Slowly she asked "Is anyone there?" as she walked down the dark deserted road. When she heard a loud sound she turned abruptly trying again "Hello?" Met with only silence she picked up here pace almost running down the dirt road. Her nerves had just began to calm when she heard "WRRRREEENNNNNRRRRRRR" as a chainsaw started behind her. Running she started looking behind her hoping that whoever it was, wouldn’t catch her. With her lack of concentration she tripped over her high heels and face plants into the dirt, giving the murderer a chance to catch up. Slowly he lowered the chainsaw and began cutting --CUT -- This is a common plot used in horror movies today. Movies have changed over the years. They were different five years ago, fifty years ago, and even a almost a century ago. Technologies have unthinkable things possible. They have allowed us to re-sink "the unsinkable ship." They have allowed us to see dinosaurs in all their brutal glory. We have seen imaginary creatures, only ever mentioned in stories brought to life. Movies have moved so far from the 1920's and 1930's. They have developed ideals, rules and even standards; but where did they begin? Did movies just fall out of the sky? Did they just come into being? No they began slowly, silently moving towards a new era, the era we today call "Pre-code Hollywood"
The idea of Hollywood, before it was Hollywood as we know it seems foreign. However, it did exist and was known as "Pre-code." Pre-code Hollywood refers to the era in the American film industry between the introduction of sound in the late 1920's and the enforcement of the Hays Code censorship guidelines, which went into effect on June 13, 1934 (Association of Motion Picture Producers 1934). Durin...
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...d by William Wyler. Performed by Audrey Hepburn. 1953.
Sabrina. Directed by Billy Wilder. Performed by Audrey Hepburn. 1954.
Lasky, Betty. The biggest Little Major of Them All. Santa Monica: Roundtable, 1989.
Miller, Frank. Censored Hollywood. Atlanta: Turner Publishing, 1994.
Nichols, John. ""Counbtering Censorship: Edgar Dale and the Film appreciation movement (critical essay)."." Cinema Jouranl. Fall 2006.
Rabinovitz, Laura. For the Love of Pleasure; Women, Movies and Culture in the Turn-of-the-Centry of Chicago. New Jersey: Rutgers university Press, 1998.
Reed, Elanine Walls. "'A very unusual Practise [sic]': miscegnation and the film industy in the Hays era." West Virginia Univesity Philological papers 50, 2003: 42-53.
Southerland, Harold P. ""'Love for Sale'- sex and the Second American Revolution"." Duke Journal of Gender Law and Policy, 2008: 49-77.
Braudy, Leo and Marshall Cohen, eds. Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, Fifth Edition. New York: Oxford UP, 1999.
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...
Clara’s experience with the motion picture industry gives us a picture of what it was like in the 1920’s. It was new and intriguing, enticing and corrupt. The motion picture industry underpaid Bow, which is almost inconceivable today. The environment of Hollywood now pays actors and actresses corpulent amounts of money...but that may be the only change. The “star-maker” environment is still as enticing and corrupt as yesterday’s.
Keathley, Christian. "Trapped in the Affection Image" The Last Great American Picture Show: New Hollywood Cinema in the 1970s. Ed. Thomas Elsaesser, Alexander Horwath, Noel King. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2004. 293-308. Print.
Stanley, Robert H. The Movie Idiom: Film as a Popular Art Form. Illinois: Waveland Press, Inc. 2011. Print
Small, Pauline. (2005) New Cinemas: journal of Contemporary Film Volume 3, Queen Mary, University of London
... 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…”
Before the Second World War began Hollywood’s purpose lied within entertainment for the American people. After the war started, the main focus shifted to wartime propaganda. Film was used to display the war in a way that did not show its true colors—including the censorship of soldier causalities and other negative connotations that are a simple fact of war. There was even a time in which some actors became better known to America than politians. Through films, Hollywood began to make a statement of their anti-Nazi beliefs. They began to make motion pictures for American recruitment into the Army as well as many that supported the war effort, and intended to make other Americans more aware of the war’s effect on the United States, and how people can get involved. Many European countries banned these Hollywood films, as they began to affect not only America but many other countries that were involved in the war as well.
Williams, Linda. "Film Bodies: Genre, Gender and Excess." Braudy and Cohen (1991 / 2004): 727-41. Print.
Barsam, Richard. Looking at Movies An Introduction to Film, Second Edition (Set with DVD). New York: W. W. Norton, 2006. Print.
This essay explains the journey of Bollywood (Indian Film Industry) and how it has changed itself and its audience’s perspective on Hindi Cinema. Applying the key features from Dennis McQuail’s “Normative Theory”, the relationship between Bollywood and the audience, controlled by the censorship board will be explained; and how both, the Bollywood industry and Censor Board are responsible for bringing changes to each other in the terms of rules, regulations, audience’s attitudes and their demands, in every period of time. According to McQuail (2010), a normative theory is adopted to clear the confusion prevailing in the information industry, that has become self-centred in modern days; and also to examine if the information created is to serve own self or the government. There have been endless debates by the contrasting individual ideas on how the media should be controlled from displaying unethical contents, and normative theory helps in guiding the individuals (theorists, writers, society and general public) to produce suggestions and ideas that media should follow, for the benefit of society and media (McQuail, 2010). The Indian Film Industry was established in 1913 but began to be known in 1920 (Indian Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 2010). Bollywood, since then, was and is still controlled by the censor board, however the censor board went through a few transformations, from being independently owned by police heads of every region, to Bombay Board of Film Censors, and finally to the Central Board of Film Censors in 1952 (Indian Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 2010). Cinema rules were reedited in 1983 and the censor board was re-named to the Central board of Film Certification (Indian Ministr...
Women’s roles in movies have changed dramatically throughout the years. As a result of the changing societal norms, women have experienced more transition in their roles than any other class. During the period of classical Hollywood cinema, both society and the film industry preached that women should be dependent on men and remain in home in order to guarantee stability in the community and the family. Women did not have predominated roles in movies such as being the heroin. The 1940’s film Gilda wasn’t an exception. In Gilda, the female character mainly had two different stereotypes. The female character was first stereotyped as a sex object and the second stereotyped as a scorned woman who has to be punished.
Thompson, K 2003, ‘The struggle for the expanding american film industry’, in Film history : an introduction, 2nd ed, McGraw-Hill, Boston, pp. 37-54
Smith, Claude J., Jr. "Bodies and Minds for Sale:Prostitution in Pretty Woman and Indecent Proposal." Studies in Popular Culture (1998): 91-99. Web.
The Relationship Between Women and Film The research topic I investigated was ‘the representation of women in Japanese action/thriller films and, Hollywood action/thriller films focusing on the Asian genre, are different’. When starting my research, I wanted to prove that due to Eastern/Western ideological differences in society, cinema produced reflects the culture. For example, the target audience of a country influences how films are produced in order to appeal to the specific audience. Thus, I proposed that due to a divide in audience appeal for film based on varied cultures, despite the same genre (i.e. Asian genre) being used, representation of the women in the film will be different so as to target the audience and link with the society’s views, customs and values. I started off by looking at how women are represented in Japanese action/thriller films.