Birth of Cinema: 1890s 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 1900s to 1920s 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 1940s) "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 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 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 and “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 60s and 1970s, 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).