[ecrea] CFP: The American New Wave - A Retrospective

*The American New Wave: A Retrospective*
*
*
*An International Conference to be held at Bangor University, North Wales*
*4th-6th July 2017*

In 1967, amidst the dying embers of the old studio system, two films 
were released that extinguished them apparently for good. /Bonnie and 
Clyde/ and /The Graduate/ suggested the nascent promise of an American 
New Wave, as directors were emboldened by the collapse of the Production 
Code; inspired by the stylistic flourishes and narrative seriousness of 
their European counterparts; carried along by the youthful revolutionary 
fervour embodied by the optimism of the Civil Rights Movement and 
protests against the Vietnam War, and granted a creative freedom unheard 
of in Hollywood as producers and executives floundered desperately for 
the next big hit after a series of costly flops. Arguably, The American 
New Wave lasted only thirteen years, flaming out in spectacular fashion 
with the financial disaster of Michael Cimino’s /Heaven’s Gate/. The 
seeds of its demise were sewn even earlier. The blockbuster successes of 
/Jaws/ (Steven Spielberg, 1975) and /Star Wars/ (George Lucas, 1977) 
suggested that the following decade would be defined by film 
entertainment altogether more traditional in which ‘New Hollywood’ (as 
the New Wave was often known) took a shape distinctly similar to the 
old, albeit dominated by new technologies and styles. An American 
‘auteur’ cinema, it seems, would be consigned to the dustbin of history.

While only very few American New Wave directors have enjoyed long and 
successful careers – it is difficult to name more than perhaps Martin 
Scorsese, Woody Allen, Mike Nichols, Robert Altman and Steven Spielberg 
 (himself belonging more to the latter period than the former) who 
continued to enjoy something approaching mainstream success after 1980 – 
there are several who continue to do interesting, complex work in the 
margins of American film production, such as William Friedkin (/Bug/, 
/Killer Joe/), Francis Ford Coppola (/Youth Without Youth, Twixt, 
Tetro/) and Terrence Malick (/The Tree of Life, To the Wonder/).

Several of the classical genres, which The American New Wave ‘revised’ 
to take into account changing political and aesthetic concerns, continue 
to enjoy revivals inspired by this legacy, such as the Western (/The 
Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Slow West, 
Meek’s Cutoff/, to name but a few), while others that the New Wave 
arguably created, like the paranoid conspiracy thriller, are now part of 
the cultural landscape of film and television.
Furthermore, it is arguable that the belief in creative freedom, 
personal expression and autonomy which The American New Wave inspired 
continues to be felt within American independent cinema, with Wes 
Anderson, Quentin Tarantino, Richard Linklater, Kelly Reichardt, Jeff 
Nichols and Ava Duvernay (among many others) directing films of 
aesthetic and political significance on a variety of subjects.

This conference will consider The American New Wave’s cultural, 
political and aesthetic legacies fifty years since its birth. It will 
seek to look afresh at the films produced during its short lifespan and 
assess their continued significance. It will explore the films these 
directors produced in the years after 1980 to consider how far the 
values and ideals of the earlier period persisted or whether they were 
subsumed by the cultural conservatism that has dominated mainstream 
cinema since then. It will also investigate those filmmakers we might 
consider to have picked up the baton from their predecessors and pursued 
challenging material in more recent times.

To this end, _we invite proposals of no more than 500 words for 
twenty-minute papers on any aspect of The American New Wave_ and its 
aftermath. Topics may include but need not be confined to the following:

•New Perspectives on The American New Wave – looking at the films again, 
fifty years on: politics,             history, industry, reception, 
audiences, aesthetics, culture;

•The continued work of American New Wave Directors – e.g. Scorsese, 
Allen, Spielberg;

•The post-New Wave work of Robert Altman, Roman Polanski, Mike Nichols, 
Brian De Palma                       (amongst others);

•The Cultural Legacy of Steven Spielberg;

•The gender politics of The American New Wave;

•The ethnic and racial politics of The American New Wave;

•The neglected filmmakers of The American New Wave: Penn, Cimino, Ashby;

•Contemporary independent filmmakers and the influence of The American 
New Wave;

•New Wave Genres and their influence;

•Authorship in Global Hollywood;

•The New Wave and The Blockbuster;

•The New Wave and Cult Film.

The conference will be held from 4th-6th July 2017 at Bangor University 
in North Wales. It is planned to publish the proceedings. A series of 
complementary screenings will be held at our new Pontio Arts and 
Innovation Centre.

*Proposals (no more than 500 words) and a one-page CV* should be sent in 
an email titled ‘The American New Wave Conference’ to: 
_*(americannewwave50 /at/ gmail.com)*_ no later than *1st January 2017*. For 
further information, please contact the conference organisers: 
(_g.frame /at/ bangor.ac).uk_ and (_n.abrams /at/ bangor.ac).uk_.

Follow the conference on Twitter: @AmericanNewWave


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