The Hollywood Renaissance of the 1960s and Early 1970s Essay - 1

The Hollywood Renaissance of the 1960s and Early 1970s - Essay Example The decade of the 1960s and into the early 1970s marked a period of turbulence and change in the American socio-political landscape. Among the events giving way to this landscape were the civil rights movements, the hippy culture, radicalism among students, the new left, feminism, the gay rights’ movements, the anti-Vietnam war movements, the Kennedy assassination, the Watergate scandal, the US withdrawal from Vietnam and the oil crisis among other events (King 2002, p. 14). The period of the 1960s and early 1970s was also the Cold War era and many Americans feared a nuclear attack (Neve 1995, p. 221). Arguably these events were quite dramatic and imposed on American culture in a very short period of time. I.The Hollywood Renaissance One of the most striking features of the Hollywood Renaissance was Hollywood’s departure from an attempt to idealize American life and culture. Instead, a majority of the films produced during the era of the 1960s and 1970s appealed to America’s conscience and adapted a social expression. The arts in general gave voice to the socio-political underpinnings of the times and attempted to contribute to change. Man (1994) observed that Hollywood cinema depicted â€Å"common themes† that: ...included the breakdown of traditional values, socio-political oppression, the psychology of sex and violence, moral ambiguity, alienation, solipsism, paranoia, and disillusionment (p. 1). During the 1960s and the early 1970s, filmmakers had greater creative freedom in that the studio system faded out and filmmakers had the ability to be more critical of social issues and could be more innovative (Ryan and Kellner 1988, p. 6). The Production Code was also eliminated during this period and a rating system much like the current system was started. As a result, filmmakers were able to take on topics and issues that were not previously permitted (Ryan and Kellner 1988, p. 6). Kramer (2005) identified three common themes that characterize the films attributed to the Hollywood Renaissance of the 1960s and the early 1970s. First, the films of this period were described as a â€Å"large number of challenging films† (Kramer 2005, p. 2). Secondly, a majority of the most successful films were produced by a select number of young film directors many of which had graduated from film schools such as Francis Ford Coppola who had graduated from the University of California in L os Angeles. Finally, the â€Å"intense formal and thematic innovation† that marked the films of the 1960s and early 1970s ended with the production of block-bluster films such as Steven Spielberg’s 1975 Jaws and George Lucas’ Star Wars of 1977 (Kramer 2005, p. 2). Nystrom (2009) explained that this new class of directors and producers began to perceive its audience as youthful and intellectual (p. 26). This was the main factor that influenced the culture depicted in film production during the 1960s and the early 1970s. The prevailing view was that the audience was such that it was no longer enough to simply entertain. This new audience was open to the examination of ideas and issues. Michael Laughlin, Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) reportedly said that: Our generation has gone beyond mere entertainment. We are too well educated, too intelligent to be just entertained (Nystrom 2009, p. 26). Buck Henry screenwriter for The Graduate made a similar observation. Henry note d that during the era of the Hollywood Renaissance: Heroes can now be intellectual, which they never were in American films. Perhaps it’s because, until recently, the audience was so profoundly anti-intellectual itself. But the younger generation identifies with the melodrama of ideas (Nystrom 2009, p. 26). Paul Williams, director of Out of it (1969) and The Revolutionary (1970) linked the Hollywood