SOUND AND IMAGES

In every generation, a film is made that changes the movie industry. In 1941, that film was Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane. Welles produced, directed, wrote, and starred in the movie at age twenty-five, playing a newspaper magnate from a young man to old age. While the movie was not a commercial success initially (powerful newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst, whose life was the inspiration for the movie, tried to suppress it), it was critically praised for its acting, story, and directing. Citizen Kane’s dramatic camera angles, striking film noir–style lighting, nonlinear storytelling, montages, and long deep-focus shots were considered technically innovative for the era. Over time, Citizen Kane became revered as a masterpiece, and in 1997, the American Film Institute named it the Greatest American Movie of All Time.

A generation later, the space epic Star Wars (1977) changed the culture of the movie industry. Star Wars—produced, written, and directed by George Lucas—departed from the personal filmmaking of the early 1970s and spawned a blockbuster mentality that formed a new primary audience for Hollywood—teenagers. It had all of the now-typical blockbuster characteristics, like massive promotion and lucrative merchandising tie-ins.

Repeat attendance and positive buzz among young people made the first Star Wars the most successful movie of its generation.

Star Wars has influenced not only the cultural side of moviemaking but also the technical form. In the first Star Wars trilogy, produced in the 1970s and 1980s, Lucas developed technologies that are now commonplace in moviemaking—digital animation, special effects, and computer-based film editing. With the second trilogy, Lucas again broke new ground in the film industry. Several scenes of Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace (1999) were shot on digital video, easing integration with digital special effects. The Phantom Menace also used digital exhibition, becoming the first full-length motion picture from a major studio to use digital projectors, which have steadily been replacing standard film projectors. Another Star Wars trilogy will kick off in 2015.

For the current generation, no film has shaken up the film industry like Avatar (2009). Like Star Wars before it, Avatar was a groundbreaking blockbuster. Made for an estimated $250–$300 million, it became the all-time box-office champion, pulling in about $760 million domestic, and more than $2.7 billion worldwide. Avatar integrated 3-D movie technology seamlessly, allowing viewers to immerse themselves in the computer-generated world of the ethereal planet Pandora, home of the eleven-foot-tall blue beings called the Na’vi. Director James Cameron worked with Sony to develop new 3-D cameras (a major technical innovation), which were an essential element of the filmmaking process and story rather than a gimmicky add-on. The late film critic Roger Ebert likened the movie to a blockbuster he saw a generation earlier: “Watching Avatar, I felt sort of the same as when I saw Star Wars in 1977. That was another movie I walked into with uncertain expectations. . . . Avatar is not simply a sensational entertainment, although it is that. It’s a technical breakthrough.”1

Though Avatar was released in both conventional 2-D and 3-D versions, it was the 3-D version that not only most impressed viewers but also changed the business of Hollywood. Theaters discovered they could charge a premium for the 3-D screenings and still draw record crowds. The success of Avatar paved the way for plenty of 3-D imitators as well as new breakthroughs in how to use 3-D technology in movies like The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug; Life of Pi; and Gravity. Gravity’s director, Alfonso Cuarón, used special effects breakthroughs to tell a more intimate story with just a handful of characters and received an Academy Award for the film in 2014. But many effects-heavy movies will continue to chase spectacle: Cameron announced that production would soon begin on three sequels to Avatar that would tentatively be released three holiday seasons in a row, beginning December 2016.2

DATING BACK TO THE LATE 1800s, films have had a substantial social and cultural impact on society. Blockbuster movies such as Star Wars, E.T., Titanic, Lord of the Rings, Shrek, Avatar, and The Avengers represent what Hollywood has become—America’s storyteller. Movies tell communal stories that evoke and symbolize our most enduring values and our secret desires (from The Wizard of Oz to The Godfather to the Batman series).

Films have also helped moviegoers sort through experiences that either affirmed or deviated from their own values. Some movies—for instance, Last Tango in Paris (1972), Scarface (1983), Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), Brokeback Mountain (2005), and 12 Years a Slave (2013)—have allowed audiences to survey “the boundary between the permitted and the forbidden” and to experience, in a controlled way, “the possibility of stepping across this boundary.”3 Such films—criticized by some for appearing to glorify crime and violence, verge on pornography, trample on sacred beliefs, or promote unpatriotic viewpoints—have even, on occasion, been banned from public viewing.

Finally, movies have acted to bring people together. Movies distract us from our daily struggles: They evoke and symbolize universal themes of human experience (that of childhood, coming of age, family relations, growing older, and coping with death); they can help us understand and respond to major historical events and tragedies (for instance, the Holocaust and 9/11); and they encourage us to reexamine contemporary ideas as the world evolves, particularly in terms of how we think about race, class, spirituality, gender, and sexuality.

In this chapter, we examine the rich legacy and current standing of movies. We will:

As you consider these topics, think about your own relationship with movies. What is the first movie you remember watching? What are your movie-watching experiences like today? How have certain movies made you think differently about an issue, yourself, or others? For more questions to help you think through the role of movies in our lives, see “Questioning the Media” in the Chapter Review.