Monte Hellman

The chronicle of the mind-blowing journey that was Hollywood during the seventies; the true and gripping story of the last golden age of American cinema, an exalted celebration of creativity and experimentation; but also of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll: a turbulent and dark tale of ambition, envy, betrayal, hatred and self-destruction.

A documentary examining the decade of the 1970s as a turning point in American cinema. Some of today's best filmmakers interview the influential directors of that time.

Filmmakers, actors, critics, and pop culture pundits pay tribute to Quentin Tarantino’s 1992 classic.

During the 1982 Cannes Film Festival, Wim Wenders asked a number of global film directors to, one at a time, go into a hotel room, turn on the camera, and answer a simple question: "What is the future of cinema?"

An aspiring Hollywood actress, on a visit to a charming North England town, has a brief fling with the town undertaker, who also writes obituaries for the local paper. Returning home, where she works as a waitress at a Japanese restaurant, she tells everyone about the handsome "writer" she met on her trip. Unfortunately, he decides to follow her back to Hollywood, setting up the expected light romantic comedy with asides as the newcomer gains experience about the goings on in Hollywood.

Ekchart Schmidt examines the machinery behind the dream factory; the Hollywood myth is unmasked. How does the studio industry work? What role does marketing and the hype surrounding the stars play?

Friends and admirers of iconoclastic film director Sam Fuller read from his memoirs in this unconventional documentary directed by Fuller's only child, Samantha.

A documentary profile on Quentin Tarantino broadcast by the BBC's "Omnibus" strand in 1994 to coincide with "Pulp Fiction" hitting UK cinemas.

Documentary by Luc Lagier exploring Godard's career as a filmmaker, the production of Breathless and his influence and his relationship with American cinema.

A retrospective of the work of the late actor Warren Oates, with clips from his films and interviews with cast and crew members who worked with him.

A Hollywood film director assembles a group of friends and strangers for a social gathering on Valentines Day in a deserted movie theater where he interviews each one on their opinions on love and loneliness.

An idealistic first-time director lives for his art — until he meets a wife of an Italian producer at the Cannes Film Festival. A passionate affair begins, but the couple's romance is tested as they face the temptations of fame and fortune.

A tennis champ falls in with the Hollywood crowd, finds himself being corrupted by the life in the fast lane.

This straight-talking program seeks to understand the enigmatic and controversial Sam Peckinpah, whose violent films such as The Wild Bunch and Straw Dogs had a telling effect on the cinema of the 1970s and 80s. Those who knew and worked with him, including actor James Coburn, actress Ali MacGraw, his associate Katherine Haber, his cousin Bob Peckinpah, and several screenwriters and producers, examine his life in an attempt to separate the man from the persona. Clips from key films reinforce this detailed discussion of Peckinpah's art and a fixation on violence that still permeates Hollywood today.

A look at the mystique of road movies, combining interviews, film clips, music, photography, literature and a narrative storyline featuring Paul Rudd and Tom McCarthy.

When it comes to producing, no one speaks with more authority than Lloyd Kaufman creator of The Toxic Avenger and founder of the longest-running independent film studio, Troma Entertainment. Over the years he has discovered talents such as Trey Parker and Matt Stone (South Park, The Book of Mormon) and Vincent D'Onofrio (Law & Order: Criminal Intent) to name a few. Candid interviews, tips, tricks and tidbits scattered throughout the DVD give filmmakers practical tools for getting a movie shoot off the ground, keeping it afloat and seeing it through to the end - Lloyd Kaufman shows you how it's really done.

Paul Joyce’s Out of the Blue and Into the Black is an insightful documentary surveying American independent film production post-Easy Rider and includes interviews with Peter Bogdanovich, Dennis Hopper, Monte Hellman and Roger Corman.

After not having seen each other in thirty-five years, Monte Hellman and James Taylor sat down for this conversation, recorded in the fall of 2007 in Massachusetts.

Monte Hellman was born in 1932. By 1986 he made eight features, but had not directed for six years. I had made as many documentaries, but had not turned a foot of film through a camera for two years. I decided to break the silence by spending a day with him. Nine rolls were loaded into the camera. We talked until either we or the camera ran out.

Interview film with Monte Hellman.

Made for the Venice Film Festival's 70th anniversary, seventy filmmakers made a short film between 60 and 90 seconds long on their interpretation of the future of cinema.

A driver and mechanic drag racing for money cross paths with a female hitchhiker and a drifter who challenges them to a cross-country race.

