GMD Social Poll: Top Ten Films of 1968

Which decade would you prefer next?

  • 1950's

  • 1960's

  • 1970's

  • 1980's

  • 1990's

  • 2000's

  • 2010's


Results are only viewable after voting.
  • Like
Reactions: RadicalThrasher
  • Like
Reactions: RadicalThrasher
Not that I'd call myself an expert, but I feel the 60s, more than any other decade, Hollywood really lags behind European cinema (French and Italian in particular). Europe had moved to the auteur model of film-making by that stage while Hollywood was still trying to wean itself off the producer-controlled studio system.
 
  • Like
Reactions: CiG
Yet at the same time they fundamentally changed the direction of Hollywood with Once Upon a Time in the West. Its influence on New Hollywood at least for me seems very obvious.
 
Yet at the same time they fundamentally changed the direction of Hollywood with Once Upon a Time in the West. Its influence on New Hollywood at least for me seems very obvious.

Leone is just one example but you could pick dozens of others. The French nouvelle vague and polar movements were hugely influential on New Hollywood, as was Italian neorealism and giallo, Antonioni, Bergman, Tarkovsky, Bunuel, Fellini etc etc. And of course a number of new wave directors came out of that European movement themselves eg Polanski.

1967/1968 is about when you start seeing those influences emerge in Hollywood.
 
  • Like
Reactions: CiG
What other specific films would you say impacted New Hollywood? Like I said, I'm not very educated on 60's foreign cinema.

I think what makes me view Once Upon a Time in the West as one of the prime examples is because it manages to balance being artistic without alienating a wider audience. It probably made a lot of young aspiring filmmakers think they can make something "cool" and marketable without sacrificing too much artistic credibility.

I think spaghetti westerns in general probably had this effect though, not just that one.
 
Well, you could probably write a book on that subject, I'll throw out the following: Repulsion (cited by Romero), Black Sabbath, Blow Up (basically ripped off by de Palma in Blow Out), The Wages of Fear (influenced Friedkin), 8 1/2 (a favourite of Scorsese, though I don't necessarily see it in his films), Peeping Tom, Les Diaboliques, Rififi, Contempt, Persona, Z, Le Samourai.
 
  • Like
Reactions: CiG