The unlikely movies Paul Schrader credits with launching the New Hollywood era
1960s America was a time and place of great turmoil and change. The huge political upheavals, protests and movements of the era caused a shift in almost every other part of life, including art, culture and, notably, cinema. Anti-war demonstrations, women’s liberation and civil rights movements caused a change in values that would trickle through to every other part of life. However, it wasn’t just this tremendous cultural change that ushered in a cinematic era known as New Hollywood. It was also the industry’s changing landscape and the cinemagoer’s new face.
With the rise of television came the end of the traditional studio system and dwindling numbers of cinemagoers. Those who did show up were no longer the middle-aged, high-school-educated audiences of the past but a younger, more highly educated class of viewers. They no longer wanted the musicals and historical epics that had dominated ‘Old Hollywood’ for some time but something fresh and in line with their more worldly social, cultural, and political views.
Paul Schrader, himself a late-coming filmmaker of New Hollywood, credits two unlikely movies with launching this new era. But they weren’t the influential New Hollywood classics like Easy Rider or Bonnie and Clyde. Before the fresh, innovative and experimental young filmmakers and artists were allowed to take over Hollywood, the studios and execs had to be hit with the reality of the situation.
Schrader claims this came in the form of two musicals, Paint Your Wagon and Hello, Dolly. Speaking to The Guardian, he explains, “They were both mega-budget films in the old way, and they tanked and sent their companies to the edge of bankruptcy. There was a real panic about what the young people wanted.” And so, the studios eventually did what they had to do – they let the young people speak for themselves by way of a new class of young filmmakers.
As Schrader puts it, “There was a period when the financiers were actually asking the artists what the young people wanted to see.” These artists included the likes of Peter Bogdanovich, Robert Altman, Jack Nicholson and Dennis Hopper, who were mentored by B-movie king Roger Corman and influenced by European art films. Studios gave the artists almost free reign and thus ushered in the time of director as author.
This led to straightforward, story-driven flicks like Paint Your Wagon and Hello, Dolly becoming relics of the past. The linear narratives and overt plots were replaced by films with unique narrative and stylistic choices, which often ended in irresolution and a more complicated response from audiences.
Arriving late to the movement but nonetheless incredibly influential was Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, for which Schrader wrote the screenplay (and will surely go down as his greatest achievement, despite his numerous successful directorial pursuits). But to Schrader, it wasn’t just the artists that were so influential at the time but the audiences. “There’s probably more talented people making films today than there were back then,” says Schrader. “The biggest and only difference… was the audiences were better. The audiences were going through social uncertainty, and they wanted artists to help them out. And the moment that a society turns to artists for answers, great art emerges.”
And, perhaps this is what our contemporary era of blockbusters, biopics and remakes is missing: a reliance on artists to make change. While we may have an abundance of talented artists making films, we continue to turn back to the past time and time again. Perhaps it’s time to look to the future, as Schrader, Scorsese and the other New Hollywood filmmakers did.
