| New Hollywood | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Bonnie and Clyde (1967), one of the films that defined New Hollywood | |
| Years active | mid-1960s to early 1980s[1] |
| Location | United States |
| Influences | |
| Influenced | |
TheNew Hollywood,Hollywood Renaissance, orAmerican New Wave, was a movement inAmerican film history from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s,[1] when a new generation of filmmakers came to prominence. They influenced the types of film produced, their production and marketing, and the way major studios approached filmmaking.[7] In New Hollywood films, the film director, rather than the studio, took on a keyauthorial role.[8]
The definition of "New Hollywood" varies, depending on the author, with some defining it as a movement and others as a period. The span of the period is also a subject of debate, as well as its integrity, as some authors, such as Thomas Schatz, argue that the New Hollywood consists of several different movements. The films made in this movement are stylistically characterized in that their narrative often deviated fromclassical norms. After the demise of thestudio system and the rise of television, the commercial success of films was diminished.[8]
Successful films of the early New Hollywood era includeBonnie and Clyde,[9]The Graduate[10][11] andEasy Rider[12] while films whose box office failure marked the end of the era includeNew York, New York,Sorcerer,Heaven's Gate,They All Laughed, andOne from the Heart.[13][14][15]
It is also the name of a 1990NBC News special hosted byTom Brokaw about the then "new" Hollywood industry of the 1980s and early 1990s making epic mainstream blockbusters, personal mid-budget fare and smaller independent efforts.[21][22][23]
In fact,The Wild Angels was kind of a... it was a big success for theNew Hollywood. It wasRoger Corman, it wasPeter Fonda,Nancy Sinatra, it was a New Hollywood kind of movie, and it was very anti-the Old Hollywood, it was very hard-edged, violent, you know, it was not at all an Old Hollywood movie. And I didn't, I wasn't particularly aware of it. Then the following year wasBonnie and Clyde.Shadows had come out in the early '60s, so that was really the first sign of a kind of off-Hollywood movement.[24]
–Peter Bogdanovich
Following theParamount Case (which ended block booking and ownership of theater chains by film studios)[16][25] and the advent of television[26] (whereGore Vidal,Rod Serling,John Frankenheimer,Arthur Penn,Paddy Chayefsky andSidney Lumet worked in their earlier years)[36], both of which severely weakened both the traditionalstudio system[37][38] and the Motion Picture Production Code (or theHays Code), Hollywood studios initially used spectacle to retain profitability.Technicolor developed a far more widespread use, whilewidescreen processes and technical improvements, such asCinemaScope,stereo sound, and others, such as3-D, were invented to retain the dwindling audience and compete with television. However, these were generally unsuccessful in increasing profits.[39] By 1957,Life magazine called the 1950s "the horrible decade" for Hollywood. It was dubbed a "New Hollywood" by a press.[40]
In the 1950s and early 1960s, Hollywood was dominated by musicals, historical epics, and other films that benefited from the larger screens, wider framing, and improved sound. However, audience shares continued to dwindle, and had reached alarmingly low levels by the mid-1960s. Several costly flops, includingDoctor Dolittle,[41]Tora! Tora! Tora![42] and theJulie Andrews vehicleStar!, each failed attempts to replicate the success ofMary Poppins,Doctor Zhivago andThe Sound of Music, put great strain on the studios.[43][44][45] Both British and American press dismissed filmmakersAlfred Hitchcock andHoward Hawks as "frivolous entertainers and nothing more" while praising more respectable "models of American art films" likeStanley Kramer'sJudgment at Nuremberg.[3] American underground cinema was usually regarded as "marginal and parochial" even with the debut features ofJohn Cassavetes (Shadows in 1959) andShirley Clarke (The Connection in 1961)[46] as both were being praised byEsquire film criticDwight Macdonald (despite being hostile to other underground titles likeJonas Mekas's 1963 manifestationGuns of the Trees).[3]
