Question: What is a key theme about the period that emerges from the film Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex n' Drugs n' Rock n' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood?

02 Oct 2022,8:40 AM

 

Reading Information and Framing Questions, Week 7, October 3-5

Reading Information and Framing Questions

Reading Pauline Kael, "Trash, Art, and the Movies" (originally published 1969) [at the "Files" tab on our Canvas page]

Screening: Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex n' Drugs n' Rock n' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood (Kenneth Bowser, US/UK, 2002)

As we start the course, we'll be introducing these key concepts, which are crucial to all of film history:

1. Film Form: how do specific creative choices (in mise-en-scene, editing, narrative, cinematography, and sound) made by filmmakers give distinctive artistic shape to the films of this period?

2. The Politics of Culture: how do choices made within the artistic space of a film or a group of films frame social and individual identity, particularly with regard to race and gender and sexuality?

3. The Institutions of Filmmaking: how do the internal systems of economics, technology, and power (such as models for film funding, film education, new camera technologies, etc.) condition the images you are seeing?

4. Historiography: how does what you are reading about this period characterize the period?  

The intersection of these three questions at any particular historical moment is what yields the thing called film history.  Thinking about how these four concepts work together to create the American Film Renaissance is your task- and your opportunity- this semester.

 

Why screen Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex n' Drugs n' Rock n' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood? Kenneth Bowser's documentary appeared several years after Peter Biskind's very popular book of the same title, 

Framing Questions:

1.  What is a key theme about the period that emerges from the film Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex n' Drugs n' Rock n' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood?

2.  How does film critic Pauline Kael, writing in 1969, what do the terms "trash" and "art" mean, and how do they come together in the movies of that time, in her view?

 

Reading Information and Framing Questions, Weeks 2 & 3, August 29-31, September 7: Transformations: Cinematic & Social -- Bonnie and Clyde and Hearts and Minds

Reading: Harris, Pictures at a Revolution, part 1: 1-108, "The Bonnie and Clyde Case" [at Canvas "Files" tab], "Criterion Collection: Hearts and Minds" [at Canvas "Files" tab]

Screening: Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, US, 1967) (August 29 & 30) and Hearts and Minds (Peter Davis, US, 1974) (September 7)

THis week, we're looking at one of the key films of the American Film Renaissance.  Bonnie and Clyde's ideology, aesthetic, and breakthrough success altered the idea of the "mainstream Hollywood cinema" for its that cinema's creators, producers, critics, and audiences.   Mark Harris' account of the climate that produced the five Best Picture nominees of the year shows how Bonnie and Clyde was developed with a different set of assumptions than the Hollywood major studios had been using to produce and distribute films for many years- a model that was economically and ideologically outmoded by 1967.

The film critics of the day were divided between older, usually more conservative critics (usually writing for newspapers), who tended to judge films on the basis of their moral outcomes and lessons, and younger critics (often writing for magazines like The New Yorker, Vogue, and Time), who were more interested in a film's ideological and aesthetic novelty.  These two factions had been developing their positions for several years; the release of Bonnie and Clyde incited open conflict between them, which would last throughout the period of the American Film Renaissance.  The reviews in "The Case of Bonnie and Clyde" show this conflict.

Why screen Bonnie and Clyde?  Bonnie and Clyde's production history shows that it was a film with its feet on both sides of the line, straddling the Old Hollywood and the New Hollywood.  The film was developed by a bankable star and produced released by a major, legacy studio, Warner Bros.  But Warner Bros. leadership was mystified by the film. The screenplay had come, not from veterans, but from two magazine writers/film critics, who had been influenced more by the French New Wave than by anything Hollywood was then producing.  The film's producer-star, Warren Beatty, demanded the production be done with a minimum of interference from Warner Bros.; he shaped the film's production and marketing much more than was typical for a star-producer at that time, and he had in mind a specific audience, the 18-25 demographic, which the major Hollywood studios had usually failed to understand.  Beatty and his director, Arthur Penn, and the rest of their team, especially editor DeDe Allen, created a new aesthetic, and a new, `cool' feel for the film- the film (for its day) savored violence, but did not moralize about it.  Bonnie and Clyde is an excellent emblem of this period.

Why Screen Hearts and Minds?  Hearts and Minds is our only documentary this semester.  This period was a fertile one for documentary cinema, and for its influence on "fiction" films like Medium Cool and David Holzman's Diary.  But Hearts and Minds is most useful for us in a different way: it shows the violent divides in culture in the US, a divide between generations, races, genders, and classes, as well as politics.  The film itself became a touchstone for these divisions.  It produced by the same company (BBS, Bert Schneider's company) which had produced such major works of the American Film Renaissance as Five Easy Pieces and The Last Picture Show, and when the film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 1974, there was an onscreen controversy during the awards broadcast between the filmmakers' sympathy for North Vietnam, and conservative film industry figures, such as Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, and John Wayne. Showing Hearts and Minds is a way to immerse you in the feeling of the the period we're considering this semester, and which you're reading about.

