Tuesday, October 22, 2019

American New Wave Cinema Essay

A contextual study of American New Wave Cinema

Throughout this unit I studied the American new wave cinema movement from 1967 to 1979 where America was facing many social issues that affected how films were produced and the ideas that were conveyed within them. An example of a social issue that was being conveyed at the time in cinema was the Vietnam War (1 Nov 1955 – 30 Apr 1975). Due to its controversy within the American public this topic appears in a lot of new wave cinema as a lot of independent directors used their movies to convey their thoughts on the topic. “Over the course of the 1960s the counter culture, youth activism, and civil rights movements generated widespread rejection of standard Hollywood fare at the time. For decades there had been standards, censorship, and deeply held beliefs about what mainstream American film had to look like.” (Jordan 2018).  Another element of American new wave cinema is its tendency to fixate on character action and scenes with intense thematic resonance where dialogue frequently feels unnecessary, and gives way to scenes of violence or other typical conventions of mainstream cinema. Throughout this essay I will be looking at my chosen films and identifying where these elements are present with its effect it has on cinema and its connection to the time it is set.

The first film I looked at when studying this unit was Arthur Penns Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and when researching this film I looked at what made this an example of American new wave and how this differed from standard cinema at the time, “The film showed blood and gore explicitly and the audiences enjoyed each violent scene. However, despite such strides in portraying the lives of violent criminals realistically, the film uses the subtleties of the French New Wave liberally and the connection between the two movements are palpable.” (Narelle 2017). An element of New Wave Cinema that appears throughout this film is its over the top use of violence (At least compared to the time of the release) with the final scene of the film being an example of this in which both characters are gunned down in clear view of the audience. In this scene a lot of quick cuts are used in order to build pace before any violence actually happens, when the gun fire actually begins the shots cut from Bonnie being shot and Clyde being shot with both showing clear pain during the scene and blood being easily visible from their wounds, this would have been very ground breaking for the time as not much violence would be shown in cinema before hand. “If the New Wave was a case of the French critics deconstructing the methods and iconography of American cinema in order to fashion something new and exciting, 1967’s Bonnie and Clyde was arguably the moment where these forward-thinking revisions truly found their way back to the States. Despite its obvious European predecessors, Penn’s rural tale of Depression-era carnage and courtship feels distinctly, passionately American, and its influence can be felt not just in the bold era of home grown cinema that followed but also in more recent purveyors of artful savagery.” (David Pountain 2017).

Another example of how Bonnie and Clyde subverted mainstream cinema and indulged new wave cinema techniques was through the sexualisation of its characters. Before this film nudity and sexual topics where not really included in mainstream cinema. In the opening scene Bonnie is shown naked, this subverts standard cinema at the time because this is our first introduction to the character and it establishes the directors stance on standard values in Hollywood cinema, with him not being afraid go against the norm, telling this to the audience within the first few minutes of the film. Nudity is also used as a hidden meaning throughout this film, “Here, sexuality is used as a tool to express the sense of escapism achieved through crime, and as a means in itself to perforate the mundane.” (Joel S. Kempson 2015).  This is apparent through Bonnie’s attraction to Clyde in the first place because of the boredom she shows before meeting him for example, in the opening scene where she is shown banging on the bed in frustration with her normal life. “The opening gives a sense of Bonnies imprisoned sensuality and certainly Bonnies abrupt movements indicate frustration, a feeling of being trapped” (Robert Kolker 2000).  Therefore the link between sexuality and freedom in this film is portrayed through Bonnies character and how she has more sex with Clyde and falls deeper in love with him, the more they go against society and commit these crimes, thus linking back to my comment of sexuality linking to escapism within this film as she is escaping from society and reality the deeper she gets in this film. This is a strong element of new wave cinema as not only is a high amount of sexuality present in this film (which goes against mainstream Hollywood at the time) but it also contains deeper social messages that new wave films like to incorporate.

Throughout this unit, one of the films I have studied was Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver”. In this film Robert De Niro’s character, Travis Bickle is a Vietnam War veteran who is struggling to adjust back into normal life. During the opening scene Travis walks into the taxi rank enquiring about a job, Travis and the owner of the business then get into a conversation throughout the interview. This is an element of American New Wave Cinema through the unnecessary feel of this dialogue as if the characters were having a conversation in real life. During this conversation exposition about our protagonist is revealed such as his struggle with insomnia and also his previous military record. In implementing this information through casual dialogue it makes the exposition seem less forced and instead let the passing of key plot points seem natural. The brief mentioning of these two topics can link to the social contexts of the time when soldiers where first coming home from Vietnam but were struggling to adjust back to society while also battling mental health issues that were usually taboo or just not recognised at the time such as the insomnia that he mentions or other mental health issues such as PTSD that affected a lot of soldiers that returned home after the war. Therefore in subtly mentioning these topics Scorsese is commenting on the social issues that were troubling the time such as the lack of help for returning soldiers and the ignorance of their mental health through only having the characters mention these topics in passing mention, rather than speaking about it in detail that maybe it should deserve. This is an element of new wave cinema through Scorsese using his film to comment on the social issues in a platform that will reach a lot of people.

