10 essen­tial New Hol­ly­wood direc­tors you should know

The 1960s was a time of major social and polit­i­cal upheaval. In Hol­ly­wood, change was in the air as cen­sor­ship and obscen­i­ty laws became loos­er and the stu­dios faced the increas­ing threat of bank­rupt­cy. This pro­vid­ed a per­fect storm for young cre­ative tal­ent to emerge, and there was an over­whelm­ing appetite for some­thing fresh, some­thing different.

These con­di­tions allowed a new cin­e­ma to man­i­fest from with­in the Hol­ly­wood main­stream. These were uncom­pro­mis­ing, vis­cer­al, provoca­tive films – the antithe­sis of what had come before. Where cin­e­ma had always been about dis­tance from real­i­ty and escapism, this ​‘New Hol­ly­wood’ was con­cerned with inti­ma­cy and real­ism. It alien­at­ed the fam­i­ly audi­ence and chal­lenged movie­go­ers with its incen­di­ary and con­fronta­tion­al style. It was a water­shed moment, pro­duc­ing in its wake some of the all-time greats.

Scors­ese, Cop­po­la and Spiel­berg are among the most notable film­mak­ers asso­ci­at­ed with this rev­o­lu­tion­ary era. But they were cer­tain­ly not alone in cre­at­ing a new visu­al lan­guage for Amer­i­can cin­e­ma. Here are 10 essen­tial New Hol­ly­wood directors.

The Grad­u­ate is gen­er­al­ly seen as the cat­a­lyst for the New Hol­ly­wood move­ment. It dis­tin­guish­es two very dis­tinct gen­er­a­tions falling away from one anoth­er. The film was unique for its dis­pos­sessed melan­cholic pro­tag­o­nist and its con­tro­ver­sial plot point of a young man being seduced by an old­er woman. The Grad­u­ate cap­tured the sen­ti­ment of a gen­er­a­tion, bur­dened by new ideas but not yet able to artic­u­late them. Art­ful­ly shot and char­ac­terised by the songs of Simon & Gar­funkel, it spoke of its time and the future all at once.

George Roy Hill’s vio­lent west­ern Butch Cas­sidy and the Sun­dance Kid sig­ni­fies a dis­cernible tran­si­tion in Hol­ly­wood from old to new. The film which was unchar­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly vio­lent for the genre decon­structs the Amer­i­can myth of the west and con­fronts the whole­some and right­eous ide­ol­o­gy per­pet­u­at­ed by clas­sic west­erns. Butch Cas­sidy puts empha­sis on the wild and law­less­ness of the West. Many film­go­ers hat­ed it upon its release, it alien­at­ed audi­ences and dis­tanced itself ide­o­log­i­cal­ly from the old guard. Hill remained vital­ly impor­tant dur­ing this peri­od, lat­er direct­ing the likes of Slaugh­ter­house-Five and The Sting.

If The Grad­u­ate unlocked the door, Easy Rid­er blew the hinges clean off. Den­nis Hopper’s icon­ic road movie defined the spir­it of 1969 like no oth­er. Cul­tur­al­ly, Easy Rid­er is the moment the counter cul­ture infil­trat­ed the main­stream, mak­ing Peter Fon­da and Den­nis Hop­per megas­tars overnight. It was shock­ing in its por­tray­al of sex, drugs and law­less­ness and embod­ied the anti-author­i­tar­i­an ide­ol­o­gy per­me­at­ing the Amer­i­can youth. Its rejec­tion of whole­some Amer­i­can val­ues sent shock­waves through­out the nation. But it’s the wan­der­ing aim­less­ness and ambigu­ous and dis­con­cert­ing end­ing which stayed with audi­ences long after the cred­its rolled.

Mid­night Cow­boy is among a short­list of films which epit­o­mis­es the time it was made. Its sto­ry cen­tres around a gay hus­tler strug­gling in New York and illus­trates the rad­i­cal­ly chang­ing world it inhab­its. The cow­boy get-up Joe wears sym­bol­is­es a cer­tain erro­neous and archa­ic mod­el of mas­culin­i­ty which has become out­dat­ed and irrel­e­vant. It is as bold a film as they come and in 1969 it was down­right hereti­cal. It cel­e­brat­ed the chang­ing iden­ti­ty of Amer­i­can cul­ture and depict­ed a real­i­ty steeped in real­ism, adver­si­ty and des­ti­tu­tion. With ter­rif­ic per­for­mances from Jon Voight and Dustin Hoff­man, it is a cru­cial­ly impor­tant emblem of its time.

