The 1960s saw huge changes in the American film industry, with the Old Hollywood studios rapidly losing money on expensive films that no longer spoke to a baby boom audience that was coming of age. A new generation of filmmakers were leading a Hollywood renaissance which would become known as New Hollywood. Filmmakers like Scorsese and Coppola changed the rules through a variety of methods, creating films that were in many ways virtually unrecognisable to the pictures of Classical Hollywood.
To quote Biskind “The thirteen years between Bonnie and Clyde in 1967 and Heaven’s Gate in 1980 marked the last time when it was really exciting to make movies in Hollywood, the last time people could be consistently proud of the pictures they made, the last time the community as a whole encouraged good work, the last time there was an audience to sustain it”.
There are endless routes of analysis to define the newness (or lack thereof) in New Hollywood cinema, in this essay I will be focusing on the newness of the era through its portrayal of masculinity in film. I will be analysing specifically the changing role of violent or alienated male protagonists in comparison to their Old Hollywood counterparts. For example the side-lining of Ethan Edwards in The Searchers (Ford 1956) in comparison to the continuance of Michael Corleone in The Godfather (Coppola 1972).
I will be referencing films such as Mean Streets (Scorsese 1973) and Dirty Harry (Siegal 1972) as examples of the treatment of violent and morally ambiguous men in the New Hollywood era. I will also be backing up my claims with a variety of academic sources such as Donna Peberdy (Masculinity & Performance) and Geoff King (New Hollywood Cinema:).
Disillusionment in the legal system has been a recurring theme in Hollywood’s depiction of masculinity since its creation. Dirty Harry follows the complicated Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) in what would be considered a noble quest to bring down the serial killer Scorpio (Andy Robinson). However while the audience roots for Harry, he exhibits few traits that would be considered acceptable in a role model, he is moody and belligerent, taking his frustrations of the world out on those around him, not only this but he is unapologetically racist in his language, while its unknown if this is genuine feeling or part of a need to be unlikable to those around him, most audiences can agree that it’s not the characteristics of a likeable protagonist or heroic man. It could be argued that the audience only root for Harry out of necessity because of the common enemy in Scorpio.
Before the screens were dominated by angry Clint Eastwood characters, Classical Hollywood was not silent in expressing frustrations with a broken system. An example of this would be the principled lawyer Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck) from To Kill a Mockingbird (Mulligan 1962).Finch and Callahan both represent the struggle to find justice in a corrupted legal system, however Finch remains an idealistic man who took on the doomed task of fighting the prejudices and racism of the time. Barack Obama calling him “…an ideal American character…” (Kornhaber 2017). However while Finch takes on the role of America’s father, Callahan sinks deeper in his own alienation and disgust at the systems in place. The treatment of the conclusions of each film provide an insight into the differing views of the two eras.
“…The Dirty Harry films confirm this sense of bitterness and nihilism that Cagin and Dray identify. Though Harry Callahan may kill the serial murderer Scorpio in Dirty Harry, he throws away his badge at the end of the film in disgust at the inability of the police department to jail a known murderer…” (Jeffords 1994).
While the idealistic Finch continues to practice law, Callahan no longer sees the system as tenable and rejects it altogether. This is a common occurrence among the men of New Hollywood.
“What is most striking about the period, however, is the sheer number of crises and upheavals. Their cumulative impact in a relatively short period of time is what gives grounds for assuming a further-reaching challenge to some American values and assumptions. Images of America as a place of freedom and democracy were dented, if not more severely damaged”. (King 2002).
King argues that a large part of the New Hollywood movement was born out of the social context of the time. Bonnie and Clyde (Penn 1967). Retold the story of the infamous bank robbers as rebels against the systems that had destroyed the lives of so many, the rebellion of the film can be summed up by Jack L. Warner’s disdain of it, referring to the picture as a “three piss movie” (Harris 2008) In many ways Old Hollywood was just as much part of the larger spectrum of injustices the new movement were raging against. As admirable as Atticus Finch was, he was still part of a broken system.
