In the 1990s, computer-generated imagery made rapid strides and became a standard feature not only of Hollywood action-adventure films but also of nearly any work that required special visual effects. Examples of landmark films utilizing the new technologies included Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (1993); Independence Day (1996), directed by Roland Emmerich; and The Matrix (1999), written and directed by Larry (later Lana) Wachowski and Andy (later Lilly) Wachowski. In Spielberg’s film, based on a best-selling novel by Michael Crichton, a number of long-extinct dinosaur species are re-created through genetic engineering. At the special-effects firm Industrial Light and Magic, models of the dinosaurs were scanned into computers and animated realistically to produce the first computer-generated images of lifelike action, rather than fantasy scenes. In Independence Day, a film combining the science-fiction and disaster genres in which giant alien spaceships attack Earth, an air battle was programmed in a computer so that each individual aircraft maneuvered, fired its weapons, and dueled with other flying objects in intricate patterns of action that would have been too time-consuming and costly to achieve by traditional special-effects means. By the end of the 1990s, the developing new technologies were displayed perhaps more fully than ever before in the Wachowskis’ spectacular film, in which the computer functions as both a central subject and a primary visual tool. For a scene in which actor Keanu Reeves appears to be dodging bullets that pass by him in a visible slow-motion trajectory, a computer program determined what motion-picture and still images were to be photographed, and then the computer assembled the images into a complete visual sequence.
In part through the expensive and lavish effects attained through the new technologies, American cinema at the end of the 20th century sustained and even widened its domination of the world film marketplace. Domestically, the expansion of ancillary products and venues—which during the 1990s were dominated by the sale and rental of video cassettes and then DVDs for home viewing as well as by additional cable and satellite outlets for movie presentation—produced new revenues that were becoming equal to, or in some cases more important than, income from theatrical exhibition. Nevertheless, exhibition outlets continued to grow, with new “megaplex” theatres offering several dozen cinemas, while distribution strategies called for opening major commercial films on 1,000 or more—sometimes as many as 3,000 by the late 1990s—screens across the country. The competition for box-office returns became something of a spectator sport, with the media reporting every Monday on the previous weekend’s multimillion-dollar grosses and ranking the top-10 films by ticket sales. The exhibition environment seemed to demand more than ever that film production be geared to the tastes of teenage spectators who frequented the suburban mall cinemas on weekends, and commentators within the industry as well as outside it observed what they regarded as the diminished quality of mainstream films. As if reflecting that judgment, in 1996 only one major studio film, Jerry Maguire, was among the five nominees for best picture at the annual Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awards ceremony (the other nominees were an American independent film, Fargo; an Australian work, Shine; a film from Britain, Secrets & Lies; and the winner, an international production with British stars and based on a novel written by a Canadian, The English Patient).
Steven Spielberg directing Liam Neeson on the set of Schindler's List (1993).™ and © 1993 Universal City Studios and Amblin Entertainment, Inc., all rights reserved.
Leonardo DiCaprio (left) and Jack Nicholson in The Departed (2006), directed by Martin Scorsese.© 2006 Miramax Films; all rights reservedThe motion-picture industry’s emphasis on pleasing the youth audience with special effects-laden blockbusters and genre works such as teen-oriented horror films and comedies inevitably diminished the role of directors as dominant figures in the creative process, further reducing the status that Hollywood directors had attained in the auteur-oriented 1960s and ’70s. Still, more than a handful of filmmakers, several of them veterans of that earlier era, maintained their prestige as artists practicing in a commercial medium. Two of the most prominent, who had launched their careers in the early 1970s, were Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese. In addition to Jurassic Park, Spielberg’s works in the 1990s include Schindler’s List (1993, winner of an Academy Award for best picture), Amistad (1997), and Saving Private Ryan (1998), with A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) and Munich (2005) among his subsequent films. Scorsese directed GoodFellas (1990), The Age of Innocence (1993), Casino (1995), Kundun (1997), Gangs of New York (2002), and The Departed (2006; winner of an Academy Award for best picture).
The actor-director Clint Eastwood was also prolific in this period, winning the best picture Academy Award with Unforgiven (1992) and directing such other films as Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997), Mystic River (2003), Million Dollar Baby (2004; Academy Award for best picture and best director), Letters from Iwo Jima (2006), and Gran Torino (2008). Stanley Kubrick died before the release of Eyes Wide Shut (1999), his first film since Full Metal Jacket (1987). Two decades passed between Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven (1978) and The Thin Red Line (1998).
A succeeding generation of filmmakers who could claim the status of auteur included such figures as David Lynch, Oliver Stone, James Cameron, and Spike Lee. Lynch’s work in the 1990s and beyond includes Lost Highway (1996), The Straight Story (1999), Mulholland Drive (2001), and Inland Empire (2006). Stone, best known for politically oriented films such as JFK (1991), Nixon (1995), and W. (2008), also made Natural Born Killers (1994), U-Turn (1997), and Any Given Sunday (1999). Cameron’s Titanic (1997), re-creating the 1912 sinking of an ocean liner on its maiden voyage after striking an iceberg, won the Academy Award for best picture and broke domestic and worldwide box-office records. Lee, the most prominent among a group of young African American filmmakers who began working in mainstream cinema, was best known for Do the Right Thing (1989) and Malcolm X (1992); his many other films include Crooklyn (1994) and Summer of Sam (1999), along with documentaries such as 4 Little Girls (1997), concerning the deaths of four young black girls in the bombing of a Birmingham, Ala., church in 1963, and When the Levees Broke (2006), about New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina. Among newcomers who emerged during the 1990s, Paul Thomas Anderson stood out with Boogie Nights (1997), Magnolia (1999), Punch-Drunk Love (2002), and There Will Be Blood (2008).