Although this volume does not prove indisputably that the period from 1966 to 1974 was American cinema's most celebrated era (as the subtitle states), it does provide ample evidence that those years saw the production of many of the most innovative and influential works in American film history. Krämer (Univ. of East Anglia, UK) and Tzioumakis (Univ. of Liverpool, UK) present 13 thoughtful, concise essays that analyze the significance of such notable films as Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Lady Sings the Blues (1972), Mean Streets (1973), and The Conversation (1974). Moreover, the focus is on not only distinguished directors-such as Mike Nichols, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, and Francis Ford Coppola-but also some of the less-known editors, special-effects teams, and studio executives who made these cinematic achievements possible. Covering some of the same ground as The Last Great American Picture Show: New Hollywood Cinema in the 1970s, ed. by Thomas Elsaesser, Alexander Horwath, and Noel King, The Hollywood Renaissance adds to previous studies by cogently placing each film within the larger industrial, cultural, and sociopolitical context of US cinema.