Framing Questions: Prepare for September 14

 

1. Harris, Pictures at a Revolution: "How does Harris contrast the different assumptions that allowed these five movies to go into production?"

2. In "The Case of Bonnie and Clyde," describe the basic positions on the film staked out by these reviewers on the film.

3. In viewing Bonnie and Clyde, what do you feel is a key scene in establishing the film's ideology, and why?

Week 4: September 12-14: Canonical Themes and Modes of the American Film Renaissance

Reading: Peter Bogdanovich, "The Lightning Art" [at the "Files' tab on Canvas], John Simon, "The Last Picture Show" (Review) [at the "Files' tab on Canvas] and Pauline Kael, "Movies About Movies" (review of The Last Picture Show) [at the "Files' tab on Canvas]

Screening: The Last Picture Show (Peter Bogdanovich, US, 1971)

This week, we're using one of the characteristic films of the American Film Renaissance as a way into both the creative sources and the aesthetic forms of this period.  You'll be reading an autobiographical piece by Bogdanovich, and two conflicting reviews of the film-- these documents show the way that the film grew out of Bogdanovich's cinephilia and the subculture of the young filmmakers who made up much of the American Film Renaissance, and the difference in how the film was perceived by traditionalists like Simon, and by critics like Kael who identified themselves with young filmmakers like Bogdanovich. Bogdanovich's essay is the introduction to a collection of interviews he had conducted from the early 1960's to the mid 1970's with major figures in American film history, entitled Who the Devil Made It? Conversations with Legendary Film Directors, published in 1997.

Why screen The Last Picture Show?  The Last Picture Show is the closest thing there is to a "typical" film of the American Film Renaissance.  The film was produced by BBS Productions (Bert Schneider's company) and directed by a young director who had come to filmmaking both as an outsider (Bogdanovich began as a journalist; he didn't "come up" through the film industry in the ways that previous generations of directors had), and an insider (he knew more about movie history, as a great cinephile, than people who'd worked in the industry for years).  A legacy distributor, Columbia, released the film without having much of an idea of who the film would appeal to; it surprised everyone by being both popular and critically-acclaimed.  The way the film looks and is told shows both the influence of classic-era Hollywood (c. 1930-1960), and the European art cinema (1945-1970), in the service of a specifically American tale-- a tale which captures the ambivalences of society, and the frustrations of young people, in the years of the American Film Renaissance.

1. On Hearts and Minds: How do the analyses and responses to Hearts and Minds (at Canvas "File" tab) stake out the political oppositions and cultural divisions the film depicts?

2. Peter Bogdanovich, "The Lightning Art" [at the "Files' tab on Canvas]:  How does Bogdanovich tell his autobiography and his artistic creed in terms of the films he has watched?

3. John Simon, "The Last Picture Show" (Review) [at the "Files' tab on Canvas] and Pauline Kael, "Movies About Movies" (review of The Last Picture Show) [at the "Files' tab on Canvas]: what are the opposing views these two reviews stake out about The Last Picture Show- and by extension, the American Film Renaissance?

4. What is a scene or a shot in The Last Picture Show which, for you, helps you stake out an initial position about what the American Film Renaissance might be?  Use a quote from course reading to serve as a keynote to this position.

 

Week 5: September 19-21 The Movement and the Medium

Reading: Mark Kurlansky, 1968, pt. I: 3-80 & Criterion Video/Thomas Beard, "Preserving Disorder" [at "Files" tab on Canvas site] &"Cinema Verite vs. Direct Cinema"

 

Suggested Viewing & reading:  Marshall McLuhan, "The Medium is the Message," from Understanding Media (1964) 链接到外部网站。 & McLuhan, The Medium is the Massage [experimental spoken word recording]。

The chapter from McLuhan's very influential book offers ideas on the revolutionary power of modern communications media, while the spoken word recording (here in a You Tube clip) represents an attempt by McLuhan to render his theories in a "cool" form, an often confusing collage of him speaking his theories with overlapping examples of the kind of media he is speaking of. The book itself was not a traditional non-fiction book, but a photo-collage with type. Its title may or may not be a misprint; by 1967, McLuhan's phrase "The Medium is the Message" had itself become a cliche.  He became more interested in the effects of the new media ecology on himan consciousness and social organization, he began to substitute the word "massage" to represent the anesthetizing effect he was concerned the medias were having on people.

