{"id":162,"date":"2017-05-16T19:49:55","date_gmt":"2017-05-16T19:49:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-hccc-massmedia\/chapter\/8-2-the-history-of-movies\/"},"modified":"2017-05-16T19:49:55","modified_gmt":"2017-05-16T19:49:55","slug":"8-2-the-history-of-movies","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-hccc-massmedia\/chapter\/8-2-the-history-of-movies\/","title":{"raw":"8.2 The History of Movies","rendered":"8.2 The History of Movies"},"content":{"raw":"
\n

Learning Objectives<\/h3>\n
  1. Identify key points in the development of the motion picture industry.<\/li>\n
  2. Identify key developments of the motion picture industry and technology.<\/li>\n
  3. Identify influential films in movie history.<\/li>\n <\/ol><\/div>\n

    The movie industry as we know it today originated in the early 19th century through a series of technological developments: the creation of photography, the discovery of the illusion of motion by combining individual still images, and the study of human and animal locomotion. The history presented here begins at the culmination of these technological developments, where the idea of the motion picture as an entertainment industry first emerged. Since then, the industry has seen extraordinary transformations, some driven by the artistic visions of individual participants, some by commercial necessity, and still others by accident. The history of the cinema is complex, and for every important innovator and movement listed here, others have been left out. Nonetheless, after reading this section you will understand the broad arc of the development of a medium that has captured the imaginations of audiences worldwide for over a century.<\/p>\n

    \n

    The Beginnings: Motion Picture Technology of the Late 19th Century<\/h2>\n

    While the experience of watching movies on smartphones may seem like a drastic departure from the communal nature of film viewing as we think of it today, in some ways the small-format, single-viewer display is a return to film\u2019s early roots. In 1891, the inventor Thomas Edison, together with William Dickson, a young laboratory assistant, came out with what they called the kinetoscope<\/a><\/span>, a device that would become the predecessor to the motion picture projector. The kinetoscope was a cabinet with a window through which individual viewers could experience the illusion of a moving image (Gale Virtual Reference Library) (British Movie Classics). A perforated celluloid film strip<\/a><\/span> with a sequence of images on it was rapidly spooled between a light bulb and a lens, creating the illusion of motion (Britannica). The images viewers could see in the kinetoscope captured events and performances that had been staged at Edison\u2019s film studio in East Orange, New Jersey, especially for the Edison kinetograph<\/a><\/span> (the camera that produced kinetoscope film sequences): circus performances, dancing women, cockfights, boxing matches, and even a tooth extraction by a dentist (Robinson, 1994).<\/p>\n

    \n

    Figure 8.2<\/span> <\/p>\n \"8.2.0\"<\/a>

    The Edison kinetoscope.<\/p>

    todd.vision - Kinetoscope<\/a> - CC BY 2.0.<\/p>\n <\/div><\/div>\n

    As the kinetoscope gained popularity, the Edison Company began installing machines in hotel lobbies, amusement parks, and penny arcades, and soon kinetoscope parlors\u2014where customers could pay around 25 cents for admission to a bank of machines\u2014had opened around the country. However, when friends and collaborators suggested that Edison find a way to project his kinetoscope images for audience viewing, he apparently refused, claiming that such an invention would be a less profitable venture (Britannica).<\/p>\n

    Because Edison hadn\u2019t secured an international patent for his invention, variations of the kinetoscope were soon being copied and distributed throughout Europe. This new form of entertainment was an instant success, and a number of mechanics and inventors, seeing an opportunity, began toying with methods of projecting the moving images onto a larger screen. However, it was the invention of two brothers, Auguste and Louis Lumi\u00e8re\u2014photographic goods manufacturers in Lyon, France\u2014that saw the most commercial success. In 1895, the brothers patented the cin\u00e9matographe<\/a><\/span> (from which we get the term cinema<\/em>), a lightweight film projector that also functioned as a camera and printer. Unlike the Edison kinetograph, the cin\u00e9matographe was lightweight enough for easy outdoor filming, and over the years the brothers used the camera to take well over 1,000 short films, most of which depicted scenes from everyday life. In December 1895, in the basement lounge of the Grand Caf\u00e9, Rue des Capucines in Paris, the Lumi\u00e8res held the world\u2019s first ever commercial film screening, a sequence of about 10 short scenes, including the brother\u2019s first film, Workers Leaving the Lumi\u00e8re Factory<\/em>, a segment lasting less than a minute and depicting workers leaving the family\u2019s photographic instrument factory at the end of the day, as shown in the still frame here in Figure 8.3<\/a> (Encyclopedia of the Age of Industry and Empire).<\/p>\n

