Influence & impact on contemporary films or other media

New Hollywood cinema has appeared as a film genre since 1967 till 1977 and it was during that time that the directors went through the cultural revolution. They experience the rise of feminism and the sexual liberation along with the aftermath of the Vietnam War and the fall of Communism. It was these factors that influenced contemporary media to what we see today.

In the past, most film makers were very reluctant to put any sexual elements into their films due to the conservatism of that period where sexual content was seen as a taboo and should be censored. But going against that, the directors of the New Hollywood Cinema movement bravely decided to go against the norm and do films which had sexual elements in it. There innovativeness brought in a new element to filming which is still seen a lot of most modern day films. In the end, audiences have begun to see such sexual elements in a film as a norm which we can see through more current films such as “Basic Instinct (1992)”, “American Pie(1999)”, “You don’t mess with the Zohan (2008)” and etc

.(2 above) scenes from Basic Instinct

New Hollywood cinema employs fast cuts unlike previous films where each scene was long and drawn out to help illicit the audiences emotions for that particular scene. This new style of filming gained a lot of popularity with the younger generation of movie-goers during that time and until this day, most of the films Hollywood produces still use fast cuts and dynamic camera angles to attract the younger crowd. This use of fast cuts makes it hard for the audience to anticipate what is going to happen next in the film and allows room for surprise twists in the plot. This keeps the audience’s attention on what is happening on screen because they will never know what to expect and it makes the ultimate end of the film hard to guess because there could possibly more ways than one that the film could end. This condenses the storyline which engages the audience while also adding more complexity to it.

Another factor of film that the New Hollywood movement influenced was the level of violence in films. Where in the past scenes of violence where something unheard of in films, now days it’s a norm to see such scenes in practically a lot of the movies coming out. People get a sense of excitement and pleasure from watching depictions of violence and gore in the film scenes. Such movie violence has even seeped into children’s movies. Examples of movies that have over the top violence and gore in them are movies such as “Final Destination” and “Saw”.

In Final Destination for example, each death was extremely bloody and violent which each of the characters being killed and mutilated in the most horrific fashion possible. Another example of over the top deaths is in "Rambo 5" where literally one bullet shot can make a head explode.