Independent Film Production and Performance in the Hollywood Renaissance

Abstract

Focusing on the mid-1960s to mid-1970s, this chapter considers performances in films that reflect a vision of independent cinema with complex links between independent production companies and major studios, and with an approach to narrative and visual style that often questions dominant representation and its conventions. The chapter features a detailed case study of BBS, one of the era’s most celebrated independent production companies, and the ways its practices encouraged collaboration between actors and directors. It examines the BBS-produced/Columbia-distributed Five Easy Pieces (Rafelson, 1970), focusing on the role the film’s star, Jack Nicholson, played in the production process. It provides an overview of actors’ involvement in filmmaking during the period, paying particular attention to the ways they became hyphenates and/or contributed materially to the production process. It looks at the extent to which influences from exploitation film and art cinema found their way into Hollywood cinema through actors and their companies. It shows how actors affected the themes in the era’s films, encouraged genre experimentation, and fostered a new realism that depended on new stars and new approaches to performance.