Bob Rafelson Appreciation: As Producer and Director, He Helped Craft the New Hollywood

thewrap.com:

The recent limited series “The Offer” reminded viewers that before Albert S. Ruddy was taken seriously as the producer of “The Godfather,” he was often dismissed as the guy who created “Hogan’s Heroes.” Similarly, another key architect of the New Hollywood of the 1970s — director and producer Bob Rafelson — would find himself earning greater respect as the man behind such iconic, essential American films as “Five Easy Pieces,” “The Last Picture Show” and “Easy Rider” than as one of the creators of “The Monkees.”The difference, of course, is that “Hogan’s Heroes” is the kind of old sitcom contemporary audiences would call “problematic,” while “The Monkees” has endured both as a screwball piece of television and as the launching pad for a band that’s beloved to this day.

It’s a show that also launched Rafelson into his directorial debut, 1968’s “Head,” a brilliant deconstruction of the “pre-fab four” that was too weird for kids who loved the Monkees and not cool enough for cineastes who wouldn’t be caught dead at a Monkees movie.Time has been kind to “Head,” but it’s not the first time that Rafelson would be ahead of the curve.

Born in 1933 in New York City — his one connection to show business being his uncle (or first cousin once removed, depending on the account) Samson Raphaelson, a screenwriter of early talkies including “The Jazz Singer” — Rafelson embraced la vie bohème long before the Summer of Love, frequently running away from home as a teenager to take up rodeo-riding in Arizona or playing in an Acapulco jazz combo.Drafted after his graduation from Dartmouth, he served in Japan and fell in love with the films of Yasujirô Ozu, focusing on the filmmaker’s legendary stillness of tone and deliberate compositions..