By the time theBaby Boomer generation started to come of age in the mid-late 1960s, "Old Hollywood" was rapidly losing money; the studios were unsure how to react to the much-changed audience demographics. Thechange in the market during the period went from a middle-aged high school-educated audience in the mid-1960s to a younger, more affluent, college-educated demographic: by the mid-1970s, 76% of all movie-goers were under 30, 64% of whom had gone to college.[47]European films, both arthouse and commercial (especially theCommedia all'italiana, theFrench New Wave, theSpaghetti Western), andJapanese cinema[48] were making a splash in the United States – the huge market of disaffected youth seemed to find relevance and artistic meaning in movies likeMichelangelo Antonioni'sBlowup, with its oblique narrative structure and full-frontal female nudity.[49][50]
The desperation felt by studios during this period of economic downturn, and after the losses from expensive movie flops, led to innovation and risk-taking, allowing greater control by younger directors and producers.[51] Therefore, in an attempt to capture that audience that found a connection to the "art films" of Europe, the studios hired a host of young filmmakers and allowed them to make their films with relatively little studio control.[52] Some of whom, like actorJack Nicholson,Dennis Hopper (who also was the main lead inCurtis Harrington's 1961 supernatural thrillerNight Tide, distributed by Corman'sAmerican International Pictures)[53][54] and directorPeter Bogdanovich, were mentored by "King of the Bs"Roger Corman[55][4][56][57] while others like celebrated cinematographerVilmos Zsigmond worked for lesser-knownB movie directors likeRay Dennis Steckler, known for the 1962Arch Hall Jr. vehicleWild Guitar[58] and the 1963 horrormusical flickThe Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies.[59] This, together with the breakdown of the Hays Code[60][61] following theFreedman v. Maryland court case in 1965 and the new ratings system in 1968[62][63] (reflecting growing market segmentation) set the scene for the New Hollywood.[64]
A defining film of the New Hollywood generation wasBonnie and Clyde (1967).[9] Produced by and starringWarren Beatty and directed byArthur Penn, its combination of graphic violence and humor, as well as its theme of glamorous disaffected youth, was a hit with audiences. The film eventually wonAcademy Awards forBest Supporting Actress (Estelle Parsons)[65] andBest Cinematography.[66][67]
WhenJack L. Warner, then-CEO ofWarner Bros., first saw a rough cut ofBonnie and Clyde in the summer of 1967, he hated it. Distribution executives at Warner Brothers agreed, giving the film a low-key premiere and limited release. Their strategy appeared justified whenBosley Crowther,middlebrow film critic atThe New York Times, gave the movie a scathing review. "It is a cheap piece of bald-faced slapstick comedy," he wrote, "that treats the hideous depredations of that sleazy, moronic pair as though they were as full of fun and frolic as the jazz-age cut-ups inThoroughly Modern Millie..." Other notices, including those fromTime andNewsweek magazines, were equally dismissive.[68]
Its portrayal of violence and ambiguity in regard to moral values, and its startling ending, divided critics. Following one of the negative reviews,Time magazine received letters from fans of the movie, and according to journalistPeter Biskind, the impact of criticPauline Kael in her positive review of the film (October 1967,New Yorker) led other reviewers to follow her lead and re-evaluate the film (notablyNewsweek andTime).[69] Kael drew attention to the innocence of the characters in the film and the artistic merit of the contrast of that with the violence in the film: "In a sense, it is the absence of sadism — it is the violence without sadism — that throws the audience off balance atBonnie and Clyde. The brutality that comes out of this innocence is far more shocking than the calculated brutalities of mean killers." Kael also noted the reaction of audiences to the violent climax of the movie, and the potential to empathize with the gang of criminals in terms of their naiveté and innocence reflecting a change in expectations of American cinema.[70]
The cover story inTime magazine in December 1967, celebrated the movie and innovation in American New Wave cinema. This influential article byStefan Kanfer claimed thatBonnie and Clyde represented a "New Cinema" through its blurred genre lines, and disregard for honored aspects of plot and motivation, and that "In both conception and execution,Bonnie and Clyde is a watershed picture, the kind that signals a new style, a new trend."[50] Biskind states that this review and turnaround by some critics allowed the film to be re-released, thus proving its commercial success and reflecting the move toward the New Hollywood.[71] The impact of this film is important in understanding the rest of the American New Wave, as well as the conditions that were necessary for it.
