New Hollywood

2007-12-27T01:43:00.000-08:00

New Hollywood or post-classical Hollywood refers to the brief time between roughly 1967 (Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate) and 1982 (One from the Heart) when a new generation of young filmmakers came to prominence in America, drastically changing not only the way Hollywood films were produced and marketed, but also the kinds of films that were made. These individuals and the films they made were part of the studio system, and were not "independent filmmakers" as sometimes they have been erroneously considered

Background and overview
Following the advent of television and the Paramount Case, which nearly broke the movie business, traditional Hollywood Studios first tried to lure audiences with spectacle. Widescreen processes and technical improvements, such as Cinemascope, stereo sound and others, were invented in order to retain the dwindling audience by giving them a larger-than-life experience.

Hence during the Fifties and early Sixties, Hollywood film production was dominated by musicals, historical epics, and other films that benefited from the larger screens, wider framing and improved sound. This proved commercially viable during most of the 1950s. However, by the late Sixties, audience share was dwindling at an alarming rate. Several costly flops, including Cleopatra and Hello, Dolly! put severe strain on the studios.

A problem the Studios all recognized was that they did not know how to reach the youth audience. By the time the baby boomer generation was coming of age in the 1960s and 1970s, Old Hollywood was hemorrhaging money; they had no idea what the audience wanted. European art films, especially the French New Wave, and Japanese cinema, were all making a splash in America — the huge market of disaffected youth seemed to find something of themselves when they saw movies like Michelangelo Antonioni's Blowup, with its oblique narrative structure and full-frontal female nudity. Studio heads were baffled. Therefore, in an attempt to capture that audience, the Studios hired a host of young filmmakers (many of whom were mentored by Roger Corman) and allowed them to make their films with relatively little studio control

Characteristics of the New Hollywood films
This new generation of Hollywood filmmaker was film school-educated, counterculture-bred, and, most importantly from the point of view of the studios, young, and therefore able to reach the youth audience they were losing, or so they hoped. This group of young filmmakers — actors, writers and directors — dubbed the New Hollywood by the press, briefly changed the business from the producer-driven Hollywood system of the past, and injected movies with a jolt of freshness, energy, sexuality, and an obsessive passion for film itself.

Poster for Bonnie & ClydeTechnically, the greatest change the New Hollywood filmmakers brought to the artform was an emphasis on realism. This happened because these filmmakers happened on the scene just as the Motion Picture Association of America film rating system was introduced and location shooting was becoming more viable. Because of breakthroughs in film technology, specifically smaller microphones that could be hidden in clothing, lighter cameras that did not require heavy support gear, and simpler post-production systems, the New Hollywood filmmakers could shoot 35mm in exteriors with relative ease. Since location shooting was, by definition, cheaper (no sets need be built to shoot an existing exterior), New Hollywood filmmakers rapidly developed the taste for location shooting, which had the effect of heightening the realism of their films, especially when compared to the artificiality of previous musicals and spectacles. Aside from realism, often their films featured anti-establishment political themes, use of rock music, and sexual freedom deemed "counter-cultural" by the studios. Furthermore, many figures of the period openly admit to using drugs such as LSD and marijuana.

The most important picture for the New Hollywood generation was Bonnie & Clyde. Produced by Warren Beatty, its mix of humor and horror, graphic violence and sex, as well as its theme of glamorous disaffected youth was an unqualified hit with audiences. The Graduate, Easy Rider and Midnight Cowboy followed in quick succession, all of them major successes, Midnight Cowboy earning the Academy Award for best picture.

These initial successes paved the way for the studio to relinquish almost complete control to these brash young filmmakers. In the mid-1970s, idiosyncratic, startling original films such as Paper Moon, Dog Day Afternoon and Taxi Driver among others (see below), enjoyed enormous critical and commercial success. These successes by the members of New Hollywood led each of them in turn to make more and more extravagant demands, both on the studio and eventually on the audience.

Latest holly wood movies

New Hollywood