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Introduction to Film Studies 1: Hollywood Cinema

Introduction to Film Studies 1: Hollywood Cinema. Lecture Two: Classical Hollywood Cinema: Narrative, Institution and Ideology. The Rise of the Studio System. Driven by economic forces: US attendance at 26 million per week by 1910 Tripartite system: Production, distribution, exhibition

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Introduction to Film Studies 1: Hollywood Cinema

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  1. Introduction to Film Studies 1: Hollywood Cinema Lecture Two: Classical Hollywood Cinema: Narrative, Institution and Ideology

  2. The Rise of the Studio System • Driven by economic forces: US attendance at 26 million per week by 1910 • Tripartite system: Production, distribution, exhibition • Producers remain separate from distribution/exhibition – Mutual, Fox, Vitagraph • Star system develops: Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks • Putting the money on the screen: The Birth of a Nation (USA 1915: D.W. Griffith) costs $110k; Intolerance (USA: 1916: D.W. Griffith) costs $1.9m. • Increasing length of films

  3. The Rise of the Studio System • The creation of the ‘picture palace’ • Aftermath of WWI enables USA to dominate European markets • Vertical integration: Paramount • Block booking: Famous Players-Lasky • The ‘big five’: Paramount, MGM, Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox and RKO • The ‘little three’: Universal, Columbia and United Artists • Independents: David O. Selznick • B-Movie companies: Republic

  4. The Rise of the Studio System • Why California? • Genres • The arrival of sound: The Jazz Singer (USA 1927: Alan Crosland) • Censorship: The Production Code (1930) and the Hays Office • A production line system

  5. The Collapse of the Studio System • Impact of TV • Spiralling cost of production • Rise of independent producers • Takeover by international conglomerates

  6. New Hollywood • Buying in film ‘packages’ • The rise of the agent • Is Hollywood more or less conservative now?

  7. Classical Narrative • Noel Burch: the ‘Institutional Mode of Representation’ • The transparency or invisibility of film language • Roland Barthes and TzevetanTodorov • Order – Disorder – Order Restored • Resolution and closure • Enigma codes and action codes (Barthes) • Verisimilitude • Linear continuity editing

  8. Classical Narrative • Claude Levi-Strauss and Vladimir Propp • Repetition of key myths/stories across all cutures • Character types • Binary opposites

  9. Ideology in Film • What is ideology? • A system of values • What is dominant ideology? • The major value systems at work in a society • Capitalism and patriarchy (Marxist and feminist perspectives) • Herbert Marcuse’s critique of popular culture • Is Marcuse right?

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