The New Hollywood: From Bonnie and Clyde to Star Wars

by Peter Krämer

On December 8, 1967 "Time" magazine put "Bonnie and Clyde" on its cover and announced, "The New Cinema: Violence ... Sex ... Art." The following decade has long been celebrated as a golden age in American film history. In this innovative study, Peter Kr?mer offers a systematic discussion of the biggest hits of the period (including "The Graduate" [1967], "The Exorcist" [1973] and "Jaws" [1975]). He relates the distinctive features of these hits to changes in the film industry, in its audiences and in American society at large.

Genres: Film

144 pages, Paperback

First published December 15, 2005

Reviews

[Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to read this book for my film class, and I must say it really taught me a lot. I have always been interested in film and Peter Kramer has done extensive research on three different eras of the movie generation. He has great insight into the culture surrounding film production and the movies themselves. The one thing I didn't like was the fact that Kramer relies too heavily on statistics and the works of others so the reading can get kind of overloaded with numbers, figures, and credits.

[Shant · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings on the book, because I was reading it looking for stuff about the movement (Or just specific movie analyses), while the book was mostly about the period from 1967 to 1976 in film, compared to the decade before. Of course, continuing the book, it made sense, because these movies have little in common, but I still wish it was about the movies instead of studying demographic changes in moviegoers from before 1967 and then 1977-1986 only. It was interesting reading about things like how the preceding roadhouse era was more internationally focused/ the New Hollywood era seemed to leave female moviegoers behind for men to explore their feelings some more. Also, this book is short enough/there are enough other books on the subject that lessen the blow.

[Briana]

I learned some things, but I wish this were a bit more theory-based.

[risko.tainas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite heavy on the statistics, but still an interesting read regarding the period.