10 essential New Hollywood directors you should… | Little White Lies

10 essen­tial New Hol­ly­wood direc­tors you should know

23 Jun 2018

Words by Peter Thompson

A man wearing a cowboy hat holds a large camera to his eye and appears to be filming or photographing something.
A man wearing a cowboy hat holds a large camera to his eye and appears to be filming or photographing something.
From Mike Nichols to John Bad­ham, these film­mak­ers helped to reshape the Amer­i­can cin­e­ma landscape.

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.

You might like

Accessibility Settings

Text

Applies the Open Dyslexic font, designed to improve readability for individuals with dyslexia.

Applies a more readable font throughout the website, improving readability.

Underlines links throughout the website, making them easier to distinguish.

Adjusts the font size for improved readability.

Visuals

Reduces animations and disables autoplaying videos across the website, reducing distractions and improving focus.

Reduces the colour saturation throughout the website to create a more soothing visual experience.

Increases the contrast of elements on the website, making text and interface elements easier to distinguish.