    Believing that audiences would get bored watching scenes that they could just as easily observe on a casual walk around the city, Louis Lumi\u00e8re claimed that the cinema was \u201can invention without a future (Menand, 2005),\u201d but a demand for motion pictures grew at such a rapid rate that soon representatives of the Lumi\u00e8re company were traveling throughout Europe and the world, showing half-hour screenings of the company\u2019s films. While cinema initially competed with other popular forms of entertainment\u2014circuses, vaudeville acts, theater troupes, magic shows, and many others\u2014eventually it would supplant these various entertainments as the main commercial attraction (Menand, 2005). Within a year of the Lumi\u00e8res\u2019 first commercial screening, competing film companies were offering moving-picture acts in music halls and vaudeville theaters across Great Britain. In the United States, the Edison Company, having purchased the rights to an improved projector that they called the Vitascope<\/a><\/span>, held their first film screening in April 1896 at Koster and Bial\u2019s Music Hall in Herald Square, New York City.<\/p>\n

    Film\u2019s profound impact on its earliest viewers is difficult to imagine today, inundated as many are by video images. However, the sheer volume of reports about the early audience\u2019s disbelief, delight, and even fear at what they were seeing suggests that viewing a film was an overwhelming experience for many. Spectators gasped at the realistic details in films such as Robert Paul\u2019s Rough Sea at Dover<\/em>, and at times people panicked and tried to flee the theater during films in which trains or moving carriages sped toward the audience (Robinson). Even the public\u2019s perception of film as a medium was considerably different from the contemporary understanding; the moving image was an improvement upon the photograph\u2014a medium with which viewers were already familiar\u2014and this is perhaps why the earliest films documented events in brief segments but didn\u2019t tell stories. During this \u201cnovelty period\u201d of cinema, audiences were more interested by the phenomenon of the film projector itself, so vaudeville halls advertised the kind of projector they were using (for example \u201cThe Vitascope\u2014Edison\u2019s Latest Marvel\u201d) (Balcanasu, et. al.), rather than the names of the films (Britannica Online).<\/p>\n

    \n

    Figure 8.3<\/span> <\/p>\n \"8.2.1\"<\/a>

    Workers Leaving the Lumi\u00e8re Factory:<\/em> One of the first films viewed by an audience.<\/p>

    Craig Duffy - Workers Leaving The Lumiere Factory<\/a> - CC BY-NC 2.0.<\/p>\n <\/div><\/div>\n

    By the close of the 19th century, as public excitement over the moving picture\u2019s novelty gradually wore off, filmmakers were also beginning to experiment with film\u2019s possibilities as a medium in itself (not simply, as it had been regarded up until then, as a tool for documentation, analogous to the camera or the phonograph). Technical innovations allowed filmmakers like Parisian cinema owner Georges M\u00e9li\u00e8s to experiment with special effects that produced seemingly magical transformations on screen: flowers turned into women, people disappeared with puffs of smoke, a man appeared where a woman had just been standing, and other similar tricks (Robinson).<\/p>\n

    Not only did M\u00e9li\u00e8s, a former magician, invent the \u201ctrick film<\/a><\/span>,\u201d which producers in England and the United States began to imitate, but he was also the one to transform cinema into the narrative medium it is today. Whereas before, filmmakers had only ever created single-shot films that lasted a minute or less, M\u00e9li\u00e8s began joining these short films together to create stories. His 30-scene Trip to the Moon<\/em> (1902), a film based on a Jules Verne novel, may have been the most widely seen production in cinema\u2019s first decade (Robinson). However, M\u00e9li\u00e8s never developed his technique beyond treating the narrative film as a staged theatrical performance; his camera, representing the vantage point of an audience facing a stage, never moved during the filming of a scene. In 1912, M\u00e9li\u00e8s released his last commercially successful production, The Conquest of the Pole<\/em>, and from then on, he lost audiences to filmmakers who were experimenting with more sophisticated techniques (Encyclopedia of Communication and Information).<\/p>\n

