New Hollywood

The Nouvel Hollywood indicates a cinematographic movement American of the end of the Années 1960 at the beginning of the Années 1980, which modernized to a significant degree the production of films with Hollywood. This cinema, registered in the Counter-culture and influenced by the Italian Néoréalisme and the French New wave, is characterized by the takeover of the Réalisateur S within the large American studios and the representation under a new radicality of topics then Tabou S like the Violence or the Sexualité. New Hollywood also renewed the traditional kinds of the American cinema (Western, Black film) or the “déconstruisit” while being freed from conventions of those.

The relatively short period of New Hollywood is regarded as one of the most important phases of the cinema from the artistic point of view, and revealed many realizers like Francis Ford Coppola or Martin Scorsese.

“Old Hollywood”

The Golden age

One often indicates the traditional era of the American cinema preceding New Hollywood by the “golden age”, in reference to the cinema produced by the majors of the beginning of the Années 1930 at the end of the Années 1950. The films were marked by the production structures and the cinematographic kinds, which had been assembled as of the time of the Silent film, just like the star system of the “industry of the dream”. Many films of the golden age were classified according to a well defined kind (Comédie, Western, Film of adventures…) who comprised his stars identified well (Cary Grant for the comedy, John Wayne for the western, Errol Flynn for film of adventures). During decades, the majors controlled all the line production, of the writing to its Distribution, including the Montage.

This system of production was productive as well commercially as artistically. In spite of this automation in the development of films, of the realizers of reputation like Frank Capra, Howard Hawks, John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, John Huston or Billy Wilder there created their films of reference and founded new styles. À this time, much of best the Realizer S, Scenario writer S, Actor S, chiefs operator and Type-setter S, of all nationalities, worked in Hollywood, in particular thanks to a certain comfort of work. The technical quality of films was of a notable level.

But the formula of success was variable, and, on arrival of the Télévision, Hollywood felt threatened and retorted by producing monumental epopees like the Ten Commands or Ben Hur , and by inventing or popularizing new technical innovations like the Cinémascope. Many films of “old Hollywood” were held in a idealized world and met the need of a public in search of entertainment which did not want to be confronted with social reality.

The crisis

At the beginning of the Years 1960, the “dream factory” Hollywood, and the receipts which had proven reliable, reached the dead point. The career of realizers of reputation like Alfred Hitchcock or John Ford declined, and the stars of the “Golden age” either had died (Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper), or on the return (Cary Grant, John Wayne). The leaders all of the studios, very old like Jack Warner, occupied these stations since the era of the Silent film and had lost any contact with the social reality of then. More and more of films were produced for a public which did not exist any more, and, in a desperate attempt to reconquer it, the studios engaged of the immense sums in “monumental films” or musical comedies artistically not very convincing, which the public did not want to see any more. The time of an in-depth restoration had arrived.

New Hollywood is involved

The first successes

The artistic vacuum that one could see in Hollywood in the middle of the Années 1960 made it possible young scenario writers to establish a new manner of making cinema. In 1967, Arthur PEN carried out with Bonnie and Clyde a Film of gangsters whose position skeptic anti Establishment, breaking taboos of Hollywood, a lyric style of narration and modern met the spirit of its time. The same year, Mike Nichols allured with her film the Prize winner , in whom Dustin Hoffman, which appeared with the public and the critic with this film, camped a character in rebellion against the tedious, vitiated world and “middle-class man” of the generation of his parents.

The first great success which New Hollywood recorded was the Road movie Easy Rider Dennis Hopper (1969), putting in scene the tour of Hippie S - interpreted by Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson - in the middle of preserving and racist deep America. Easy Rider , which had cost some: 400000 dollars, was accommodated with enthusiasm by the “generation Woodstock” and met an enormous business success throughout the world, gaining 20 million dollars roughly.

The realizer Robert Altman, officiating then with the Television, turned into full war with Vietnam M*A*S*H (1970), a caustic satire and antimilitarist on the Guerre of Korea, where the heroes (whose Donald Sutherland) carries out the military code until the absurdity.

