Mean Streets And Taxi Driver

In chapter two of The Cultures of American Film, the main focus is the establishment of studios. As demand for films rose in the early 1900’s, production companies needed to expand; this lead to the creation of large scale studios.

During the course of this essay it is my intention to discuss the differences between Classical Hollywood and post-Classical Hollywood. Although these terms refer to theoretical movements of which they are not definitive it is my goal to show that they are applicable in a broad way to a cinema tradition that dominated Hollywood production between 1916 and 1960 and which also pervaded Western Mainstream Cinema (Classical Hollywood or Classic Narrative Cinema) and to the movement and changes that came about following this time period (Post-Classical or New Hollywood). I intend to do this by first analysing and defining aspects of Classical Hollywood and having done that,

The 1940’s were a time of war and then prosperity for Americans, not only in wealth but in a chance for a better education and social economic status. Films went from patriotic during the war to a more realistic portrayal towards the end of the war in 1945. By the second half of the 1940's, with an injection of expatriate directors trained in the German visual evocation of emotion to the French poetic realistic films, a new style of films were about to emerge. A similar change was also happening in reality, from the hope of the formation of the United Nations to the start of the Cold War.

This paper was prepared for Introduction to Film History, Module 1 Homework Assignment, taught by Professor Stephanie Sandifer.

This social movement also inside the Hollywood filmmaking, in the appeal to an emerging new audience, characterize by

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away The Movie Brats were at the top of the film industry, producing new blockbusters every year. The Movie Brats were a group of directors who were changing the film industry with their blockbuster movies American New Wave movement in the American film industry. The directors who made the most impact during this time period were no other than Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, John Milius, Brian De Palma, Steven Spielberg, Paul Schrader. Now will we only look into these three directors Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas and also the great Steven Spielberg. All of these directors have created some of the greatest films in the film industry from “American Graffiti, Mean Streets, The Conversation, Jaws, Taxi

The censorship conflicts in the 1900s were extremely intriguing and intense. Around the end of the 1920s, individuals possessed immense moral shifts powered by religious groups during the Great Depression, which resulted in decisions that created a new revolution that dealt particularly with the regulation of content of films. Consequently, in 1934, at the same time that the “Golden Age of Hollywood” began, the Hollywood Production code was formally implemented. The film

But, by the 1960s, producers and directors began to take back what was rightfully theirs, their freedom to make and produce whatever movies they wanted. Movies without the Code’s approval were being released and becoming huge film hits anyway. This took away from the Production Code’s power and responsibility. Often times they undermined themselves.

The Production Code Administration emerged in 1934. It was the organic outgrowth of a backlash to immorality in film perceived since the 1920’s (Gomery & Pafort-Overduin, 2011). As an entertainment medium, film was revolutionary: all of the sudden, vivid snippets of life could reach a mass audience. Not long after motion pictures enthralled the country, producers began to recognize the opportunity to attract larger audiences – and increase profits – by filming stories involving provocative subjects and thus stimulating the people’s sense of wonder (Gomery & Pafort-Overduin, 2011). A natural outgrowth of this trend was the increasingly transgressive nature of motion pictures. In an age characterized by both economic and social progress, a backlash against new ideas

Media, including movies has been an outlet for many directors and screenwriters to express both their opinions and to illustrate the social temperature in which they lived while injecting their own views into their work. Media 'fossils' like The Lost Boys directed by Joel Schumacher not only provide a thrilling tale for viewers, but also critiques, comments, and upholds different social norms in an amusing manner as an outlet for often controversial subjects such as peer pressure amongst young people. The Lost Boys may be a gory film, but to ignore the film's social context would be to ignore the complexity of the movie itself. Many young people today as well as in the eighties were under a siege of pressure from their peers to conform to the group's expectations. When the older brother Michael first goes into David and his friends' tomb, he is blatantly pressured into drinking and performing dangerous acts that he wouldn't normally do.

As our culture changes so do the films we see. If we look at films and their remakes decades later, it is easy to see the changes in our culture. Between the time of the film Rear Window was released in 1954, under direction of Alfred Hitchcock, and the 2007 film Disturbia, directed by D.J. Caruso, our country has experienced many cultural changes over those 53 years we have seen an increase in violence, huge advancement in technology, and the increased use of sexuality, because of the media coverage of the Vietnam War, the inventing of the microchip and computer, and the end of the Hays Code in 1968. In Rear Window and Disturbia, both Jeff, played by James Stewart in Rear Window and Kale, played by Shia Lebeouf in Disturbia have been forced to remain indoors, and because of extreme boredom they have taken to spying on their neighbors to pass the time.

During the 1920s, American Film was at the peak of its glory. 1920s Film was the biggest form of entertainment and a weekly pastime for millions of Americans, regardless of race and social background. Silent films continued to improve and innovate the film industry. Hollywood established themselves as an American force and produced hundreds of silent films. Also, Hollywood became the birthplace of “movie stars” such as Janet Gaynor, Rudolph Valentino, and Charlie Chaplin. Movie studios such as Warner Brothers Pictures, RKO, Metro Goldwyn Mayer, and 20th Century Fox owned thousands of theaters and received public acclamation for hundreds of films produced. The 1920’s American film industry is the epitome of the ascension of Hollywood and the innovation era of film.

Prohibition, flappers, and jazz music may come to the minds of many when they hear the words “the Roaring ‘20s” and this is expected as this decade was full of drinking, partying, and entertainment for people of the United States. Others, though may think of Hollywood when discussing one of the most infamous eras of the nation. At a time when the economy of the United States was at a perhaps all time high, people had more money and more free time to spend on doing things they enjoyed. This growth in the popularity of leisure activities as entertainment thrived led to the rise of Hollywood in the ‘20s. Movies may have just been another means of enjoying oneself, but Hollywood played a role in the views of society as its popularity grew and the

1970s American cinema can be viewed as an extension to and, to a certain extent, the aftermath of the cultural explosion that took place in the previous decade. Jon Lewis, in his book American Film, argues that around 1968 a new auteur renaissance befell Hollywood. Directors like Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, and several others came to the forefront of film and received generous funding from the studios for their projects. The cause of this can be traced to the change in censorship laws which took place during the ‘60s; where the studio-model of filmmaking had prospered under the old strict PCA censorship rules and regulations, the only model that seemed

By analyzing the historical contexts of these specific movements, we take a deeper look at society's social, religious, economic, and political conditions that existed during a certain time and place. These relevant factors profuse mass influence into a filmmakers decisions while in the production process of a film. Additionally, these components have the role of establishing distinct trends in the film industry. Each movement has its own purpose for creating each film in regards to a stylistic standpoint.