Filmdom’s firebrands are raging gracefully

Film director as provocateur as a concept is largely a product of the French New Wave’s embrace of the auteur and the healthy arrogance of the late ‘60s counterculture.

In 1999, Peter Biskind’s book “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls” offered a no-holds-barred look at the artists and filmmakers who gained power in Hollywood throughout the ‘60s and ‘70s, through works that offered a lean and mean alternative to the big studio bloat.

Recently translated into a sleek and fast-moving documentary (written and directed by Kenneth Bowser for the Trio cable network), Biskind’s tale remains a brash testament to the power of youthful optimism and the sad repercussions of ego and excess.

Premiering at the American Cinematheque last Thursday and airing March 9 on Trio cable channel, the film attracted an impressive roster of 1970s cinema graduates, from directors to producers to actors, many of whom gathered for a post-screening panel that had all the touching awkwardness of a high school reunion.

Those fielding questions included actress Karen Black, producer Michael Phillips, directors Dennis Hopper and Monte Hellman, and low-budget guru Roger Corman. There was a bit of back-patting, with Hellman citing Corman’s B-movie studio (which gave many of the period’s best directors their first gigs) as “the greatest film school of all” and producer Jonathan Taplin (“Mean Streets”) claiming that “none of us could have made these movies if Dennis hadn’t made ‘Easy Rider.’ ”

Hopper, who blew open the doors with his directorial debut (only to spiral into a drug- and alcohol-soaked fall from grace), has emerged as an eloquent survivor, clean and sober and still humble enough to shrug off the comments of one audience member, who dubbed him “an icon.”

“I thought an icon was a Russian painting,” he said, laughing. “I was just looking for a job.” It’s obvious, however, that Hopper was looking for more. Like his peers, he was searching for a way to express the emotions of a generation that had been ignored by the major studios.

As the evening progressed, what became evident were the strong bonds among these artists, many of whom were friends before they became collaborators.

“We all knew one another” said Phillips, a producer of films such as “Taxi Driver” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” “There was a feeling at the time that anything was possible.”