The broken system often reflected broken men. Travis Bickle (De Niro) the protagonist of Taxi Driver (Scorsese 1976) is a far more extreme reflection of the alienation of violent men during the time period. Taxi Driver is a film that resonated with audiences of the time, especially disaffected men. Paul Schrader writing that on opening night “There was a line of Travis Bickle look alikes: pale young men with buzzcuts and army surplus jackets”. While Bickle possesses no heroic attributes, many found a relatability in him, a PTSD riddled Vietnam war veteran who had been forgotten by society and lived in both envy and disgust of it. Far removed from Harry Callahan’s “Ends Justify the Means” morality, Taxi Driver makes no nuance or secret of Bickle’s contemptable morality.
While he does make a hero of himself saving a young Iris (Jodie Foster) from a life of modern slavery. It is clear through his actions that they were motivated more by his desire to commit violence than a genuine care for the girl. It is notable that his plot to save her came after his failed plot to assassinate a political candidate! Wilson writes that “A man of deteriorating mental faculties proposes an assumed “Good Deed” by removing a young girl from prostitution, yet he does so by pursuing an unorthodox and illegal solution of violence”. (Wilson 1999).
Films of men saving women in crises are not new to cinema, however they rarely came from such a morally grey (or even black) area. Men in cinema were often vindicated of wrongdoing in their violence as it was often portrayed to be justified. The body count of John Wayne in El Dorado (Hawks 1966) is portrayed as noble because he is fighting against a morally corrupt carpetbagger. An example more parallel to Taxi Driver however would be The Searchers (Ford 1956) in which Ethan (John Wayne) searches for his kidnapped niece Debbie (Lana & Natalie Wood). Throughout the film he commits several acts of extreme violence from scalping to murder, however he is in most ways vindicated of his sins. In part this is due to the time of the film, while Ethan’s actions and outdated ideas would be considered abhorrent by 20th century standards, The Searchers takes places in the aftermath of the American Civil War, when such views and behaviours were often the accepted ways. Another part is his intentions, rescuing his kidnapped niece is objectively the right thing to do, the family element to the plot is reflective of the family values that dominated American Cinema at the time. It could be argued that Ethan while a deeply nuanced character is still reflective of the Classical Hollywood hero.
Travis on the other hand is not given the same heroic treatment that Ethan received, despite society’s newly found admiration of him (admiration that Ethan Edwards will go without), the audience is clear of the more twisted character beneath, they’re aware that saving Iris was his “Plan B” to assassination and they’re aware of the mind bending that pushed him to do it.
Travis also doesn’t have the fallback of being from a different era as his views were far from widely accepted in the 1970s, as demonstrated through the film’s poor reception at Cannes. (Taubin 2001). It could be argued that Scorsese and Schrader were not as interested in creating a hero but a realistic and damaged human, Taxi Driver was in many ways a personal story about Schrader himself, stating “My marriage broke up. I had a contretemps with the people who were running AFI, and I had to leave, I was broke. I didn’t have a car. It was out of this, that the metaphor for Taxi Driver was Born…I wrote it essentially as therapy”. (Konow 2015).
While Bickle could be considered a new kind of criminally minded protagonist in Hollywood, he was far from the first, even as a protagonist. Morally bankrupt heroes, while less common in Hollywood, predated New Hollywood figures overseas. Breathless (Godard 1960) follows the story of the narcissistic murderer Michel (Jean-Paul Charles Belmondo). Michel spends the film moving from one bad behaviour to another, while discussing with the audience his own warped view of the world, although he doesn’t exhibit the same twisted mind as Bickle and appears to just revel in his own badness. However while Bickle is eventually turned into a hero, Michel is gunned down in the street. A nihilistic end to a nihilistic character.
Ethan Edwards represents a frequent recurrence among the corrupted heroes of Old Hollywood in his own dismissal at the film’s conclusion. As he returns Debbie home, his years long mission at an end, he is greeted with little thanks and won’t cross the threshold of the homestead. He is aware of his own morality and knows that the home is not his place, the film famously ending as his silhouette walks back out into the frontier.
