Breakdown: 1975 | movie | 2025 | Official Trailer - video Dailymotion

In 1975, as America faced social and political upheaval, filmmakers turned chaos into art. | dG1fTTM1a1dQR21JMU0

Transcript

00:001975 was the closest America came to saying, hey, I got flaws too.

00:06And for a brief moment, cinema and pop culture was able to look at that.

00:10But it was too much, and we turned the hell away.

00:161975. Crime was up. Paranoia was rampant.

00:20From Watergate to the Bicentennial, America was having a nervous breakdown.

00:25It was a nation at the crossroads, told through the movies that captured its soul.

00:3175 was the most important moment in the history of the film business.

00:35Compared to now, everything was paradise.

00:38People used to really like good movies.

00:44Movies were made back then that didn't pander to trend.

00:49Jaws, All the President's Men, Taxi Driver, Nashville, Cuckoo's Nest, Network.

00:53Studios, let go.

00:55All the old conventions wiped away.

00:58And we were creating a new world.

01:00It's like the veneer was taken off.

01:04A certain idealism and a certain hope that we thought that we had, that was extinguished.

01:09The film can either put you to sleep nicely, or it can wake you up.

01:14People have got to know whether or not their president's a crook.

01:17Well, I'm not a crook.

01:18Optimism becomes cynicism.

01:22And Hollywood is reflective of that ship.

01:27I like taking people into a dark theater and giving them an experience they'll never forget.

01:32We want the lie.

01:35Because it feels good.

01:36We want the heroes.

01:38We want the happy ending.

01:41Were we living the American dream or an American nightmare?

01:45The truth was more complex.

01:48I wasn't observing, oh, here's a change in our society.

01:50That was a society.

01:52That's who we are.

01:53The past.

01:54And now is looking a lot more like the future.

01:56That's who we are.