Screening: Medium Cool (Haskell Wexler, US, 1969)

This week, we're looking at the relationship between the debates and divisions about social change which characterized this era, and two of the media which most characterized these debates, not only in representing them, but in embodying them: television and film. The period was one in which the concept of a "media saturated" or "media savvy" society became widespread.  Theories about the ubiquitous and highly influential presence of the mass communications media in peoples' lives became news.  Research about the influence of media violence, for instance, some of it keynoted by Bonnie and Clyde, became common in the popular press.  The theories of media scholar Marshall McLuhan became widely known and influential during these years.  McLuhan theorized that all the communications media in history could be characterized as either "hot" or "cool" media.  In McLuhan's theory, "hot" media (which includes film) are ones which provide a great deal of information and require relatively little psychological activity on the part of their audience to complete the ideas being offered, while "cool" media, like television, provide relatively little information, and require the audience to fill in the many missing spaces between the ideas being offered.  McLuhan's ideas have since been subjected to considerable criticism- but during the time we're studying, they focused attention on the ways media communicated, as much as the ideas being communicated. One of McLuhan's books from this period became both a bestseller and its title a trademark phrase of this thinking: The Medium is the Message.  McLuhan's theories have been highly influential on advertising and, in his life, McLuhan became one of the first media celebrities whose fame was based solely on his ideas about- the media.  

Why screen Medium Cool?  Medium Cool is one of several films made during the American Film Renaissance which depicts the political turmoil, particularly the culture of demonstrations and protests, which remain the emblem of this era.  What is different about Medium Cool from some of these other films, such as The Strawberry Statement and Getting Straight, Medium Cool seeks to embody the divisions not only between political values, generations, genders, races, and classes, but within these.  Directed and photographed by Haskell Wexler (who would go on to photograph many other important films), the film is set during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.  The convention was the scene of violence between people protesting the Vietnam War and the Chicago police. But rather than merely describing the events of this time, the film embodies them, fusing fictional material with television news film shot at the time, in a story about a television journalist.  The film's title comes from McLuhan's theory.

Framing Questions (prepare for September 21)

1. Mark Kurlansky, 1968, pt. I: 3-80: What places does the mass communications media have in the way Mark Kurlansky chooses to tell the story of this period?

2. Criterion Video/Thomas Beard, "Preserving Disorder" [at "Files" tab on Canvas site]: How does Beard suggest the film's cinematic style is tied to McLuhan's ideas?

3. "Cinema Verite vs. Direct Cinema"。 How do the techniques and goals of Cinema Verite and/or Direct Cinema shape Medium Cool?

4. (and Weekly Critical Post) What scene in Medium Cool combines form and content to express the social and cultural ambivalence of this period? (note: you can't use a scene a previous poster has used...)

Week 6: September 26-28 Women and “Liberation”

Reading: Kurlansky, 1968, pt. II: 81-251, Betty Friedan, excerpts from The Feminine Mystique(1963)链接到外部网站。

Screening: Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (Martin Scorsese, US, 1974)

This week, we’re starting to look at various cinematic perspectives on women as social actors during period of the American Film Renaissance.  Betty Friedan’s 1963 book The Feminine Mystique was a both a huge bestseller and a transformative book in the lives of women.  A founding text in second wave feminism (c. 1960-1980), The Feminine Mystique motivated significant social change in America as it quickly became a founding text in the emerging “women’s liberation movement.”  It also generated significant criticism.  Most of this was antifeminist in nature, but some criticism came from more politically radical feminists, who charged that Friedan’s was a white and white-collar feminism, and unconscious of the economic and cultural circumstances of non-white, non-middle class women.

Why screen Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore? This film was part of a wave of `liberated women’ films of the American Film Renaissance which included films such as Paul Mazursky’s An Unmarried Woman (1978), starring Jill Clayburgh, John Cassavetes A Woman Under the Influence (1974), starring Gena Rowlands and Robert Altman’s Three Women (1977), starring Shelley Duvall, Sissy Spacek, and Janice Rule.  Actor Ellyn Burstyn had achieved significant industry leverage due to her leading role in the extremely popular horror film The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973); she chose Martin Scorsese on the basis of his successful independent film Mean Streets (1973) because she believed he would be both understanding and creative in his treatment of the script, which she had brought to his attention. Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore represents a complex engagement not only with the emerging ideas of feminism, but with economic class as well.

Framing Questions (prepare for September 28)

1. Kurlansky, 1968, pt. II: 81-251 What do the demonstrations and rebellions of various kinds that Kurlansky describes around the world have in common- that is, what are their common themes?

2. Kurlansky, 1968, pt. II: 81-251 How do the demonstrations on U.S. college campuses compare with the international political rebellions Kurlansky describes?

3. Betty Friedan, excerpts from The Feminine Mystique: What is the image of feminism that Friedan gives?

4. Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore: How does the film engage the ideas of rebellion and feminism in this week’s reading?