Old the assembler Hal Ashby carried out Harold and Maude and the Last drudgery two films of New Hollywood with a clean glance on the behaviors in company. John Cassavetes, which played in commercial productions ( The Dirty Dozen ), filmed like realizer the crises and Névrose S of the quadragénaires of the American middle-class ( Faces , 1968).

Western

The senior realizer of Hollywood Sam Peckinpah signed some Western S of third generation inimitable, poetic and pessimistic like the wild Horde or Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid . The sympathy of Peckinpah went to the Hors-la-loi in situation of failure - following the example tenderizing gangsters of Butch Cassidy and Kid of George Roy Hill (1969) - in front of a State the Almighty which will cut down them without pity. In Little Big Man (1969), “antiwestern” satirical and diverting, Dustin Hoffman incarnates a friendly Anti-héros in the middle of the Indian Guerres. The sympathetic nerves Indiens of film contrast with the representation of the national hero George Armstrong Custer in psychopathe brutal.

In John McCabe (1971), Robert Altman is freed from all the rules of the kind and traces the portrait of a disillusioned Aventurier in a muddy city of the West. In The Missouri Station-wagons of Arthur PEN (1975), Marlon Brando camps a strange killer parodying the traditional brigands of the western. Robert Redford incarnates for Sydney Pollack a young person Trappeur who discovers the beauty and the cruelty of the Rocheuses ( Jeremiah Johnson , 1971).

Comedies

At the end of the Years 1960, the Humoriste of Théâtre Woody Allen started to represent the Névrose S - often sexual - of a modern townsman in original comedies like Annie Hall or Manhattan , assisted innovative photography of Gordon Willis. With its glasses and its frail silhouette , Allen, first role in the majority of its films, was the emblematic figure of the Anti-héros of this time. Woody Allen was scenario writer, realizer and actor of his creations. This freedom was possible within United Artists which produced its films in the Années 1970, and which drew from it a certain cultural benefit as well as popular and pecuniary.

Mel Brooks created a series of parodic films like Frankenstein Junior (1974) or the Last Madness of Mel Brooks (1976, in which traditional Hollywood was made fun disrespectfully but without animosity.

Films of horror

With the Night of death-alive the , turned without means, George A. Romero posed the bases of the modern Film of horror, where the threat of Zombi are mutant according to the townsmen symbolizes a company sclerosed by the Racisme and the Consommation of mass. Always under difficult financial conditions, John Carpenter turned a series of thriller S criticisms initiated with Assaut (1976) and Halloween, night of the masks (1978), characterized by their dark and pessimistic environment. In Massacre with the slicer (1974) of Tobe Hooper, peaceful Hippie S of province are wildly assassinated by farmers. Rosemary' S Baby (1968), the Exorcist and the Curse put in scene “child-demons” - these three films can be interpreted like Allégorie S on the conflict of generation of the time.

Science fiction

The films of Science-fiction of New Hollywood are characterized by their pessimistic and critical climate with regard to the Civilization. In the Planet of the monkeys (1967) and the Survivor (1970), Charlton Heston ventures in post-apocalyptic worlds oppressive. green Sun (1973, always with Heston) watch the final phase of the Western civilization, under the influence of the Fog, the Pollution and a new form of Cannibalism. In Silent Running (1972) of Douglas Trumbull, the last forests of the Earth are maintained in a Spaceship - Serre. In the Mystery Andromède (1971) of Robert Wise, external micro-organisms attack a secret laboratory, in the Night of insane alive the (1973) of Romero, of military chemical substances make transfer peaceful villagers as killers.

John Carpenter describes in Dark Star (1974) the absurd adventures of the occupation of a vessel whose load is to destroy “unstable planets”. In THX 1138 (1971) of George Lucas, the beardless victims of an asepticized dictatorship rebel against their torturer. Phase IV (1974) of Saul Bass tells the history of a team of scientists in a vain fight against a company of ants of a higher intelligence. Finally the film Alien - the eighth passenger of Ridley Scott, which revolutionized the esthetics of film of science fiction, represents through a nightmarish atmosphere the extermination of a crew of spaceship by a Extra-terrestre.