    \n

    Figure 8.4<\/span> <\/p>\n \"8.2.2\"<\/a>

    Georges M\u00e9li\u00e8s\u2019s Trip to the Moon<\/em> was one of the first films to incorporate fantasy elements and to use \u201ctrick\u201d filming techniques, both of which heavily influenced future filmmakers.<\/p>

    Craig Duffy - Workers Leaving The Lumiere Factory<\/a> - CC BY-NC 2.0.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div><\/div>\n

    \n

    The Nickelodeon Craze (1904\u20131908)<\/h2>\n

    One of these innovative filmmakers was Edwin S. Porter, a projectionist and engineer for the Edison Company. Porter\u2019s 12-minute film, The Great Train Robbery<\/em> (1903), broke with the stagelike compositions of M\u00e9li\u00e8s-style films through its use of editing, camera pans, rear projections, and diagonally composed shots that produced a continuity of action. Not only did The Great Train Robbery<\/em> establish the realistic narrative as a standard in cinema, it was also the first major box-office hit. Its success paved the way for the growth of the film industry, as investors, recognizing the motion picture\u2019s great moneymaking potential, began opening the first permanent film theaters around the country.<\/p>\n

    Known as nickelodeons<\/a><\/span> because of their 5 cent admission charge, these early motion picture theaters, often housed in converted storefronts, were especially popular among the working class of the time, who couldn\u2019t afford live theater. Between 1904 and 1908, around 9,000 nickelodeons appeared in the United States. It was the nickelodeon\u2019s popularity that established film as a mass entertainment medium (Dictionary of American History).<\/p>\n <\/div>\n

    \n

    The \u201cBiz\u201d: The Motion Picture Industry Emerges<\/h2>\n

    As the demand for motion pictures grew, production companies were created to meet it. At the peak of nickelodeon popularity in 1910 (Britannica Online), there were 20 or so major motion picture companies in the United States. However, heated disputes often broke out among these companies over patent rights and industry control, leading even the most powerful among them to fear fragmentation that would loosen their hold on the market (Fielding, 1967). Because of these concerns, the 10 leading companies\u2014including Edison, Biograph, Vitagraph, and others\u2014formed the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC)<\/a><\/span> in 1908. The MPPC was a trade group that pooled the most significant motion picture patents and established an exclusive contract between these companies and the Eastman Kodak Company as a supplier of film stock. Also known as the Trust<\/em>, the MPPC\u2019s goal was to standardize the industry and shut out competition through monopolistic control. Under the Trust\u2019s licensing system, only certain licensed companies could participate in the exchange, distribution, and production of film at different levels of the industry\u2014a shut-out tactic that eventually backfired, leading the excluded, independent distributors to organize in opposition to the Trust (Britannica Online).<\/p>\n

    \n

    The Rise of the Feature<\/h2>\n

    In these early years, theaters were still running single-reel films, which came at a standard length of 1,000 feet, allowing for about 16 minutes of playing time. However, companies began to import multiple-reel films from European producers around 1907, and the format gained popular acceptance in the United States in 1912 with Louis Mercanton\u2019s highly successful Queen Elizabeth<\/em>, a three-and-a-half reel \u201cfeature,\u201d starring the French actress Sarah Bernhardt. As exhibitors began to show more features\u2014as the multiple-reel film came to be called\u2014they discovered a number of advantages over the single-reel short. For one thing, audiences saw these longer films as special events and were willing to pay more for admission, and because of the popularity of the feature narratives<\/a><\/span>, features generally experienced longer runs in theaters than their single-reel predecessors (Motion Pictures). Additionally, the feature film gained popularity among the middle classes, who saw its length as analogous to the more \u201crespectable\u201d entertainment of live theater (Motion Pictures). Following the example of the French film d\u2019art<\/em>, U.S. feature producers often took their material from sources that would appeal to a wealthier and better educated audience, such as histories, literature, and stage productions (Robinson).<\/p>\n

