Critiquing "Old Hollywood"
I belong to a film group in which one member posted a write up that entitled " The Young and Restless and Unsettled 1970s: Ten Things That Made the 70s The Way They Were"
Here is an excerpt: "By the mid 60s, the Old Hollywood Humpty Dumpty had fallen (or been pushed) off his perch. And during the years 65-75 no one yet knew whether Old Hollywood would glue the old guy back together again. So, these years felt like a liberation from the old and also like the world (the world itself and the world of cinema) was a whole new frontier with a brand new horizon. Even in New Hollywood films, the old world is still very much present, the old institutions are still trying to exert their power and hold over us, but in the New Hollywood the art form has allied itself with the individual. However eccentric and flawed and contradictory the individual might be, in the New Hollywood it's the individual that matters. And in the 60s and 70s it's the individual who does not fit in who holds our interest. Each decade cinema (at least mainstream cinema) seems to play a bit like a form of propaganda for its times. In the 40s, you had war propaganda and loads of films about patriotism and duty. In the 50s, you had loads of mainstream films that lauded the American way of life and the wholesome nature of this land and our ideals. But in the 60s and 70s fewer and fewer filmmakers use cinema to celebrate the US of A, and more and more filmmakers use cinema to critique its many flaws and downsides and what tradition may have viewed as uncinematic qualities."
I mean, parts of that I would agree with, but Old Hollywood *really* all about pushing propaganda? Certainly there are many films from that era don't fit the mold that he was trying fit them into. (And judging from some of his other posts/comments, he hasn't actually seen many films pre-1970)
| by Anonymous | reply 9 | July 1, 2022 8:22 PM
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He seems to have a bit of a reductive take on all of cinema before 1970
| by Anonymous | reply 1 | May 31, 2022 8:45 PM
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New Hollywood also destroyed new Hollywood
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | June 1, 2022 1:20 AM
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Yes, Vertigo, Rebel Without a Cause, Bringing Up Baby, John Ford Westerns, etc were ALL propaganda. Film as an art form didn't exist until Martin Scorsese jerked off for the first time at NYU's film school!
Anyone who thinks the way the person you describe does simply does not love or even know movies.
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | June 1, 2022 1:23 AM
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The person you quoted gets it right, and I would add that the repeal of the Hays Code in 1968 was one of the most profound changes in cinema history. The Hayes Code was thr industry standard for thirty-four years.
From the link:
"The code was divided into two parts. The first was a set of "general principles" which prohibited a picture from "lowering the moral standards of those who see it", so as not to wrongly influence a specific audience of views including, women, children, lower-class, and those of “susceptible” minds, called for depictions of the "correct standards of life", and lastly forbade a picture to show any sort of ridicule towards a law or "creating sympathy for its violation".[30] The second part was a set of "particular applications", which was an exacting list of items that could not be depicted. Some restrictions, such as the ban on homosexuality or on the use of specific curse words, were never directly mentioned, but were assumed to be understood without clear demarcation."
I mean, that's not to say that all movies created during that time were bad or wrong (heading off some queen who will accuse me of such) but it meant that plots and scripts were very limited and standard in their scope. The 1970s is such a fucking underrated decade in film history. Filmmakers could now make anything they could imagine. Gritty stories about imperfect or even awful people. Biting criticism in films like Network, All the President's Men, The China Syndrome.
Sci-Fi & Horror like Close Encounters, Alien, The Exorcist.
| by Anonymous | reply 5 | June 1, 2022 1:42 AM
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All films are propaganda of a kind.
But the mob controlled Hwood and still does. Mafias and the state acclimate and accommodate to each other her in the US.
| by Anonymous | reply 6 | June 1, 2022 2:05 AM
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It continues: “Old Hollywood was never one thing, but Old Hollywood had a tendency to promote the culture it served. It was not critical of Americans or American institutions. If you were a freethinking type (an oppositional voice) you were kept in line or blacklisted.”
Hmm … so before the 1970’s no American film ever criticized Americans or American institutions. Right.
| by Anonymous | reply 9 | July 1, 2022 8:22 PM
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