Edwards is an example of Old Hollywood’s treatment of a flawed hero in that he doesn’t receive a happy ending and he doesn’t really exist outside of his violent world. Edwards might long for a family life, but he is doomed to go without it and it appears that he is one of the lucky ones. More villainous characters like The Public Enemy’s (Wellman 1931) Tom Powers (James Cagney) are refused the right to continue living. Despite his care for his family and desire to provide for them, his sins are deemed to high to go unpunished and in the film’s darkest moment his corpse is returned to the family that were so excited for his homecoming. The film is telling of The Hayes Code that dominated Hollywood productions at the time and wouldn’t allow a controversial film to exist without a pointed message. In The Public Enemy it comes in the form of an epilogue reading “The end of Tom Powers is the end of every hoodlum. “The Public Enemy” is not a man, nor is it a character – It is a problem that sooner or later WE, the public, must solve”.
“Many respectable citizens believed that films such as these, based on the lives and activities of Prohibition-era criminals, led to an increase in juvenile delinquency and accused Hollywood of delivering impressionable youth into a career of crime. The harmful effects of fast-moving and exciting gangster films on young cinema patrons thus became a prominent concern of those eager to control and censor this pervasive new mass medium ” (Springhall 1998).
Crime films like Scarface (Hawks 1932) and The Killing (Kubrick 1956) while ground-breaking films in their own respect, are still further examples of Hollywood’s “Crime Doesn’t Pay” attitude and their devotion to the public’s disgust with the crimes of Al Capone and his contemporaries. Both films ending in either the death or capture of criminals.
Francis Ford Coppola offered a narrative alternative with The Godfather (1972). The Gangster epic follows Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) as despite his best efforts, he falls into his family’s world of crime and violence. Thrown into this life in an attempt to avenge his father and return the honour of his family, his motives are family orientated, however, so are his victims. His wives, siblings and even his own children are eventually all made victims to the web of violence and crime that Michael has unintentionally dragged them into. While the audience can sympathise with Michael as he must carry the grief and consequences for the rest of his life, it is notable that the only person in his life that doesn’t receive a comeuppance is himself. This is in complete contrast to the violent men of Classical Hollywood who nearly always meet a brutal ending. Whereas Powers and other men of his kind are written away, Corleone continues to exist, he struggles through 2 more films, dying of old age many years later.
On one hand this could be partially due to the changing public opinion of such characters, while the overwhelming opinion was once one of disgust, audiences were becoming increasingly fascinated by such men! “Although his methods are indiscriminately evil (particularly in the second film), the opacity of Michael’s criminal psyche is what keeps the audience captive”. (Poon 2006).
The continuation of violent men appears to be a recurring theme throughout New Hollywood! For example, Walker (Lee Marvin) survives a bloody revenge story of his own doing in Point Blank (1967), and Mean Streets ends just as Cappa has been injured and now has to deal with the fallout of the climactic street violence. In many ways it seems like the filmmakers have deemed it more of a punishment to antiheroes to have to live with themselves. Marlowe (Elliot Gould) walks away triumphant from his ordeal in The Long Goodbye (Altman 1973) but must now deal with the toll the events of the film will take on his personal wellbeing.
There are however numerous New Hollywood productions that break this rule, Badlands (Terrence Malick 1973) ends with the execution of the violent protagonist, Bonnie and Clyde (1967) ends (like in real life) with the deaths of the titular antiheroes, and while Travis Bickle doesn’t face any immediate fallout for his illegal actions saving Iris, his driving away from Betsy (Cybil Shepherd) could be representative of his rejection of his newfound glory and his decision to continue following his path of darkness.
There are also numerous examples of the same kind of toxic men receiving happy endings in Hollywood. Howard Hughes’ The Outlaw (1943) rewrites history to give Billy the Kid (Jack Buetel) a happy ending. Marnie (1964) gives Rutland (Sean Connery) a redemptive arc and a happy ending with his wife (Hedren), despite his unforgivable actions towards her. The latter example could be given as an example however towards the questionable attitudes towards women in the 20th century both on and off screen. (Jacobwitz 2011).
While there are many examples of continuance before and after the New Hollywood filmmakers dominated the screen, it was certainly more prevalent during this period as audiences were less inclined to demand justice of fictional characters and instead sought more realism and nuance in the films they watched.