Musical films

Popular music of the Years 1960 - 70 is largely used as original soundtrack in films of New Hollywood. In parallel are produced musical films like Head (1968), in which Bob Rafelson (on a scenario of Jack Nicholson) reports the excited and psychedelic adventures group pop-rock'n'roll The Monkees, inspired by film on the Beatles of Richard Lester. Bob Pit, celebrates choreographer of musical comedies, gains 8 Oscars with Cabaret (1972). The documentarist D.A. Pennebaker filmed a round of Bob Dylan in Don' T Look Back (1967) and the festival Montery Pop (1968). The film of Michael Wadleigh on Woodstock is regarded as a pilot document of the “generation Flower power”. In the Last Waltz , Martin Scorsese films the concert of good-bye of the group The Band.

The realizer author

In the majority of films of New Hollywood, the Réalisateur holds a central place in its development. There remains the person in charge of the history and the artistic point of view of film, and has the “final cut”, i.e. he decides until the end of the Montage of his film. In the former productions of Hollywood, only the producers or the directors of studio held this capacity of final decision.

The majority of the realizers of New Hollywood were recognized in the European tradition of the Cinéma of author, where the realizer is also implied in the scenario, the production and the assembly. Many the innovations of New Hollywood - stylistics or scenaristic - were in the continuity of those of the French New wave or the Italian neorealism.

Very film enthusiasts, these scenario writers were filled with enthusiasm for the quality of the European cinema and admired the realizers like François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean Renoir, Ingmar Bergman, Frederico Fellini, Luchino Visconti or Michelangelo Antonioni. They held their distances with the commercial productions of Hollywood and wished to follow a personal vision, turning of deeply subtle and artistic films.

New topics, novel methods, new stars

Topics

The films of New Hollywood are concerned with the subjects of company and often evoke the protest movements which rebel against social structures engourdies and the war of Vietnam, and preached the liberalization of the company. It is not rare to hear in the original soundtracks of films the groups of music which symbolize these aspirations, like Bob Dylan, Cat Stevens, Simon and Garfunkel, The Doors, Steppenwolf or the Rolling Stones.

The stories of New Hollywood do not proceed in an idyllic and hermetic world, but make place with a realistic vision of the individuals and their problems. The protagonists as hero are not assembled, but one questions and analyzes their actions and their motivations. Much of them runs up against realities without finding remedies, or finishes by their failure - often fatal - in Martyr S of a “system” who morally overcame them.

Representatives of authority (State, family…) are corrupted, psychopathes, plotters. The men of being able, the tops placed set up into bankrupt moral. Behind appearances of propriety, they lead opaque operations worthy of the secret services threatening of the inoffensive average citizens. New Hollywood reflects the state of insecurity and paranoia of the era of the Vietnam and the Watergate.

Techniques and esthetics

Side of the technical , the new innovations as of the lighter cameras made possible of new styles of narration. Following the example New wave, the scenario writers could leave the plates to turn in outside, sometimes in a style of chump end Documentaire, without additional lighting. The typical esthetics of these films can be defined as that of “documentary put in scene” ( Midnight Cowboy , French Connection , Mean Streets ). This realistic approach , which aims at bringing an objective point of view on the world, was often combined paradoxically with a style expressionnist - whose party taken stylistic put forward the subjectivity of the glance. The heads of prows of these realistic scenario writers were the documentarists Richard Leacock, D.A. Pennebaker, David and Albert Maysles

Actors

The roles of New Hollywood did not go in general to the stars Hollywood established well, of which much knew a decline of career at the end of the Années 1960. One replaced them by interpreters far from the physical guns of the kind, without true Glamor, but of a quickly recognized talent, in the intention to found a new realism in the play and the characters. Thus started the careers of Gene Hackman, Robert Duval, Martin Sheen, John Cazale, Gene Wilder, Richard Dreyfuss, Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould or Bruce Dern. Many of these actors came from the scene “off” from Broadway and could have aspired only to small supporting role in the old Hollywood system.

Jack Nicholson, Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino represent the major actors of this time. Thanks to their intensive engagement and their conformation with the characters, they reached a statute of “superstar” of Hollywood which lasted of the decades.

