Those Other '70s Shows

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Which represents the true 1970s: Peter Bogdanovich or Peter Brady? Chinatown or Hong Kong Phooey? Was the decade a wacky jag of smiley faces and bell-bottoms or a daring heyday of nonconformism and creativity? You can decide this month when the two 1970s duke it out in two weirdly complementary cable specials.

The Independent Film Channel's three-part documentary A Decade Under the Influence (Aug. 20-22, 8 p.m. E.T.) sees the 1970s in movies as an interregnum between the old studio system and today's blockbuster machine, when idiosyncratic directors were able to persuade the moneymen to bankroll dark, even cynical, movies like MASH and Network for a mass audience. It's a familiar thesis — see Peter Biskind's 1998 book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls — but well fleshed out with interviews with big names (Scorsese, Coppola, Altman) who rise to the always daunting challenge of explaining why their work was so darn brilliant. The best insights come from actress Julie Christie, who distills the theme of '70s movies--"the quest for freedom"--while pointing out that said quest meant a lot of angry testosterone, making the era better for actors than actresses.

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Influence, though earnest and enjoyable, could use more of Christie's even-handed objectivity. For instance, the documentary praises Easy Rider (actually a 1969 film) for drawing in a new audience that had been staying away from the movies. But when Star Wars does the same thing, it's pandering to escapist sheep easily led by movie marketers. And the scope is both comprehensive and frustratingly limited, focusing on critics' darlings while Rocky, Superman and the like get barely a sneer.

Fortunately, we have VH1 to fill in the blanks. I Love the '70s (Aug. 18-22, 9 p.m. E.T.) is a 10-hour, year-by-year celebration of '70s trash culture: the Partridges and the Mod Squad, Underoos and Underalls, CB radios and est. It's the kind of empty-calorie video flypaper at which VH1 excels. Channel-flip across it and, try as you might to resist, say goodbye to the next two hours of your life. Filled out with reminiscences from every B-list celeb who ever came within 50 yds. of a VH1 camera (Ed's Michael Ian Black, Good Day Live's Jillian Barberie, porn star Ron Jeremy), it's a bit skimpy on analysis. (Here's "actor-comedian" Mitch Silpa on Carol Burnett's Tarzan yell: "Her Tarzan yell was great.") But you could argue, say, that the mainstream success of Cheech and Chong's drug comedy Up in Smoke, which VH1 lauds but IFC ignores, says more about the '70s' anything-goes Zeitgeist than McCabe & Mrs. Miller.

Of course, VH1 doesn't make that argument. It's happy to make doobie jokes instead. But if you catch both specials, you begin to realize that the two 1970s were really one: a decade of populism, individualism and social flux when the rules were up for grabs — a situation we can thank for both The Last Picture Show and the leisure suit. Goof or Golden Age? For one week, as was the 1970s mantra of Burger King and Hollywood's auteurs, you can have it your way.