There is no doubt that Hollywood is an industry based on selling movies. Therefore, what sells movies better than the marketing of the stars, that can not only make these movies a success but in addition, their images are also profitable. The Hollywood Star System has been very profitable for Hollywood and has been contributed to saving Hollywood in the late 1920s and 1930s when studios found it financially hard to survive. Once Hollywood realized their stars had financial power there was no stopping the lengths they would go to, too sell their stars persona.
The Hollywood Star System originated during the Studio System in which actors and actress were signed to long-term contracts with studios. Moreover, studios understood that the actor’s
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The complexity of what makes a star is often reflected in the needs, fears and aspirations of the American culture at that time (Study Guide, 2013, 27). Additionally, what makes the actor isn’t necessarily being a star, but acting in a variety of roles over the course of their career. Therefore, acting in multiple roles an actor or actress can develop a persona in which they become recognizable to the media and the public (Study Guide, 2013, 26). A few examples are, John Wayne’s rugged cowboy persona, James Dean’s rebellious bad boy image in a leather jacket (Belton, 2013) and Sigourney Weaver’s badass, alien killing heroine, Ellen Ripley in Alien (1979) in which, thirty-eight years later, Ripley is still considered by many as her persona and finest acting …show more content…
Expressly, Weaver speaks highly of women, giving them praise in almost every interview. Speaking to Jill Pantozzi, Weaver states that she is fortunate to portray a lot of strong women in her roles. Additionally, that women in society hold the family together, change our communities, run businesses and have characteristics of strength, endurance, fortitude and patience (Pantozzi, 2014). To demonstrate, Weaver is most proud of her achievements in her personal life stating that, “I think most of my life changing experiences have been as a parent and as a wife – for a mother, just getting your child through the school system is a heroic job, and when I think of my life, I don’t think of my work, I think of my real life.” At home in New York City, she lends her name and star power as a human rights advocate and works on other worthwhile causes (Metro,
The stars, particularly Hollywood stars, made a huge contribution to attracting vast numbers of people to the cinema.
Most people are likely to relate Hollywood with money. If a person lives in the Hollywood area, people assume she or he is probably rich. If she or he is a Hollywood movie star, the person probably makes a lot of money. Therefore, to follow that line of thought, when Hollywood producers make a movie, they make it just for money. And some filmmakers do seem to make films only for the money the movies will earn. The action movie "Die Hard", the fantasy movie "Star Wars", and the adventure movie "Jurassic Park" are examples of exciting movies that were made just for the money by satisfying the audiences' appetite for escapism.
Clurman, Harold. “Actors-The Image of Their Era.” The Tulane Drama Review 4.3 (1960): 38-44. JSTOR.
The star system was an important part of the Studio System in classical Hollywood cinema. From the 1910s, stars were born. Studios create new personas, new names and new backgrounds for the stars. A new image, whether or not it had anything to do with how the person really was in real life, would be invented for the new stars. The stars would be distinctively different and moviegoers would be able to recognise them individually. The Hollywood studios, that the stars are under contract with, managed their publicity, roles, lifestyles and even fan clubs. During the classical Hollywood period, the stars themselves did not have much say in the films that they appear in. The companies would choose the role they deem most suited to boost their popularity.
“Life is tough, but it’s tougher when you’re stupid.” This was a quote made by the infamous Marion Robert Morrison. John Wayne, being born in Winterset, Iowa, grew up to become an aspiring actor after his college sports scholarship was diminished. He later began to work as an extra, then B movies, up till he reached stardom with The Stagecoach. John Wayne's roles in western movies impacted the future of the western movie industry.
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.
A celebrity is not a person known for his/her talent or achievement, but an individual recognized for his/her reputation created by the media. The phase of stardom is slippery, and media may choose to represent celebrities varying from exaggerated admiration to mockery. The three texts chosen, movie "Sunset Boulevard", feature article "Over the Hilton" and television show "Celebrity Uncensored Six" are texts presenting different perception of celebrities than their usual images - either corrupted by the encircling media, overloads oneself with self-indulgence, or just mocks celebrity in a broad spectrum. Such media items empower and impresses the audience by perceiving celebrities as people who pay the price of privacy to gain well knowness, signifying the vanity of stardom from the commonly accepted images.
A new edition to the course lineup, this week's film classic, Sunset Boulevard. This film will focus on the culture and environment of the Hollywood studio system that produces the kind of motion pictures that the whole world recognizes as "Hollywood movies." There have been many movies from the silent era to the present that either glamorize or vilify the culture of Hollywood, typically focusing on the celebrities (both in front of and behind the camera) who populate the "dream factories" of Hollywood. But we cannot completely understand the culture of Hollywood unless we recognize that motion pictures are big business as well as entertainment, and that Hollywood necessarily includes both creative and commercial
Some times in life there are events that happen so horrific that it shocks the whole nation. Sometimes individuals that commit murderous sprees gain the attention of a whole community or country with a common unanswered question of why? John Wayne Gacy was one of those individuals that gained the attention of the mid west of our nation just outside of Chicago Illinois, with the murders of 33 young men and boys.