    As it turns out, the feature film was one factor that brought about the eventual downfall of the MPPC. The inflexible structuring of the Trust\u2019s exhibition and distribution system made the organization resistant to change. When movie studio, and Trust member, Vitagraph began to release features like A Tale of Two Cities<\/em> (1911) and Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin<\/em> (1910), the Trust forced it to exhibit the films serially in single-reel showings to keep with industry standards. The MPPC also underestimated the appeal of the star system, a trend that began when producers chose famous stage actors like Mary Pickford and James O\u2019Neill to play the leading roles in their productions and to grace their advertising posters (Robinson). Because of the MPPC\u2019s inflexibility, independent companies were the only ones able to capitalize on two important trends that were to become film\u2019s future: single-reel features and star power. Today, few people would recognize names like Vitagraph or Biograph, but the independents that outlasted them\u2014Universal, Goldwyn (which would later merge with Metro and Mayer), Fox (later 20th Century Fox), and Paramount (the later version of the Lasky Corporation)\u2014have become household names.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n

    \n

    Hollywood<\/h2>\n

    As moviegoing increased in popularity among the middle class, and as the feature films began keeping audiences in their seats for longer periods of time, exhibitors found a need to create more comfortable and richly decorated theater spaces to attract their audiences. These \u201cdream palaces,\u201d so called because of their often lavish embellishments of marble, brass, guilding, and cut glass, not only came to replace the nickelodeon theater, but also created the demand that would lead to the Hollywood studio system. Some producers realized that the growing demand for new work could only be met if the films were produced on a regular, year-round system. However, this was impractical with the current system that often relied on outdoor filming and was predominately based in Chicago and New York\u2014two cities whose weather conditions prevented outdoor filming for a significant portion of the year. Different companies attempted filming in warmer locations such as Florida, Texas, and Cuba, but the place where producers eventually found the most success was a small, industrial suburb of Los Angeles called Hollywood.<\/p>\n

    Hollywood proved to be an ideal location for a number of reasons. Not only was the climate temperate and sunny year-round, but land was plentiful and cheap, and the location allowed close access to a number of diverse topographies: mountains, lakes, desert, coasts, and forests. By 1915, more than 60 percent of U.S. film production was centered in Hollywood (Britannica Online).<\/p>\n <\/div>\n

    \n

    The Art of Silent Film<\/h2>\n

    While the development of narrative film was largely driven by commercial factors, it is also important to acknowledge the role of individual artists who turned it into a medium of personal expression. The motion picture of the silent era was generally simplistic in nature; acted in overly animated movements to engage the eye; and accompanied by live music, played by musicians in the theater, and written titles to create a mood and to narrate a story. Within the confines of this medium, one filmmaker in particular emerged to transform the silent film<\/a><\/span> into an art and to unlock its potential as a medium of serious expression and persuasion. D. W. Griffith, who entered the film industry as an actor in 1907, quickly moved to a directing role in which he worked closely with his camera crew to experiment with shots, angles, and editing techniques that could heighten the emotional intensity of his scenes. He found that by practicing parallel editing<\/a><\/span>, in which a film alternates between two or more scenes of action, he could create an illusion of simultaneity. He could then heighten the tension of the film\u2019s drama by alternating between cuts more and more rapidly until the scenes of action converged. Griffith used this technique to great effect in his controversial film The Birth of a Nation<\/em>, which will be discussed in greater detail later on in this chapter. Other techniques that Griffith employed to new effect included panning shots<\/a><\/span>, through which he was able to establish a sense of scene and to engage his audience more fully in the experience of the film, and tracking shots<\/a><\/span>, or shots that traveled with the movement of a scene (Motion Pictures), which allowed the audience\u2014through the eye of the camera\u2014to participate in the film\u2019s action.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n

