"but when I actually looked at the top films of the early sixties, most of the Hollywood output" ... I still think she didn’t know how good she had it.
The big budget stuff may have been bloated. The B-movie houses may have been making more interesting films. But I keep coming across all this solid Hollywood output from the early- to mid-1960s. It got retrospectively downplayed because it didn't follow the counterculture and may not have been as vital as the 1950s. Now it fails to fit the New Hollywood narrative. But it might be time for a revisionist history of mainstream 60s Hollywood. My guess is absolute numbers are not bad but more output means the ratio of good stuff may have been down.
I'm definitely open to hearing the revisionist case. What output are you thinking of?
That Didion essay is well written ofc but it's funny in retrospect bc it reads as so 2010s hot-takey. I certainly don't share the disdain she has for now canonical and beloved stuff like Dr. Strangelove. There's a good bit where she makes fun of the idea of people "speculating endlessly about what Vincente Minnelli was up to in Meet Me In St. Louis, and attending seminars on Nicholas Ray"... imagine!
I didn't say I could do it. Someone would have to watch a lot of films which have been ignored for a while. I don't know if weakened criteria has expanded what's considered New Hollywood. When I look back at what I had in mind, some of them will be seen rather as holdovers from the 1950s (Blast of Silence, Bye Bye Birdie, post-Birds HItchcock, Robert Wise, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane and other Aldrich, not sure what Minnelli was up to) or pre-New Hollywood (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Pawnbroker, Frankenheimer) or both (Cassavettes, The Exiles). Maybe my best case would be B-movie legends (Fuller, Siegel, Corman). Damn, this is not going to hold up, is it? I did say solid, not groundbreaking. I was also thinking of mainstream films like Charade (not sure what else Donen was doing), Barefoot in the Park, The Odd Couple, and then maybe some Norman Jewison joints. Some concession would have to be made for people who would have been doing whatever they did, even if these film school brats hadn't come along, which might be hard to establish.
Even if I don't buy the thesis, I'd certainly read the book! There's definitely a lot of good stuff in that period -- I love Shock Corridor and Carnival of Souls and the other B-stuff you mention. And I have not watched a bunch of the big-budget epics so i can't really pass judgement. But the 55-60 and 70-75 stretches are just as good as it gets to me. The contrarian case I could probably make -- I don't actually believe it but I could be a bit hot takey about it -- is that the latter period wasn't doing much that the former period wasn't already doing in Kiss Me Deadly and Sweet Smell of Success (probably gun to my head my favorite movie of all time) and Touch of Evil.
Man just writing that out made me want to rewatch all of those. Boy do I love the movies!!
Yeah, I realized a lot of my case was going to rest on B-movie directors, which undercuts the thesis. The gamble is whether there are in-between features that people haven't rediscovered yet. Oh well. Someone should try to write it. I was being provocative because I think I have been wanting to deflate the New Hollywood narrative a bit because I'm a classic Hollywood/European art film snob, and I think a lot of what people are reacting to these days are just derivative attempts to steal the form of the latter for films that were ultimately not as good (NB: lots that were good to great but not as good as the Europeans they were trying to emulate). My contrarian take is that for me the real American renaissance comes with the indie films of the 80s and 90s (starting in the 1970s but the really low budget stuff). I just rewatched Hi, Mom! which was fun but probably not as good as Greetings, which I can't find streaming anywhere. (De Palma and Mazursky are style-wise probably my favorite New Hollywood directors.) But it's undeniable that there is a ton of great stuff 70-75. And yeah I might buy the take that the best of it was just doing what Hollywood was doing 55-60, just more out of doors.
Knowing you are a Bellow fan, also midcentury NYC litworld curious, and now learning you are an Altman admirer--you might want to check out SB's novella/story "What Kind of Day Did You Have?" from his collection Him With His Foot In His Mouth, where all those interests come together in Beglerian amplitude.
Wonderful stuff. I’ve enjoyed reading Specktor’s pieces on here and the book sounds great. Loved your descriptions of LA as well. Altman was in the back of my mind too as I recently watched The Player, which I think captures some of the vibe here.
The opening paragraph of this is gorgeous. And I don't mean a "prithee behold--a leaf falls!" kind of gorgeous. Just very well put together and well heard.
Also really liked "a little bit Ellroy, a little bit Fitzgerald, a little bit Bellow, and very Hollywood." And the Atta bit (seems like such a bad idea) as a *Family Guy* cutaway. Enjoyed the whole shebang.
"but when I actually looked at the top films of the early sixties, most of the Hollywood output" ... I still think she didn’t know how good she had it.