Also released the same year was another era-defining hit about the celebration of youthful rebellionThe Graduate, starringAnne Bancroft andDustin Hoffman, with soundtrack by the popular folk duoSimon & Garfunkel[72][73][74] and directed byMike Nichols (for which he won the film's sole Oscar forBest Director), about Benjamin, a young college graduate rejecting the traditional values of his parents and their hypocritical society alongside a future in "plastics".[75][76]
These initial successes paved the way for the studio to relinquish almost complete control to these innovative young filmmakers. In the mid-1970s, idiosyncratic, startlingly original films such asPaper Moon,Dog Day Afternoon,Chinatown, andTaxi Driver, among others, enjoyed enormous critical and commercial success. These successes by the members of the New Hollywood led each of them in turn to make more and more extravagant demands, both on the studio and eventually on the audience.
.jpg)
.png)
The new generation of Hollywood filmmakers was most importantly, from the studios' view, young, therefore able to reach the youth audience they were losing. This collective of actors, screenwriters and directors, dubbed the "New Hollywood" by the press, briefly changed the business from the producer-driven Hollywood system of the past as Todd Berliner has written about the period's unusual narrative practices.[77]
The 1970s, Berliner says, marks Hollywood's most significant formal transformation since the conversion to sound film and is the defining period separating the storytelling modes of the studio era and contemporary Hollywood. New Hollywood films deviate from classical narrative norms more than Hollywood films from any other era or movement. Their narrative and stylistic devices threaten to derail an otherwise straightforward narration. Berliner argues that five principles govern the narrative strategies characteristic of Hollywood films of the 1970s:
Seventies cinema also dealt with female identity in the era ofsecond wave feminism, masculine crises featuring flawed male characters, downbeat conclusions and pessimistic subject matters[85] alongside emotional realism in female identity stories,[86] negative attitudes toward authoritative institutions and other aspects of American life[87][88] and hard-nosed depictions of an America reeling from tense conflicts likeThe Vietnam War and PresidentRichard Nixon'sWatergate scandal.[89][90][91] Some New Hollywood titles like Hopper'sacid western[92]The Last Movie andBrian De Palma's musicalPhantom of the Paradise had more eccentric characteristics including indulgent storylines and dizzying disregard of genre conventions.[93]
Thomas Schatz points to another difference with the Hollywood Golden Age, which deals with the relationship of characters and plot. He argues that plot in classical Hollywood films (and some of the earlier New Hollywood films likeThe Godfather) "tended to emerge more organically as a function of the drives, desires, motivations, and goals of the central characters". However, beginning with mid-1970s, he points to a trend where "characters became plot functions".[94]
During the height of the studio system, films were made almost exclusively on set in isolated studios. The content of films was limited by the Motion Picture Production Code, and though golden-age film-makers found loopholes in its rules, the discussion of more taboo content through film was effectively prevented. The shift towards a "new realism" was made possible when theMotion Picture Association of America film rating system was introduced andlocation shooting was becoming more viable.New York City was a favorite spot for this new set of filmmakers due to its gritty and grimy atmosphere.[95][96][97][98][99]
