Crisis of Liberalism: "Soylent Green" and "Chinatown"

In "Genre Transformations and the Failure of Liberalism", by Michael Ryan and Douglas Kellner, films of the seventies can be seen as a sort of barometer for the social and political attitudes of the time. Ryan and Kellner describe the general attitude by saying "Previously respected institutions like government and business were cast in a negative light, and the crisis of confidence gave rise to a confidence of criticism. Indeed, it was what conservatives later would call the spirit of 'self-flagellation,' the liberal and radical critique of American society which culminated in the mid-sev…