Kramer explains how different critics and historians have used the term "New Hollywood" to describe both the 1967-1975 period and the 1975-present period. Setting the terminology aside, explain what he means by the contrast between "artistically and politically progressive liberal cycles" of the earlier period and the "regressiveness of the blockbusters" of the later period. What are the assumptions behind the terms progressive and regressive? Do you agree with these assumptions?
In the earlier period, film makers were making films like easy rider, films that were ambitious, political, and stylized and still made big money. Then Star Wars and Jaws basically brought the later period which is focused on spectacle and special effects, and much less on narration and the art side of film making. We assume that one era being described as "progressive" and one as "regressive" that the first period is like the renaissance compared to the dark ages. That one era is dominated by artistic vision and the other by beurocrats. I don' t really see it that way. I think they are just two different equally respectable ways to make movies. Each just has a different motive. One is to entertain and one is to make the audience think. After all, it's much easier to sit through and enjoy the action in Star Wars than the sort of awkwardness we experience during Bonnie and Clyde.
Why is "allusionism" significant for both modernism and post-modernism? If modernist filmmakers alluded to film history, what do post-modernist filmmakers allude to?
Allusionism lets films create emotion or information in the viewer by drawing on elements created in older films. Also, Allusionism allows film makers to speak with a "two-tiered system of communication." A movie can be entertaining to the masses while still retaining little nuances that play to the film buff crowd. Allusionism can also be used to undermine certain expectations an audience might have for a genre film. If modernist filmmakers allude to film history to undermine expectations, postmodern filmmakers would allude to film history to meet expectations, but usually in an exploitive way.
Explain Kramer’s summary of Yvonne Tasker in your own words
New Hollywood doesn't celebrate film as a specific artform, or even as celluloid. It celebrates the mixing of almost all media that goes into making a movie: Advertising, endorsements, television, soundtracks, action figures, video games, even fast foods.
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We'll return to the progressive / regressive issue over the next few weeks. But you get at the essence of the assumptions behind the terms, and you suggest at least one other way of looking at the transition.
Re: I hadn't thought of the undermine vs. meet expectations possibility. In some ways that's right in relation to genre revisionism in the 1970s. But another way to think about post-modern allusionism is that it is not dependent on film as such; members of the second tier are well versed in the media landscape ranging from film to TV, cable, video games, and the internet.
Re: Tasker: You're right about abandoning the notion of medium specificity. But it's not just about mixing media, it also calls into question what the primary medium is in the first place. Example: While Star Wars started as a film with ancillary products (action figures, etc.) now you have franchises that are simultaneously exploited in several media, and film is just one part of that.
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