In Conclusion it would be incredibly difficult to say that New Hollywood’s view of masculinity is completely “New” as violent men have been a staple of cinema before the rise of the New Hollywood filmmakers both abroad in films like Breathless and in the USA with films like “The Outlaw”. It could be argued that films like Breathless and The Searchers would ultimately remove such men either through their own demise or their outcast, and New Hollywood antiheroes would often continue their lives, however, there are many examples of the opposite being true in classical films like Marnie, where the antihero receives no justiceor New films like Badlands where he is brought to justice.
But while not entirely new, it would be wholly inaccurate to suggest that New Hollywood didn’t bring their own originality to their antiheroes and are responsible for popularising such portrayals of masculinity. An antihero was once a rarity in film but became the common narrative under the New Hollywood filmmakers.
Michael Corleone lived comfortably (albeit unhappily) long into his old age. While Harry Callahan was the star of a five film franchise.
It could also be argued that the mass marketing and appeal of such masculinity on the screen was new, as previously Hollywood was dominated by safe heroic figures who acted as far more of a role model than a relatable figure. New Hollywood is responsible for the continued global appeal of the morally ambiguous men that still populate contemporary cinema and television. The likes of Tony Soprano, Tyler Durden and Tom Ripley, likely owe a debt to the risks taken by the New Hollywood filmmakers who broke the traditions of their time. While New Hollywood drew inspiration from previous works, they were still trailblazers in changing how audiences view masculinity for decades to come.
To end my essay, I’d like to quote the observer “Not since the mid 1970’s has American Cinema promised so much. Taut screenplays, subtle performances and moral ambiguities”.
Films Referenced:
The Searchers (Ford, 1956)
The Godfather (Coppola, 1972).
Dirty Harry (Siegal, 1972)
To Kill a Mockingbird (Mulligan, 1962).
Bonnie and Clyde (Penn, 1967).
Taxi Driver (Scorsese, 1976)
El Dorado (Hawks, 1966)
Breathless (Godard, 1960)
The Public Enemy’s (Wellman, 1931)
Scarface (Hawks, 1932)
The Killing (Kubrick, 1956)
Point Blank (Boorman, 1967)
The Long Goodbye (Altman, 1973)
Badlands (Terrence Malick, 1973)
The Outlaw (Hughes, 1943)
Marnie (Hitchcock, 1964)
Bibliography:
King, G, New Hollywood Cinema: An Introduction, The Hollywood Renaissance, IB Tauris 2002, p 15.
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/01/obamas-atticus-finch/512789/
Jeffords, S, Hard Bodies Hollywood Masculinity in the Raegan Era, Rutgers University Press, 1994, p17-18.
Harris, Mark. Pictures at a Revolution: Five Films and the Birth of the New Hollywood. The Penguin Press. 2008 pp 325
Wilson, W. (1999). The psychopath in film. Lanham, Md.: University Press Of America.
Taubin, Amy Taxi Driver (BFI Film Classics) British Film Institute, 2000, pp 87
Konow, David, Transformation in Art: The Films of Paul Schrader, Brody, Richard (2008). Everything is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard. New York, New York: Metropolitan Books. p. 74.
CreativeScreenwriting.com, 2015, pp iv.
SPRINGHALL, J., 1998. Censoring Hollywood: Youth, moral panic and crime/gangster movies of the 1930s. Journal of Popular Culture, 32(3), pp. 135-154.
POON, P., 2006. The Tragedy of Michael Corleone in The Godfather: Part III. Literature/Film Quarterly, 34(1), pp. 64-70.
Jacobwitz Florence, Hitchcock and Feminist Criticism: From Rebecca to Marnie, A Companion to Alfred Hitchcock, Edited by Thomas Leitch, Leland Poague, John Wiley & Sons, 1 Mar 2011
Biskind, P. (1998). Easy riders, raging bulls : how the sex “n” drugs “n” rock “n” roll generation saved Hollywood. London: Bloomsbury.
Peberdy, D. (2011). Masculinity and film performance : male angst in contemporary American cinema. New York, Ny: Palgrave Macmillan.
Baker, B. (2016). Contemporary masculinities in fiction, film and television. New York: Bloomsbury.
Powrie, P., Davies, A. and Babington, B. (2004). The trouble with men : masculinities in European and Hollywood cinema. London: Wallflower.
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