1905-1912 Case Study

In chapter two of The Cultures of American Film, the main focus is the establishment of studios. As demand for films rose in the early 1900’s, production companies needed to expand; this lead to the creation of large scale studios.

To begin with, some background information on movies and Hollywood in the 1920’s. In the 1920’s, movie attendance soared (The Rise of Hollywood par. 4). As stated in the introduction, with the influx of money in the American economic system, the average person also had an influx of time on their hands. The normal solution was to spend that time on entertainment and movies were the perfect way to do that. By the mid-decade, movie attendance rose to fifty million and only increased from then. The five main movie studios were Warner Brothers, Paramount, MGM, RKO Radio Pictures, and 20th Century Fox (Dirks 1). Before these studios were formed, every aspect of making movies was separated into different companies. The aspects may include filming, editing, or distributing. With the spark of interest in movies, these five companies took it upon

During the 1890s, Thomas Edison, a worldly known inventor invented a new technological creation that stunned and mesmerized anybody that viewed it, moving pictures, otherwise known as movies. Just by cycling through a long strip of tiny subsequent photographs on a projection machine, the speed of the machine coincided with the sequentialism of the pictures to create the illusion of fluent motion, creating the first of what society knows movies to be today. This new innovation sparked a new desire for imagination and creativity, and created a platform that allowed the deepest imaginations of the mind to utilize and display on screen. The transition from silent film to talkies, otherwise known as sound film, opened up new doors of cinematography and composing, and allowed works of art to be seen and heard identically globally.

Edison then helped to create a short monopoly in America with the Motion Picture Patents Company. The film industry thrived because of its efficiency--people paid low prices to watch movies, but they brought big business because of their sheer number.4

The censorship conflicts in the 1900s were extremely intriguing and intense. Around the end of the 1920s, individuals possessed immense moral shifts powered by religious groups during the Great Depression, which resulted in decisions that created a new revolution that dealt particularly with the regulation of content of films. Consequently, in 1934, at the same time that the “Golden Age of Hollywood” began, the Hollywood Production code was formally implemented. The film

The 1920s was a time of great economic success. It was a time of many new things including the introduction of the car as well as the movie, or motion picture. The 1920s saw the use of a car for the average person, not just the rich and famous. They also saw the launch of the movie industry as well as Hollywood. In the 1920s there were many great inventors and businessmen, including Henry Ford, owner of Ford Motorsports, and D.W. Griffith, the first producer and director. These will be the two people that will be discussed in this paper.

Ever since Thomas Edison invented the Kinetiscope in 1894, films have been reaching its way to the heart of American culture. Since the roaring twenties, where the United States began to see the first movie theaters to the 1960’s, where films are officially a source of leisure and escape from reality. Films influenced American culture between the 1920’s through 1960’s by becoming an increasingly popular form of leisure for years to come while causing scandals, riots, and movements about films or about the idea of films in general by displaying issues in society such as racism, forming a need for censorship laws. Films have also provided a fantasy world for their audiences by showing a film about someone in their perfect life using ethical

traveling circus presentations. They were marveled at, yes, but their use as a form of entertainment was limited and not considered, until on April 14, 1894 in New York City, the Holland brothers showed short films to the public in their arcade, using two rows of kinetoscopes. This started a country-wide fad, and the idea of showing movies gained speed. The film industry began to grow, until the 1920's, when it truly became an industry and movie theaters showing double-features had become common to most towns. This is when Hollywood studios began gaining ground as the place to be for actors, directors, writers, and anyone who was anyone in the film world. In the minds of the average American, Hollywood conjured up images of glamour and sophistication, of movie stars and lazily drifting smoke and reels of film flickering in a dark room. Hollywood; another world in of itself.

In American history, the 1920’s was a decade thriving in terms of style, social trends and an improving economy. Popular culture during this time period was mainly characterized by the innovation of new technological devices, the arts, and film. Right after World War I came to an end, when the “roaring 20’s” began, cinemas became a huge social and economical success in America during the 1920’s. The cinema turned into a lifestyle for many Americans. American citizens made trips to citizens on a weekly basis. Different theaters were rapidly growing and being built in many towns around the country due to the increasing interest in visiting nice places to watch a film. Cinemas in the early 1920’s showed silent motion films and then gradually later on in the decade ‘talkies’ were released. In the 1920’s the cinema led to an improved economy in America, happier citizens, and the mass media for the cinema created a national culture.

The first movie theatres were rented rooms and music halls.As movies aired popularity and the technology.Movies were an form that captured the interest of the masses worldwide.As a new form of entertainment their success was extremely a made people laugh making the world a happier place to live in after the horrors of WW1.The 1920’s movie goers experience was largely dominated by silent movies but saw the introduction of synchronized sound.The rise of “talkies from the late 1920 onwards led to a radical shake-up of the entertainment industry.Live entertainment went into decline and variety theatres became movie palaces, were eager punters could see exactly the same entertainment as their fellows in Los Angeles,Berlin or Bombay.The belief

The film The General (Keaton 1926) was made during a time when Hollywood and worldwide film-going made a vast expansion. Before the invention of the projector in 1895, those who seeked visual entertainment opted for optical toys, shadow shows, magic lanterns and visual tricks. After this invention and years of experimentation, film had swept across the world, with the 1920’s having some of the greatest impact on its history. The 1920’s was the decade known for “Picture Palaces” or “Movie Palaces”, which were large, elaborately snd classically decorated movie theaters that could fit nearly 2,000 patrons. Genres that had not been very recognized, such as horror and romantic comedies, developed rapidly and successfully, and ended up

In the early twentieth century movies signified modernity by becoming the most prevalent medium of culture in the United States in a period of time where the social makeup was shifting from a predominantly middle class to working class neighborhoods that were made up of many different communities. As a direct consequence, nickelodeons, temporary storefront theaters, and vaudeville programs all flourished in the working class districts. By the late 1920s, almost every large American city showed off a new “picture palace,” an elaborately constructed movie theater. Moreover, with this transition from previous vaudeville houses and nickelodeons to the rise of these so-called picture palaces in the United States, new spaces of consumerism were forged that focused on enlightening the average spectator as movie moguls such as the notable Samuel “Roxy” Rotahfel who envisioned a specific function for all major theaters. Consequently, I would argue that these new spaces of consumerism transformed and transfixed its audiences architecturally (looking at the physical space of the theater) and psychologically (reading space as consumerist fantasy) in Roxy’s picture palaces such as the Family Theater and the Regent Theater and how these theaters fit into the market of mass consumerism in creating desire as well as a release from modern societal pressures. Additionally, I would like to explore how Roxy and his team carefully created an

Gunning asserts the period of early cinema began in 1895 and lasted until 1906/1907, when “narrativization of cinema” became a trend. Although the mode of storytelling changed in later decades, some films retained the spectacular qualities central to early cinema. In this essay, I will discuss Gunning’s argument that early cinema was a spectacle or a tamed attraction.

in the United States until 1921. A time when film makers were out to prove that

It was not until the mid-1910’s did the film industry shift “towards a model that prized business legitimacy. This shift ultimately marginalized the woman filmmaker” (Mahar 133).