New Wave Cinema in the US
Towards Art Cinema
Table of Contents
1) American New Wave Cinema
2) New Hollywood and Independent
Filmmaking
3) Realist or formalist
American New Wave Cinema
① Recession in the film industry in the late 60s
Costly flops of blockbuster films: Doctor Do
Little (1967) and Star! (1968)
Competition from TV networks ABC and CBS
(stopped bidding for pictures and production of
their own films)
Movie attendance reduced to 1 billion a year
Annual loss of $200 million by 1969
American New Wave Cinema
② Abandonment of the ‘Hayes’ Code (1930-
1967)
Three pillars
1) Moral standard - no sympathy to crime and
sin
2) Only correct standard of life must be shown.
3) Law should not be ridiculed.
American New Wave Cinema
- Nudity, ridicule of religion, illegal drug use,
detailed criminal methods, foul language,
realistic murdering scenes, matrimonial
unsanctity (adultery and illicit sex),
homosexuality, miscegenation, lustful kissing
- Introduction of a new MPAA rating system; M
(Mature), R (Restricted), and X (No one under
16 admitted)
American New Wave Cinema
③ Influence of European and other non-American
cinema
- French Nouvelle vague
- Italian, Swedish and Japanese film
American New Wave Cinema
• Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-up (1966)
• Baffled and shocked the American viewer with
ambiguous and oblique narrative and full frontal
nudity and erotic camera work
American New Wave Cinema
NEW LATITUDE leads to:
- Expressive freedom (in low budget films)
- Pursuit of more realistic and formalistic
possibility
* Film realism - location shooting, narrative with
more reality effects, more faithful reflection of
the society
* Film formalism - more experimental
filmmaking without restrain of conventional film
realism
American New Wave Cinema
• Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
‘They are young … they are in love.’
• Pushing the standards of acceptability as far as
possible
American New Wave Cinema
• Challenge movie taboos - sexuality and violence
• Direct and indirect influence of Nouvelle Vague
films: Truffaut’s contribution to the script; rapid,
sudden shifts of tone; choppy editing
American New Wave Cinema
• The Graduate (1967) - Mike Nichols’ low budget
film on a university graduate, who has no definite
aim, is seduced by an older woman and falls in
love with her daughter.
American New Wave Cinema
• Self-conscious use of film techniques foregrounding aesthetic elements
• Location shooting (USC, UC Berkeley,
Ambassador Hotel, United Methodist Church
LaVerne and Beverly Hills)
American New Wave Cinema
• Deep focus composition; subliminal effects;
‘running-in-place’; the new use of music - folkrock music by Simon and Garfunkel
• Mrs. Robinson and the ending scene
American New Wave
Youth Film
• Phenomenal successes of The Graduate (Mike
Nichols, 1967) and Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur
Penn, 1967)
• Studios launched a serious of ‘youthpic’, youth
rebellion and counter-culture: campus rebellion
and unorthodox lifestyles
American New Wave Cinema
• Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider (1969) - Ultimate
‘youth film’ reflecting the cultural and social
situation and the mood of the 60s -
American New Wave Cinema
• The disillusionment with the government; hippie
and the Beat movement - alternative culture,
religion and values; motorbike, and drug
subculture; youth culture - rock music
American New Wave Cinema
• Butch Cassidy and the
Sundance Kid (1969) - a
revisionist Western film by
George Roy Hill loosely
based on the ‘Robin Hood’like outlaws and about their
friendship and camaraderie.
• Casual filming style
(Nouvelle vague); use of Bert
Bacharach’s music
American New Wave Cinema
• Wild Bunch (1969) - Sam Pekinpah’s Western
film about an aging outlaw trying to survive
the modern world in the Texas-Mexican
borders
American New Wave Cinema
• Controversial in the representation of violence and
the portrayal of cruel and violent men.
• Technical expertise in multi-angle editing, rapid
cutting and slow-motion photography
• Shoot-out scene
American New Wave Cinema
• M*A*S*H (1970) - a satirical comedy on war
(the Korean and Vietnamese Wars)
• Anti-establishment humour, episodic narrative
and editing, overlapping conversations and
sudden zooms
New Hollywood and Independent Directors
Arthur Penn (1922 - )
Heavily influenced by
Nouvelle vague, the
maker the maker of The
of Bonnie and Clyde
Mike Nichols (1931 - )
German Jew, who moved to
movies from the stage, the
maker of The Graduate
New Hollywood and Independent Directors
John Schlesinger (1926 - )
British filmmaker from
television, Midnight Cowboy (1969)
Peter Bogdanovich
(1939 - ), Serbian
Jew, nouvelle vague
Paper Moon (1973)
New Hollywood and Independent Directors
Francis Ford Coppola
(1939 - ) Italian American,
graduate of UCLA film
school, The Conversation
(1975)
Martin Scorsese (1942 - )
Italian American, graduate
of UNY film school, Taxi
Driver (1975)
New Hollywood and Independent Directors
George Lucas (1944 - ) USC Steven Spielberg (1946 - )
film school graduate, film
Attended CSU, Long Beach
buff, American Graffiti
after failing to enter UCLA
(1973)
three times, The Sugarland
Express (1974)
The End of New Wave Era
• The success of Star Wars (1977) and Close
Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) revived
Hollywood blockbuster films
• The success of Superman (1978) revived the
Hollywood tradition of sequels and remakes
The End of New Wave Era
• High concept cinema
• With concentration on tie-in merchandise (toys)
• With spin-offs into other media (books,
magazines, television and later video)
• With the use of sequels
• Cinema is commercialized again
• Reflecting economy rather than personal visions
of filmmakers
Styles in American New Wave Cinema
• More freedom in filmmaking
• Renovation of genres
• DIVERSE STYLES: more formalist and
more experiemental
• Self-conscious stylists
• Personal films