New Hollywood
New Hollywood or post-
classical Hollywood refers to the brief time between roughly
1967 (
Bonnie and Clyde,
The Graduate) and
1980 (
Heaven's Gate) when a new generation of young,
cinema-crazed 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.
In this ten year period, Hollywood was overrun by a new generation of
film school-educated,
counterculture-bred
actors,
writers, and, most importantly,
directors. This group of people, dubbed the New Hollywood by the press (or, affectionately, the Movie Brats), destroyed the old,
film producer-dominated Hollywood system of the past and injected movies with a jolt of freshness, energy, sexuality, and an obsessive passion for film itself. Often, their films featured anti-establishment political themes, use of
rock music, and sexual freedom. Furthermore, many figures of the period openly admit to using drugs such as
LSD and
marijuana.
By the 1960s the Hollywood
studio system was declining and seen to be out of touch with a large portion of its audience. Studios, in a defensive measure against the lure of
television, had started churning out widescreen epics, escapist musical fantasies, and genre pictures that grew staler as the years went by. Nothing was reflecting the changing social mores of American society and the result was declining ticket sales. 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, the
French New Wave, and
Japanese cinema were all making a big splash in America--the huge market of disaffected youth found something of themselves when they saw movies like
Michelangelo Antonioni's
Blow-Up, with its oblique narrative structure and full-frontal female nudity. Studio heads were baffled. Unable to figure out what was happening, producers gradually handed power over to the directors and actors, many of whom were mentored or directed by
Roger Corman. This was when the Movie Brat generation broke in and Hollywood became an asylum that was truly run by the inmates.
The New Hollywood suffered a major setback with the release of
Jaws in 1975 and
Star Wars in 1977. With its unprecedented box-office success,
Lucas'
Star Wars, along with
Spielberg's
Jaws two years before, jumpstarted Hollywood's
blockbuster mentality. Major corporations started buying up the Hollywood studios, viewing films as springboards for other money-making efforts (later dubbed "
synergy"). Whereas the films of the New Hollywood typically emphasized character and story, the blockbuster mentality focused on
high-concept premises, with greater concentration on tie-in merchandise (such as toys), spin-offs into other mediums (such as soundtracks featuring original music by popular stars or television series based on the films), and numerous sequels. Several New Hollywood filmswould later generate sequels as a result of this mentality, often to a less than enthusiastic reception.
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, Sorcerer, and
Popeye, caused the studios to increase their control over productions. New Hollywood excess culminated in the financial disaster of
Michael Cimino's
Heaven's Gate in 1980, which bankrupted
United Artists studios, and resulted in its sale to
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, causing other studios to end total directorial control, even to established and lauded filmmakers.
The exploits of the New Hollywood generation are infamously chronicled in the book
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls by
Peter Biskind.
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Francis Ford Coppola, director/writer
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Warren Beatty, actor/producer
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Dennis Hopper, actor/director
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Arthur Penn, director
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William Friedkin, director
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Huey Newton, civil rights activist whose activities were funded, in part, by New Hollywood films
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Robert Altman, director
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Martin Scorsese, director/writer/producer
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Jill Clayburgh, actress
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Roman Polanski, actor/director
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Terrence Malick, director
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Robert De Niro, actor
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Al Pacino, actor
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Pauline Kael, movie critic
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Harvey Keitel, actor
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Sue Mengers, agent
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Madeline Kahn, actress
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Gene Hackman, actor
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Robert Duvall, actor
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Jack Nicholson, actor/writer/director
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Jane Fonda, actress/producer
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Clint Eastwood, actor/director/producer
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Michael Cimino, director/writer
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Faye Dunaway, actress
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Diane Keaton, actress
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Bert Schneider, producer
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Bob Rafelson, producer/director
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Margot Kidder, actress
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Jennifer Salt, actress
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Robert Evans, producer
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Roger Corman, producer/director
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Paul Schrader, writer/director
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Ellen Burstyn, actress
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Peter Bogdanovich, writer/actor/director
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Peter Boyle, actor
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Robert Towne, writer/director
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Pam Grier, actress
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Vanessa Redgrave, actress
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Sharon Tate, actress
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Charlie Bluhdorn, studio head
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Sidney Lumet, director
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Monte Hellman, director
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Sydney Pollack, actor/director
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Bruce Dern, actor
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Dustin Hoffman, actor
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John Voight, actor
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Hal Ashby, director
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George Lucas, writer/director
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Steven Speilberg, director
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Mel Brooks, actor/writer/director/producer
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Woody Allen, actor/writer/director
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Melvin Van Peebles, actor/writer/director
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John Schlesinger, director
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Cybill Shepard, actress
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Barbra Streisand, actress/singer
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Ali MacGraw, actress
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Julie Christie, actress
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Brian DePalma, writer/director
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Julia Phillips, producer
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John Milius, writer/director
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Shelly Duvall, actress
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Donald Sutherland, actor
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Karen Black, actress
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Peter Fonda, actor/writer
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Kris Kristofferson, actor/singer
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Robert Redford, actor/director
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Sam Peckinpah, director
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Ralph Bakshi, writer/director
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The Wild Angels (1966)
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Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
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The Graduate (1967)
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Rosemary's Baby (1968)
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Easy Rider (1969)
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Midnight Cowboy (1969)
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The Wild Bunch (1969)
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Love Story (1970)
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M*A*S*H (1970)
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The French Connection (1971)
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Harold and Maude (1971)
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Klute (1971)
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The Last Picture Show (1971)
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McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971)
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THX-1138 (1971)
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Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971)
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The Godfather (1972)
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Fritz the Cat (1972)
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The King of Marvin Gardens (1972)
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Heavy Traffic (1973)
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American Graffiti (1973)
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Badlands (1973)
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The Exorcist (1973)
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Mean Streets (1973)
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Paper Moon (1973)
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The Way We Were (1973)
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Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974)
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Chinatown (1974)
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The Conversation (1974)
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The Godfather Part II (1974)
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The Sugarland Express (1974)
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Young Frankenstein (1974)
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Coonskin (1975)
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Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
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Jaws (1975)
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Nashville (1975)
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Shampoo (1975)
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Network (1976)
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Taxi Driver (1976)
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Julia (1977)
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Star Wars (1977)
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Coming Home (1978)
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The Deer Hunter (1978)
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Apocalypse Now (1979)
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Dressed to Kill (1980)
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Raging Bull (1980)
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List of counterculture filmsPeter Biskind's
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls*
IMDB listing for Bonnie and Clyde, the New Hollywood breakthrough film*
Interview with Peter Biskind, author of Easy Riders, Raging Bulls
