Is ‘Breakdown: 1975’ based on a true story?
Netflix recently dropped a gripping new documentary, Breakdown: 1975, by Oscar-winning director Morgan Neville, which explores the dynamic forces of 1975 through the cultural lens of American cinema.
Often looked back upon as one of the greatest years of American cinema, 1975 was marked by the transformative movies that dared to unpack provocative commentary on the intense political and social shifts the Americans were navigating. So, for those wondering whether Breakdown: 1975 is based on a true story, it indeed is.
Narrated by Jodie Foster, Breakdown:1975, Neville’s latest documentary, currently streaming on Netflix, is packed with exclusive interviews featuring the industry’s greatest, including Martin Scorsese, Ellen Burstyn, Oliver Stone, Seth Rogen, Albert Brookes, Joan Tewkesbury, and Bill Gates, among others.
The documentary additionally consists of interviews with journalists, historians, and authors, such as Dr Todd Boyd, Wesley Morris, Naomi Fry, and James Risen, to name a few.
As Netflix puts it, “Breakdown: 1975 offers a portrait of a country on the verge of a nervous breakdown.” In a conversation with Tudum, Neville weighed in on his venture, saying, “What was interesting was to have a chance for political thinkers and historians [to] reflect on cinema and for people from cinema [to] reflect on politics and history.”
These reflections, in turn, provide an in-depth analysis of the country’s disillusionment with the systems at the driving seat while allowing viewers to understand how those sentiments led to the materialisation of movies such as Taxi Driver, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Network, and many more. Through Breakdown: 1975, Neville captures the chaos of the era, exploring how, for one brief moment, “Hollywood was dominated by directors who held a mirror to the corruption and greed infecting American life.”
The cinematic ideals filmmakers chose to address not only clashed with the American hierarchy, which was riddled with corruption, but also challenged the collective consciousness in real life, through examples like Chinatown, All the President’s Men, The Towering Inferno, Mahogany, and The Stepford Wives.
Breakdown: 1975 chronicles the real-life cultural forces and events of the ‘70s, like Watergate, the Vietnam War, recession, the Equal Rights Amendment, and more, that influenced the golden age of movies. “At a time when the culture feels like it’s breaking apart, film can be the thing that helps us make sense of it and feel like we’re not crazy. There’s no better illustration of this than the mid-1970s. It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. And it was funky,” the director told IndieWire.
Neville additionally relied on his childhood experiences of theatre-going with parents to shed light upon the darker realities of life back in the day. “I was a child of the ‘70s and many of these movies imprinted on me at a very young age. Was it appropriate? Probably not, but I wouldn’t change it for anything,” he concluded.