The New Hollywood Period: Postmodern Action (Late 1960s-Late 1970s)
"The 1960s were a divided era of American cinema. It begins with the bluff of a fat man with a swollen face and ends with sharp aggression. Many important films were made during this period, but most were made in the last three years of the 1960s. ”
In the face of the challenges posed by tens of millions of TV sets, Hollywood studios still follow the "Bin" blockbuster strategy in an attempt to lure audiences away from TV and back to the theater, but many epic blockbusters run aground and the star's rising salaries make filmmakers have to consider new formats. George Bernard Shaw once said that realism often provides an antidote when art degenerates.
So came the postmodern "chase sequence" film with a faster pace, explosiveness and sharpness. "Bullitt" and "French Drug Network" (1971, directed by William Fredkin) basically set the tone of the "chase sequence" from this period to the present, and the most representative Hollywood action movies of this period can be said to lead the trend of "chase sequence", which together influenced the trend of film production and opened a new dawn.
Before talking about the "chase sequence" of Hollywood action movies of this period, there are five aspects that are particularly noteworthy. The first was the lifting of restrictions on the Hays Code, "In 1968, the unfashionable 'Production Code' was finally abolished and replaced by a rating system, and the film has since entered an unprecedented era of confession, especially in the areas of sex and violence, two of the most popular themes of the new film."
The advantage is that young people are beginning to enjoy watching movies, and young people make up three-quarters of the movie-watching population. "Secondly, drive-in theaters are still in their golden age, and the influence of American car culture on action movies cannot be underestimated.
"After World War II, American car ownership rose rapidly from 26 per 100 in 1950 to 34 per 100 in 1960... The number of drive-in theaters went from 1000 at the end of the 40s to almost 5000 at the end of the 50s... When the drive-in theater developed into the 60s of the 20th century, the accumulation of years formed some cross-regional large-scale theater lines. ”
The widespread use of 16mm (film) cameras, fast photosensitive films, zoom lenses and improvements in sound recording directly promoted the documentary trend of "direct film" and "real film", and a kind of dramatic realism quietly rose, "A Night of Carnival" (1964, directed by Richard Leicester) is a perfect example.
From the opening "chase sequence" of the four rock members of the Beatles being chased by avid fans, we can get a glimpse of the whole leopard, the coarse-grained reality and movement of the image are close to the eye, and directly lead to the last two aspects we want to mention.
On the one hand, there is the Ipiceutian-like social culture, the young people of the 1960s experienced the upheaval of the times, the traditional middle-class values and cultural conservatism became the object of this generation of young people to vent their dissatisfaction, they were branded hippies to show a spirit of optimism, so that hundreds of thousands of young people gathered in the upstate New York town of Woodstock, USA, to listen to the love and peace of rock and roll.
Another aspect is the rise of independent producers, as can be seen from the success of Miramax, the producer of "One Night Carnival", during this period when large studios were facing financial constraints and separation of production, some small but beautiful independent producers achieved great results with small output and large returns, and gradually affected the way film was produced, and the Hollywood action movies we discussed were one of the branches.
Rock 'n' roll, hidden photography, quick cuts, jump cuts, long shots, pseudo-documentaries, the "chase sequence" trend of Hollywood action movies without tripods began, and rough realism returned to the early Brighton School obsessed with location applications, "a montage of continuous fast shots from different angles in a natural background" to reproduce its power.
Both "Bullitt" and "French Drug Network" are unique in choosing cars as the main chase vehicle for the "chase sequence", the former is independently produced by the actor Steve McQueen's Sun Productions Company, and was included in the American Film Association's 2001 Top 100 American Film List.
The latter only invested 3.3 million US dollars, far less than the blockbusters of the "20th Century Fox" studio in the same period, but still won the 44th Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Editing five awards at the 44th Academy Awards with a strong realist style box office reputation.
The "chase sequence" in "Bullitt" (1968) has been broken down in detail above, and it is worth mentioning that this film is one of the first films to be rated by the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) after film censorship was lifted in 1968.
In the following years, it had a major impact on many police and gangster films, and its setting, visual style, and character development greatly influenced the genre's films of the same period, such as "Dirty Harry" (1971, directed by Don Siegel), "French Drug Network" (1971), etc.
Its influence can even be well seen in the 1990s, where some of these "chase sequences" (such as car chases, and the climax chase that finally takes place at San Francisco International Airport) are clearly paid homage in Desperate World (1993, directed by Andrew Davis, the first Hollywood blockbuster to introduce Chinese mainland), and The Wires of Fire (1995, directed by Michael Mann).
The production cycle of Hollywood action movies "chase sequences" during this period was divided into two stages. "The first phase ran from about 1968 to 1974, and the cycle of action car chase films was dominated by genre fusion of cop/crime thriller production, which clearly demonstrated their deliberately extended car 'chase sequence' screen time, which is often seen as one of the main attractions of film marketing.
The second phase, from 1974 to 1984, Hollywood action car chase films were characterized by the transformation of the production cycle into two main variants: 'chase films,' which framed most of their narrative time into a long-term chase; and 'race films', both on and off the road, retaining the pictorial elements and themes of earlier car chase films.
As the production cycle of this type of film progressed, its narrative tone changed from the suspense generated in cop/crime thrillers to the comedic mood that typically represented the chase and racing movies of the late 1970s and early 1980s. ”
Two of the three most famous "movie boys" of the new Hollywood era — Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola — began their rise to fame by playing with the car "chase sequence."
