The End of "New" New Hollywood?

During Netflix's period of heady expansion as a generator of original films and shows much was made of its readiness to give artists a relatively free hand in pursuing their vision. (I remember, for example, that Nightcrawler and Roman J. Israel director Dan Gilroy--one of the few filmmakers who was working this past decade who was actually interested in the world and actually making interesting movies about it--talking about his experience of making Velvet Buzzsaw for them, saying that Netflix, unlike the studios, "willing to give us everything we needed, financially, artistically, and in every way, to make the film that we wanted to make.")

There was a whiff of '70s-era "New Hollywood" about that, but I would not go so far as to say that streaming was giving us some latterday edition of that era. After all, where cultural change and political audacity are concerned, the 2010s were a far cry from the 1970s--with, at the cinematic level, all this reinforced by the reality that Netflix was cutting checks to established insiders in a context where opportunities for up-and-comers were few. (The massively budgeted Netflix production The Irishman seems telling here. In the '70s Martin Scorsese was making his name with Mean Streets and Taxi Driver, films at the time regarded as strikingly fresh and contemporary--while in his 2019 gangster epic he looked backward, to the point of digitally deaging longtime Scorsese regulars Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci.)

Still, with Netlfix doing what it was there did seem a little more scope than before for filmmakers who had some chance of making something, perhaps something worthwhile, that an ever more restrictive studio system would never allow.

It also seemed to me that given how this comparatively easygoing attitude in regard to funding film and TV production seemed bound up with the debt-fueled expansion of the company that appeared implausible outside the rapid expansion of its customer base, and neither the piling up of debt nor the growth in the number of subscribers could go on forever (the more in as competition was growing, with the likes of Disney+ proving formidable indeed). Last year the company was already starting to back away from this approach, while this year's report that the trend in subscriber growth has turned negative has quite predictably led to official declarations of big changes in store (for the sake of reassuring people they hope will want to hold their stock), not least that the company's day as a backer of pricey "auteur" projects is drawing to a close. And while some are gloating over the end of Hollywood's winning streak, even as one not always impressed with its choices or the products to which they led, can see that as sad news for filmmakers and film-lovers alike.