Warren Beatty and Robert Redford became also the stars of foreground of New Hollywood. In spite of their pace in conformity with the stereotype of actor-star, they brought to their play a skepticism, a melancholy contrary to the glamor. Moreover, they took up the duties of realizer and producer. Jon Voight and Ryan O' Neal, also noticed for their physics, interpreted roles marking of New Hollywood. Actors already recognized like Paul Newman, Burt Reynolds, Steve McQueen or Burt Lancaster worked with the most important realizers of the movement. The legend Marlon Brando, after a “hole” of career, started again this one thanks to Francis Ford Coppola and its roles in the Godfather and Apocalypse Now .

The “male” topics of New Hollywood left little place to the actresses for the principal roles. Among the actresses having emerged of the movement, one counts Faye Dunaway, Jane Fonda, Barbra Streisand, Diane Keaton, Jill Clayburgh, Ellen Burstyn or Karen Black.

The point of organ

Friedkin, Bogdanovitch and Polanski

New Hollywood reached its artistic and commercial top at the beginning of the Années 1970. Realizers who had not turned up to now of films to small budget gained a considerable and world popular success.

William Friedkin initiated in 1971 with French Connection the prototype of the police Film modern and composed with Gene Hackman her character of fanatic investigator of the “stups” with latent racism. Friedkin repeated two years later with the Exorcist , convincing film of horror from an artistic point of view, which became a world phenomenon.

Was very the film enthusiast Peter Bogdanovich successes with his first films, the melancholic person the Last Meeting (1970) and the dared comedy One packs the bag, doctor? (1972).

The Pole Roman Polanski had lived for several years in Hollywood and surprised the critic and the public with his intrigue with drawers of Chinatown , brilliantly put in scene, in which Jack Nicholson interprets a private detective with the gashed nose.

Francis Ford Coppola

American of Italian origin Francis Ford Coppola was even more success. He fascinated the public and the critic with the gangster epopee of the “ Parrain ”. the Godfather watch Marlon Brando in the often parodied role of baroque chief of the Maffia, of which the concept of honor is not shared by its successors and competitors without scruples. With its continuation Godfather 2 (1974), and the attractive epopee of the Vietnam, Coppola was essential like one of the most important realizers of the years 1970. It is one of the rare realizers to have gained twice the palm of gold ( Apocalypse Now and secret Conversation ).

The films of Coppola, Friedkin and Bogdanovich have jointly to have transformed the “smart radical” of New Hollywood into a style more moderated, more intended for the masses, little time before the decline of the movement, supplanted by the era of the Blockbuster S .

The twilight

Martin Scorsese

The realizer Martin Scorsese is a Italo-Américain like Coppola, resulting like him and others, school of the producer of series B Roger Corman, which had built an effective and very lucrative independent system. The future stars of the realization were exerted with the setting in scene, and from the actors like Jack Nicholson, Robert De Niro, Bruce Dern or Sylvester Stallone obtained their first roles there.

Scorsese convainquit first of all in 1973 with Mean Streets , one carried to the realism pressed on the gangsters of the streets newyorkaises. It realized in 1975 Taxi Driver , palm of gold become traditional of the history of the cinema. Robert De Niro appeared there in the role of a veteran of Vietnam uprooted beginning a campaign from revenge in the streets on New York. Distressing Raging Bull , where the service of Niro made date, became in 1980 new traditional.

Until the medium of the Years 1970, the success of the established realizers of New Hollywood like Mike Nichols, Robert Altman or Arthur PEN was reduced. Others like George Roy Hill, Sydney Pollack, Milos Forman or Alan J. Pakula achieved in an innovative style of commercial films with success as Swindles It (1973), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) or the Men of the president (1976), combining the tradition of New Hollywood to a setting in scene more adapted commercially.

Lucas, Spielberg and the first blockbusters

The decline of New Hollywood is registered in parallel with the emergence of the realizers George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, resulting from the same generation. The former realizer of Telefilm S Spielberg which held the attention with its thriller Duel , started without much business success a cinematographic career with Sugarland Express (1973), alternative of Bonnie and Clyde . the Teeth of the sea , enormous success supported by an effective marketing, was the precursor of the Blockbuster S of the summer. With its film of UFOs optimistic and visually spectacular Meeting of the third type , Spielberg drew up a counterweight with the apocalyptic visions of the traditional Science-fiction.

