in the era of the blockbuster. That always confuses me because it's like, "What, were studios NOT making movie to make money BEFORE that?" The documentary even points out similar blockbusters like The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno, so how did Jaws change all that? Ah, it just grinds my gears...

 

It's not quite as simple as that - at the time, Jaws and Star Wars were really just medium-budget B-movies in supposedly unpopular genres, whereas The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno were high-budget 'marquee' pictures with all-star casts. There had always been such blockbusters, but the studios were so out of touch with audiences that they simply kept throwing money at them, building gigantic sets and hiring expensive actors, while ignoring the simpler elements which audiences would respond to.

Jaws and Star Wars are often blamed for ushering in the blockbuster era, but the self-indulgence of the later years of New Hollywood was just as much to blame. Peter Bogdanovich's At Long Last Love, William Friedkin's Sorcerer and Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate are the most notorious examples (Apocalypse Now is often cited, although it was a success). Even Robert Altman's Nashville and Scorsese's Raging Bull were box office duds, despite being acclaimed as masterpieces.

The studios realised that allowing the filmmakers free rein wasn't working any more, and it was time for the producers to take charge once more.