Spielberg's "Duel" (1971) is his first feature film with commercial influence, this film inherits Hitchcock's suspense technique and places the entire chase plot on the California countryside road, which quickly took about 12 days to shoot and was released in Europe to applaud and applaud.
The film's reputation earned Spielberg the opportunity to direct Jaws (1975), and it doesn't matter even if his first serious American commercial film was a serious road chase, Rampage Escape (1974).
Spielberg's good brother Lucas's commercial influence feature film debut was a teen film, "American Style Painting" (1973), which was produced by Coppola, and although it did not have the obvious "chase sequence" of "Duel", its colorful and dazzling cars and several drag racing scenes with narrow "chase sequences" won him the "Star Wars" program.
It can be said that because "chasing influence" is where filmmakers exert their innovative inspiration, "'film boys' both consider themselves artists and enjoy meeting the needs of a large audience", so "chasing sequences" is invariably adopted by some commercial directors who are very ambitious to become "film authors", and the two achieve each other, which is equivalent to a kind of film creation inspiration.
Post-Classic Hollywood Period: High-Concept Blockbusters (1980s-Present)
"What changed in the mid-1970s was not a shift towards a certain genre of post-classic filmmaking, but rather a number of young directors who helped revive classic films through highly successful films. These stories are built on fast-paced action and characters with clear personalities. The ideal American film remains centered on clever structure, stark motives, and a series of events that are easily understood by the audience. ”
The above two directors' follow-up works include the space fighter chase in the "Star Wars" series (1977-present), the exotic adventure chase in the "Indiana Jones" series (1981-present, the fifth part released in 2022), the chase between teenagers and police in "E.T. Aliens" (1982) (Figure 2-9), the sci-fi car chase on the road of the future city in "Minority Report" (2002), and the fierce racing chase in the game world of "Ready Player One" (2018).
These "chase sequences" that continue the character motivation, plot structure and new Hollywood period action movie production style in classic Hollywood period feature films are basically the model of digital special effects blockbusters in the post-classic Hollywood period. Of course, there are more than a few action geniuses who can control digital special effects blockbusters, and if you only look at the box office, James Cameron's works containing "chase sequences" are undoubtedly the overlords of market influence.
The " Terminator " series , especially the gutterhead chase of the humanoid robots T-800 and T-1000 in " Terminator 2 " ( 1991 ) , and the hill chase between Schwarzenegger and the enemy in " True Lies " ( 1994 ) , all follow the classical essence of chase : location plus realism. and so on to the century blockbusters "Avatar" (2009) and "Alita Battle Angel" (2019), these classical essences are completely covered with 3D and digital special effects, presenting the audience with a beautiful and very realistic sci-fi world chase war.
There are countless Hollywood action movie "chase sequences" in the post-classic Hollywood period, but as McGee points out, "action genres often use other types of certain aspects as motivations for hot action and adventure behavior", and there are three distinct types of action genre fusion (series) movies that most of the narrative time constitutes a long-term chase, which can be called a "chase film" to some extent.
The first is a secret agent film or action thriller. The protagonists can be ordinary people or top agents, but they are all forced to go to Longtan alone to save themselves because they are involved in an incident that may endanger their lives.
"Die Hard" series (1988-present, the 6th part will be released in 2025), "Mission Impossible" series (1996-present, the 7th part will be released in 2022), "Spy Shadows" series (2002-2016), "007" series (especially with Daniel Craig as the representative to follow the example of "Spy Shadow"... They all feature large "chase sequences" and provide viewers with "intensive and continuous 'visual activity'", of which "007 Quantum Solace opens with a nearly 3-minute car chase sequence."
In addition to the extremely fast clipping frequency (ASL=0.82s), this sequence has a VAI of 0.290. Again, this value is much higher than any other movie. The second is action-adventure films.
In fact, the classic "007" series of movies from the first to the fifth generation is typical of action-adventure films, because James Bond is almost omnipotent, he is like the bald strong man in the "Fast and Furious" series (2001-present, the 10th part will be released in 2022) across the world, the audience is almost not worried about his safety, naturally there is less crisis plot and suspense.
However, the meaning of action-adventure films is not here, the protagonist's action goal in the movie is mostly to save society, not to save himself, so action movies such as "The Speed of Life and Death" (1994, directed by Jan de Bonthe) and "The Fifth Element" (1997, directed by Luc Besson) have a double layer of viewing in rhythm and scene, which is convenient to grasp the balance of film production.
Finally, there are sci-fi action movies or superhero series movies. "The Matrix" series (1999-present, the 4th part will be released in 2021), "Transformers" series (2007-present, the 6th part will be released in 2022), the new "Star Trek" series (2009-present, the fourth part will be released in 2023), the new "Batman" series (2005-2012), the "Captain America" series, the "Avengers" series, "Black Widow" (2021, directed by Kate Sautland).
Each release will show the latest and most mature spectacle scenes, and the "chase sequence" in it constantly refreshes the difficulty of production and the height of creativity. With Netflix streaming actually ranking among the new six in Hollywood in 2019, movie special effects technology continues to develop, and I believe that more "chase sequence" applications will be seen in the new dawn of Hollywood action movies and streaming movies in the future.