MAIT Pop Culture Project

50 YEARS

OF

AMERICAN CINEMA

(1960-2010)

DIRECTORS: FROM THE OLD SCHOOL TO THE FILM SCHOOL TO THE NEW SCHOOL


 During the 1970’s, many of Hollywood’s finest directors, including legends such as Stanley Kubrick, Alfred Hitchcock, Roger Corman, Billy Wilder, and Robert Wise to name a few, entered into the twilight of their respective careers. They still continued to produce meaningful works of cinema, but the film torch was about to be passed to a new class of directors, fresh out of film school. In that same decade, directors such as Martin Scorsese, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, and Brian De Palma graduated from film school (not to mention Steven Spielberg, who majored in English) and went on to produce some of the most important films of all time. The 1970’s is widely considered the greatest decade in the history of cinema, and it is because of these filmmakers that it receives this distinction. Now, these directors continue to produce important works of cinema, but there is a new school that has been making waves since they arrived on the scene and they didn’t need a degree to ride into Hollywood superstardom. Directors like Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, Steven Soderbergh, Richard Linklater, David Fincher, and Spike Jonze didn’t go to film school and they are A-list filmmakers today.




ACTION FILMS: JAMES BOND TO ACTION STAR TO AVATAR


 Sean Connery was perhaps the first action movie star, and he owes much of his fame and success to Ian Fleming for creating the irresistibly charming and equally dangerous character, James Bond. During the 1960’s, Connery played 007 a whopping 5 times and then once again in 1971. To date, there have been 6 men to play the super spy in 22 films, all of which have been smooth and sophisticated types reliant on brains over brawn to get the job done and save the day. During the 1980’s and 1990’s, the new action hero model was introduced: large, hulky, musclebound men strapped with the most advanced weaponry, capable of taking out the biggest and baddest of villains. Here are just a few names that have become synonymous with the term action hero: Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwartzenegger, Bruce Willis, Harrison Ford, Dolph Lundren, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Steven Seagal, Chuck Norris, and Bruce Campbell. The action hero was the key ingredient to making a successful action film during the 80’s and 90’s; attitude and arsenal. These days, that is not so much the case. Action films are more focused on chance circumstance and natural disaster and how common folk rise up to meet the challenges with which they are faced, usually involving excessive amounts of computer generated imagery, or CGI; A lot of CGI! Shia Lebeouf is no Rambo. The new breed of action film values humanism and vulnerability over super-exaggerated macho men that are impenetrable. Look at Avatar, the biggest action film of all time. The hero, Jake Sully, is wheel-chair bound for most of the film. Action heroes would never have such a debilitating physical handicap, because it would compromise their raw power and ability to kick butt. Comic book superheroes, who are the biggest action heroes these days, have super powers, but even they are very humanistic as well and flaws are common. Yet, with the re-emergence of Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky and Rambo franchises and the entrance of actors like Jason Statham and Jet Li, there might still be hope for the action hero.




HORROR FILMS: PSYCHO TO SLASHER TO REMAKES


 50 years ago this year, Alfred Hitchcock made perhaps the greatest horror film of all time. The film was Psycho, and it would forever change people’s opinions about family values and cleanliness. It made people feel unsafe to get in their own shower before Jaws ever scared us out of the ocean. Norman Bates was a deranged, psychopathic killer, but his executions were very artful and almost poetic. Psycho is considered the “mother of all slasher films.” The interesting thing is, the slasher film did not really crystallize as a genre until the birth of its first born, Black Christmas, a 1974 holiday hell-raiser that generated much controversy because of its depiction of Santa Claus as a maniacal killing machine. Parents and esteemed members of communities across the country went into an uproar. Tis the season to boycott the theatres. Ironically enough, the director of the film, Bob Clark, would go on to direct one of the greatest Christmas films of all time, A Christmas Story. In any case, the commercial success of the 2 films that followed would usher in the slasher film movement: Halloween and Friday the 13th. These films made good money at the box office. Many films of the slasher film era focused on holidays or special occasions, such as My Bloody Valentine, New Year's Evil, Happy Birthday to Me, April Fool's Day, Prom Night, Christmas Evil, Mother's Day, and Silent Night, Deadly Night. Over the past decade, slasher films have made a comeback, but in the form of remakes. Some of the remakes have been interesting, offering new takes on the traditional storyline, such as Rob Zombie’s remakes of Halloween 1 & 2, but remakes of films like My Bloody Valentine have turned out bloody awful. It takes a lot to make a great film, but even more to make a decent remake.




THE DISNEY DYNASTY - THE ANIMATED FEATURE RETURNS TO THE THRONE


 In 1937, Walt Disney produced his first animated feature, Snow White, and thus, a juggernaut was born. Many classics followed over the next half a century, but not without a lot of crap as well. During the 1960’s and 70’s, there were studs, starting with the perennial classic, 101 Dalmations, followed by The Sword in the Stone, The Jungle Book, The Aristocats, Robin Hood, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, and The Rescuers, as well as plenty of duds. Nonetheless, the good was good enough to make the bad forgettable. In the 1980’s though, this was not the case. There’s was nothing but crap! I enjoyed The Black Cauldron, but that didn’t make it good. It wasn’t until The Little Mermaid when Disney truly put themselves back on top of the animated feature world. The 1990’s were marked with beloved classics, such as DuckTales: The Movie, The Rescuers Down Under, Beauty and the the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, and Pocahantas. These films would change the film merchandising world forever. Then, in 1995, Disney changed the game and blew audiences away with a new breed of animated feature, telling stories through CGI instead of traditional cartoons. Disney and Pixar’s film Toy Story launched a new era of animation. It was followed with box office success and a slew of new CGI animated classics into the 2000’s, such as A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2 and 3, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille, WALL-E, and Up.




2010-2060: THE NEXT 50 YEARS...


 Obviously, not every film from the last 50 years of cinema was included in this pop culture crash course, because that was not the goal. The goal was to highlight the most important filmmakers, genres, and movements since 1960. Was this goal achieved? That is for the audience to decide. As with any film, the audience is the most important element. Audiences determine what is popular and important. In cinema, there is a marriage between art and commerce, and the audience is the child that binds the two. Like any good parents, they want what is best for their child. They want their child to have it better than they did.

 So, the question is, how will cinema grow and develop over the next 50 years? Will art and commerce get divorced? If so, who gets the child? Time will tell. I’ll see you at the movies!