New Hollywood (also called the American New Wave) refers to a period of American filmmaking from the late 1960s to the early 1980s when a new generation of directors—many of them young, film school-educated, and influenced by European art cinema—challenged the old studio system and brought bold, personal, and stylistically experimental films to mainstream audiences.
What defines New Hollywood?
1. Creative Shift
- Directors gained unprecedented creative control.
- Producers and studios began trusting young filmmakers to target the emerging youth market.
2. Influences
- Inspired by European New Wave movements—especially French New Wave (Godard, Truffaut) and Italian neorealism.
- Films often reflected countercultural, political, or existential themes, with ambiguous morality and antiheroes.
3. Themes and Style
- Cynicism, alienation, anti-establishment sentiments
- Unconventional editing and narrative structures
- Realism, sexual frankness, violence, and psychological complexity
Key Directors Associated with New Hollywood
Besides Brian De Palma, notable New Hollywood filmmakers include:
1. Martin Scorsese
- Mean Streets (1973), Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980)
- Gritty realism, Catholic guilt, inner violence
2. Francis Ford Coppola
- The Godfather (1972), Apocalypse Now (1979), The Conversation (1974)
- Ambition, operatic scale, political undercurrents
3. Steven Spielberg
- Jaws (1975), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
- Brought blockbuster sensibilities to auteur filmmaking
4. George Lucas
- THX 1138 (1971), American Graffiti (1973), Star Wars (1977)
- Helped transition New Hollywood into blockbuster-era
5. Robert Altman
- MASH* (1970), Nashville (1975), McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)
- Ensemble casts, overlapping dialogue, social critique
6. Hal Ashby
- Harold and Maude (1971), The Last Detail (1973), Being There (1979)
- Humanistic, absurdist, often focused on outsiders
7. Peter Bogdanovich
- The Last Picture Show (1971), Paper Moon (1973)
- Nostalgic yet formally innovative
8. William Friedkin
- The French Connection (1971), The Exorcist (1973)
- Edgy, intense, often flirted with genre while maintaining auteur sensibility
9. Terrence Malick
- Badlands (1973), Days of Heaven (1978)
- Poetic visuals, philosophical tone, voiceover narration
10. Paul Schrader
- Screenwriter of Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and director of American Gigolo (1980), Mishima (1985)
- Calvinist guilt, alienation, inner torment
Notable Films of New Hollywood
- Bonnie and Clyde (1967) – Arthur Penn
- Easy Rider (1969) – Dennis Hopper
- Midnight Cowboy (1969) – John Schlesinger
- Chinatown (1974) – Roman Polanski
- Network (1976) – Sidney Lumet
Why it mattered
New Hollywood redefined American cinema. It gave us:
- The director as author (the “auteur” model)
- Films that spoke to a post-Vietnam, post-Watergate, post-idealism generation
- A bridge between art cinema and popular appeal
But by the early 1980s, the rise of the blockbuster era (e.g. Star Wars, E.T.) and studio reassertion of control marked the end of the New Hollywood period.
Would you like a visual timeline of New Hollywood or a poetic-essay titled
〈當好萊塢年輕了二十歲〉— The Rebellion of New Hollywood?
