The 12-year period that became “the greatest era in filmmaking”, according to George Clooney
There was certainly a time when it felt like George Clooney was the ultimate Hollywood star. With roles in everything from O Brother, Where Art Thou? to Fantastic Mr Fox, he has spanned genres while also dedicating much of his time to political and humanitarian advocacy.
While the actor certainly isn’t sitting at the height of acclaim that he used to back in the 2000s, he remains an enduring star of the silver screen, with his vast knowledge of cinema helping him pick out roles that have secured his success.
The two-time Oscar winner believes that he is “a product of the ’70s filmmakers”, as he mentioned, talking to Parade about his love of a specific era in cinema history, which changed the medium forever. “I grew up with that. I believe from like 1964 to 1976 was the greatest time in filmmaking by far. That was the era that I was watching movies the most,” he remarked.
Otherwise known as the New Hollywood era, this was a period in which a new crop of American filmmakers emerged with new ideas. Mainstream American cinema had been dominated by studio-bound productions for years, with on-set filming and happy endings the default. For several decades, the Hays Code had banned sexual and violent content as well as blasphemy, explicit interracial or homosexual relationships, and many other themes that were taboo at the time.
With the demise of the Hays Code in 1968, buoyed by the success of the raunchy psychological drama Blow-Up, Hollywood cinema took a new turn. With the release of movies like Dr Strangelove and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, the ‘60s began to shift, although it was the arrival of Bonnie and Clyde in 1967 that marked the true turning point. The film was sexually-charged and brutal, ending with the violent deaths of the main characters. The similarly nihilistic Easy Rider emerged two years later, with chaotic drug trips and tragedy defining it as a reflection of the decade’s dying hippie era.
As the ‘70s rolled around, cinema was naturally affected by the cultural landscape of America, where war, the fight for civil rights, and grisly events like the Manson murders painted a new image of the country. The so-called ‘land of the free’ was a place of contradictions, of both fear and optimism, violence and humour.
For Clooney, these movies represented a moment in cinema history when movies became more real and honest, harnessing a grittiness and raw sensibility that needed to be communicated. “I gave all my friends for Christmas 100 films between 1964 and ’76. Dr Strangelove, All the President’s Men, Bonnie and Clyde—movies that were really changing the face of filmmaking,” he revealed.
He expanded on the broader social order and political atmosphere that was also influencing the industry and his film choices, saying, “That era was a reflection of the antiwar movement, the civil rights movement, the women’s rights movement, the sexual revolution, the drug counterculture. All those things were exploding at the same time. And these films were reflections of it. Movies are really good when they do that. They give us a sense of what was going on in our psyche.”
The New Hollywood era had a strong identity, even though such a diverse range of movies emerged from the likes of Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, and Brian De Palma, to Hal Ashby and Elaine May. These were films concerned with the state of America at the time, and by taking a fearless and often experimental approach, cinema was never the same again.
