New Hollywood

Jessica Jack and Meghan Rannells

ENGL 484

Thomas Schatz, “The New Hollywood”

Where is Schatz Coming From?

* Published in 1993, attempting to define and place “New Hollywood” after the break from Classical Hollywood from the early 20th century.

Schatz’s definition of “New Hollywood”

* “Post-1975 era best warrants the term” (9) because of movie blockbusters, and economic prosperity, after thirty years of “uncertainty and disarray” (10)
* Defines New Hollywood’s emergence on four key points, inside and outside the industry (10):

* + independent motion picture production
	+ changing role of the studios
	+ emergence of commercial TV
	+ changes in American lifestyle in patterns of media consumption (a.k.a. mass consumption)
* Three phases:

* + 1946-1956 (The Ten Commandments)
	+ 1956-1965 (The Sound of Music)
	+ 1966-1975 (Jaws)
	+ For Schatz, the release of Jaws was the beginning of the “true” New Hollywood. He then begins the conversation concerning the reliance on big “stars”, advertising and fast paced plot progression in blockbuster movies.
	+ States that there are three types of movies produced: “calculated blockbuster”, “mainstream A-class” and “low-cost independent” with targeted audiences (35).

Points of Interest

* “Commercial television began to sweep the newly suburbanized national landscape...mark[ing] the end of Hollywood’s “classical” era of 1920s, 1930s, and early 1940s” (8).
* Rise of the “Movie Blockbuster” (a calculated, somewhat algorithmic, hit to ensure success and profit) as “multi-purpose entertainment machines that breed music videos and soundtrack albums, TV series and videocassettes, video games and theme park rides, novelizations and comic books” (9-10).
* Places the Godfather’s success as a turning point for “New Hollywood” as well as other movies like The Exorcist. Then specifies that Jaws “mark[ed] the arrival of the New Hollywood”, released in the summer season and not the typical winter/Christmas season (17).
* In the emergence of New Hollywood, Schatz points out that movies were sold alongside best-selling novels to optimize profit; this is something still evidently seen today in mass-popular movies (Fifty Shades of Grey, The Longest Ride, or any other Nicholas Spark novel for that matter).
* Shopping Malls and “Multi-Plex” theatres: between 1965-1980 forcing the Hollywood renaissance out of America and replacing it with a fully fledged New Hollywood via Lucas and Spielberg (“director-as-author vs. director-as-superstar ethos” (20).
* The (unfortunate) emergence of sequels and reissues, as well as the strive for concepts as opposed to creating art for the narrative (gimmicks).
* “Star Wars is so fast-paced (“breathtaking,” in movie ad-speak) and resolutely plot driven that character depth and development are scarcely on the narrative agenda” (22-23). Schatz argues this for Jaws as well, but this thriller has much more character evolvement than that of Star Wars.
* “Male action pictures are the most readily reformulated and thus the most likely to be parlayed into a full-blown franchise” (Indiana Jones, TMNT, Superman etc.) (29).
* “In the New Hollywood...personas are prone to multimedia reincarnation, the star’s commercial value, cultural cache, and creative clout have increased enormously” (31).
* BIG FAN of generational divide that he brings up at the end of the article: “younger viewers...gauge a movie in intertextual terms and...appreciate it in a richness and complexity that may be lost on middle-aged” viewers (33).
* Also big fan of his de-pedestalization of big directors like Spielberg and Lucas. He states their importance but does not shy away from the fact that they rely on commercialization.

Places of Contention:

* Why so many dates and names Schatz?
* “What interests me more than anything else is the idea. If a person can tell me the idea in twenty-five words or less, it’s going to be a good movie” (33).
* Star Wars as a “coming of age film”, as well as lacking plot
* Jaws: more style than substance?

Timeline:

* 1947-48 economy slows; families moving from city centres to the ‘burbs
* Late 1960s: “bringing art cinema into the mainstream”, making way for an “American film renaissance” (14).
* 1972 Godfather returning over $86 Million.
* 1975: Jaws; the beginning of everything else.
* Late 1970s with Star Wars: Marks a break from character involvement, and surge to plot development (characters as “plot functions” (23)).
* 1975-ish onwards: Emergence of multiplex theatres, increased importance on spending millions on ads before movie releases.

Questions

* Are movies ensured big success if they follow the algorithmic or equation like format, or is it up to chance whether a movie will be a large hit, more in line with William Goldman’s statement that “nobody knows anything” (28)?
* Is it necessarily a bad thing if companies turn out blockbuster hits? Don’t we go and see them anyways? They become something nostalgic if you think about it in later years.
* Would you specifically decide not to see a movie because of its blockbuster status? Does the “blockbuster” title create a stigma that either has great expectations or so much hype which leads to viewers enjoying it because the masses do?
* In this day and age, do you think it is possible to isolate films from their their “commercial imperatives” (10)? Are blockbuster hits ever made for the sole purpose of art, or is profitability always the drive behind them? (Think sequels, reboots, spin-offs, etc.)

Youtube Clips

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTKHZN8c2L8
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW23RsUTb2Y