Topics in Hollywood Cinema:

Catalog description

The “New” Hollywood (Fall 2020) In the late 1960s, a group of young filmmakers took Hollywood by storm during a moment of crisis in the then-hegemonic studio system. Directors such as Martin Scorsese, Terrence Malick, Steven Spielberg, Brian de Palma, among others, established new ways to make and market films that earned the rubric of a 'New Hollywood.' Directed by the first generation of filmmakers to come out of film schools (NYU, USC, AFI, etc) and thrive in the industry, these films allied a profound knowledge of the history of cinema with a direct connection to the pulse of their time, and an acute awareness of the discoveries of New Cinema movements worldwide (the French, Czech, and Japanese New Waves, the Brazilian Cinema Novo, Third Cinema, etc). However, what's behind the term 'New Hollywood' is not only a group of filmmakers, but a specific convergence of social, cultural, technological, and economic changes that presented an opportunity. As no-less impactful cultural and technological changes accelerated in the late 1990s, the New Hollywood was no longer new, and the surviving filmmakers of that generation were forced to reposition themselves in a mediascape that is vastly different from the one they helped shape. This class will focus primarily on works made in the 21st century by prominent filmmakers directly or indirectly associated with the 'New Hollywood' from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s - to quote David Thomson, "the decade when movies mattered." The course will track significant changes in the film industry and art through the films, and the individual trajectories of these ​auteurs​, identifying how they reveal and comment upon the social, cultural, economic, and political structures that determine them.