American Cinema

The American cinema , i.e. the cinema carried out with the the United States, which is that most deeply worked overall the Cinéma during its first century of existence, as well on the level of the contents and the techniques as at the economic and cultural level.

Its heart is with Hollywood, in the suburbs of Los Angeles, where the major part of the American audio-visual programs is produced, televisual included/understood.

American criticism Pauline Kael summarized in 1968 the style of Hollywood films by the formula become célèbre : “  KIS KIS Bang  Bang; ”. For concise and short that is to say the formula, it translates the importance of the action which characterizes this production, putting forward the importance of the technical sides, the quality of the technicians, the technological control, who made and make this cinema: the Scenario, the Put in scene, images, the Assembly, the music, the sound, and the special Effects.

But the American cinema is also a powerful and very structured industry, in which the Financement and the Marketing are always in the forefront of the decision criteria. It is also registered within the sector of the audio-visual entertainment become the first station of the incomes of the economy of the United States abroad. The films produced in the United States are for example in Europe those which carry out the majority of the entries in room (62,5% of the entries in 2001).

The Hollywood cinema is regarded as the first vector of diffusion of the American culture abroad.

History

At the beginning of the XXe century, while cinema industry is not yet one, the majority of those which launch out in the cinema are immigrants, like Shayne Corson, and more particularly of the Jewish immigrants, coming from Russia, Germany or Austria-Hungary. They unload with New York with a will which distinguishes them from their European contemporaries: for these immigrants in the United States, the cinema is more than one simple entertainment, it is the new shape of Article the producers who will appear, like William Fox (founder in 1915 of the Fox Film Corporation, which will become the Twentieth Century Fox), Samuel Goldfish (who will change her name into Samuel Goldwyn, founder in 1916 of Goldwyn Picture Corporation, which will become MGM), the Frères Warner (founders in 1923 of Warner Bros Studios), has as of the beginning of the artistic ambitions. They are thus put in liaison with famous writers to write the scenario of their films, by thinking, with reason, that a film based on a book having already had success is likely more to make good receipts.

That which one can realize as of the beginnings of the cinema with State-Plain, it is that the producers have a role which goes beyond the purely financial aspect: they take part in the creation of films as well as the realizers and the scenario writers.

Invention of the cinema to first talking films (1893-1930)

Hollywood golden age of years 1930 with the difficulties of the post-war period

Years 1950: the studios take the air

Years 1960-70

See also: New Hollywood

“During the Sixties, the American cinema was not an enormous success. However, this period was marked by the presentation on horror film big screen, such Psychosis. And for this type of films, the arrival of the color marked a true departure!

The Sixties and Seventies mark also the beginning of a particular reaction of the American cinema, vis-a-vis the domestic policies and international. The production found besides changed some, upset by the protestors of beginning of the year 60. It was to react on the end of the decade, under the extent of the movement, by carrying out films such as Easy Rider or Macadam Cow Boy, very reference frames, in their form with the French New wave, but treating contemporary american company. ”

See American Cinema of the Sixties

See American Cinema of the Seventies

The years 1980: " the Spielberg" era;

See American Cinema of the Eighties

The years 1990

See American Cinema of the Nineties

List of 100 best films of the history of the American cinema (20th S)

See also: Signal 100 of American Film Institute

It is drawn from the American Film Institute (AFI)

Economy

American cinema industry is particularly powerful and profitable. Its growth rate doubled more in ten years: if it garnered 7,02 billion dollars in 1991 on the international market, in 2001, the figure passed to 14,69 billion dollars.

Domination of the majors

Three types of actors compose American cinema industry: the majors , their subsidiary companies, and independent producers. The majors are represented by Motion Picture Association off America (MPAA) inside the United States, and by Motion Picture Association (MPA) abroad. The MPAA represents the seven more important majors, i.e. the producers and distributers of the “filmed entertainment” ( filmed entertainment ), namely films of cinema, television programs, cassettes and DVD with the sale or the hiring, films diffused on Internet, etc

These majors are:

As for their subsidiary companies, one can for example quote Miramax, which belongs at Disney; New Line, with Warner or Sony Classics.

In the Years 1980, the administration of President Reagan allows a new phase of vertical integration of the majors by cancelling the “antitrust decrees Paramount” of 1948. It becomes from now on possible for the studios to acquire channels of diffusion (cinemas, television channels…) and they then concentrate in their center all the production runs of the audio-visual goods, i.e. the production, the distribution and the diffusion.

It is thus necessary to propose the undeniable domination of the majors on the independent studios. Because even if the films produced by the latter are more numerous, their market share is much weaker at the interior and international level. Thus, if the most important distributer independent of the country, the USA Films, left 15 films in 2000, it could garner only 1% of the receipts of the national boxoffice.

