85c7b28daf99341a87360e43fccaecb8.ppt
- Количество слайдов: 23
Birth of Cinema: 1890 s • Edison and the Kinetoscope • Biograph and filmmaking in…New Jersey? • Edwin Porter • Lumiere Brothers popularize public screenings • French film industry most successful pre-World War I
Where are films seen? • Vaudeville • Store-front theaters: Nickelodeon • Carnival sideshow Movies considered working class entertainment.
Early Cinema and the 1900 s to 1920 s • Industry moves to Hollywood • Dominates movie production after World War I • “Silent” cinema? • “movie palaces” and “an evening’s entertainment”
D. W. Griffith and The Birth of a Nation • Industrial, artistic, cultural significance • Cinema as ideology Ideology: those ideas, images, stories, and other systems through which we make sense of the world and our relation to it
Genre films: categories of movies with reliable formulas for telling stories Silent era oriented toward action and lavish sets: • Westerns, war movies, horror, romances, physical comedies, costume dramas, documentaries, action, melodramas Star system: discovered certain actors/actresses could attract viewers no matter film
Sound Film and Studio System Early sound: • Jazz Singer (1927) • Restrictions • New genres include: screwball comedies, musicals, character studies, crime dramas
How the studio system works everything done (until late 1940 s) "in-house" Vertical integration: when companies with same owner handle different aspects of the film business Three Keys Stages 1. Production 2. Distribution 3. Exhibition
5 Major Studios by 1930 1. Paramount 2. MGM 3. Warner Bros. 4. Fox 5. RKO An evening's entertainment now includes: Newsreels Cartoons B movie Feature
Movie attendance peaks in 1946 90 million Americans go to movies every week U. S. vs. Paramount (1948): Divestiture agreement Breaks up studio hold on film production, distribution, exhibition
Film adjusts to the Changing Culture TV and Movies: Enemies and partners • Movies on TV • New technologies for film
Studios start producing TV shows • Disneyland “Disneyland” • Westerns Why? • $$$ • Fin/Syn: networks can’t own content
More film industry responses: Exhibition: theaters move out of city centers Independent production: partnerships between producers and studios
Late 60 s and 1970 s, Hollywood attempts to reconnect More independent production Younger directors Ratings • Hays Office/Production Code was earlier response • Motion Picture Association of America • May encourage more explicit content
The New Hollywood More corporate mergers Business reasserts control Blockbusters: Jaws, Star Wars • Broad appeal • Foreign appeal • Cross promotion • Merchandising • Evolution or Devolution?
Current structure: • Studios partner with independent producers • Agree to distribute Tent-pole strategy: Blockbusters paired with smaller niche films for particular audiences Blockbusters can assure solvency for a while, but often flop.
Distribution and Exhibition today: • More screens, less movies. Windows: different “arenas” for exhibition
How will digital technologies shape the future of the movie industry? • Production • Distribution • Exhibition • Straight to DVD?
Film Criticism: Ways of Thinking About Movies How do you talk about film without focusing on “what happens”? • Or “thumbs up or down”?
Auteur theory: director as unifying artistic voice similarities across films
Genre: films with formulas Set rules, expectations Both for filmmakers and audiences Genre theory Identify genres, subgenres (scifi, comedy) Examine how change
Symptomatic Culture • film as “symptom” • how film text connected to cultural context • looking to “subtext”
Structuralism • language organizes and constructs our access to reality • film and genres as language systems Saussure: way we make sense of the world is dependent on the language we speak and, therefore, the culture we inhabit.
Langue: language system (rules and conventions which organize it) Parole: utterance (individual use of language) Task of structuralism is to make explicit the rules and conventions (langue) which govern production of meaning (parole).
85c7b28daf99341a87360e43fccaecb8.ppt