How Auteurism Is Making a Comeback
Steven Gaydos Executive VP of ContentOnce upon a time in Holly-wood, and to be more precise, in the mid-’60s and ’70s, young Hollywood filmmakers saw what their “auteur director” counterparts around the world were doing with the cinematic arts, and they wanted some of that freedom of expression and fearless boundary-busting for themselves. From Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai” to Bergman’s “Persona” to Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita,” the action in creative storytelling was all over the place, except in Hollywood.So Hollywood’s best and brightest young artists accepted the challenge.The result was called New Hollywood, and the films that resulted from that impulse to innovate and experiment with forms and subject matter included “The Pawnbroker,” “Bonnie and Clyde,” “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” “Mean Streets,” “The Conversation,” “French Connection,” “Midnight Cowboy,” “The Wild Bunch” and myriad other lively, edgy masterpieces of American film.