OUT OF THEIR DEPTH: CORRUPTION, SCANDAL AND LIES IN THE NEW HOLLYWOOD

Following the cultural upheaval and racial tensions of the 1960s, the early ‘70s saw America increasingly in social and political turmoil as opposition to the Vietnam war grew more violent following revelations of the brutality of American forces whilst at home the full scale of the Watergate scandal was beginning to be revealed. The certainties of modern American values were not only tarnished they were found to be mired in corruption, scandal and lies. This heightened unease in the mainstream American psyche was reflected in films from the New Hollywood of the period where the traditional male hero of the classic studio era was replaced by a protagonist who, whilst they thought they were in control, found themselves increasingly out of their depth.

This season is curated by Cinema Rediscovered Founder Mark Cosgrove.

  • The Long Goodbye

    In his books the Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye, novelist Raymond Chandler’s depictions of the sunny mean streets of Los Angeles and his wisecracking private eye Phillip Marlow became a classic template for Hollywood cinema of the 1940s. Robert…

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    Director: Robert Altman

    Genre: Comedy,Drama,Thriller

    Release Date: 16-Aug-2024

    Tue 17 Sep
  • The Parallax View

    Conspiracy and creeping paranoia seeps through every frame of Alan J Pakula’s The Parallax View even the architecture and the soundtrack communicate dissonance and unease. Made two years before Pakula’s definitive Watergate film All the President’s Men, here Warren Beatty…

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    Director: Alan J. Pakula

    Genre: Drama

    Release Date: 16-Aug-2024

    Thu 19 Sep
  • Chinatown

    Faye Dunaway and Jack Nicholson smoulder against the backdrop of late 1930’s LA, depicted as a hotbed of corruption in a narrative firmly grounded in historical reality. Robert Towne was a central screenwriter at the heart of the New Hollywood’s…

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    Director: Roman Polanski

    Genre: Drama,Thriller

    Release Date: 16-Aug-2024

    Sun 22 Sep
  • Three Days of the Condor

    Robert Redford and director Sydney Pollack had a long and successful collaboration producing several hits in the 1970s such as Jeremiah Johnson (1972) and The Way We Were (1973). In Three Days of the Condor (1975) they capture the political…

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    Genre: Thriller

    Release Date: 16-Aug-2024

    Sun 29 Sep

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