    \n

    MPAA: Combating Censorship<\/h2>\n

    As film became an increasingly lucrative U.S. industry, prominent industry figures like D. W. Griffith, slapstick comedian\/director Charlie Chaplin, and actors Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks grew extremely wealthy and influential. Public attitudes toward stars and toward some stars\u2019 extravagant lifestyles were divided, much as they are today: On the one hand, these celebrities were idolized and imitated in popular culture, yet at the same time, they were criticized for representing a threat, on and off screen, to traditional morals and social order. And much as it does today, the news media liked to sensationalize the lives of celebrities to sell stories. Comedian Roscoe \u201cFatty\u201d Arbuckle, who worked alongside future icons Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, was at the center of one of the biggest scandals of the silent era. When Arbuckle hosted a marathon party over Labor Day weekend in 1921, one of his guests, model Virginia Rapp, was rushed to the hospital, where she later died. Reports of a drunken orgy, rape, and murder surfaced. Following World War I, the United States was in the middle of significant social reforms, such as Prohibition. Many feared that movies and their stars could threaten the moral order of the country. Because of the nature of the crime and the celebrity involved, these fears became inexplicably tied to the Artbuckle case (Motion Pictures). Even though autopsy reports ruled that Rapp had died from causes for which Arbuckle could not be blamed, the comedian was tried (and acquitted) for manslaughter, and his career was ruined.<\/p>\n

    The Arbuckle affair and a series of other scandals only increased public fears about Hollywood\u2019s impact. In response to this perceived threat, state and local governments increasingly tried to censor the content of films that depicted crime, violence, and sexually explicit material. Deciding that they needed to protect themselves from government censorship and to foster a more favorable public image, the major Hollywood studios organized in 1922 to form an association they called the Motion Picture Producers and Distributers of America (later renamed the Motion Picture Association of America,<\/a><\/span> or MPAA<\/strong>). Among other things, the MPAA instituted a code of self-censorship for the motion picture industry. Today, the MPAA operates by a voluntary rating system, which means producers can voluntarily submit a film for review, which is designed to alert viewers to the age-appropriateness of a film, while still protecting the filmmakers\u2019 artistic freedom (Motion Picture Association of America).<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n

    \n

    Silent Film\u2019s Demise<\/h2>\n

    In 1925, Warner Bros. was just a small Hollywood studio looking for opportunities to expand. When representatives from Western Electric offered to sell the studio the rights to a new technology they called Vitaphone, a sound-on-disc system that had failed to capture the interest of any of the industry giants, Warner Bros. executives took a chance, predicting that the novelty of talking films might be a way to make a quick, short-term profit. Little did they anticipate that their gamble would not only establish them as a major Hollywood presence but also change the industry forever.<\/p>\n

    The pairing of sound with motion pictures was nothing new in itself. Edison, after all, had commissioned the kinetoscope to create a visual accompaniment to the phonograph, and many early theaters had orchestra pits to provide musical accompaniment to their films. Even the smaller picture houses with lower budgets almost always had an organ or piano. When Warner Bros. purchased Vitaphone technology, it planned to use it to provide prerecorded orchestral accompaniment for its films, thereby increasing their marketability to the smaller theaters that didn\u2019t have their own orchestra pits (Gochenour, 2000). In 1926, Warner debuted the system with the release of Don Juan<\/em>, a costume drama accompanied by a recording of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra; the public responded enthusiastically (Motion Pictures). By 1927, after a $3 million campaign, Warner Bros. had wired more than 150 theaters in the United States, and it released its second sound film, The Jazz Singer<\/em>, in which the actor Al Jolson improvised a few lines of synchronized dialogue and sang six songs. The film was a major breakthrough. Audiences, hearing an actor speak on screen for the first time, were enchanted (Gochenour). While radio, a new and popular entertainment, had been drawing audiences away from the picture houses for some time, with the birth of the \u201ctalkie<\/a><\/span>,\u201d or talking film, audiences once again returned to the cinema in large numbers, lured by the promise of seeing and hearing their idols perform (Higham, 1973). By 1929, three-fourths of Hollywood films had some form of sound accompaniment, and by 1930, the silent film was a thing of the past (Gochenour).<\/p>\n <\/div>\n

    \n

    \u201cI Don\u2019t Think We\u2019re in Kansas Anymore\u201d: Film Goes Technicolor<\/h2>\n

