This course will examine the so-called “New Hollywood:” the films (The Conversation, Badlands, Mean Streets, The Long Goodbye) and filmmakers (Coppola, Malick, Scorsese, Altman) who reinvigorated the Hollywood studio system in the late 1960s, only to be displaced by the blockbuster and “high concept” films that followed. Films of the period will be examined within the context of industrial and cultural history, with special attention paid to the changing dynamics within the American film industry, and to the cultural shifts that these films both responded to and expressed.
Sample reading list:
Peter Krämer, The New Hollywood: From Bonnie and Clyde to Star Wars
J. Hoberman, The Dream Life
Mark A. Reid, Redefining Black Film
Fredric Jameson, Totality as Conspiracy
Thomas Elsaesser, et. al., The Last Great American Picture Show: New Hollywood Cinema
Derek Nystrom, Hard Hats, Rednecks, and Macho Men
Other Requirements:
Not Open to Freshmen.