Because of breakthroughs in film technology (e.g. thePanavisionPanaflex camera, introduced in 1972; theSteadicam, introduced in 1976), the New Hollywood filmmakers could shoot 35mm camera film in exteriors with relative ease. Since location shooting was cheaper (no sets need to be built) New Hollywood filmmakers rapidly developed the taste for location shooting, resulting in a more naturalistic approach to filmmaking, especially when compared to the mostly stylized approach of classical Hollywood musicals and spectacles made to compete with television during the 1950s and early 1960s. The documentary films ofD.A. Pennebaker,Emile de Antonio,the Maysles Brothers andFrederick Wiseman, among others, also influenced filmmakers of this era.[100][101]
However, in editing, New Hollywood filmmakers adhered to realism more liberally than most of their classical Hollywood predecessors, often using editing for artistic purposes rather than for continuity alone, a practice inspired by European art films and classical Hollywood directors such asD. W. Griffith and Hitchcock. Films with unorthodox editing includedEasy Rider's use ofjump cuts (influenced by the works ofexperimentalcollage filmmakerBruce Conner)[102][103][104] to foreshadow the climax of the movie, as well as subtler uses, such as those to reflect the feeling of frustration inBonnie and Clyde, the subjectivity of the protagonist inThe Graduate and the passage of time in the famousmatch cut from2001: A Space Odyssey.[105][106] Dense sound design was also commonplace during this era.[107]
Also influential were the works of experimental andstructural filmmakersArthur Lipsett,[108]Stan Brakhage,[3]Bruce Baillie,[109]Jordan Belson,[110][111]John Whitney,[111]Scott Bartlett,[112]Maya Deren,[46]Andy Warhol,[100]Michael Snow andKenneth Anger[3] with their combinations of music and imagery and each were cited byGeorge Lucas,Francis Ford Coppola andMartin Scorsese as influences.[113][46] The New Hollywood generation of directors and screenwriters (each educated at eitherUSC,UCLA,NYU andAFI[114]) such as Coppola, Lucas, Scorsese,Steven Spielberg,John Milius andPaul Schrader[115] were sometimes jokingly labeled as "Movie Brats" or "Young Turks".[116]
The end of the production code enabled New Hollywood films to feature anti-establishment political themes, the use of rock music, and sexual freedom deemed "counter-cultural" by the studios.[117] The youth movement of the 1960s turned anti-heroes likeBonnie and Clyde andCool Hand Luke into pop-culture idols, andLife magazine called the characters inEasy Rider "part of the fundamental myth central to the counterculture of the late 1960s."[118]Easy Rider also affected the way studios looked to reach the youth market.[118] The success ofMidnight Cowboy, in spite of its "X" rating, was evidence for the interest in controversial themes at the time and also showed the weakness of the rating system and segmentation of the audience.[119]
For Peter Biskind, the new wave was foreshadowed byBonnie and Clyde and began in earnest withEasy Rider. Biskind's bookEasy Riders, Raging Bulls argues that the New Hollywood movement marked a significant shift towards independently produced and innovative works by a new wave of directors, but that this shift began to reverse itself when the commercial success ofJaws andStar Wars led to the realization by studios of the importance ofblockbusters, advertising and control over production (even though the success ofThe Godfather was said to be the precursor to the blockbuster phenomenon).[120][121]
Writing in 1968, criticPauline Kael argued that the importance ofThe Graduate was in its social significance in relation to a new young audience, and the role of mass media, rather than any artistic aspects. Kael argued that college students identifying withThe Graduate were not too different from audiences identifying with characters in dramas of the previous decade.[122] She also compared this era of cinema to "tangled, bitter flowering of American letters in the 1850s".[123]
FilmmakerQuentin Tarantino identified in his 2022 bookCinema Speculation that:[14]
"regular moviegoers were becoming weary of modern American movies. The darkness, the drug use, the embrace of sensation-the violence, the sex, and the sexual violence. But even more than that, they became weary of the anti-everything cynicism... Was everything a bummer? Was everything a drag? Was every movie about some guy with problems?"
