The New Hollywood and Independent Filmmaking (summary)

            It was during the 1960’s when blockbuster movies The Sound of Music (1965) and Dr. Zhivago (1965) paved a way for a seemingly healthy Hollywood industry which yielded huge profits. However, after this short dominance in films, problems came in the way when television networks, who used to pay high prices to broadcast films, ceased the bidding for pictures therefore resulting to loss of millions in profit of Hollywood companies by 1969.

            To counter the million profit loss of the producers, they created deviant films targeting the young people. These include Dennis Hoper’s Easy Rider (1969) and Robert Altman's M*A*S*H (1970). Although these two films were successful, other films aimed at the young audience featuring campus revolution and uncoventional lifestyles lead to disappointment in the big screens. On the positive side, films catering to a much broader audience did help lift the industry and the most successful were Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972), William Friedkin's The Exorcist (1913), Steven Spielberg's Jaws (1975) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), John Carpenter's Halloween (1918), and George Lucas's American Grffiti (1913), Star Wars (1977), and The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Brian De Palma’s Obsession 1(976) and Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976) and  Raging Bull (1980).

            These directors were known as the film brats who attended various film schools unlike those earlier Hollywood directors who hadn’t had the chance to. Eventhough this is the case, the new breed of directors based their films on the ideas and styles of the previous directors. The only difference is that, given the knowledge they gained from the film schools, they were able to enhance or improve old ideas therefore making it look, sound and feel new for the audience to appreciate.

            Independent filmmaking from the word itself, requires a lot of budget that was why many directors switched into mainstream filmmaking. Yet other directors who managed to create big budgeted films on their own, conveyed an experimental attitude.

            Lastly, these film brats continued to help in the betterment of Hollywood cinema by creating innovations to cater for a much broader audience.