    Although the techniques of tinting and hand painting had been available methods for adding color to films for some time (Georges M\u00e9li\u00e8s, for instance, employed a crew to hand-paint many of his films), neither method ever caught on. The hand-painting technique became impractical with the advent of mass-produced film, and the tinting process, which filmmakers discovered would create an interference with the transmission of sound in films, was abandoned with the rise of the talkie. However, in 1922, Herbert Kalmus\u2019s Technicolor company introduced a dye-transfer technique that allowed it to produce a full-length film, The Toll of the Sea<\/em>, in two primary colors (Gale Virtual Reference Library). However, because only two colors were used, the appearance of The Toll of the Sea<\/em> (1922), The Ten Commandments<\/em> (1923), and other early Technicolor films was not very lifelike. By 1932, Technicolor had designed a three-color system with more realistic results, and for the next 25 years, all color films were produced with this improved system. Disney\u2019s Three Little Pigs<\/em> (1933) and Snow White and the Seven Dwarves<\/em> (1936) and films with live actors, like MGM\u2019s The Wizard of Oz<\/em> (1939) and Gone With the Wind<\/em> (1939), experienced early success using Technicolor\u2019s three-color method.<\/p>\n

    Despite the success of certain color films in the 1930s, Hollywood, like the rest of the United States, was feeling the impact of the Great Depression, and the expenses of special cameras, crews, and Technicolor lab processing made color films impractical for studios trying to cut costs. Therefore, it wasn\u2019t until the end of the 1940s that Technicolor would largely displace the black-and-white film (Motion Pictures in Color).<\/p>\n <\/div>\n

    \n

    Rise and Fall of the Hollywood Studio<\/h2>\n

    The spike in theater attendance that followed the introduction of talking films changed the economic structure of the motion picture industry, bringing about some of the largest mergers in industry history. By 1930, eight studios produced 95 percent of all American films, and they continued to experience growth even during the Depression. The five most influential of these studios\u2014Warner Bros., Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, RKO, 20th Century Fox, and Paramount\u2014were vertically integrated<\/a><\/span>; that is, they controlled every part of the system as it related to their films, from the production to release, distribution, and even viewing. Because they owned theater chains worldwide, these studios controlled which movies exhibitors ran, and because they \u201cowned\u201d a stock of directors, actors, writers, and technical assistants by contract, each studio produced films of a particular character.<\/p>\n

    The late 1930s and early 1940s are sometimes known as the \u201cGolden Age<\/a><\/span>\u201d of cinema, a time of unparalleled success for the movie industry; by 1939, film was the 11th-largest industry in the United States, and during World War II, when the U.S. economy was once again flourishing, two-thirds of Americans were attending the theater at least once a week (Britannica Online). Some of the most acclaimed movies in history were released during this period, including Citizen Kane<\/em> and The Grapes of Wrath<\/em>. However, postwar inflation, a temporary loss of key foreign markets, the advent of the television, and other factors combined to bring that rapid growth to an end. In 1948, the case of the United States v. Paramount Pictures<\/em>\u2014mandating competition and forcing the studios to relinquish control over theater chains\u2014dealt the final devastating blow from which the studio system would never recover. Control of the major studios reverted to Wall Street, where the studios were eventually absorbed by multinational corporations, and the powerful studio heads lost the influence they had held for nearly 30 years (Baers, 2000).<\/p>\n

    \n

    Figure 8.5<\/span> <\/p>\n \"image\"<\/a>

    Rise and Decline of Movie Viewing During Hollywood\u2019s \u201cGolden Age\u201d<\/p>\n

    \n

    Graph from Pautz, Michelle C. 2002. The Decline in Average Weekly Cinema Attendance: 1930\u20132000. Issues in Political Economy, 11 (Summer): 54\u201365.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div><\/div>\n