In 1980, film historian/scholarRobert P. Kolker examined New Hollywood film directors in his bookA Cinema of Loneliness: Penn, Kubrick, Coppola, Scorsese, Altman, and how their films influenced American society of the 1960s and 1970s.[124] Kolker observed that "for all the challenge and adventure, their films speak to a continual impotence in the world, an inability to change and to create change."[125]
John Belton points to the changing demographic to even younger, more conservative audiences in the mid 1970s (50% aged 12–20) and the move to less politically subversive themes in mainstream cinema,[126] as did Thomas Schatz, who saw the mid- to late 1970s as the decline of the art cinema movement as a significant industry force with its peak in 1974–75 withNashville andChinatown.[127]
Geoff King sees the period as an interim movement in American cinema where a conjunction of forces led to a measure of freedom in filmmaking yet also pointed out that scholarships about the era tend to center on two versions: the auteur-driven indie and blockbuster eras.[128][129] Todd Berliner says that 70s cinema resists the efficiency and harmony that normally characterize classical Hollywood cinema and tests the limits of Hollywood's classical model.[130]
According to author and film critic Charles Taylor (Opening Wednesday at a Theater or Drive-In Near You), he stated that "the 1970s remain the third — and, to date, last — great period in American movies".[131] Author and film criticDavid Thomson also shared similar sentiments, to the point of dubbing the era "the decade when movies mattered".[123]
Video essayist Leigh Singer wrote that this celebrated period revered the epic dramas and serious state-of-the-nation addresses "made by homebred auteurs" (The Last Picture Show,The Godfather,Chinatown,Nashville,Network andTaxi Driver) over less respectable genre pictures.[132]
Author A.D. Jameson (I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing), on the other hand, claimed thatStar Wars was New Hollywood's finest achievement that actually embodied the characteristics of the respected "serious, sophisticated adult films" while questioning the often-told critical narrative of said "last great decade of American cinema".[133][134]
Author Julie A. Turnock, in her bookPlastic Reality, stated that one common explanation as to why bothStar Wars andClose Encounters succeeded was that each film offered hopeful optimism for troubling times as opposed to the "doom and gloom" cinema of the era that audiences were getting tired of with emphasis on mistrust in authority, pessimistic and fatalistic views of the future and anti-heroic aimlessness.[135]
Nathan Rabin, writing for an article commemorating the movie's 40th anniversary at Boston.com in 2015, contested thatJaws, despite being labeled by conventional wisdom as the film that killed the quirky New Hollywood, didn't feel like one by today's vantage point.[136]
TheAustrian Film Museum, which held a 2013 program entitledThe Real Eighties featuring some New Hollywood titles likeThe King of Comedy,Blow Out andAmerican Gigolo, stated that:[137]
All ills spring from the 1980s. A transitional decade that witnessed the film industry’s restructuring along the lines of President Reagan’s neoliberal agenda, the eighties did away with the last remnants of New Hollywood while laying the foundations for today’s High Concept wasteland – thus goes an all too familiar tale of decline. The retrospectiveThe Real Eighties questions this commonplace of film history and sides with the mainstream of Hollywood cinema: filmic realisms of the 1980s – in immediate proximity to the dream factories of Steven Spielberg or George Lucas, yet at odds with the decade’s political and aesthetic imperatives – await rediscovery.
Daniel Joyaux, writing forRoger Ebert.com on theCriterion Collection's 2024 release of the 1983Tom Cruise classicRisky Business, shared similar concerns:[138]
There’s a long-held belief about Hollywood history that, from basically the momentHeaven’s Gate nearly bankrupted United Artists in 1980 to the momentSex, Lies, and Videotape kicked off the indie boom of the ‘90s, studio executives had an almost pathological aversion to any movie with artistic ambition. There’s at least some truth to this, and seminal texts like Peter Biskind’s 1998 bookEasy Riders, Raging Bulls have cooked those kernels of truth into a full-blown mythologizing of ‘70s and ‘90s Hollywood, while the ‘80s remain largely dismissed as a creative wasteland.
Steven Hyden, writing forGrantland, called the Movie Brats the "cinematic version" ofclassic rock, to the point of roll calling Spielberg asthe Beatles, Scorsese asthe Velvet Underground, Coppola asBob Dylan, Lucas asPink Floyd,Robert Altman asNeil Young,Brian De Palma asLed Zeppelin, Bogdanovich asthe Beach Boys andHal Ashby asthe Kinks.[83]
Paul Thomas Anderson's 1997 filmBoogie Nights, aboutthe "golden age" of theadult film industry, can be seen as an allegory of the demise of this era.[139]
Los Angeles Times article film criticManohla Dargis described New Hollywood as the "halcyon age" of 1970s filmmaking, that "was less revolution than business as usual, with rebel hype".[140] She also pointed out in herNew York Times article that the era's enthusiasts insist this was "when American movies grew up (or at least starred underdressed actresses); when directors did what they wanted (or at least were transformed into brands); when creativity ruled (or at least ran gloriously amok, albeit often on the studio's dime)."[141]
Molly Haskell, in her bookFrom Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies, described how this era of cinema "with its successive revelations, progressed like a stripper, though awkwardly—like a novice in a hurry to get off the stage".[142]
This era was also infamous for its excessivedecadence and on-set mishaps (as was the case forApocalypse Now when the tumultuous production was documented byEleanor Coppola which in turn became her 1991 documentaryHearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse).[148] Incidents plaguing the behind-the-scenes of some of the horror films from this era (such asRosemary's Baby,The Exorcist,Twilight Zone: The Movie,Poltergeist andThe Omen) were also the subjects for the docuseriesCursed Films.[154] Even Spielberg, who co-directed/co-producedTwilight Zone withJohn Landis, was so disgusted by the latter's handling of adeadly helicopter accident that resulted in the death of three actors, that he ended their friendship and publicly called for the end of New Hollywood.[155] (De Palma and Friedkin shared similar sentiments about the crash.[156]) When approached by the press about the accident, he stated:[157]
"No movie is worth dying for. I think people are standing up much more now, than ever before, to producers and directors who ask too much. If something isn't safe, it's the right and responsibility of every actor or crew member to yell, 'Cut!'
