Who could forget Gary Cooper’s magnetic glance and the emotional nuances his face could communicate without the use of a single word? Or Henry Fonda’s slow, deliberate walk and the underlying tension of his self-contained performance? Decades later, audiences are still mesmerized by Audrey Hepburn’s natural charm and by the allure of Hollywood grand dames such as Ingrid Bergman and Greta Garbo.
The Golden Age of Hollywood (cca.1910 – 1968) was dominated by these imposing figures of the American cinema, talented actors and actresses who relied on engaging stories and on a subtle editing style to turn screen performance into magic.
After 1970, when Classical Hollywood gave way to Modern and Postmodern Hollywood, acting and narrative skills receded to a secondary role, making room for shocking visual effects and self-conscious cutting and editing styles. Under the influence of television and advertising spot shooting techniques, American film shifted toward light entertainment, often sacrificing its artistic ambitions.
The Importance of Story
Classical Hollywood featured movies centered on strong, emotionally engaging stories. Whether the protagonist of the film was confronted with a challenging task or he/she embarked on a journey of self-discovery, the audience could easily identify with them. In Sergeant York, Alvin York (Gary Cooper), a poor Tennessee hillbilly, becomes a World War I hero, despite his pacifist tendencies. After being struck by lightning and experiencing a religious awakening, York is reluctant to join the war effort, which contradicts his newly-discovered beliefs. However, since he is an exceptional marksman, he is drafted into the Army and sent to Europe. With only a handful of fellow-soldiers by his side, York manages to capture a unit of the German army by using his turkey-hunting skills.
As the plot progresses, we watch York struggle with his spiritual void, then with his new belief and its implications in a conflict-ridden world. York’s internal conflict, wonderfully relayed by Cooper’s intense acting, not only spills into the story but is the very engine that powers it.
Most Modern Hollywood films no longer focus on solid plots held together by logical links. They often feel episodic, suffering from narrative gaps. That is not to say that modern American film is incapable of gratifying audiences with moving, intelligent stories. Coppola’s Apocalypse Now and Minghella’s The English Patient are just a few examples that narrative skill has not become negligible in the film industry. Nevertheless, too many modern films revolve around special effects and violent action sequences, or are simply stand-up comedy episodes meshed together into a feature-length film.
Character Development
In any dramatic construction, it is the character that breathes life into the story – through action, dialogue and body language – and makes it real to the audience. As Robert Towne emphasizes in his essay On Moving Pictures, “in movies, far more than in any other dramatic medium, movement, not simply action, is most defining of character.” The screenwriter goes on to cite Henry Fonda’s body language and his way of moving in the Hollywood classic My Darling Clementine, reminding that Fonda’s long, Western stride “could display an astonishing number of character traits”, such as courage, integrity or unrelenting determination.
Classical Hollywood movies employed the skills of gifted actors like Henry Fonda, Gregory Peck or Humphrey Bogart to create memorable characters – usually ordinary people confronted with extraordinary situations – who would live on in the collective memory of audiences long after the lights came up in the movie theater.
Such protagonists are not completely absent from recent Hollywood productions. Russell Crowe’s Jim Braddock (Cinderella Man), Ryan Gosling’s Willy Beachum (Fracture) or Jodie Foster’s Clarice Starling (Silence of the Lambs) are just a few examples. However, few modern protagonists display the right mixture of dialogue, silence, body language and facial expression that makes them multidimensional and human.
Over the years, the scope of characters that Hollywood uses in its fictional constructions has also changed. While classical movies featured clever heroes who were capable of finding ingenious solutions to their problems, newer films often put a spotlight on protagonists who are praised mainly for their athletic or fighting skills.
Theme
As the world around us changes, so do the subjects that interest filmmakers. Many New Hollywood films depict elaborate episodes of carnage or cruelty, often without serving the development of the plot. While violence was present in some of the Old Hollywood films, it was limited to a brief confrontation between the forces of good and evil, without glorifying violence for its own sake.
However, in modern movies, heroes are often compelled to commit mass murder (Gangs of New York, Braveheart). Moreover, brilliant criminals and mentally unstable people are often at the heart of New Hollywood stories (Silence of the Lambs). Martial Arts movies and gangster movies have also become increasingly popular genres. While classic films condemned theft and senseless violence, New Hollywood has managed to romanticize these phenomena.
Return to Realism
After 2000, Hollywood has displayed an increasing tendency toward realism. Postmodern movies not only play with accurate image rendering, due to the new technologies available (CGI special effects, high-definition), but they also tackle sensitive subjects that were formerly taboo. Films like American Beauty and Erin Brockovich have shown audiences a less friendly, less glamorous, more accurate face of reality. Paradoxically, this is a return to the principles of early film, which, as Walter Murch reminds in Michael Ondaatje’s The Conversations, was influenced by 19th-century and 20th-century realism in literature and painting.
Although much of modern Hollywood work is highly commercial and aimed merely at escapist entertainment, there are still films that offer a glimpse of that unique, dynamic form of art that is cinema.
References:
Michael Ondaatje. The Conversations. New York: Random House, 2002.
Robert Towne. On Moving Pictures. New York: Grove Press, 1997.
Michael E. Grost. Story Norms in Old Hollywood Vs. New Hollywood, http://mikegrost.com/znorm.htm
Iulia Filip - Born and raised in Romania, Iulia Filip currently resides in South Carolina, USA. She has graduated from the MFA Program in Creative ...
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