In another scene in Taxi Driver, Travis Bickle is talking to himself in a mirror; this scene stands out more than others in the film due to the repetitive nature of the shots and his conversation with himself. It is in this scene where the audience gets another glimpse at Bickles psyche “The scene conveys many things: his anger at the world, his reckless abandon, his sense of self-importance, and deep down, an anger at himself he can’t consciously reveal. Soon enough, the self-esteem boasting self-refrains begin to seem like the ravings of a madman, and then bitter, brittle cries for help from someone who only conceptualizes help through the masculine, violent male lens.” (The Long Take 2019), while in the process incorporating new wave techniques such as the repetition of the shots, this new wave technique is used here to link to Bickles mental state with the text being from his perspective and this lapse in narrative could be an example of how he is struggling to cope since the Vietnam war, as mentioned in my previous paragraph. Therefore in this scene Scorsese uses the new wave technique of repeating shots while also briefly breaking the continuity of the film through the lapse of narrative, to help convey his messages of mental health and the mistreatment of returning soldiers from Vietnam as Bickle in this film is shown to be struggling to readjust back to normal life but is never offered any help.

Another film I studied throughout this unit was Apocalypse Now (Francis Coppola), which is set during the Vietnam War. In the opening scene of the film, the protagonist Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) talking about his struggle to adjust back to normal life. In this scene the Captain is performing a dance routine we see throughout the film from characters with questionable sanity such as the natives in the third act. This can link to the characters mental state in this scene, as this is set after the final act, with him mimicking those characters actions. This can link to the real world in which soldiers who returned from the war struggled to readjust with society with mental health issues such as PTSD (as mentioned in my earlier paragraph on taxi driver), this was a big talking point when it came towards American New Wave cinema as people like these new wave directors believed these issues weren’t being spoken about in society enough so used their films to speak out about the topic. Therefore through dropping subtle hints about the protagonist’s mental health the director is allowing the audience to see the affect that the war had on its soldiers in a new wave style and by making the soldiers mental health a talking point in cinema.

Another example of how Apocalypse Now is an example of an American New Wave film is through its use of subtle dialogue and inconsequential conversations. For example throughout the first act the topic of surfing comes into play multiple times, with characters talking about it during times it seems highly irrelevant such as in the helicopter raid on the Vietnamese town. This is an example of American New Wave Cinema through characters talking and having normal conversations that doesn’t affect the plot in any way that is seen in other American New Wave films and also in French New Wave too. This makes the characters seem more human as they are talking in a matter that mimics the real world and how people would speak in real life, with not every conversation requiring purpose and in the films case not forwarding the plot in any way. Therefore in incorporating this into the film, the director gives a sense of real life to the film with these characters expressing themselves outside of the plot, this new wave element of incorporating real life into the text helps the director capture the severity of the film itself and how this happened to real people.

In conclusion these films I have studied have all incorporated new wave techniques that went against standard movie making techniques at the time, but they also incorporated social messages into these techniques such as in taxi driver with the repetition or the unnecessary dialogue in Apocalypse now, “American New Wave films tend to fixate on character action and scenes with intense thematic resonance. Dialogue frequently feels unnecessary, and gives way to scenes of violence and high speed pursuits” (Jordan 2018).  This helped challenge social issues at the time through creating a platform for the people to speak in which before no one really spoke out about issues such as the aftermath of the Vietnam War. "These films were centred on complex themes with morally ambiguous messages, reflecting the nonconforming generation disillusioned by Vietnam." (Filmmakers Handbook, 2019).




Reference List

Arthur Penn (1967) Bonnie and Clyde

Martin Scorsese  (1976) Taxi Driver

Francis Ford Coppola (1979) Apocalypse Now

Jordan, S., (2018) The New Perspectives in the American new wave [Online]
Available from:

Narelle., (2017) Bonnie and Clyde – The French New Wave in Hollywood

[Online]

Available from:

https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/narelle001/bonnie-and-clyde-the-french-new-wave-in-hollywood/


David Pount., (2017) How Bonnie and Clyde brought the French New Wave to Hollywood
[Online]
Available from:
https://lwlies.com/articles/bonnie-and-clyde-french-new-wave-hollywood/

Joel S. Kempson., (2015) Living with Evil: Crime and sexuality in Bonnie and Clyde and Chinatown
[Online]
Available from:
http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1011/living-with-evil-crime-and-sexuality-in-bonnie-and-clyde-and-chinatown

Robert Kolker,. (2000) A cinema of loneliness

The Long Take (2019) American New Wave: Taxi Driver
[Online]
Available from:

Jordan, S., (2018) The New Perspectives in the American new wave [Online]
Available from:
https://facets.org/blog/exclusive/lists/essentials/the-new-perspectives-in-the-american-new-wave/

Filmmakers Handbook (2019)  [Online]
Available from:

http://screenprism.com/insights/article/the-filmmakers-handbook-what-is-the-new-hollywood-movement

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