George Lucas exceeded the success of Spielberg at that time. It signed a first large success in 1973 with nostalgic the American Graffiti . In 1977, its Space operated the Star Wars beat all the records and establishes to some extent a new “religion” of popular culture. the Star Wars , whose screen can be compared with a Conte of fairies, recommends the formal structure of the blockbusters: well identified characters, victory of “nice” over the “malicious ones”, sentimental history finishing well, contrary to the sets of themes of New Hollywood. The abundance of the special effects and the international merchandizing will supplement this “formula of success” taken again thereafter by Hollywood.

The emergence of Spielberg and Lucas, which invented the “positive” blockbusters sealed the decline of the “old man” New Hollywood, skeptic and critical. After the end of the war of Vietnam and the fall of Richard Nixon, the public of mass wanted to again see light films with happy end , film-products rather than of the constant handing-over in question of the social behaviors. As in same time the realizers of New Hollywood knew an artistic decline or failures which had with their megalomania, there was not suddenly more place for their cinematographic vision. At the end of the Years 1970, productions anti Establishment with large budget as the Door of the Paradise , The Blues Brothers or 1941 were resounding commercial failures, the studios was reorientated in a radical way towards formatted films, much more lucrative. The producers benefitted from it to take again the put hand that they had lost with the profit of the realizers of New Hollywood.

The years 1980

Under the era Reagan, the cinema was directed towards optimistic and patriotic successes ( Rambo 2 , Top Gun ). Spielberg and Lucas consolidated their positions, as producing realizers/of very lucrative Trilogie S ( Star Wars , Indiana Jones , Retour towards the future ), productions smoother, abundant in special Effets and resolutely turned towards the Divertissement. Action films of scale like Aliens the return or Piège of crystal became world successes and founded a new sub-genus. The superficiality of the advertizing spots and the Clip S was adapted to the screen successfully ( Flashdance , 9 weeks 1/2 ).

The important scenario writers of New Hollywood like Coppola, PEN or Nichols settled during this time in a film routine of order. The careers of Friedkin, Bogdanovich, Ashby, Altman, Scorsese stagnated.

The time of New Hollywood is definitively finished, but of the veterans like Altman or Scorsese joined again with critical success in the Années 1990 ( Freed the , Casino , Short Cuts )

Films emblematic of New Hollywood

Realizers emblematic with a film selection

Other protagonists

  • Producing S : Bert Schneider ( Easy To wrinkle , Five Easy Parts , the Last Meeting ), Robert Evans ( the Godfather , Chinatown , Marathon-Mann ), Roger Corman
  • Scenario writers : William Goldman ( Butch Cassidy and Kid , Men of the president , Marathon-Mann ), Robert Towne ( Bonnie & Clyde , the Last Drudgery , Chinatown ), Rudy Wurlitzer ( two-track Macadam , Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid ), Buck Henry ( the Prize winner , Wrestling 22 , What' S up, Doc.? ), Mario Puzo ( the Godfather , Godfather 2 ), John Milius ( Jeremiah Johnson , Teeth of the sea , Apocalypse Now ), Robert Benton ( Bonnie & Clyde , What' S up, Doc.? ), Paul Schrader ( Taxi Driver , Obsession , Raging Bull )
  • Chiefs operators: Vilmos Zsigmond ( John McCabe , Deliverance , Sugarland Express train ), László Kovács ( Easy To wrinkle , Five Easy Parts , Shampoo ), Conrad Hall ( Butch Cassidy and Kid , Marathon Mann ), Gordon Willis ( Klute , the Godfather , Because of an assassination , Men of the president )
  • Assemblers & monteuses : Marcia Lucas ( American Graffiti , Alice is not here any more , the Star Wars ), Verna Fields ( What' S up, Doc. , the Beard with dad , Teeth of the sea ), Owen Roizman ( French Connection , Der Exorzist , Three Days of the condor ), Thelma Schoonmaker ( Woodstock , Raging Bull ), Sam O' Steen ( the Prize winner , Catch 22 , Chinatown ), Walter Murch ( Secret conversation, the Godfather 1 and 2, Apocalypse Now )

Pauline Kael, one of criticisms American most influential, supported New Hollywood with travières its positive articles and its interviews and maintained the friendly relations with some protagonists.

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