    \n

    Post\u2013World War II: Television Presents a Threat<\/h2>\n

    While economic factors and antitrust legislation played key roles in the decline of the studio system, perhaps the most important factor in that decline was the advent of the television. Given the opportunity to watch \u201cmovies\u201d from the comfort of their own homes, the millions of Americans who owned a television by the early 1950s were attending the cinema far less regularly than they had only several years earlier (Motion Pictures). In an attempt to win back diminishing audiences, studios did their best to exploit the greatest advantages film held over television. For one thing, television broadcasting in the 1950s was all in black and white, whereas the film industry had the advantage of color. While producing a color film was still an expensive undertaking in the late 1940s, a couple of changes occurred in the industry in the early 1950s to make color not only more affordable, but more realistic in its appearance. In 1950, as the result of antitrust legislation, Technicolor lost its monopoly on the color film industry, allowing other providers to offer more competitive pricing on filming and processing services. At the same time, Kodak came out with a multilayer film stock that made it possible to use more affordable cameras and to produce a higher quality image. Kodak\u2019s Eastmancolor option was an integral component in converting the industry to color. In the late 1940s, only 12 percent of features were in color; however, by 1954 (after the release of Kodak Eastmancolor) more than 50 percent of movies were in color (Britannica Online).<\/p>\n

    Another clear advantage on which filmmakers tried to capitalize was the sheer size of the cinema experience. With the release of the epic biblical film The Robe<\/em> in 1953, 20th Century Fox introduced the method that would soon be adopted by nearly every studio in Hollywood: a technology that allowed filmmakers to squeeze a wide-angle image onto conventional 35-mm film stock, thereby increasing the aspect ratio<\/a><\/span> (the ratio of a screen\u2019s width to its height) of their images. This wide-screen format increased the immersive quality of the theater experience. Nonetheless, even with these advancements, movie attendance never again reached the record numbers it experienced in 1946, at the peak of the Golden Age of Hollywood (Britannica Online).<\/p>\n

    \n

    Mass Entertainment, Mass Paranoia: HUAC and the Hollywood Blacklist<\/h4>\n

    The Cold War with the Soviet Union began in 1947, and with it came the widespread fear of communism, not only from the outside, but equally from within. To undermine this perceived threat, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) commenced investigations to locate communist sympathizers in America who were suspected of conducting espionage for the Soviet Union. In the highly conservative and paranoid atmosphere of the time, Hollywood, the source of a mass-cultural medium, came under fire in response to fears that subversive, communist messages were being embedded in films. In November 1947, more than 100 people in the movie business were called to testify before the HUAC about their and their colleagues\u2019 involvement with communist affairs. Of those investigated, 10 in particular refused to cooperate with the committee\u2019s questions. These 10, later known as the Hollywood Ten, were fired from their jobs and sentenced to serve up to a year in prison. The studios, already slipping in influence and profit, were eager to cooperate in order to save themselves, and a number of producers signed an agreement stating that no communists would work in Hollywood.<\/p>\n

    The hearings, which recommenced in 1951 with the rise of Senator Joseph McCarthy\u2019s influence, turned into a kind of witch hunt as witnesses were asked to testify against their associates, and a blacklist of suspected communists evolved. Over 324 individuals lost their jobs in the film industry as a result of blacklisting (the denial of work in a certain field or industry) and HUAC investigations (Georgakas, 2004; Mills, 2007; Dressler, et. al., 2005).<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n

    \n

    Down With the Establishment: Youth Culture of the 1960s and 1970s<\/h2>\n

    Movies of the late 1960s began attracting a younger demographic, as a growing number of young people were drawn in by films like Sam Peckinpah\u2019s The Wild Bunch<\/em> (1969), Stanley Kubrick\u2019s 2001: A Space Odyssey<\/em> (1968), Arthur Penn\u2019s Bonnie and Clyde<\/em> (1967), and Dennis Hopper\u2019s Easy Rider<\/em> (1969)\u2014all revolutionary in their genres\u2014that displayed a sentiment of unrest toward conventional social orders and included some of the earliest instances of realistic and brutal violence in film. These four films in particular grossed so much money at the box offices that producers began churning out low-budget copycats to draw in a new, profitable market (Motion Pictures). While this led to a rise in youth-culture films, few of them saw great success. However, the new liberal attitudes toward depictions of sex and violence in these films represented a sea of change in the movie industry that manifested in many movies of the 1970s, including Francis Ford Coppola\u2019s The Godfather<\/em> (1972), William Friedkin\u2019s The Exorcist<\/em> (1973), and Steven Spielberg\u2019s Jaws<\/em> (1975), all three of which saw great financial success (Britannica Online; Belton, 1994).<\/p>\n <\/div>\n

