For the most part, these films share a sensibility: Twenty years after the fact, Hollywood is looking at the era from an outsider's perspective; many of these filmmakers, in fact, were children during the '70s, forced to find their way while the adults around them spiraled out of control. 54 uses the glitter of a nightclub and the seduction of a disco beat to draw audiences into the Icarus-like fable of a 19-year-old whose longing for celebrity almost costs him everything. "I like looking at that innocence as it gets corrupted and experienced and broken," says 54 producer Richard Gladstein, 36.
Such morality tales--especially when combined with ample sex and groovy soundtracks--make the decade a natural for Hollywood. "I decided to do [The Last Days of Disco] in the editing room of Barcelona," says Stillman. "There were [scenes] with women in discos, and I was thinking how cinematic it was, and how interesting visually." Adds Christopher: "I wrote 54 because I really liked the music." But filmmakers like Christopher seem to be on a more personal journey, claiming what they missed for themselves. Or, says Lindsay Law, president of Fox Searchlight, which produced The Ice Storm, "they want to know what their parents were doing."
"There's something appealing about it," admits Breckin Meyer, 23, who co-stars in 54. "There's a line in the movie, 'Between the pill and penicillin, we're fine.'" Then, as if remembering the story's end, his voice drops. "You do see the repercussions. People die."
Says Paul Thomas Anderson, 27, writer-director of Boogie Nights, "I had older brothers and sisters who were doing drugs and playing rock music and doing all those insane things. I was watching." The debauched antics of his elders is at the heart of the matter for Chris Eigeman, the 32-year-old star of The Last Days of Disco: "My folks were going off to discos and leaving me home with miserable babysitters."
Eigeman wasn't alone. In the '70s, "parents were reinventing adolescence, and in a weird way that meant that adolescence for others didn't happen," says James Schamus, 38, who adapted The Ice Storm. "There was an older generation having it for the younger generation." Which, of course, could explain why this group of filmmakers doesn't find the '70s all that funny. "What you see is the children making the moral choices, not the parents," says Law. Anderson adds: "Every generation likes to think it's smarter than the generation before it, so there may be a sort of elitist attitude toward [the decade]. I'm probably trying to look back and see how I can be smarter and not make the same mistakes that were made before me."
It's a lesson that the filmmakers are determined to remember--even when the relentlessly upbeat disco music playing in the background causes their toes to tap involuntarily. Settling into a plush banquette on the set of 54, production designer Kevin Thompson reassures himself that missing the party didn't mean missing all the fun. "While we're living with AIDS and other potential problems," he says forcefully, "I think it's important to remind ourselves that the '70s didn't end well."
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