Source: MPA, U.S. Entertainment Industry. 2004 MPA Market Statistics, Motion Picture Association - Worldwide Research, 2004, www.mpaa.com.

Source: National Association off Theater Owners, Encyclopedia off Exhibition, 2001-2002. City in Allen J.SCOTT, “Hollywood and the World: The Geography off Motion-Picture Distribution and Marketing”, Review off International Political Economy, 11 (1), Feb. 2004, p. 43.

Domination of the Hollywood cinema in the world

International dimension makes since always integral part of cinema industry - of some country that it is - for a simple logic of profitability which is specific for him: if the initial investment necessary to the production of a Film is extremely high, the costs of duplication are on the other hand particularly low. The more copies of film are distributed, and the more the investment is likely to be profitable. The overseas markets thus always belonged to the strategy of the Hollywood firms, and this since the whole beginning of their activities one century ago. As of 1919, the receipts generated by the international markets were included in the budgets of Hollywood.

But it is since the end of the Second world war that the flow of Exportation of the cinematographic goods truly took off, so that the presence of Hollywood today is virtually felt in all the countries of the world. In this direction, and in the current context of globalized economy, the export of films abroad is more than ever an element impossible to circumvent of world competitiveness, representing since about thirty year between 40% and half of the incomes of the large studios.

Cinema industry is one of the rare sectors in the United States to have a positive commercial balance, i.e. to export more products than it does not import any, and this in all the countries where it is present. In 2001, Hollywood held 80% of the market shares of film to the international level, and 70% for the televised programs.

To notice that the Indian cinema with Bollywood is one of only cinema industries in the world which can still hold head in Hollywood in its own country with more than 800 films produced per annum. The difficulty for Hollywood and the whole of Western films is at the cultural level but also by the emergence of this industry in the south-Asian continent which exceeds today largely its borders in particular by strong popularity in France, Great Britain and American. Source: CNC Information, No 283,2002, Paris: National center of Cinematography. City in Allen J. SCOTT, “Hollywood and the World: The Geography off Motion-Picture Distribution and Marketing”, Review off International Political Economy , 11 (1), Feb. 2004, p. 55.

The American cinema, an approach more commercial than cultural?

In the United States, it seems that cinema industry was considered in a purely commercial design since its beginnings. Because if the films are regarded as cultural goods, it is nevertheless an economic logic which prevails. Thus, as of 1915 the Supreme court declared that “the diffusion of films is purely and simply trade, driven by and developed for the profit. ” In fact, it is difficult to speak about the American cinema without thinking of the conclusion of André Malraux, in Esquisse of a psychology of the cinema : “In addition, the cinema is an industry”.

The American majors , unified under the face of the MPA, thus try to impose cultural matter free trade, and fight against the concept of “cultural diversity”, argument often used by other States (and in particular France) to impose protectionist barriers on American films.

The blockbusters

Thus, in Hollywood, they are the spectacular blockbusters , films generally including a vice of special Effets and actors famous, who became the standard. This does not want to say that the large studios do not produce today than films of this kind, but that the most profitable films belong almost all to this category, and in particular because they like public of the whole world. The example of the year 2004 with the cinema is particularly revealing, the great majority of twenty films having garnered the most receipts with the American boxoffice being spectacular productions (in particular Spider-Man 2 , the Day according to , or I, Robot ). Only the Passion of Christ and Fahrenheit 9/11 were equipped with limited budgets, but their success is explained mainly by the controversy, even the scandal, caused at the time of their exit.

The general tendency since many years thus anchors American cinema industry in a higher bid of means and technology, which makes all the more difficult the competition for the American or foreign independent producers, who do not have in general means as considerable as those of the majors of Hollywood.

The opposition French cinema/Hollywood cinema

One often defines the cinema carried out in the United States in opposition to the French Cinéma: the first would be a cinema of Divertissement, intended for a public not Cinéphile, and the second would have goals more artistic than commercial. Reality is in fact more complex: the American cinema has a history almost also long, and in any case as varied as that of the French cinema, during which many Réalisateur S, Acteur S but also producing S gave to the North-American cinema its noble letters and makes it possible without any doubt to qualify it artistic movement. In addition, there exists in the United States even a of the same opposition order between the Hollywood cinema and the New Yorkean Cinéma, city where the New York Film Critics Circle Awards constitutes the anteroom of the Oscars.

In France, a prestigious festival is entirely devoted to the American cinema, with Deauville (Calvados), since 1975 with the cinema.

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