Book Review: Heroes of the New Hollywood

The 1970s is one of the most important decades in 20th century American cinema.  It was an era where classic films became mainstream popular, with well attended college campus showings of The Marx Brothers, W.C. Fields, and Humphrey Bogart, film clubs in high schools, and revival theaters popping up in large cities and even some small towns.  It was also an era where the latest movies at the theater were challenging past ideas and creating what became known as The New Hollywood.

Author Dan Lalande’s new book from McFarland explores this period in the 70s by focusing on seven actors: Marlon Brando, Dustin Hoffman, Gene Hackman, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, and Robert DeNiro.  These are all excellent choices to represent that era, giving the book’s sense of history a chronological structure. 

The New Hollywood runs from roughly 1969-1983 according to Lalande.  Beginning with Marlon Brando, who began his cinematic career at the dawn of the 1950s, the author chronicles the post war change from the old Hollywood of the studio system and how Brando redefined screen performance.  From there the book goes into Dustin Hoffman, whose performance in The Graduate (1967) led to New Hollywood challenges like Midnight Cowboy, Straw Dogs, All The President’s Men, etc.  The chapters on Brando and Hoffman are filled with deep insight and great detail, Lalande brilliantly assessing their performances and how they helped usher in this new cinematic movement.

From this point, each of the chapters on the other five actors offer the same level of layered study where we learn about the individual’s approach, his response to the vision of different filmmakers, and the overall cinematic era that, in retrospect, was quite important to the evolution of the cinematic aesthetic.

The final chapter rather sadly discusses how the financial returns of hit movies led to the blockbuster attitude that closed the 20th century during its last two decades.  No longer were studios and filmmakers believing if they made a great film it would make money.  Now the idea was to promote and market film as a product, making it appear less a creative endeavor and more of a manufactured one.

This book is an intelligent, enlightening account of an important period in cinematic history from the perspective of seven important actors.  It belongs in libraries, research centers, and any film buff’s collection.

This book can be ordered at this link:  HEROES