The big budget stuff may have been bloated. The B-movie houses may have been making more interesting films. But I keep coming across all this solid Hollywood output from the early- to mid-1960s. It got retrospectively downplayed because it didn't follow the counterculture and may not have been as vital as the 1950s. Now it fails to fit the New Hollywood narrative. But it might be time for a revisionist history of mainstream 60s Hollywood. My guess is absolute numbers are not bad but more output means the ratio of good stuff may have been down.
I'm definitely open to hearing the revisionist case. What output are you thinking of?
That Didion essay is well written ofc but it's funny in retrospect bc it reads as so 2010s hot-takey. I certainly don't share the disdain she has for now canonical and beloved stuff like Dr. Strangelove. There's a good bit where she makes fun of the idea of people "speculating endlessly about what Vincente Minnelli was up to in Meet Me In St. Louis, and attending seminars on Nicholas Ray"... imagine!
I didn't say I could do it. Someone would have to watch a lot of films which have been ignored for a while. I don't know if weakened criteria has expanded what's considered New Hollywood. When I look back at what I had in mind, some of them will be seen rather as holdovers from the 1950s (Blast of Silence, Bye Bye Birdie, post-Birds HItchcock, Robert Wise, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane and other Aldrich, not sure what Minnelli was up to) or pre-New Hollywood (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Pawnbroker, Frankenheimer) or both (Cassavettes, The Exiles). Maybe my best case would be B-movie legends (Fuller, Siegel, Corman). Damn, this is not going to hold up, is it? I did say solid, not groundbreaking. I was also thinking of mainstream films like Charade (not sure what else Donen was doing), Barefoot in the Park, The Odd Couple, and then maybe some Norman Jewison joints. Some concession would have to be made for people who would have been doing whatever they did, even if these film school brats hadn't come along, which might be hard to establish.
Even if I don't buy the thesis, I'd certainly read the book! There's definitely a lot of good stuff in that period -- I love Shock Corridor and Carnival of Souls and the other B-stuff you mention. And I have not watched a bunch of the big-budget epics so i can't really pass judgement. But the 55-60 and 70-75 stretches are just as good as it gets to me. The contrarian case I could probably make -- I don't actually believe it but I could be a bit hot takey about it -- is that the latter period wasn't doing much that the former period wasn't already doing in Kiss Me Deadly and Sweet Smell of Success (probably gun to my head my favorite movie of all time) and Touch of Evil.
Man just writing that out made me want to rewatch all of those. Boy do I love the movies!!
Yeah, I realized a lot of my case was going to rest on B-movie directors, which undercuts the thesis. The gamble is whether there are in-between features that people haven't rediscovered yet. Oh well. Someone should try to write it. I was being provocative because I think I have been wanting to deflate the New Hollywood narrative a bit because I'm a classic Hollywood/European art film snob, and I think a lot of what people are reacting to these days are just derivative attempts to steal the form of the latter for films that were ultimately not as good (NB: lots that were good to great but not as good as the Europeans they were trying to emulate). My contrarian take is that for me the real American renaissance comes with the indie films of the 80s and 90s (starting in the 1970s but the really low budget stuff). I just rewatched Hi, Mom! which was fun but probably not as good as Greetings, which I can't find streaming anywhere. (De Palma and Mazursky are style-wise probably my favorite New Hollywood directors.) But it's undeniable that there is a ton of great stuff 70-75. And yeah I might buy the take that the best of it was just doing what Hollywood was doing 55-60, just more out of doors.
This was terrific
Knowing you are a Bellow fan, also midcentury NYC litworld curious, and now learning you are an Altman admirer--you might want to check out SB's novella/story "What Kind of Day Did You Have?" from his collection Him With His Foot In His Mouth, where all those interests come together in Beglerian amplitude.
These essays are all great
Wonderful stuff. I’ve enjoyed reading Specktor’s pieces on here and the book sounds great. Loved your descriptions of LA as well. Altman was in the back of my mind too as I recently watched The Player, which I think captures some of the vibe here.
Love The Player. The Long Goodbye is also one of the greatest LA movies ever made, I covet that apartment so hard.
The opening paragraph of this is gorgeous. And I don't mean a "prithee behold--a leaf falls!" kind of gorgeous. Just very well put together and well heard.
Also really liked "a little bit Ellroy, a little bit Fitzgerald, a little bit Bellow, and very Hollywood." And the Atta bit (seems like such a bad idea) as a *Family Guy* cutaway. Enjoyed the whole shebang.
Thank you! I work hard on my openings -- ya gotta, on an attention-based platform -- so I'm glad it comes through.
This essay was such a great conversation with the book!