Choose one film to analyze in depth as a product of New Hollywood - Essay Example

Some of this action was spurred by the drastic social changes that were taking place at the time in the form of Civil Rights and Womens Liberation, not to mention the conflict in Vietnam and the conflict that caused back in the States. In an attempt to compete, studios found it necessary to merge with larger corporations that could provide additional revenue streams and stabilize the bottom line. Vertically integrated studios became a thing of the past and movie production fell in the early 1960s opening the way for foreign films to step in.

These films and the fact that European, particularly British, locations offered lower budgets, enabled many of the artistic experimental styles being explored in Europe at that time to find their way into Hollywood productions. As the older directors began to phase out of the Hollywood limelight, younger directors such as Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Altman or Mark Nichols willing to take chances and able to keep low budgets began to emerge. In these films, such as The Graduate by Nichols (1967), the directors employed experimental techniques to keep budgets low and focus on greater social issues of their times.

In this example film, a young man returns from achieving his college education only to have his high ideals destroyed by the plastic society he is expected to join. In The Graduate, Mike Nichols captures much of the essence of New Hollywood from a variety of perspectives. An important aspect to consider in the development of New Hollywood is the number of massive socio-cultural movements that were taking place at the time. The Civil Rights Movement started in the mid-1950s with a much publicized Montgomery bus boycott.

The power of the people to affect change was clear by 1964 when the Civil Rights Act banned Jim Crow segregation laws in the South. Black people now had the legal right to social equality if not the physical expression. The Civil Rights Act also