The Limits of Auteurism: Case Studies in the Critically Constructed New Hollywood, by Nicholas Godfrey

At a time when even Martin Scorsese cannot offer a polite critique of the Marvel industrial complex without suffering the umbrage of his fellow Hollywood elites, it is bracing to read the words of an industry insider truly, unapologetically sounding off on what he perceives to be the failures of the American cinema. In a 1972 Gallery interview, Dennis Hopper—whose 1969 directorial debut, Easy Rider, supposedly galvanised the much-mythologised New Hollywood period—shared his grim assessment of his cohort’s most celebrated work. The so-called “art films” of such directors as John Cassavetes, Bob Rafelson, and Peter Bogdanovich were, in Hopper’s opinion, nothing of the sort, devoid of “things that haven’t been done a million times before by directors like Howard Hawks, Joseph Mankiewicz, George Stevens, John Ford, and Henry Hathaway” (qtd. in Godfrey 211). Presuming to speak directly to his peers, Hopper insisted, “you’re no longer inventing anything, you’re no longer contributing to the evolution of your art” (211).