What are the five conditions that gave rise to the New Hollywood (here defined as post-1975)?
Elsaesser believe that the first condition is a new generation of directors (Scorsese, Coppola, Film School Generation), second is a new marketing strategies that centered on the blockbuster as a large distribution and exhibition concept. The third concept is a new media ownership and management styles in the film industry. The fourth is the new technologies of sound and image reproduction. This is ranging from digitized special effects to Dobly sound. Finally, the last condition is the new delivery systems in marketing. High Concept filmmaking became the norm.
What does Elsaesser mean by New Hollywood being defined either as “the different as same” or “the same as different.” (p. 193)
The New Hollywood Movie Brats were in some ways just being different in the same ways that the directors before them were. Some directors were borrowing shots and scenarios from European directors, such as Penn borrowing from Truffaut, and directors showing strong influence from previous directors with a heavy influence coming from French New Wave. That is how they were being the same as different. Some were being different as the same, as some directors, such as Coppola were isolating themselves as previous directors had done. I believe that some directors needed their independence and others believed it the way to become a mad genius. Howard Hawks and Orson Welles definitely were brilliant men, they both suffered from isolation and almost went insane by constantly battling themselves. Many of the greats believed that great art comes from being self-destructive. Coppola turned away from the spotlight much like Welles did. He was being different from his fellow movie brats but doing nothing original.
How is the sound/image relationship in horror films fundamentally different than other classical genres?
In classical Hollywood genres other than horror, the viewer relates when sound is matched to an image. But horror films use sound without image to heighten and build characters and emotion. The book talks about how the jungle has many sounds that make it sound errie. The viewer relates to the sound of the jungle to a “monster in the swamp” style horror film. The monster is nowhere to be seen but it is heard, making it more dramatic because what is heard but not seen is much more terrifying than what is seen and heard. Sometimes, directors will play with the relations of sound and image, For example, In 2001: A Space Odyssey, when a man in a space suit has his cord ripped and he starts falling into space with no hope of making it back to ship, Kubrick uses dead silence at a time when most people would be screaming for dear life. Elsaesser elaborates on how the director can keep the monster or suspense out of the diegetic world and then create a masterful non-diegetic world. On page 196, he states, “Thus, the horror film’s generic device of braking the neat synchronization of sound and image by keeping the sources of sound invisible and off0screen also helps destabilize the primacy of the diegetic story world over the extra-diegetic or non-diegetic world.”
Elsaesser argues that unlike in Europe, where ruptures in realism were found in art-cinema, in Hollywood ruptures in realism were found in “minor genres and debased modes.” What genre in particular is he talking about? In what ways do you find ruptures in realism in this genre?
I believe that Elsaesser is talking about the ability of a director to play with spatial relations and time structure. Keeping the film coherent enough to follow, but also confuse them enough to keep them on edge and guessing. The raptures are things like having the monster in a horror film heard but not seen. The director keeps the monster off-screen longer because it builds suspense and allows the audiences emotions to run frantically. One example of this is Jaws, Spielberg keeps the sharks out of the picture most of the film. We seen shadows and are manipulated by suspenseful music and our emotions/thought process. We assume the worst we nothing is shown. Of course I also heard that Spielberg wanted to shown the shark more but it kept sinking.
Elsaesser suggests that the film is a palimpsest for 100 years of film history. Why does he also conclude that the vampire film “qualifies as at once prototypical for movie history and for postmodernity.”? [Hint: see my recap of metaphors above.]
The name Dracula is so rich in tradition when it comes to film that it marks itself as a genre film of horror. It is just another amazing version of a film that has been done one way or another by countless directors over the years, not always called Dracula. It started 1922 as Nosferatu by F.W. Murnau. The movies alludes to so many incredible art pieces and literary classics that it represents the history of cinema and the arts. The author mentions how in this version, Dracula goes on a trip to learn about a new invention, the cinematograph. “What more fitting, then, than the idea that Dracula should seduce Mina at the movies, illustrating how a vampire film qualifies as at once prototypical for movie history and for postmodernity.” With the blend of calling attention to film and the classic arts, Dracula is both a prototypical film for movie history and also postermodernity.