    \n

    Blockbusters, Knockoffs, and Sequels<\/h2>\n

    In the 1970s, with the rise of work by Coppola, Spielberg, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, and others, a new breed of director emerged. These directors were young and film-school educated, and they contributed a sense of professionalism, sophistication, and technical mastery to their work, leading to a wave of blockbuster productions, including Close Encounters of the Third Kind<\/em> (1977), Star Wars<\/em> (1977), Raiders of the Lost Ark<\/em> (1981), and E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial<\/em> (1982). The computer-generated special effects that were available at this time also contributed to the success of a number of large-budget productions. In response to these and several earlier blockbusters, movie production and marketing techniques also began to shift, with studios investing more money in fewer films in the hopes of producing more big successes. For the first time, the hefty sums producers and distributers invested didn\u2019t go to production costs alone; distributers were discovering the benefits of TV and radio advertising and finding that doubling their advertising costs could increase profits as much as three or four times over. With the opening of Jaws<\/em>, one of the five top-grossing films of the decade (and the highest grossing film of all time until the release of Star Wars<\/em> in 1977), Hollywood embraced the wide-release method of movie distribution, abandoning the release methods of earlier decades, in which a film would debut in only a handful of select theaters in major cities before it became gradually available to mass audiences. Jaws<\/em> was released in 600 theaters simultaneously, and the big-budget films that followed came out in anywhere from 800 to 2,000 theaters nationwide on their opening weekends (Belton; Hanson & Garcia-Myers, 2000).<\/p>\n

    The major Hollywood studios of the late 1970s and early 1980s, now run by international corporations, tended to favor the conservative gamble of the tried and true, and as a result, the period saw an unprecedented number of high-budget sequels\u2014as in the Star Wars<\/em>, Indiana Jones<\/em>, and Godfather<\/em> films\u2014as well as imitations and adaptations of earlier successful material, such as the plethora of \u201cslasher\u201d films that followed the success of the 1979 thriller Halloween<\/em>. Additionally, corporations sought revenue sources beyond the movie theater, looking to the video and cable releases of their films. Introduced in 1975, the VCR became nearly ubiquitous in American homes by 1998 with 88.9 million households owning the appliance (Rosen & Meier, 2000). Cable television\u2019s growth was slower, but ownership of VCRs gave people a new reason to subscribe, and cable subsequently expanded as well (Rogers). And the newly introduced concept of film-based merchandise (toys, games, books, etc.) allowed companies to increase profits even more.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n

    \n

    The 1990s and Beyond<\/h2>\n

    The 1990s saw the rise of two divergent strands of cinema: the technically spectacular blockbuster with special, computer-generated effects and the independent, low-budget film. The capabilities of special effects were enhanced when studios began manipulating film digitally. Early examples of this technology can be seen in Terminator 2: Judgment Day<\/em> (1991) and Jurassic Park<\/em> (1993). Films with an epic scope\u2014Independence Day<\/em> (1996), Titanic<\/em> (1997), and The Matrix<\/em> (1999)\u2014also employed a range of computer-animation techniques and special effects to wow audiences and to draw more viewers to the big screen. Toy Story<\/em> (1995), the first fully computer-animated film, and those that came after it, such as Antz<\/em> (1998), A Bug\u2019s Life<\/em> (1998), and Toy Story 2<\/em> (1999), displayed the improved capabilities of computer-generated animation (Sedman, 2000). At the same time, independent directors and producers, such as the Coen brothers and Spike Jonze, experienced an increased popularity, often for lower-budget films that audiences were more likely to watch on video at home (Britannica Online). A prime example of this is the 1996 Academy Awards program, when independent films dominated the Best Picture category. Only one movie from a big film studio was nominated\u2014Jerry Maguire<\/em>\u2014while the rest were independent films. The growth of both independent movies and special-effects-laden blockbusters continues to the present day. You will read more about current issues and trends and the future of the movie industry later on in this chapter.<\/p>\n

    \n

    Key Takeaways<\/h3>\n