The Gritty Films of 60s and 70s New York

In 1966 the Mayor's Office of Film was established to try and encourage local filmmaking, in the hopes that it might help boost the economy. What resulted were films that presented a raw and unfiltered version of the city on the edge of crisis. Starting April 1, the Criterion Channel will feature a collection of films under the headline "Fun City: NYC Woos Hollywood, Flirts with Disaster," featuring films like "Dog Day Afternoon," "Cotton Comes to Harlem," "The Panic in Needle Park," and more. Writer and film critic J. Hoberman, who served as a film critic for the Village Voice and curated the Criterion series, discusses this period of film history. Hoberman’s forthcoming book is called The 1960s New York Avant-Garde: Primal Happenings, Underground Movies, Radical Pop.