Plastic Reality: Special Effects, Technology, and the Emergence of 1970s Blockbuster Aesthetics

Julie A. Turnock tracks the use and evolution of special effects in 1970s filmmaking, a development as revolutionary to film as the form's transition to sound in the 1920s. Beginning with the classical studio era's early approaches to special effects, she follows the industry's slow build toward the significant advances of the late 1960s and early 1970s, which set the stage for the groundbreaking achievements of 1977.

Turnock analyzes the far-reaching impact of the convincing, absorbing, an...