“There’s a natural war in Hollywood between the businessmen and the artist. It’s based on drives that may go deeper than politics or religion: on the need for status, and warring dreams.”

—Pauline Kael

There’s a place where money grows on trees. The only way to reach it’s on your knees.”

—David Byrne, “Something Ain’t Right”

Intro: Dogville and the Rule of the Mediocracy

I) Hollywood Genesis: A Brief History of the Movies

Griffith and Méliès; Sound, Color, World War II, and Film Noir; Orson Welles & Citizen Kane; John Huston; Stanley Kubrick

II) The Two Faces of Hollywood: The First Independent Wave, 1960-68

Hitchcock’s Psycho; John Cassavetes; Roger Corman; Francis Ford Coppola; Roman Polanski; Robert Evans; Martin Scorsese; Night of the Living Dead

III) Hollywood At War: Avant-Garde Vs. Old Guard, Early ’70s

Easy Rider, Jack Nicholson, BBS, & The Last Picture Show; M*A*S*H & The Godfather; Sam Peckinpah’s Studio Wars; Hollywood’s Mutilated Movies; Brian De Palma; The Director’s Company (Bogdanovich, Friedkin, Coppola); Steven Spielberg

IV) Hollywood Prodigals: Four Auteurs and an Apocalypse

Woody Allen; John Waters; David Lynch; John Sayles; Scorsese, Cimino, & Heaven’s Gate; Coppola’s Trip to the Abyss

V) The Dark, Satanic Mill: Independent Cinema in the ’80s

Gilliam’s Travels; Jonathan Demme; Repo Man & The Coen Brothers; Jim Jarmusch; Spike Lee; Pauline Kael’s Cri du Coeur; Sundance and the Question of Independence; Soderbergh’s sex, lies, and videotape

VI) Bitch Goddess and Muse: Trash, Art, & the Hollywood Trap

Richard Linklater; Quentin Tarantino and Miramax; Robert Rodriguez; Revisiting Lynch, Scorsese, & De Palma; Evans’ and Coppola’s Cotton Club

VII) God & Cosmetics: Hollywood “Morality” and The Vow of Chastity

Dogme 95; Clint Eastwood; Kevin Smith; Charlie Kaufman; Gus Van Sant’s Elephant, the Two Steves—Soderbergh and Spielberg—Section Eight, and the Incompatibility of “Art” and “Virtue”

VIII) Hollywood Be Thy Name

Back in Dogville; George Lucas; Keith Gordon; Matthew Ryan Hoge’s United States of Leland; Remake-itis and Sequel-mania; The Curse of the “Package Movie”; The Hollywood Draft; Chris Nolan & Batman Begins; Sam Raimi & Michael Mann; Fight Club & Three Kings; The End of Hollywood; Phone Booth and Joel Schumacher; The Matrix Sequels; “What We Have Here Is A Failure To Communicate”

Appendix: The New Avant-Garde

Hal Hartley; Todd Haynes, Todd Solondz, Sean Penn, Atom Egoyan, Neil LaBute, Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, Alexander Payne, Sofia Coppola