Film: Then and Now The film industry has always been somewhat of a dichotomy. Grounded firmly in both the worlds of art and business the balance of artistic expression and commercialization has been an issue throughout the history of filmmaking. The distinction of these two differing goals and the fact that neither has truly won out over the other in the span of the industry's existence, demonstrates a lot of information about the nature of capitalism. The modern film industry was born around the beginning of the twentieth century. On April 23rd 1896 Thomas Edition showed the first publicly-projected motion picture at Koster and Bial's Music Hall in New York City. From there the film industry had an explosive growth rate. In fact, not only was Thomas Edison the inventor of film but he is also responsible for the birth of media censorship. "The Kiss " was the first film ever made of a couple kissing in cinematic history. May Irwin and John Rice re-enacted a lingering kiss from their 1895 Broadway stage play The Widow Jones was also notorious as the first film to be criticized as scandalous and bringing demands for censorship."1 By 1900 films had already started taking their modern form as story telling narratives became the most popular production instead of documentaries. Between 1910 and 1914 Hollywood was born, annexed by Los Angeles and replaced the East Coast as the center for the new burgeoning film industry. The beginning of the First World War brought European filmmaking to a complete halt and made room for America as the world center for film production2. During this time some of the most influential names in film history made their names. D.W. Griffith directed some of the most famous films of the early twentieth c... ... middle of paper ... ...in many times in the past while massive budgets and licensing deals seem to be predominant Bibliography 1.Geduld, Harold. Focus On: D.W. Griffith. New Jersey: Inglewood Cliffs, 1971. 2.Epstein, Jay. The Big Picture. New York: Random House, 2005. 3.Scott, Allen. On Hollywood. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2005. 4.Henderson, Robert. D.W. Griffith: his life and works. New York: Oxford University Press, 1972. 5.Williams, Martin. Griffith, first artist of the movies. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980. 6.Nash, Bruce. 1997. The Numbers [online]. [cited 25 November]. Available from World Wide Web:(http://www.the-numbers.com/index.php) 7.Dirks, Time. 1996. Timeline of Influential Milestones and Important Turning Points in Film History [online]. [cited 23 November 2005]. Available from World Wide Web:(http://www.filmsite.org/milestonespre1900s.html)
Eckstein, Arthur. “The Hollywood Ten in History & Memory.” Film History. 2004. Web. 16 Jan.
Movies today are extremely expensive to make and are typically financed through either film studio contracts or from investors willing to take a risk. In order to be successful, movies need to be marketed and distributed either under contract by the film studios or by companies that specialize in such services. The aspects of financing, marketing and distribution of films have changed between the studio and independent systems over the years as the evolution of the film industry took place.
Beginning the mid 1920s, Hollywood’s ostensibly all-powerful film studios controlled the American film industry, creating a period of film history now recognized as “Classical Hollywood”. Distinguished by a practical, workmanlike, “invisible” method of filmmaking- whose purpose was to demand as little attention to the camera as possible, Classical Hollywood cinema supported undeviating storylines (with the occasional flashback being an exception), an observance of a the three act structure, frontality, and visibly identified goals for the “hero” to work toward and well-defined conflict/story resolution, most commonly illustrated with the employment of the “happy ending”. Studios understood precisely what an audience desired, and accommodated their wants and needs, resulting in films that were generally all the same, starring similar (sometimes the same) actors, crafted in a similar manner. It became the principal style throughout the western world against which all other styles were judged. While there have been some deviations and experiments with the format in the past 50 plus ye...
Thompson, Kristin , and David Bordwell. Film History : An Introduction. 3 ed. New York:
Friedman, L., Desser, D., Kozloff, S., Nichimson, M., & Prince, S. (2014). An introduction to film genres. New York, London: W.W. Norton & Company.
The Studio System Key point about the studio system could be: Despite being one of the biggest industries in the United States, indeed the World, the internal workings of the 'dream factory' that is Hollywood is little understood outside the business. The Hollywood Studio System: A History is the first book to describe and analyse the complete development, classic operation, and reinvention of the global corporate entities which produce and distribute most of the films we watch. Starting in 1920, Adolph Zukor, head of Paramount Pictures, over the decade of the 1920s helped to fashion Hollywood into a vertically integrated system, a set of economic innovations which was firmly in place by 1930.
" Greatest Films - The Best Movies in Cinematic History. Tim Dirks, May 1996. Web. The Web. The Web.
Describe some ways in which business values and artistic values in Hollywood contend with one another.
Thompson, K 2003, ‘The struggle for the expanding american film industry’, in Film history : an introduction, 2nd ed, McGraw-Hill, Boston, pp. 37-54
It is no doubt that Martin Scorsese has heavily influenced the emulating of American film making from European influences. He is a prime example of a ‘New Hollywood Cinema’ director, not only from his ethnicity and background, but from his sheer interest in this form
Stanley, Robert H. The Movie Idiom: Film as a Popular Art Form. Illinois: Waveland Press, Inc. 2011. Print
In Hollywood today, most films can be categorized according to the genre system. There are action films, horror flicks, Westerns, comedies and the likes. On a broader scope, films are often separated into two categories: Hollywood films, and independent or foreign ‘art house’ films. Yet, this outlook, albeit superficial, was how many viewed films. Celebrity-packed blockbusters filled with action and drama, with the use of seamless top-of-the-line digital editing and special effects were considered ‘Hollywood films’. Films where unconventional themes like existentialism or paranoia, often with excessive violence or sex or a combination of both, with obvious attempts to displace its audiences from the film were often attributed with the generic label of ‘foreign’ or ‘art house’ cinema.
Barsam, Richard. Looking at Movies An Introduction to Film, Second Edition (Set with DVD). New York: W. W. Norton, 2006. Print.
When film first started, it started as a magic lantern, which is an object that presents dinner entertainment by spinning pictures. They were also known as “motion toys”. Motion toys soon began to compete with magic lanterns and the man who created the praxiniscope developed to praxiniscope theatre which
David Wark Griffith revolutionized both the film industry and filmmaking itself and is undoubtedly the “single most important individual in the development of film as an art” (Drew). He built the film industry up from the ground, “reshaped the very language of film”(Drew), and shook the country with his film The Birth of a Nation which fueled the rise of one of the largest and most influential domestic terrorist organizations ever (Niderost). D.W. Griffith and his films have transformed the way films are made and have greatly impacted the film industry not only in the United States but throughout the world.