CHAPTER ESSENTIALS

• Major advances in film technology took place in the late nineteenth century, when Eadweard Muybridge created a method for making images move while George Eastman developed the first roll film, capable of capturing moving images and projecting them. Soon after, Hannibal Goodwin improved roll film by using strips of transparent, pliable material called celluloid, enabling a strip of film to move through a camera and be photographed in rapid succession, producing a series of pictures (pp. 220–221).

• Film moved to the entrepreneurial stage when inventors such as Thomas Edison created the kinetograph, an early movie camera; the kinetoscope, a single-person viewing system; and the vitascope, a new large-screen system through which longer film strips could be projected without interruption. During this time, others dabbled in film development, and movies first began to be seen by the public—although they consisted of movement recorded by a single continuous camera shot (pp. 221–222).

• Movies advanced to the mass medium stage in the late 1890s with the introduction of narrative films—movies that tell stories through a series of actions, offering audiences a realistic movie experience. In addition, the arrival of nickelodeons—a type of movie theater whose name combines the admission price with the Greek word for “theater”—made movies accessible to everyone, including workers and immigrants (pp. 222–223).

• By the 1910s, movies had become a major industry due to the creation of monopolies and entrepreneurs jockeying for power over the “three pillars” of the film business: production (making movies), distribution (getting films into theaters), and exhibition (playing films in theaters). Controlling these three parts achieved vertical integration. The resulting concentration of power gave rise to the studio system, in which creative talent was firmly controlled by studios. Five film studios made up this new film oligopoly—a situation in which industry is dominated by just a few firms (p. 224).

• By pooling film-technology patents, inventor Thomas Edison tried to dominate the business by forming in 1908 the Motion Picture Patents Company, known as the Trust, to the dismay of many early film producers. Edison’s monopoly was later broken up, but movie studios emerged and gained power through a variety of tactics, including block booking—pressuring theater operators to accept marginal films with no stars in order to get access to films with the most popular stars—and drawing in members of the middle and upper-middle classes with movie palaces and later city dwellers with multiplexes and modern megaplexes (pp. 224–227).

• Once the Hollywood studio system established itself as a profitable business, it ushered in a Golden Age beginning in 1915, whereby distinct moviemaking styles were developed and standards were set, including narrative techniques like innovative use of camera angles to tell stories; the introduction of sound pictures (talkies) and later sound-film newsreels; a Hollywood narrative style with recognizable plots and character types; movie genres, or categories in which conventions regarding characters, scenes, and

• themes recur in combination; and the rise in status of the movie director, who developed a particular cinematic style or an interest in specific topics (pp. 227–231).

• Outside the Hollywood system, many alternatives to the feature-length film exist, such as global cinema, documentaries (sometimes developed with portable cameras in a style known as cinema verité), and independent films (or indies) (pp. 231–233).

• Beginning in the 1940s, a number of political, social, and cultural forces reshaped how people viewed movies, forcing the Hollywood studio system to adapt. For example, the Paramount Decision in 1948—a court ruling forcing the big, vertically integrated studios to break up their ownership of the three pillars—and the migration of Americans from the cities to the suburbs (and away from movies to new luxuries) changed the way movies were consumed (pp. 233, 236).

• Although many people thought the introduction of television and home entertainment (such as the rise of cable and the videocassette) would be the end of film, studios used several strategies to compete, such as covering more serious themes in movies and using technological improvements like Technicolor in film, while also capitalizing on video/DVD sales and rentals (pp. 233, 236–237).

• In the commercial film business, players such as the Big Six (Warner Brothers, Paramount, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal, Columbia Pictures, and Disney) make money from box-office sales, DVD/video sales and rentals, cable and television outlets, foreign distribution, independent-film distribution, and licensing and product placement. Synergy—the promotion and sale of a product throughout the various subsidiaries of a media conglomerate—further drives revenue (pp. 237–239).

• The film industry spends money on production; marketing, advertising, and print; postproduction; distribution; exhibition; and acquisitions. To cut costs, many filmmakers have sought less expensive ways of producing movies with digital video. However, the dawn of the digital age presents new uncertainties and is forcing studios to rethink their business models (pp. 240–242).

• Movies act as consensus narratives—popular cultural products that provide us with shared experiences and communicate values, hopes, and dreams (pp. 243, 246).

• The continuing power of the movie industry raises questions about movies’ role in society—both internationally and within the United States. Therefore, it’s vital to consume movies with a critical eye (pp. 246–247).

1. Question 7.1

   How did film go from the novelty stage to the mass medium stage?

2. Question 7.2

   Why did Thomas Edison and the Trust fail to shape and control the film industry, and why did Adolph Zukor of Paramount succeed?

3. Question 7.3

   Why are genres and directors important to the film industry?

4. Question 7.4

   What political and cultural forces changed the Hollywood system in the 1950s?

5. Question 7.5

   What are the various ways in which major movie studios make money from the film business?

6. Question 7.6

   Do films contribute to a global village in which people throughout the world share a universal culture? Or do U.S.-based films overwhelm the development of other cultures worldwide? Discuss.

• DESCRIBE the representations of foreign people and places in the ten U.S. films you have seen most recently.

• ANALYZE the representations. Do the movie narratives treat the foreigners as friends or foes, fellow humans or strange curiosities? How are foreign environments treated—as friendly, alienating, or otherwise?

• INTERPRET what these patterns mean. For example, does the language, skin color, or gender of the foreign characters make a difference? Is a foreign love interest “exotic,” but a foreign official “threatening”?

• EVALUATE the portrayal of international characters and places in American movies. Do American movies enable us to see the foreign characters as they might see themselves, or do we interpret them through an “American” gaze (or, more specifically, a white, middle-class, American male gaze)?

• ENGAGE with your community by reviewing the portrayal of foreign people and places for an online site or a college newspaper, and submitting your review for online posting or publication.