Douglas Gomery's The New Hollywood

In ‘The New Hollywood’, Douglas Gomery states that ‘the ‘new’ Hollywood ‘dates from the 1975 release of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, which marked the entry of a new, younger generation of Hollywood directors’ (479). Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell, however, saw the period as having started in the late 1960s and argue that despite many of the ‘directors identified with the “New Hollywood” were “movie brats”’ in ‘their late twenties and early thirties’, the New Hollywood directors were in fact ‘a diverse lot’ who were ‘characterized by “movie consciousness”, an intense awareness of film history and its continuing influence on contemporary culture’ (478). This response will examine two key features of the New Hollywood, namely the key authorial

In light of the slump in the film industry, studios at that time were desperate and more open experimentation, allowing young filmmakers to explore and create their films with less restrictions. In his writing, Gomery raises the example of Woody Allen, whom he considers as ‘probably the most famous auteur film-maker in the 1980s' (480). His distinctive style draws from his own experiences as ‘a television gag writer and a stand-up comedian’ as well as ‘his interest in the psychological problems of the urban professional’ (Thompson; Bordwell 481). In Annie Hall (1977) for example, we see traces of Allen in the protagonist Alvy with his Jewish identity, personal love for New York and experience going for psychotherapy sessions. Furthermore, Allen enjoyed ‘total creative control over his productions’ - his authorial role is thus undeniably significant (Gomery 481). With other notable examples such as Francis Ford Coppola and Steven Spielberg who ‘had tried their hand at every aspect of [filmmaking] from writing to postproduction’, it is clear that the New Hollywood was indeed ‘a director-centered trend’ (Thompson; Bordwell