American film from the 1960’s to present time has undergone a complete makeover. Prior to this decade, the Golden Age of Hollywood reigned. Movies were a major source of entertainment for all generations. With the popularization of television in the 1950’s and 1960’s, the average movie-goer was more likely to stay home to get their entertainment than to venture out to the theater. Studios had to learn how to deal with lesser resources while still wanting to make big-budget films. This set the stage for many changes in the film industry. Beginning in the 1960’s, Hollywood Studios showed declining production rates— falling from over 500 movies per year to, on average, 159 annually throughout the decade (221 Gianetti). The studios believed they needed to bring people back to the theaters. To do this they made movies they thought could compete with television. Big budget, extravagant movies were common in the early part of the decade, encouraged by the success of Ben Hur (1959). Cleopatra (1963) turned out to be a costly mistake for Twentieth Century Fox. It was originally budgeted at $1.2 million but eventually cost $40 million. The studio continued to make high budgeted movies including Sound of Music (1965), Doctor Doolittle (1967), and Star! (1968). Of these, only Sound of Music was a commercial success. Pauline Kael (1919-2001), an American film critic wrote “The success of a movie like the Sound of Music makes it even more difficult for anyone to try to do anything worth doing, anything relevant to the modern world, anything inventive or expressive.” (223, Gianetti) The attempts by Hollywood to portray anything realistic were also over the top regarding budget and star power, Judgment at Nuremburg (1961) was an epic movie... ... middle of paper ... ...e forced people to look at the darker gruesome side of the world, he wanted people to know it was not just all good and people could be evil. (332, Giannetti) The latest technologies were a downfall to cinema industries, videocassette recorders (VCR) changed the way the viewer saw film. With society treasuring their finances, they saw the opportunity to save money by purchasing a VCR and renting a movie for as little as two dollars, instead of paying five for each individual family member to visit a theater. Theaters started to decline, people wanted the comfort of their homes over viewing films with large groups of people. By 1987, video rentals surpassed ticket sales as the industry leading source of revenue. (324, Giannetti) Works Cited Giannetti, Louis D., and Scott Eyman. Flashback: A Brief History of Film. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, 2010. Print.
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...
McCrisken, T. B., & Pepper, A. (2005). American History and Contemporary Hollywood Film. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.
The change in the U.S. can be said to be a social revolution. People were growing sick of the same old movies, they wanted a change and Hollywood needed to deliver or else they would lose their audience to the TV. In the early 60's, the studios were still afraid of the blacklisting so the films were still very safe. An example of this is the film Sound of Music (1965). This was a film about a musical family that needed to escape the Nazi presence. Although the movie is based on a true story, they still follow the same old idea of a nice family, who must escape from the clutches of evil. Basically, the movie is saying good guys win and bad guys always lose. Sure this how most films are made but there is no sense of change, no differences in the style or way it was made. Since there was no change, the public was not interested. The TV was much more convenient and kept the publics interested.
During this decade, the film industry went through massive changes that would completely change what movies were or stood for. After the Great War, more people began considering movies as a form of entertainment. This increased attention caused change in the industry, allowing the experience of the movie goer to massively change for the better. Many new genres, ideas and technologies emerged in the 1920s that would later dominate the industry. The 1920s saw massive changes happening in the movie industry that would help it to get one step closer to what it is today.
Largely influenced by the French New Wave and other international film movements, many American filmmakers in the late 1960s to 1970s sought to revolutionize Hollywood cinema in a similar way. The New Hollywood movement, also referred to as the “American New Wave” and the “Hollywood Renaissance,” defied traditional Hollywood standards and practices in countless ways, creating a more innovative and artistic style of filmmaking. Due to the advent and popularity of television, significant decrease in movie theater attendance, rising production costs, and changing tastes of American audiences, particularly in the younger generation, Hollywood studios were in a state of financial disaster. Many studios thus hired a host of young filmmakers to revitalize the business, and let them experiment and have almost complete creative control over their films. In addition, the abandonment of the restrictive Motion Picture Production Code in 1967 and the subsequent adoption of the MPAA’s rating system in 1968 opened the door to an era of increased artistic freedom and expression.
... ed (BFI, 1990) we read … “contrary to all trendy journalism about the ‘New Hollywood’ and the imagined rise of artistic freedom in American films, the ‘New Hollywood’ remains as crass and commercial as the old…”
Hollywood in the 30’s and 40’s was the golden-age of a new era of filmmaking. The films of that period went beyond the silent films being produced in the past. Diagetic sounds like dialogue and more advanced filmic techniques would push cinema to a new mode of filmmaking, that being classicism. The classical Hollywood structure was being developed in the past with silent films but it came to full fruition in the 30’s, where many filmmakers would produce feature-length films with fully developed storylines and the use of glamorous lighting and larger-than life characterizations to give audiences a more cinematic experience. Genre films like: the gangster, comedy, western, horror, and other various genres of the era, provided large revenue for studios and the creative means for filmmakers to manipulate the mise-en-scene to make each genre films slightly different from the rest. Classicism would provide audiences with clear-cut characterizations, simple storylines, non-intrusive directing, and simple but entertaining conclusions that neatly wrap up the story.
Thompson, K 2003, ‘The struggle for the expanding american film industry’, in Film history : an introduction, 2nd ed, McGraw-Hill, Boston, pp. 37-54
Although in shambles, It did not take long for film to make a resurgence in France. Domestic production was boosted following the introduction of The Centre National de la Cinématographe, a government organization that provided assistance to the industry in the form of loans and training. Imported films, especially those from America, began flowing into France following its liberation by Allied forces, and moviegoers were suddenly exposed to years of new films they had been previously cut off from all at once. As the market for films began to heat up, French filmmakers were presented with two choices; continue producing films adapted from relatively outdated literary works in the classic French tradition, or imitate the Hollywood Studio system of production, creating big-budget features for an international audience with the assistance of the CNC. These contrasting styles of filmmaking...
During the mid and late 1970’s, the mood of American films shifted sharply. People needed to get away from such negative memories as the Vietnam War, long gas lines, the resignation of President Nixon, and ...
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.
In this paper I will offer a structural analysis of the films of Simpson and Bruckheimer. In addition to their spectacle and typically well-crafted action sequences, Simpson/Bruckheimer pictures seem to possess an unconscious understanding of the zeitgeist and other cultural trends. It is this almost innate ability to select scripts that tap into some traditional American values (patriotism, individualism, and the obsession with the “new”) that helps to make their movies blockbusters.
Barsam, Richard. Looking at Movies An Introduction to Film, Second Edition (Set with DVD). New York: W. W. Norton, 2006. Print.