American New-Wave and The Poseidon Adventure

In 1970’s France, there was a big change to French filmmaking. This change was a major influence on The film industry in America. We enter the American New-Wave. This marked the generation of the Baby Boomers, and also is marking point for the ending of major production code, that had previously halted filmmakers from showing things such as drug use, nudity, sexual content, or foul language in their films. The “American New Wave’ happened from the late 1960s to the early 1980s, when a new generation of young filmmakers came to prominence in the United States. They influenced the types of films produced, their production, marketing, and the way major studios approached film-making. In New Hollywood films, the film director, rather than the studio, took on a key authorial role.Many studios got new owners, which changed the way that were done, as these new owners were much younger and had a new eye for filmmaking.  Some examples of American New wave films would be; Bonnie and Clyde (screened last week), Night of the Living Dead, and The Godfather.

This week in class we did a screening of a film called “The Poseidon Adventure”. This is a 1972  film directed by Ronald Neame.produced by Irwin Allen, and based on Paul Gallico’s 1969 novel. It features a cast which includes five Academy Award winners: Gene Hackman; Ernest Borgnine; Jack Albertson; Shelley Winters; and Red Buttons. This film is categorized under “disaster films”, and it definitely fit that description. Going into to watching the film, I was not very excited, as this film was picked over many other amazing films such as Jaws, The Exorcist, Taxi Driver, ect. I had never heard of The Poseidon Adventure until wednesday’s class. The film starts off showing moments of different peoples lives as they travel on a cruise ship, which is taking its final voyage from New york City to Athens, and shows the boat heading towards and going through some pretty big waves. The people on the cruise ship go to big dinner, all dressed up. As the dinner is happening, a few key characters are focused in on. We watch their night unfold, and see their personal interactions with one another until ship suddenly is knocked over by a huge wave. The ship ends up upside in the ocean, causing the main characters to have to work together to navigate themselves through the ship, trying to find their way buy climbing and crawling through these dangerous obstacles, being lead by a preacher, Scott (Gene Hackman). Scott leads this small group of survivers throughout the ship, looking for the engine room that has a water tight door. Slowly, one by one while traveling through different parts of the ship which are flooded or on fire, we see many of the initial survivors die off. Once they reach the engine room, a broken pipe is spraying steam, blocking the doorway. Scott is seen jumping to the pipes valve, closing it off while giving a speech, asking God why has taken so many of them, and asking how many more God wants. After the steam is shut off, Scott drops to his death, and the few of the survivors who are left are rescued to safety.

If i’m being honest, disaster films have never been favorites of mine. I have always felt that the plots and reality of disaster films are just unrealistic and slightly uninteresting. In this film however, I was drawn to some of the characters, appreciating their backstory and character build up, which helped with then showing how these people with different back stories interact with one another.