Information about New Hollywood
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.
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.
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.
On realizing potentially how much money could be made in films, major corporations started buying up the Hollywood studios. The corporate mentality these companies brought to the filmmaking business would slowly squeeze out the more idiosyncratic of these young filmmakers, while ensconcing the more malleable and commercially successful of them.
The New Hollywood's ultimate demise came after a string of box office failures that many critics viewed as self-indulgent and excessive. Directors had enjoyed unprecedented creative control and budgets during the New Hollywood era, but expensive flops including At Long Last Love, New York, New York, and Sorcerer caused the studios to increase their control over productions.
New Hollywood excess culminated in two unmitigated financial disasters: Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate (1980) and Francis Ford Coppola's One from the Heart (1982). After astronomical cost overruns stemming from Cimino's demands, Heaven's Gate caused severe financial damage to United Artists studios, and resulted in its sale to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Coppola, having flourished after the near financial disaster of Apocalypse Now, plowed all of the enormous success of that film into American Zoetrope, effectively becoming his own studio head. As such, he bet it all on One from the Heart, which closed in less than a week, bankrupting Coppola and his fledgling studio. (Following the box-office disaster, Hollywood wags started referring to the picture as "One Through the Heart".)
These two costly examples, as well as the above-mentioned box-office failures, coupled with the new commercial paradigm of Jaws and gave studios a clear and renewed sense of where the market was going: high-concept, mass-audience, wide-release films. Therefore, the costly and risky strategy of surrendering control to the director ended, and with that, the New Hollywood era.
The exploits of the New Hollywood generation are infamously chronicled in the book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls by Peter Biskind.
However, this is not the case. The New Hollywood generation was firmly entrenched in the studio system, which financed the development, production and distribution of their films. None of them ever independently financed or independently released a film of their own, or ever worked on an independently financed production during the height of the generation's influence. Seemingly "independent" films such as Taxi Driver, Midnight Cowboy, The Last Picture Show and others were all studio films: the scripts were based on studio pitches and subsequently paid for by the studios, the production financing was from the studio, and the marketing and distribution of the films were designed and controlled by the studio.
There were only two truly independent movies of the New Hollywood generation: Easy Rider in 1969, at the beginning of the period, and Bogdanovich's They All Laughed, at the end. Peter Bogdanovich bought back the rights from the studio to his 1980 film and paid for its distribution out of his own pocket, convinced that the picture was better than what the studio believed — he eventually went bankrupt because of this.
Truly independent filmmakers such as John Cassavetes George Romero and Melvin Van Peebles — who secured outside financing and filmed their own scripts — were never a part of the New Hollywood generation, and should not be considered as such.
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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. Technically, 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.
The close of the New Hollywood era
Jaws in 1975 and in 1977, retrospectively, marked the beginning of the end for New Hollywood. With their unprecedented box-office successes, Steven Spielberg's Jaws and George Lucas's Star Wars jumpstarted Hollywood's blockbuster mentality, giving studios a new paradigm as to how to make money in this changing commercial landscape. The focus on high-concept premises, with greater concentration on tie-in merchandise (such as toys), spin-offs into other media (such as soundtracks), and the use of sequels (which had been made more respectable by Coppola's The Godfather Part II), all showed the studios how to make money in the new environment.On realizing potentially how much money could be made in films, major corporations started buying up the Hollywood studios. The corporate mentality these companies brought to the filmmaking business would slowly squeeze out the more idiosyncratic of these young filmmakers, while ensconcing the more malleable and commercially successful of them.
The New Hollywood's ultimate demise came after a string of box office failures that many critics viewed as self-indulgent and excessive. Directors had enjoyed unprecedented creative control and budgets during the New Hollywood era, but expensive flops including At Long Last Love, New York, New York, and Sorcerer caused the studios to increase their control over productions.
New Hollywood excess culminated in two unmitigated financial disasters: Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate (1980) and Francis Ford Coppola's One from the Heart (1982). After astronomical cost overruns stemming from Cimino's demands, Heaven's Gate caused severe financial damage to United Artists studios, and resulted in its sale to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Coppola, having flourished after the near financial disaster of Apocalypse Now, plowed all of the enormous success of that film into American Zoetrope, effectively becoming his own studio head. As such, he bet it all on One from the Heart, which closed in less than a week, bankrupting Coppola and his fledgling studio. (Following the box-office disaster, Hollywood wags started referring to the picture as "One Through the Heart".)
