Parents' Guide to Breakdown: 1975

This documentary is a curious tour through the American cultural landscape of the '70s. More specifically, Breakdown: 1975 is curious because it ultimately is only that, a tour. But at least, as a tour, it's a relatively good one. The problem is that as a documentary, the film doesn't quite prove what it starts out arguing: the year 1975 was the most important year for American cinema, ever. And certainly, even by quick glance, 1975 was a great year for American movies, but "the most important ever"? Again, that's hard to prove. After the introduction of the film covers the cultural moments, news events, and other things that led up to the mid-70s, like Watergate, specific movies of particular note get special attention, but it's never clear what they're doing beyond mirroring what American culture was feeling at the time.

Yet the cultural reach and coverage on display, the number of actors, directors, writers, critics, and journalists involved, the championing of dozens of "really amazing movies," and the argument itself that 1975 was a particularly great year for American cinema, all imply a kind of comprehensive auditing of this cultural period, which is impossible. In other words, this documentary is a fun and nostalgic review of the '70s, with closer looks at particularly "classic" films of the period, while mentioning dozens of others. But there are lots (events, movies, news) that the film doesn't mention. Rather than a defense of the film's initial proclamation, the movie ends up just being a tour at best and at worst a laundry list of good movies from the era.