New Hollywood Research

 New Hollywood

 The New Hollywood movement began in roughly 1967, with the starting point being seen by a lot of people as Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate, followed by Midnight Cowboy, which won best picture at the Oscars just two years later, despite receiving an X Rating from the MPAA (American age rating board). These films, despite their provocative subject matter and content, including graphic violence and sex, reached levels of popularity that the studio system of classic Hollywood could no longer reach due to a new youthful audience. This new wave of film from Hollywood happened because the studio system could no longer recognise trends that would appeal to such a young, rebellious audience, so the studios put all of their money and faith into equally young, equally rebellious filmmakers, who became known as auteurs. Some key directors from this period are Martin Scorsese, Michael Cimino and Brian De Palma. The downfall of this era began due to the rise of the blockbuster, due to Steven Spielberg's Jaws and George Lucas' Star Wars. 

Francis Ford Coppola

The most influential director from this period is arguably Francis Ford Coppola, most notably for The Godfather, The Godfather: Part II and Apocalypse Now. He is known for his sense of scale, theatrical production design and long tracking shots. Over the course of his long, established career, the 1970s has proven to be where he peaked as a director in both popularity and quality, and where the bulk of his most popular work has come from. He continued to make films after Apocalypse Now, but began to making much smaller-scale, less ambitious films due to the production of Apocalypse Now. 

Vietnam War

The Vietnam War, which is also known as the Second Indochina War, was a war that lasted from the 1st of November 1955 to the 30th April 1975, however, there was no direct US involvement until the 8th of March 1965. It started when the Viet Minh, a communist army led by Ho Chi Minh rose up against the Japanese occupants of Vietnam during the Second World War, as well as France, who colonised Vietnam in the late 19th and early 20th century, forming the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Due to the Viet Minh being funded by the Soviet Union and China, with France also being funded by the US and the UK, Vietnam was split into two, causing a civil war. The north of Vietnam was the Democratic Republic, led by Ho Chi Minh; the South was the State of Vietnam led by the "democratically elected"  Ngo Dinh Diem who won in an obviously rigged election where he received 98.91% of the votes. The United States funded and eventually joined the State of Vietnam in their war against the Democratic Republic as part of their effort to eradicate communism. Another group called the Viet Cong were in the State of Vietnam who rebelled against the South Vietnamese government. Both the Viet Minh and the Viet Cong were outnumbered, however they used various guerilla tactics in combat. America was criticised during this war for various reasons which spawned a counterculture and many protests and riots. People as young as 18 were drafted to fight in this war, which had a high rate of casualties, despite the war seeming insignificant to the American public, it also cost the American government, as well as taxpayers a lot of money. This was also the first American war which happened during the rise of televised news, meaning many atrocities committed by the Americans were captured for the public to see. America also ultimately fled this war and the State of Vietnam were forced to surrender to the Viet Minh, which was a humiliation for America at the time, as the superpower that is the US lost to a small, relatively poor island country in Southeast Asia. The directors of the New Hollywood movement, as they were young, also happened to be a part of the counterculture of the time. This means that various films criticising the war were released at a similar time as Apocalypse Now, including the likes of Full Metal Jacket, The Deer Hunter and Platoon.