Turning Hollywood Genres Inside Out and Upside Down

 New Hollywood films refreshed oftern tired Hollywood genres by opening new perspectives and upending traditional conventions.  A movie like McCabe and Mrs. Miller, for instance, remade the Western as a means to undermine the myth of self-reliant male gunslinger, instead focusing on a would be gambler and pimp who needs the help of a woman to run his brothel.  What about the film Mikey and Nicky?  How does it both examplify and undermine Hollywood genres?  How does it create a new kind of gangster movie or buddy movie, respectively?  How does it turn these genres inside out and upside down?

What's New About New Hollywood?

In the late 60's and through the 1970's, young iconoclastic and experimental directors took over the once staid Hollywood studios and made personal films much different from the Golden Age of Hollywood that ended barely a decade before.  Influenced by the French New Wave and Italian neo-realism, they were determined to make a new kind of Hollywood movie.  What stylistic innovations did you notice in Mikey and Nickey?    How did stylistic elements help tell the story and emphasize ideas and themes?

Female Director = Feminist Film?

 Mikey and Nicky is our first film directed by a woman, Elaine May. But does that mean this film has a feminist perspective?  After all, it fails the Bechdel Test which states (roughly) that the movie has to have at least two women in the film who talk to each other about something other than a man. 

So does this film have a feminist message -- or are there any elements in this film that might preclude or at least challenge a feminist interpretation?

Crime Never Pays?

Michel Poiccard is petty criminal who steals cars like some people speed on the highway.  He lies and cheats people close to him, including a girlfriend.  He is dangerous when cornered and has murdered a police officer.  Yet, at the same time, he is young and glamorous, faithful in his way to Patricia, and in the end willing to pay for his crimes. The film follows some of the rules of a film noir or gangster film.  Yet, the film also plays around with those conventions: the police, for example, are incompetent and there is not much tension or excitement in the chase scenes.  So what is going on?   Is this film saying anything about crime and punishment?  Or is it just messing with us?

What's New About the New Wave?

French New wave auteurs like Godard envisioned their films as a radical re-visioning of the static filmmaking of the French studio system. What experimental ideas or techniques did you notice in Breathless (could you explain in some detail)? How do these experiments change the way we enjoy a film? Are they engaging or annoying? Do they bring meaning to the film? Do they make fun of the whole idea of bringing meaning to film?

Love in the Time of the Beatles

One interpretation of Breathless is that it is a film about love in the modern world, where lovers know little about each others' past, have trouble communicating, follow their impulsive longings, only to end up betrayed at the end. Is there more to this take on modern romance? Is there something deeper in Michel and Patricia's relationship? Or is there something less? Is love even possible in the shadow of the atomic bomb and the Cold War? (Don't forget that Michel has other girlfriends and Patricia spent the evening -- and might have slept with -- her editor).

I Got You Under My Thumb?

Early Summer is the story of a society in which women are expected to marry before the age of 29, often in arranged marriages negotiated by their family, especially fathers and brothers.  Yet at the same time, Noriko rejects the candidate chosen for her by her boss and family and  -- on the spur of the moment -- agrees to marry a family friend.   What is this movie saying about patriarchal structure, marriage, and women's liberation in the modern Japan of the 1950's?