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 began the
production of their own TV films)
Movie attendance reduced from 2 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
• What was not allowed to be shown - Nudity,
ridiculing religion, illegal drug use, detailed
description of criminal methods, utterance of foul
language, realistic murdering, 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)
• Abandonment of the Hayes Code - an attempt to
differentiate movies from TV films and moral
cultural changes in the 1960s
American New Wave Cinema
3. Influence of European and other nonAmerican cinema
- French Nouvelle vague
- Italian, Swedish and Japanese film
The Other Cinema
• Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (1960), 8 1/2
(1963)
• New and liberated attitudes to sexuality in cinema
• Totally unconventional narrative and imaginative
visual styles
The Other Cinema
• Akira Kurosawa Yojinbo (1961), Sanjuro (1962)
• New possibility of action and entertainment films
• Fresh approaches to film making
The Other Cinema
• Ingmar Bergman, The Silence (1963), Persona
(1966)
• Ultimate art cinema
• Visualization of inner psyche: explicit rendition
of desire and guilt
The Other Cinema
• François Truffaut, Jules et Jim (1962)
• Ultimate youth film; youthful, playful and amoral
• Love’s triangle in fresh and pop visual style
The Other Cinema
• Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-up (1966)
• Baffled and shocked the American viewer with
ambiguous and oblique narrative, full frontal
nudity and erotic camera work
American New Wave Cinema
NEW LATITUDE led to:
• Expressive freedom (in low budget films)
• Pursuit of alternative realistic and formalistic
possibilities
* Film realism - location shooting, narrative with
more reality and truth 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
• Realist elements
• Location shooting (USC, UC Berkeley,
Ambassador Hotel, United Methodist Church
LaVerne and Beverly Hills)
American New
Wave Cinema
• Self-conscious use of film techniques foregrounding aesthetic elements
• Deep focus composition; subliminal effects;
‘running-in-place’; the new use of music - folk-rock
music by Simon and Garfunkel
• Mrs. Robinson and the ending scene
American New Wave
Youth Film
• Phenomenal successes of Bonnie and Clyde
(Arthur Penn, 1967) and The Graduate (Mike
Nichols, 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
• Jack Nicholson Born to Be Wild
American New
Wave Cinema
• The disillusionment with everything; hippie and
the Beat movement – search for 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 about two
outlaws and their friendship
and camaraderie.
• Moral ambiguity – utterly
lovable criminals and thieves.
• Sexual liberation –
unconventional love
relationship
American New Wave Cinema
• Film style heavily influenced by Nouvelle vague
• Pop, spontaneous, casual
• Music of Burt Bachrack’s nostalgic music score
• Bicycle
Compare this to François Truffaut’s nouvelle
vague film, Jules et Jim (1962)
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
• Final shootout
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 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 experimental
• Self-conscious stylists
• Personal films