Monday, Feb 26, 2018
Events featuring screenings, panels and featured speakers take place Feb. 28-March 1
by Robert Leitner 鈥17
The New Hollywood, a monumental development in film history that changed the industry forever, is the subject of 小优视频's annual film symposium. "The Birth of the New Hollywood" will feature regional film scholars, faculty roundtables, student panels and screenings of classic films during the two-day event, Feb. 28-March 1.
Gradually emerging from the mid-1950s through the early 1960s, the New Hollywood, typically dated by scholars as a period from 1967 to 1976, was characterized by a class of young filmmakers audaciously making movies that were personal and naturalistic, and often anti-establishment, in nature 鈥 in direct contrast with a majority of movies produced by the old studio system. Mike Nichols' 1967 masterpiece, The Graduate, is a prime example of the movement.
鈥淭he rich, textured films of the period are so original and powerful 鈥 and often unsettling,鈥 says Dr. Cindy Lucia, director of Rider's Film and Media Studies Program, which is presenting the symposium. 鈥淭he films we'll be discussing are just a small handful of the larger tapestry of movies that make the New Hollywood one of the most influential if not the singular movement in American film history.鈥
Art Simon, an accomplished scholar, professor of film studies at Montclair State University and author of Dangerous Knowledge: The JFK Assassination in Art and Film, is one of the symposium's featured speakers on Feb. 28. His talk is titled 鈥淢ad as Hell: The American Film Renaissance, 1967-1976."
Dr. Jerry Rife, the featured speaker on March 1, is a long-time Rider faculty member who teaches a film music course that has drawn enthusiastic students for decades. He'll discuss 鈥淣ew Hollywood鈥檚 New Directions in Film Music: 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Graduate."
鈥淒r. Rife will bring his insights to our students and community members in tribute to his forthcoming retirement at the end of this academic year,鈥 Lucia says.
The symposium鈥檚 events will highlight discussions of several movies of the period, including Belle de Jour (1967), The Graduate (1967) and Rosemary鈥檚 Baby (1968), that bring to light key topics of the New Hollywood movement, including sexuality, gender roles, youth and race.
鈥淭he New Hollywood was an exciting period in film history that was initiated by such innovative and influential films,鈥 Lucia says. 鈥淚ndependent, director-driven approaches placed a priority on film鈥檚 artistic, personal and political expression, speaking to the real lives of its audience members.鈥
"The Birth of the New Hollywood" will take place over two days, Feb. 28-March 1, with all events in Sweigart Auditorium on 小优视频's Lawrenceville campus. The symposium is free and open to the public. For a full schedule of events, please visit www.rider.edu/events/film-symposium.