These two costly examples, as well as the above-mentioned box-office failures, coupled with the new commercial paradigm of Jaws and gave studios a clear and renewed sense of where the market was going: high-concept, mass-audience, wide-release films. Therefore, the costly and risky strategy of surrendering control to the director ended, and with that, the New Hollywood era.
The exploits of the New Hollywood generation are infamously chronicled in the book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls by Peter Biskind.
New Hollywood and independent filmmaking
It can often seem that the members of the New Hollywood generation were independent filmmakers. Indeed, some of their members have tacitly signaled that they were the precursors of the independent film movement of the 1990s.However, this is not the case. The New Hollywood generation was firmly entrenched in the studio system, which financed the development, production and distribution of their films. None of them ever independently financed or independently released a film of their own, or ever worked on an independently financed production during the height of the generation's influence. Seemingly "independent" films such as Taxi Driver, Midnight Cowboy, The Last Picture Show and others were all studio films: the scripts were based on studio pitches and subsequently paid for by the studios, the production financing was from the studio, and the marketing and distribution of the films were designed and controlled by the studio.
There were only two truly independent movies of the New Hollywood generation: Easy Rider in 1969, at the beginning of the period, and Bogdanovich's They All Laughed, at the end. Peter Bogdanovich bought back the rights from the studio to his 1980 film and paid for its distribution out of his own pocket, convinced that the picture was better than what the studio believed — he eventually went bankrupt because of this.
Truly independent filmmakers such as John Cassavetes George Romero and Melvin Van Peebles — who secured outside financing and filmed their own scripts — were never a part of the New Hollywood generation, and should not be considered as such.
List of important figures in the New Hollywood era
Many of the filmmakers listed below did multiple chores on various film productions through their careers. They are here listed by the category they are most readily recognized as.Writers and directors
Cinematographers, editors, and production designers
Producers and executives
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Actors
Others
- Pauline Kael, movie critic
- Sue Mengers, agent
List of notable New Hollywood films
The following is a chronological list of those films from the New Hollywood period that are generally considered to be seminal or notable. (For a more comprehensive list of films from the period, see List of films from the New Hollywood era.)See also
Bibliography
Peter Biskind's Easy Riders, Raging BullsExternal links
Classical Hollywood cinema or the classical Hollywood narrative[1], are terms used in film history which designates both a visual and sound style for making motion pictures and a mode of production that arose in the American film industry of the 1910s and 1920s.
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-1967- 1968 1969 1970 1971 . 1972 . 1973 . 1974 . 1975 . 1976 . 1977
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IMDb profile
Bonnie and Clyde (1967) is a film about Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, the bank robbers who roamed the central United States during the Great Depression.
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Bonnie and Clyde (1967) is a film about Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, the bank robbers who roamed the central United States during the Great Depression.
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The Graduate is a 1967 film directed by Mike Nichols based on novel of the same name by Charles Webb, who wrote the piece shortly after graduating from Williams College.
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The Graduate is a 1967 film directed by Mike Nichols based on novel of the same name by Charles Webb, who wrote the piece shortly after graduating from Williams College.
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-1982- 1983 1984 1985 1986 . 1987 . 1988 . 1989 . 1990 . 1991 . 1992
In home video: 1979 1980 1981 -1982- 1983 1984 1985
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In home video: 1979 1980 1981 -1982- 1983 1984 1985
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One from the Heart is a 1982 musical film directed by Francis Ford Coppola. It is set entirely in Las Vegas, on the Las Vegas Strip and the desert surrounding the city.
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One from the Heart is a 1982 musical film directed by Francis Ford Coppola. It is set entirely in Las Vegas, on the Las Vegas Strip and the desert surrounding the city.
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An independent film, or indie film, is usually a low-budget film that is produced by a small movie studio. Additionally, the term is used to describe less commercially-driven art films which differ markedly from the norms of plot-driven, mainstream classical Hollywood cinema.
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United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc.
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued Feb. 9-11, 1948
Decided May 3, 1948
Full case name: United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. et al
Citations: 334 U.S.
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Supreme Court of the United States
Argued Feb. 9-11, 1948
Decided May 3, 1948
Full case name: United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. et al
Citations: 334 U.S.