Caught in the hang­over of Easy Rid­er, Five Easy Pieces speaks of a long­ing and rest­less­ness felt by a gen­er­a­tion whose ide­ol­o­gy had failed them. Bob Rafelson’s essen­tial film illus­trates the itin­er­ant search­ing and wan­der­ing which befell many young peo­ple of the hip­pie gen­er­a­tion. It deals with class and iden­ti­ty and the con­flict which exists between the new emer­gent youth and their parent’s con­ser­vatism. Five Easy Pieces cat­a­pult­ed Jack Nicholson’s career and dis­tilled the New Hol­ly­wood explo­sion into its essen­tial com­po­nents. The film is an emo­tive por­trait of Amer­i­ca, a snap­shot of a future with­out a vision.

Deliv­er­ance exposed main­stream audi­ences to the sort of vio­lence and sav­agery they had pre­vi­ous­ly been shel­tered from. Noto­ri­ous for its depic­tion of male rape, Deliv­er­ance taps into a wild and uncivilised Amer­i­ca which exists just beyond soci­ety. An unde­ni­ably con­fronta­tion­al and con­tro­ver­sial film, it sub­verts the great Amer­i­can out­doors and turns the whole­some­ness of the men’s fish­ing trip into some­thing fright­en­ing and threat­en­ing. It is remem­bered for its ​‘Duelling Ban­jos’ musi­cal num­ber, but the true lega­cy of Deliv­er­ance is how it shocked audi­ences. Per­haps the cru­cial film of the New Hol­ly­wood as its chal­leng­ing and provoca­tive nature can­not be understated.

Ser­pi­co tack­les press­ing issues of the time such as police cor­rup­tion, the pro­lif­er­a­tion of crime and an inher­ent sus­pi­cion and mis­trust of author­i­ty. Quin­tes­sen­tial­ly New Hol­ly­wood in its anti-estab­lish­ment lean­ings. Sid­ney Lumet’s Ser­pi­co is a grit­ty and inti­mate for­ay into police cor­rup­tion on the streets of New York. Police movies were huge­ly pop­u­lar after the suc­cess of The French Con­nec­tion and the ​’70s cop film addressed a harsh­er urban real­i­ty that audi­ences were not used to see­ing. Lumet’s work on Ser­pi­co is bold and strik­ing. The film is often over­looked, eclipsed by more icon­ic films such as Mean Streets or Taxi Dri­ver. But Ser­pi­co is every bit as great, with an elec­tri­fy­ing Paci­no per­for­mance and vibrant, inspired film­mak­ing from Lumet.

William Fried­kin fol­lowed his Oscar-win­ning The French Con­nec­tion with one of the most icon­ic and incen­di­ary films of all time, The Exor­cist. Audi­ences had nev­er been fright­ened by a film like this before. They were appalled and hor­ri­fied by it; many out­right despised it. It is sig­nif­i­cant for so many rea­sons, not just as a land­mark hor­ror film, but a moment in his­to­ry when every­thing changed. The Exor­cist was an affront to moral decen­cy and the Chris­t­ian foun­da­tion of Amer­i­ca. It erad­i­cat­ed any sense of com­fort going to the movies ever guar­an­teed and reflect­ed the con­fronta­tion­al psy­che of an Amer­i­ca in transition.

Miloš Forman’s adap­ta­tion of the Ken Kesey nov­el ​‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ is a social com­men­tary at its core, but the direc­tor con­structs a film of soul-stir­ring inti­ma­cy. It scru­ti­nis­es the insti­tu­tion of soci­ety and tack­les the notion of iden­ti­ty, mas­culin­i­ty and behav­iour­al con­di­tion­ing. The film speaks open­ly to a gen­er­a­tion active­ly in con­flict with author­i­ty and sus­pi­cious of the insti­tu­tions they prop­a­gate. It is more sen­ti­men­tal than oth­er films of the time, with an odd­ly uplift­ing trag­ic finale.

The film that made a star out of John Tra­vol­ta and helped make dis­co dom­i­nate the late ​’70s. True to the style of the New Hol­ly­wood, Sat­ur­day Night Fever is grit­ty, filthy, vis­cer­al film­mak­ing. Deal­ing with racial and social ten­sions and depict­ing the ordi­nary lives of young peo­ple who are still try­ing to have a good time in a hos­tile and dif­fi­cult Amer­i­ca. The film is most icon­ic for its dance sequences and use of music by the Bee Gees, but Bad­ham remains an unap­pre­ci­at­ed but vital voice in this wave of Amer­i­can film­mak­ing. He crafts a film with real pulse and swag­ger and estab­lish­es a cin­e­mat­ic lan­guage entire­ly of its own. It remains one of the defin­ing films of its era.