The American Cinema 's First Phase

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.

During the course of this essay it is my intention to discuss the differences between Classical Hollywood and post-Classical Hollywood. Although these terms refer to theoretical movements of which they are not definitive it is my goal to show that they are applicable in a broad way to a cinema tradition that dominated Hollywood production between 1916 and 1960 and which also pervaded Western Mainstream Cinema (Classical Hollywood or Classic Narrative Cinema) and to the movement and changes that came about following this time period (Post-Classical or New Hollywood). I intend to do this by first analysing and defining aspects of Classical Hollywood and having done that,

The 1940’s were a time of war and then prosperity for Americans, not only in wealth but in a chance for a better education and social economic status. Films went from patriotic during the war to a more realistic portrayal towards the end of the war in 1945. By the second half of the 1940's, with an injection of expatriate directors trained in the German visual evocation of emotion to the French poetic realistic films, a new style of films were about to emerge. A similar change was also happening in reality, from the hope of the formation of the United Nations to the start of the Cold War.

In the 1991 drama “Boyz in the Hood”, Written and Directed by John Singleton. He successfully attempts to portray what life was like and in some areas in America still is for African Americans living in a rough Los Angeles neighborhood. It displays a portrait of the harsh realities that plagues the black community and by displaying uninviting living conditions that is South Central L.A, Singleton aims to share to the world the self-destructive deviant behavior that is to this day, destroying the African American community. Some of the self-destructive deviant behaviors include gang life, selling drugs, and gun violence. Various issues are displayed in this movie involving the black community including deviance, poverty, gentrification, the importance of a father in a young man’s life and black on black crime. Singleton displays a tale of three friends growing up in the “hood”, plagued by drugs and violence and layers textures over rough and compelling visuals of black culture that shows us what it means to come to maturity, or die trying, as a black male. In this essay, I will be giving a thorough analysis of the film, as well as covering certain points from the movie from a sociological perspective to explain why singleton chose to write this film.

New and exciting technologies have always played a huge role in the culture of American people. When the motion picture came out it was no surprise that both consumers and producers were more than happy to get in on the action. Back in the 1920’s film was still pretty new and was only in black and white with no sound, but the films were always accompanied by orchestral pieces to help set the mood. The art of movie-making has come a long way since then with the addition of not only color and audio, but new techniques and new ideas. Both The Kid and Iron Jawed Angels are very popular films about the early 1900’s. Although they share some common thoughts, but because they were made in two completely different time periods their focuses are

This classical landmark film, The Public enemy, introduces the social context of gangster films around the same time Prohibition and the Great Depression really started to take a toll on lives. While the later well-known film, Scarface, was placed in the era of mass immigration from Cuba to Florida, with the growth in popularity of the drug ‘cocaine’. Due to these two films, people become fascinated with the idea of wealth and power both found in the typical

Racketeers and gangsters competed for business, spawning a wave of violence across the nation” (Hanson 35). No place was more evident of this than Chicago.

The 1920’s were full of great innovations and great outcomes that to this day it plays a huge part in our lives. The 1920’s gave us a new sound known as the jazz, astonishing movies and new inventions as the television and the instant Camera. The 1920’s also gave us the introduction of mobster Scarface Al Capone and the bootlegging business of selling illegal alcohol. The crime in New York during the 1920’s was full of many brutal acts of violence due to Prohibition, Al Capone, and the St. Valentine’s Day massacre

Throughout American film, Latinos have not been represented nearly as much as their white counterparts. According to America On Film, when Latinos finally became represented in film, they were seen in very stereotypical eyes. One of these stereotypes was the Latin Lover. “According to this stereotype, men, and women of Latin American descent are figured as more sensual and sexual than their North American counterparts, furthering cultural assumptions about Latinos as emotional and “hot blooded” (146). Given this stereotype, American audiences watching Y Tu Mamá También may believe that this film’s main theme is sex and sexual relationships.

Haller, Mark H. “Organized Crime in Urban Society: Chicago in the Twentieth Century.” Journal of Social History, vol. 5, no. 2, 1971, pp. 210–234., www.jstor.org/stable/3786412.

Gangs of New York is considered by most scholars to be a historical narrative that reflects on the influence of class politics in the molding of the U.S. Amsterdam, the protagonist in the film, comments on how New York City, “wasn’t a city really. It was more a furnace where a city someday might be forged,” reflects on this argument that Gangs of New York is illustrative of how America came to be what it is today (Gangs of New York, 00:16:46-52). I agree with this interpretation of the film and will discuss how gang warfare and political corruption in the film are used to illuminate this message of class politics and how they helped to shape modern day America.

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

Cinema after 1906, according to Gunning, pushed towards the structure of linear narrative, and away from the immediacy of the "spectacular image" (Strauven, 1999: 387).

After World War II, the American motion picture studios began releasing films shot in black and white, with a high contrast style known as Film Noir. Though the roots of this style of film was greatly influenced by the German Expressionist movement in film during the late 1910-early 1920’s, and films that resembled this style were made prior to the war, including the early films by Fritz Lang, a German director who fled Germany prior to the war to work in America, this film style would become prevalent during the post WWII era. Besides the shadowed lighting style and the psychologically expressive mise-en-scène, the film noir plot-lines often surrounded crime dramas and were greatly influenced by the pulp fiction novels of the period by authors like Dashiell Hammett and

Film Noir was searching for a meaning for the society that all their ideologies were shattered and emptiness were taking over. This paper is explaining on how Film Noir influenced the American society after the World War II and Cold War era.