Three cowboys, mistaken for members of an outlaw gang, are relentlessly pursued by a posse.

Three cowboys, mistaken for members of an outlaw gang, are relentlessly pursued by a posse.

Two miners agree to guide a mysterious woman, who has appeared in their camp from nowhere, to a nearby town; but soon, because of her erratic behavior, they begin to suspect that her true purpose is quite different.

Two miners agree to guide a mysterious woman, who has appeared in their camp from nowhere, to a nearby town; but soon, because of her erratic behavior, they begin to suspect that her true purpose is quite different.

Ricky Caldwell, the notorious 'Killer Santa Claus', awakens from a six-year coma after being kept alive on life-support by a slightly crazed doctor experimenting with ESP and other special abilities. Ricky targets a young, clairvoyant blind woman, named Laura, whom is traveling with her brother Chris, and his girlfriend Jerri to their grandmother's house for Christmas Eve, and Ricky decides to go after her, leaving a trail of dead bodies in his wake.

Trapped in a house of horror, seven people discover that the only way they'll get out alive is to tell their scariest stories.

A man who trains fighting cocks vows to remain silent until one of his birds wins a championship.

Gunslinger Clayton Drumm is about to be hanged when he is given a chance to live if he agrees to murder Matthew, a miner who has steadfastly refused to sell his land to the railroad company. Matthew’s refusal is a major obstacle to the railroad’s plans for expansion.

Gunslinger Clayton Drumm is about to be hanged when he is given a chance to live if he agrees to murder Matthew, a miner who has steadfastly refused to sell his land to the railroad company. Matthew’s refusal is a major obstacle to the railroad’s plans for expansion.

A passionate filmmaker creating a film based upon a true crime casts an unknown mysterious young woman bearing a disturbing resemblance to the femme fatale in the story. Unsuspectingly, he finds himself drawn into a complex web of haunting intrigue: he becomes obsessed with the woman, the crime, her possibly notorious past, and the disturbing complexity between art and truth. From the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina to Verona, Rome, and London, new truths are revealed and clues to other crimes and passions, darker and even more complex, are uncovered.

A passionate filmmaker creating a film based upon a true crime casts an unknown mysterious young woman bearing a disturbing resemblance to the femme fatale in the story. Unsuspectingly, he finds himself drawn into a complex web of haunting intrigue: he becomes obsessed with the woman, the crime, her possibly notorious past, and the disturbing complexity between art and truth. From the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina to Verona, Rome, and London, new truths are revealed and clues to other crimes and passions, darker and even more complex, are uncovered.

A gold thief and his gang use a skier's lodge and meet a monster covered with cobwebs.

A grotesquely disfigured harpooner called Iguana is severely mistreated by his fellow sailors on a whaling ship in the 19th century. One night he escapes and takes up residence on a remote island. He makes himself ruler of the island and declares war on mankind. Anyone unfortunate enough to wind up on the island with Iguana is subjected to his cruel tyranny.

A grotesquely disfigured harpooner called Iguana is severely mistreated by his fellow sailors on a whaling ship in the 19th century. One night he escapes and takes up residence on a remote island. He makes himself ruler of the island and declares war on mankind. Anyone unfortunate enough to wind up on the island with Iguana is subjected to his cruel tyranny.

During WWII, a three-man commando team places its trust in the hands of a band of Filipino resistors, as they try to knock out a Japenese communication center.

Set in 1950's Hollywood, two filmmakers become unlikely friends: Leo, who writes violent B-movies, and Stanley, a promising director. Nothing can come between them, until the day Stanley shows up with a mysterious girlfriend, Nina.

After a plane crash in the Philippine jungle, two men, one an avaricious killer who has come to the islands to search for a fortune in diamonds, the other an international adventurer, must somehow overcome their vast personal differences and desires to survive in the steamy wilderness.

An interview with the producers of Monte Hellman's 1971 film TWO-LANE BLACKTOP.

An interview with the producers of Monte Hellman's 1971 film TWO-LANE BLACKTOP.

Monte Hellman's short portrait of Francis Ford Coppola discussing business and craft at home and on the set of his Zoetrope Studios.

After not having seen each other in thirty-five years, Monte Hellman and James Taylor sat down for this conversation, recorded in the fall of 2007 in Massachusetts.

After not having seen each other in thirty-five years, Monte Hellman and James Taylor sat down for this conversation, recorded in the fall of 2007 in Massachusetts.