Since the 1960s, film has changed consistently throughout the years to reflect global and american societies, touching on subjects like gender, youth, and other social issues as they mirror the culture prominent at the time of their premiers. Although films can serve as an excellent medium to shed light on social/cultural struggles, they are also a business in which budget and other economic factors must come into play, often times affecting the overall success or creative freedom within the creation of the movie.

 Jean Luc Godard’s A Bout de Souffle emerged in 1960 during the French New Wave. Along with it was the introduction of raunchy dialogue, the reinstatement of misogyny, corrupt youth, and an alluring, dangerous sense of feminine eroticism that hadn’t been so explicitly stated in the past. In Todd’s blog post, he writes “This was a film that had unknown actors, [and] took risks…Today we can look back on it and see how it influenced other New Wave French films as well as the stunning use of showing not telling.”

On February 8th of 1961, The New York Times published Bosley Crowther’s review of the (then) new film, in which he wrote about the European and American youth, stating “It is emphatically, unrestrainedly vicious, completely devoid of moral tone, concerned mainly with eroticism and the restless drives of a cruel young punk to get along…there is…an element of youth that is vagrant, disjointed, animalistic and doesn’t give a damn for anybody or anything, not even itself.”Critics of the 1960s would have a lot to say about 1994’s indie classic Pulp Fiction, as the social change from 1960 to 1994 was quite drastic and noticeable.

It seemed as though society lacked morality or principles more after every decade; the most pessimistic stating that it might as well be devoid of any sense of empathy or morals whatsoever. In his blog post comparing The Social Network (2010) and Pleasantville (1998), Tim writes about how “people are free and independent from a very young age, but they quickly become consumed by their own ambition and greed.” Tim also goes on to write about a perception of American society “that sacrifices any semblance of empathy or community in exchange for the freedom to pursue individual goals at any cost.” This dark view of society comes into play with Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction.

The film doesn’t center around a specific person, rather it features an ensemble cast of incredibly diverse and atypical characters that hold your interest remarkably. Mia–the woman on the film poster–is an eccentric drug addict married to a black drug lord with friends of all backgrounds that accidentally blow off people’s heads.This short description is the tip of the iceberg and does no justice to illustrate how brilliantly absurd and bizarre this film truly is.

Critics of the nineties praised the film for its indecencies however, instead writing about the unlikely yet beautiful pairing of violence and humor. In September of 1994, Janet Maslin wrote of Pulp Fiction’s allure stating,

“Surprisingly tender about characters who commit cold-blooded murder, “Pulp Fiction” uses the shock value of such contrasts to keep its audience constantly off-balance…When he offsets violent events with unexpected laughter, the contrast of moods becomes liberating, calling attention to the real choices the characters make. Far from amoral or cavalier, these tactics force the viewer to abandon all preconceptions while under the film’s spell.”

Pulp Fiction was and still is incredibly versatile and fresh in the world of independent film. It displayed a more muted version of intersectionality while telling its story (or stories) with the unconventional use of two completely contrasting concepts, unknowingly blazing a trail so directors could use the same elements in their films twenty years later.

According Dictionary.com, Intersectionality is “the theory that the overlap of various social identities, as race, gender, sexuality, and class, contributes to the specific type of systemic oppression and discrimination experienced by an individual (often used attributively).” Pulp Fiction displayed this topic in a subtle form; however, over twenty years later Sean Baker expressed it loudly in his unconventional indie masterpiece Tangerine. At this point in 2018, diversity (in general) is much more embraced by the public compared to its reception in 1960. In fact, there are a lot more social issues to take into consideration now— from race issues, gay rights, trans rights, etc–as opposed to (the two main issues) racism and war in the sixties.

Sin-Dee–the main character from Tangerine–is a black, transgender, drug addicted sex worker that goes on a quest to find the cisgender woman that her boyfriend cheated on her with while she was in prison for a month. Although some critics disagree with the cliche of minorities being portrayed as sex workers in film, other critics and scholars praise the film for its inclusion of intersectionality and its representation in Hollywood cinema.

As previously stated, what made Tangerine so unique and impactful yet reminiscent of greatness (Pulp Fiction) was the tie in of violence and humor. Roger Ebert also wrote about the similar violent-comedic tone in his synopsis of Tangerine, writing “the violence is balanced by subsequent scenes of Sin-Dee and Dinah and eventually Alexandra reaching a kind of understanding, and even displaying tenderness toward each other.” The irony in this stems from the fact that Sin-Dee spent about a third of a movie beating up Dinah in the late night streets of LA, but then their relationship changes when they share crystal meth in the nightclub bathroom. Obviously that scene wouldn’t have been present in a film from 1965. Tangerine was able to use (now) old elements from the nineties while making a statement regarding today’s social issues.

Tangerine also showcases one of the many ways technology has impacted the world of cinema entirely since 1965, as the entire movie was shot completely on an iPhone 5s (well three, actually) due to the small budget. Sean Baker was able to keep the integrity of what a movie encompasses, but use smaller less expensive technology that was readily available at the time. What the iPhone does is now allow tradition to continue but also evolve entirely.

Due to the strong and explicit social commentary that film Tangerine had to offer, it didn’t get a large budget in comparison to the usual blockbuster films.

The 1979 film Alien directed by Ridley Scott was undoubtedly one of the most revolutionary science-fiction films of all time, and what made it so was the art of special effects. Many were both eager and terrified to watch all that the film had to offer, from a ship in space, to the famous “chest-burster” scene, to the final reveal of the alien itself. Components like these obviously require a much larger budget than any of the aforementioned indie films, however much of the film’s success can be attributed to the impeccable special effects.

Film                         Budget                    Total Gross

A Bout de Souffle   $80,000                      n/a

Pulp Fiction            $8.5 million               $213.9 million

Tangerine               $100,000                     $924,793

Alien                        $11 million               $104.9 million to $203.6 million

Statistics taken from Wikipedia*

Beginning in 1960 we had A Bout de Souffle, a black and white French film that lacked prudence and introduced scandal, making it a staple in future genres. A little over three decades later we were gifted Pulp Fiction, an independent film that took those previously taboo elements and dramatically emphasized them and added on in order to mirror the vandalized society of the nineties. We then had the 2015 hidden gem Tangerine that showed the true harsh realities of minorities in the lower class streets of LA, utilizing elements from Quentin Tarantino’s very own classic that premiered two decades prior.  Although these independent films were a hit among critics, they lacked the commercial success that Alien had when it premiered in 1979.

Sydney wrote a piece on the class blog comparing Pleasantville (1998)and Inception (2010), within it writing a synopsis of both films. In Pleasantville, two siblings are thrown into a world where “there is no sadness, anger, violence, or negativity of any kind. Every basketball shot lands in the hoop, the fire department saves cats because there is no danger of fire….There are no homeless people, the books are all blank, and sex doesn’t exist.” Shortly after their arrival, they introduce new concepts to the entire town (sex being one of them) and suddenly color starts to emerge and everything grows in complexity. Although there’s conflict due to resistance to change, it’s then unanimously agreed that without all of these things there’s no excitement, or “zest” as Sydney put it. In some sense, the film industry has very much evolved in the same way; Pleasantville describe the transition between 1960s cinema to present cinema perfectly. Although we can appreciate the great foundation that has been put forth in order for the film industry to expand tremendously, film has not only been able to grow into an incredible multi-million dollar business, but an art form and a medium where groups can be represented; where voices can be heard. The films of the sixties can easily be dubbed as the people of Pleasantville, a great place to begin with; however, when those siblings come in introducing sex, violence, and scandal, life in Pleasantville becomes universally vibrant.