But I really think there was something about the directors that came to rise in the 70's, given God-like power in a time of so-called liberation and next excess, that found a number of them enacting their fetishes and hostilities on actresses and audiences alike (De Palma, Schrader, even Arthur Penn and Coppola). It might have made for good therapy at the time, but their films don't hold up all that well decades down the line.