Easy Riders and Raging Bulls

New Hollywood was a great time for the directors and actors; it was the heyday of 'sex, drugs, rock and roll'. The baby boomers had taken over Hollywood, one of the first new Hollywood films was bonnie and Clyde. Roger Corman was responsible for developing the 'B movies' that allowed directors to make low budget films. Bert Schneider developed the idea of youth programmes such as the monkees, this moved onto the big screen in films such as easy rider which were aimed directly at a younger audience. Godfather was one of the first to be premiered nationwide on one day and made the most money on the first night, making 80 million. The new Hollywood directors were developing a society had built up at Malibu beach where a number of directors all lived, they advised each other and bounced ideas around. Cocaine became a problem it was used as a tool for inspiration but it lead to many unfortunate deaths. Jaws were the first 'blockbuster' movie it made 100 billion dollars. The introduction of blockbusters meant that gross became the important thing. Directors like Steven Spielberg and George Lucas rose to prominence and through their blockbusters the new age of Hollywood was killed, the last film that was truly new Hollywood was Raging bulls. Films that were part of new Hollywood include; bonnie and Clyde, easy rider, last movie, godfather, M*A*S*H, American graffiti, exorcist, jaws and raging bulls.

Robert Altman

Robert Bernard Altman (February 20, 1925 – November 20, 2006) was an American film director  Altman was born in Kansas City, Missouri. Altman was a soldier in world war 2 then joined the film industry in 1948.

several films he was involved in were; M*A*S*H, Popeye, The Player and Gosforth park.

Altman was known for making films that are highly naturalistic, but with a stylized perspective.

When he directed M*A*S*H he was 45.

Prior to M*A*S*H Altman had only directed short movies such as; The perfect crime and The magic Bond.

There was a lot of tension between the cast and Altman. During princial photography, Sutherland and Gould spent a third of their time trying to get Altman fired; Altman, relatively new to the filmmaking establishment, at that time lacked the credentials to justify his unorthodox filmmaking process and had a history of turning down work rather than creating a poor-quality product. Altman: "I had practice working for people who don't care about quality, and I learned how to sneak it in."Altman later commented that if he had known about Gould and Sutherland, he would have resigned.

M*A*S*H was produced by 20th century fox and had an estimated budget of  $3.5 million.

War Films

War films are a film genre concerned with warfare, usually about naval, air or land battles, sometimes focusing instead on prisoners of war, covert operations, military training or other related subjects. At times war films focus on daily military or civilian life in wartime without depicting battles. Their stories may be fiction, based on history, docudrama, biographical, or even alternate history fiction.


the war film has come a long way from beginnings in 1915 with birth of a nation. to the new modern films such as black hawk down and the hurt locker.

Narrative theory- Todorov

This theory states how narratives follow a sequence of events
This can be split into three key acts equilibrium, disruption new equilibrium.

An example of a film which follows this is MR Beans holiday (Steve Bandelack-2007). at first he is going on a nice free holiday (Equilibrium) then he accidentally seperates a young boy from his father (Disruption) they journey to find his dad and after many mishaps they eventually do and Bean can enjoy his holiday (New Equilbrium).

an example of a film that doesn't follow this is Big Fish (Tim Burton-2003)

this film starts in equilibrium introducing the main characters son will, we then go to disruption as the main character edward falls ill, will goes to see his father with wife josephine and whilst they are there edward tells josephine several stories which each have equilibrium, then a disruption then a new equilibrium. so the structure is equilibrium, disruption, equilibrium, disruption ,new equilbirum, disruption, equilibrium, disruption, new equilibrium then the new equilibrium in the main story when edward dies.