Reflective Analysis

Upon completing my contextual study into the American new wave I believe it was effective at exploring the new wave conventions present in Midnight Cowboy, The Graduate and Easy Rider and the influence the American new wave had on the world of film. I struggled with the task at first as I was unsure how to go about starting it, I had compiled all of my research onto the blog and had analysed key scenes ready to start my actual contextual study but I was just unsure of how to go about it in the best possible way but when I started to write it I had no problem with delving head first into it. I think I went into great detail about how Mike Nichols, Dennis Hopper and John Schlesinger had incorporated the ideologies of the counter culture youth of the time into their films. I probably used my organisation skills best on this task and actually had plenty of research for me to use when it cam to writing my own contextual study of the American new wave. The hardest part of the task was definitely the initial research as it was one of the first times I had done a task like this off my own back rather than relying on teachers but after starting to gather some research I realised it was a lot easier than I thought and I ended up having so much research that I didn’t use half of it. If I were to redo this task I would definitely use the same films but I would go into a much deeper analysis of the scenes and perhaps use different scenes such as the Warhol themed party from Easy Rider. I thoroughly enjoyed this task and I’m looking forward to do similar tasks in the future. It has widened my film knowledge and contextual knowledge of 1960’s America. I feel like I have taken inspiration from the three films I watched within my own new wave film as I tried to incorporate the use of travel seen in The Graduate and Midnight Cowboy whilst also incorporating the drug use and eccentricity of Easy Rider. The Graduate was probably the biggest inspiration I had when it came to making my own film as my film is essentially an exploration of the mind of a youth very much in the same position of Benjamin Braddock, unsure of what they want to do with life and as such take a laissez-faire approach, but at the same time wanting to do something important with their life, just as Ben says “ I just want it [his future] to be different” my film is about wanting to make something of your life but not knowing how to do this just like the disaffected youth of 1960’s America.