Turner Classic Movies personality John Malahy, in his bookRewinding the '80s,[158] noted that a growing problem with this era was the director's ego spending millions on elaborate cinematic dreams that almost no one shared (e.g. Cimino'sHeaven's Gate).[159]
TheGolden Raspberry Awards — better known as The Razzies — emerged during the twilight of this era dishonoring productions such as Freidkin'sCruising and Cimino'sHeaven's Gate alongside two megamusicals responsible for setting up the awards:Xanadu andCan't Stop the Music, the latter of which eventually became the first recipient ofGolden Raspberry Award for Worst Picture).[160][161]
The films of New Hollywood influenced future mainstream[133] and independent filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino,Edgar Wright,Paul Thomas Anderson andNoah Baumbach.[162][83][132]Todd Phillips's 2019DC Comics adaptationJoker, alongside the film's period setting, was inspired by the Martin Scorsese classicsTaxi Driver andThe King of Comedy,[163] whileAlexander Payne's 2023 filmThe Holdovers took inspiration from Ashby's works.[164] Tarantino's 2019 Academy Award-winningOnce Upon a Time in Hollywood lamented the end of the Golden Age while signalling the beginning of this era.[165]The Godfather Part III;Texasville; andThe Two Jakes—each released in 1990—count as "sequels" to three New Hollywood classics, respectively:The Godfather Part II;The Last Picture Show; andChinatown. (The sequels were directed respectively by Francis Ford Coppola; Peter Bogdanovich; and Jack Nicholson, who played the lead in Polanski's 1974neo-noir and reprises his role here inThe Two Jakes.[166][167]
Such films also influenced both thePoliziotteschi genre films in Italy,[168][169] and a decade later theCinéma du look movement in France.[170] The narrative for the 1983 Britishshot-on-video filmSuffer Little Children was influenced in part by Brian De Palma'sCarrie and John Carpenter'sHalloween.[171]
American Eccentric Cinema has been noted as influenced by this era. Both traditions have similar themes and narratives of existentialism and the need for human interaction. New Hollywood focuses on the darker elements of humanity and society within the context of theAmerican Dream in the mid-1960s to the early 1980s, with themes that were reflective of sociocultural issues and were centered around the potential meaninglessness of pursuing the American Dream as generation upon generation was motivated to possess it. In comparison, American Eccentric Cinema does not have a distinct context, as its films show characters who are very individual and their concerns are very distinctive to their own personalities.[172]
The New American Cinema has been ripe for parody, as inPeter Jackson's 1989Muppet satireMeet the Feebles (spoofing theRussian Roulette scene fromThe Deer Hunter);[173]Ernie Fosselius's spoofsHardware Wars (1978)[174] andPorklips Now (1980);[175]Jim Reardon's cult 1986 animated student filmBring Me the Head of Charlie Brown, spoofingTaxi Driver,The Wild Bunch, andBring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia;[176] and Canadianvideo artistTodd Graham's 1987 cultfan filmApocalypse Pooh, a bizarrely comedicmash-up of Disney'sWinnie the Pooh and Coppola'sApocalypse Now.[177][178][179]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)| By style |
|
|---|---|
| By theme |
|
| By movement or period |
|
| By demographic | |
| By format, technique, approach, or production |
|
