Taking on no less a subject than the birth of Hollywood, Bogdanovich’s long-gestating dream project is both a summation of his early work and the last of his Seventies films to nostalgically revive old cinema genres, styles and history. With a narrative derived in part from anecdotes told to Bogdanovich during interviews with Raoul Walsh, Leo McCarey and Allan Dwan, Nickelodeon is a continuation of his fascination with the filmmaking process and a celebration of the slapstick innovation, camera trickery and improvisation that defined early American silent cinema. Bogdanovich goes so far as to include scenes from D.W. Griffith’s groundbreaking Birth of a Nation, allowing his characters to marvel at the technical ingenuity that forever changed American film.