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CinemaScope was a widescreen movie format used from 1953 to 1967. Anamorphic lenses allowed the process to project film up to a 2.66:1 aspect ratio, twice as wide as the conventional format of 1.33:1.
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Cleopatra is a 1963 film directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. The screenplay was adapted by Sidney Buchman, Ben Hecht, Ranald MacDougall, and Joseph L. Mankiewicz from a book by Carlo Mario Franzero.
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Cleopatra is a 1963 film directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. The screenplay was adapted by Sidney Buchman, Ben Hecht, Ranald MacDougall, and Joseph L. Mankiewicz from a book by Carlo Mario Franzero.
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IMDb profile
Hello, Dolly! is a 1969 American musical film, based on the Broadway production of the same name. Gene Kelly directed producer Ernest Lehman's screenplay.
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Hello, Dolly! is a 1969 American musical film, based on the Broadway production of the same name. Gene Kelly directed producer Ernest Lehman's screenplay.
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baby boomer is a person born between 1946 and 1964 in Australia, United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. Following World War II, these countries experienced an unusual spike in birth rates, a phenomenon commonly known as the baby boom.
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art film (also called an “art cinema”, “art movie”, or in the US, an "independent film" or “art house film”) is a typically serious, noncommercial, independently made film that is aimed at a niche audience, rather than a mass audience.
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New Wave (French: La Nouvelle Vague) was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced (in part) by Italian Neorealism.
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1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
Japanese cinema (映画; Eiga) has a history in Japan that spans more than 100 years.
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1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
Japanese cinema (映画; Eiga) has a history in Japan that spans more than 100 years.
Genres
- Anime: Animation.
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Michelangelo Antonioni
Michelangelo Antonioni
Born September 29 1912
Ferrara, Italy
Died July 30 2007 (aged 96)
Rome, Italy
Years active
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Michelangelo Antonioni
Born September 29 1912
Ferrara, Italy
Died July 30 2007 (aged 96)
Rome, Italy
Years active
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Blowup (also rendered as Blow-Up) is an award-winning 1966 British-Italian art film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and was that director's first English language film.
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Blowup (also rendered as Blow-Up) is an award-winning 1966 British-Italian art film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and was that director's first English language film.
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Roger William Corman (born April 5 1926), sometimes nicknamed "King of the Bs" for his output of B-movies (though he himself rejects this appellation as inaccurate), is a prolific American producer and director of low-budget exploitation movies.
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- For the indie rock band, see Film School (band).
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actor, actress, or player (see terminology) is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity.
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Screenwriters, scenarists, or script writers, are authors who write the screenplays from which movies and television programs are made. Many of them also work as "script doctors," attempting to change scripts to suit directors or studios; for instance, studio
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film director is a person who directs the making of a film.[1] A film director visualizes the script, controlling a film's artistic and dramatic aspects, while guiding the technical crew and actors in the fulfillment of his or her vision.
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A film producer creates the conditions for making movies. The producer initiates, coordinates, supervises and controls matters such as fundraising, hiring key personnel, and arranging for distributors.
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Rock music is a form of popular music with a prominent vocal melody accompanied by guitar, drums, and bass. Many styles of rock music also use keyboard instruments such as organ, piano, or synthesizers.
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Lysergic acid diethylamide, LSD, LSD-25, or acid, is a semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the tryptamine family. Probably the best known psychedelic, it has been used mainly as; a recreational drug, an entheogen, and a tool to aid various methods for
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Cannabis, also known as marijuana[1] or ganja,[2] is a psychoactive product of the plant Cannabis sativa L. subsp. indica (= C. indica Lam.).
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IMDb profile
Bonnie and Clyde (1967) is a film about Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, the bank robbers who roamed the central United States during the Great Depression.
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Bonnie and Clyde (1967) is a film about Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, the bank robbers who roamed the central United States during the Great Depression.
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Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty at the 1990 Academy Awards. Photo by Alan Light.
Birth name Henry Warren Beaty
Born March 30 1937
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Warren Beatty at the 1990 Academy Awards. Photo by Alan Light.
Birth name Henry Warren Beaty
Born March 30 1937
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The Graduate is a 1967 film directed by Mike Nichols based on novel of the same name by Charles Webb, who wrote the piece shortly after graduating from Williams College.
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IMDb profile
The Graduate is a 1967 film directed by Mike Nichols based on novel of the same name by Charles Webb, who wrote the piece shortly after graduating from Williams College.
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