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

The Limits of Auteurism: Case Studies in the Critically Constructed New Hollywood offers a new history of the American cinema of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Beginning with the unexpected commercial success of Easy Rider in 1969, the book charts the fortunes of a number of commercial imitators that were subsequently rushed into production, including familiar titles (Five Easy Pieces, Two-Lane Blacktop) and lesser-known films (Vanishing Point, Little Fauss and Big Halsy, Adam at 6 A.M.). The book also explores the contemporaneous violent-cop cycle of The French Connection and Dirty Harry and concludes with Easy Rider's creative offspring, The Last Movie and The Hired Hand. In the process, The Limits of Auteurism mounts a new, discursively based argument about how the forces of distribution, marketing, and critical reception intertwined to determine the parameters of the New Hollywood canon.

Dennis Hopper on the cover of Life magazine while shooting The Last Movie (1971) in Peru, June 1970.