...ons as to why the studio system collapsed and how Hollywood tried to prevent this from happening. The Hollywood we see today is a reformed version of the old studio system, yet is still seen as the most dominant film industry in the world, despite its earlier collapse.
In his article Stars as a Cinematic Phenomenon, he used the ‘photo effect’ conception of Roland Barthes to examine the present/ absent paradox of stars. He proposed influential qualitative distinctions in between stardom in films and television. He argued that ‘Stars are incomplete images outside the cinema: the performance of the film is the moment of completion of images in subsidiary circulation, in newspapers, fanzines, etc. Further, a paradox is present in these subsidiary forms. The star is at once ordinary and extraordinary, available for desire and unattainable. This paradox is repeated and intensified in cinema by the regime of presence-yet-absence that is the filmic image’(1992). Therefore, the impractical mode of ‘this is was’ on nature of stardom ‘awakens a series of psychic mechanisms which involve various impossible images’, such as ‘the narcissistic experience of the mirror phase’(1992). Ellis then continued to indicate televisual stardom, which is more current or ‘immediate’ than cinematic fame. He argued that ‘What television does present is the “personality”. The personality is someone who is famous for being famous and is famous only in so far as he or she makes frequent television appearances… In some ways, they are the opposite of stars, agreeable voids rather than sites of conflicting meanings’. Ellis’ thesis definitely points out the differences between cinema and television fame, due to the multimedia and transmedia of current era implies a much more diverse and unpredictable relationship in between stars’ images in any kind of
Film genre, in the modern filmic world today, is also very reliant on the actors that star in the feature. Automatically we, as viewers, would associate brawn and large stature with an action film, but occasional films tend to meld these characters into completely different subgenre, giving the film a very hybrid, generic feel to it.
A perfect movie character is one that the audience can form a complex, personal relationship with in the short time that a movie is viewed, displaying the art of acting and drama perfectly. When the thought of lovable movie characters is brought up, Johnny Depp will almost always be apart of the discussion. With his quirky, lively attitude which blends perfectly into roles that should not have soul, Johnny Depp is truly a one-of-a-kind actor. With a spectrum of characters Depp has played, ranging from Edward Scissorhands in the movie Edward Scissorhands (1990), to playing his role in 21 Jump Street (1987), up until the recent Pirates of the Caribbean (2003), he is involved in roles that “only the likes of Depp can pull off” (“Johnny Depp”, 1). Although coming from rebellious teenage years and many “ups and downs of his personal life” (“Johnny Depp Biography”, 2), the actor has become one of the great faces of the movie scene of his generation. Depp's success, which some could contribute to luck, was carved out of his pure talent for expressing raw emotion through the characters he played and his free-bird, wild attitude in his early years. His talent and spirit changed the face of acting and of rebelling. Johnny Depp's early life, countless classic works, and personal actions created a persona that molded a new face of acting and of free-spirit for his generation.
Hollywood Boulevard and Sunset Boulevard have one thing in common, stars. What is so special about the five corners in a copper frame and salmon colored with famous person’s name written in the middle embedded in the sidewalks? The iconic location portrays the American way of life, independence, individualism, and progress. It also reflects an economic statement on how the businesses use every single opportunity to make money out of it. People have come from all over the world to visit the historical landmark, creating an exciting atmosphere for first-comers but it has some downside at the Walk of Fame. What really happens in the political and socioeconomic issues of Hollywood being a public place?
Movie stars. They are celebrated. They are perfect. They are larger than life. The ideas that we have formed in our minds centered on the stars that we idolize make these people seem inhuman. We know everything about them and we know nothing about them; it is this conflicting concept that leaves audiences thirsty for a drink of insight into the lifestyles of the icons that dominate movie theater screens across the nation. This fascination and desire for connection with celebrities whom we have never met stems from a concept elaborated on by Richard Dyer. He speculates about stardom in terms of appearances; those that are representations of reality, and those that are manufactured constructs. Stardom is a result of these appearances—we actually know nothing about them beyond what we see and hear from the information presented to us. The media’s construction of stars encourages us to question these appearances in terms of “really”—what is that actor really like (Dyer, 2)? This enduring query is what keeps audiences coming back for more, in an attempt to decipher which construction of a star is “real”. Is it the character he played in his most recent film? Is it the version of him that graced the latest tabloid cover? Is it a hidden self that we do not know about? Each of these varied and fluctuating presentations of stars that we are forced to analyze create different meanings and effects that frame audience’s opinions about a star and ignite cultural conversations.