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This collection of essays provides the first comprehensive survey of Hollywood and independent films from the mid-sixties to the present. Deliberately eclectic and panoramic, The New American Cinema brings together thirteen leading film scholars who present a range of theoretical, critical, and historical perspectives on this rich and pivotal era in American cinema.
The essays are divided into three sections: "Movies and Money," "Cinema and Culture," and "Independents and Independence." The first section focuses on the economics of the industry and analyzes the connection between the film business and the finished product. Topics include a look at the economic conditions that made the seventies’ auteur renaissance possible, the distribution of studio and independent films, and the recent spate of mergers and acquisitions that have come to characterize the new Hollywood. The second part of The New American Cinema deals with the political and cultural significance of war and Vietnam films (Platoon, Apocalypse Now, Born on the Fourth of July); "male rampage" films (Rambo, Lethal Weapon, Die Hard); women’s psychothrillers (The Silence of the Lambs); special effects pictures (2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars); and historical re-presentations (Oliver Stone’s JFK). The final section casts a keen eye on films produced and exhibited outside the commercial mainstream, examining the financial realities of "indie" films; the influence of independent filmmaker John Cassavetes on Coppola, Altman, and Scorsese; the stereotyping of African Americans in mainstream cinema; and the films of independent women filmmakers.

From the late 1950s through the mid-1960s, independent filmmakers in the New American Cinema sought to use film to restore spiritual depth and human connection to the impersonal environs of modern life. Josh Guilford analyzes the movement’s methods, ambitions, and influence against the backdrop of post–World War II America’s social and political climate.

Dedicated to shaping a more intimate world, New American Cinema artists created works that emphasized spontaneity, improvisation, and formal experimentation to produce transformative experiences in their viewers. Filmmakers like Jonas Mekas, Lionel Rogosin, Ron Rice, and Shirley Clarke championed cinema’s ability to revive the human soul and foster more liberating social forms. In practice, however, their films often relied on the vitality of marginalized communities and cultural traditions in a manner that lays bare tensions between artistic idealism and cultural extraction. Guilford uses thinkers from inside and outside the world of film to illuminate the political risks and possibilities that come with making intimacy the foundation of social change.

Rigorous and original, The New American Cinema examines an understudied movement and its effort to reshape film culture, challenge conformity, and imagine new ways of living together.