The Movie Brats themselves- A Generation that changed Film.

Now most people call the Movie Brats the saviours of the film industry.

Their films developed and change the way that we see film today, with their radical ideas to change the face of film.
But what are their stories and what are the films that launched their careers.

Again in my previous post I described the situation in the film industry in the late 60's it was bleak to say the least for Hollywood, with profits shrinking and audiences becoming disengaged with the films Hollywood was producing something had to change and therefore Hollywood decided to open the Golden Gates of the Studios to  new and talented Directors and Writers.

The Movie Brats started out from humble beginnings with the most famous being Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola   sharing their Little Italy New York Routes.
These Routes inspired the films they began to write and direct.

Francis Ford Coppola 

Francis Ford Copolla expressed his routes of being in an Italian/American family by making the Godfather and the importance of the Mafia and the ideal of Family. The film itself received a great reception at the US Box Office with it making over $302,393 in it's first weekend.
In total the film has grossed over $245,066,411 in total World wide.

Martin Scorsese 

Martin Scorsese was a talented young director like  most of the Movie Brats working hard to get their break in Hollywood. He'd been making films before he got noticed by Hollywood like the majority of Movie Brats directors. In 1976 a film would be suggested as the beginning of his career with Taxi Driver. The story follows a Vietnam War Veteran (quite an touchy subject as the War was a major issue in the USA.) with it making over $28, 262,574 worldwide (this was calculated in 1996).
With these successes, The Movie Brats were the key to a Hollywood revival, gone was the Hollywood of Old with films that pre made and packaged and in came fresh new content that finally was what the auidences of America wanted.





Brian De Palma



Other Movie Brats to focus on are Brian De Palma and Stanley Kubrick.

Brian De Palma became famous for the film Scarface (1983) which deals with Cuban Immigrants into America and the drug trade. The film is along the same narrative dealing with crime and drugs. When the film was made Cuba was still a hot topic in America, with the US and Cuba still diagreeing. Of course Cuba is still a comunist state, where as America is a democarcy with ideals of freedom and capitalism more importantly.

Scarface did well at the Boxoffice, although at the time was critisied for it's sceens of extreme violence (this was mainly due down to a writer called Oliver Stone who became famous for directing the film Natural Born Killers in 1994) with the Chainsaw scene being the most horrific.

De Palma's inspiration and drive came from his love of Alfred Hitchcock films. Alfred Hitchcock at the time of his career was making what would become the classic Horror Movie. Pyhsco in 1960 with the Shower Scene was deemed at the time highly outragous and to violent to be put onto cinema screens. In a way this inspiration allowed the Chainsaw scene in Scarface to almost take the violence to the next stage and make the film stand out from the rest.


Scarface Poster



Stanley Kubrick



Stanley Kubrick on the other hand was a contriversial and slightly more surreal director and writer. His most famous films are A Clockwork Orange (1971), The Shining (1980) and Full Metal Jacket (1987).

Kurbrick had a talent for making films that were often than not more surreal in nature and a little bit outside of the mainstream. A Clockwork Orange was a great example of this as at the time of it's release in cinemas worldwide it was banned in the UK as it was deemed to violent to be viewed and the fear that the young auidence watching the film would then act out the sceens of violence protrayed on screen.
It is well known that Stephan King disliked or infact hated his version of The Shinning. This did not detere Kubrick who blatently ignored the writer and still released the film without consulting it's creator.

Full metal Jacket was an example of how brilliant Kubrick was as a writer. Kubrick sadly died before completing a joint project with another director. This project came to be the film A.I (2001).

So The Movie Brats have made an impact on Hollywood, before the birth of the Modern Blockbuster in 1975 and made a stamp on the industry forever, continuing to inspire generations of new film-makers coming fresh from UCLA and The New York Film Academy following in the footsteps of these great film directors and pionners.