978-1305580985 Chapter 7

Chapter 7 – Movies: Digitizing Dreams

Chapter Outline

• Movies Mirror the Culture

• Inventors Capture Motion on Film

Early Inventors Nurture the Movie Industry

Marey and Muybridge

Thomas Edison

William K.L. Dickson

Auguste and Louis Lumière

Edison Launches American Movies

• Filmmakers Turn Novelty into Art

Georges Méliès

Edwin S. Porter

• Studio System and Independent Moviemakers Flourish

• Movies Become Big Business

Studios Move to Hollywood

Distributors Insist on Block Booking

United Artists Champions the Independents

Moviemakers Use Self-Regulation to Respond to Scandals

New Technology Brings the Talkies

• Big Five Studios Dominate

• Labor Unions Organize Movie Workers

• Movies Glitter During the Golden Age

• Congress and the Courts Change Hollywood

The House Un-American Activities Committee

• United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., et al.

• Movies Lose Their Audience to Television

Wide-Screen and 3-D Movies

Changes in Censorship

Spectaculars

Movie Ratings

• Movies and Money Today

Ticket Prices Rise and Ticket Sales Drop

Ancillary Rights Fund Projects

• Movies at Work

• Digital Technology Drives the Business

Production

Distribution

Exhibition

• Emerging Markets and Mergers Bring New Opportunities

Global Influence

Merging Media Production

Suggested Activities, Discussions, and Activities

1. Show a film clip from The Birth of a Nation. Discuss Griffith’s contributions

to film history, as well as his racist portrayals in the movie.

2. Ask your students to read Variety online to discover how current films are

faring at the box office. Have them bring specific numbers to class.

3. Invite someone in your area who has worked in films—an actor, director,

writer, costumer, special effects or behind-the-scenes person—to class to

discuss his or her experiences.

4. Ask the students to use the Internet to locate a specific film studio—a

major one or a smaller, independent studio anywhere in the world. Each

student should select a different studio. Find some basic information about

the company then select a specific film. What did they learn about the film

and the company? Have the students discuss their findings in small

groups or write brief papers

5. Ask students, individually or in groups, to outline a plot for a movie they

believe would attract moviegoers. Have them describe the plot and

describe the type of person who would be interested in such a movie. Ask

them to imagine any positive or negative effects their movie might have on

society, particularly on the audience they think would view it. Have them

report this to their classmates in class or via an online forum.

Activity Pages

Use the following activity pages as class handouts for exercises and to

accompany some of the classroom Ideas described above.

Movie Studios on the Internet

Use the Internet to locate a specific film studio—Disney, Sony Pictures

Entertainment, Viacom/Paramount, 20th Century–Fox or a smaller, independent

studio. Locate some basic information about the company, then select a specific

film production. Download and print the information you gathered, then

summarize it in a brief paper, answering the questions below.

Name of studio:

General information about the studio/company:

Specific film:

Release date:

Specific information about the film:

How does the studio present itself online? How is it different than the other ways it

promotes itself or its films? Be specific.

Birth of a Film Controversy

After watching a film clip from D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation, read the

following review, which ran in The New York Times on March 4, 1915. Discuss in

class The Times’ review, the basic plot of the movie, and Griffith’s contributions to

film history, as well as his racist portrayals in the movie.

“The Birth of a Nation”

Film Version of Dixon’s “The Clansman”

Presented at the Liberty.

“The Birth of a Nation,” an elaborate new motion picture taken on an ambitious scale,

was presented for the first time last evening at the Liberty Theatre. With the addition of

much preliminary historical matter, it is a film version of some of the melodramatic and

inflammatory material contained in “The Clansman,” by Thomas Dixon.

A great deal might be said concerning the spirit revealed in Mr. Dixon’s review of the

unhappy chapter of Reconstruction and concerning the sorry service rendered by its

plucking at old wounds. But of the film as a film, it may be reported simply that it is an

impressive new illustration of the scope of the motion picture camera.

An extraordinarily large number of people enter into this historical pageant, and some

of the scenes are most effective. The Civil War battle pictures, taken in panorama,

represent enormous effort and achieve a striking degree of success. One interesting

scene stages a reproduction of the auditorium of Ford’s Theatre in Washington, and

shows on the screen the murder of Lincoln. In terms of purely pictorial value the best

work is done in those stretches of the film that follow the night riding of the men of the

Ku–Klux Klan, who look like a company of avenging spectral crusaders sweeping along

the moonlit roads.

“The Birth of a Nation,” which was prepared for the screen under the direction of D.

W. Griffith, takes a full evening for its unfolding and marks the advent of the two dollar

movie. That is the price set for the more advantageous seats in the rear of the Liberty’s

auditorium.

It was at this same theatre that the stage version of “The Clansman” had a brief run a

little more than nine years ago, as Mr. Dixon himself recalled in his curtain speech last

evening in the interval between the two acts. Mr. Dixon also observed that he would

have allowed none but the son of a Confederate soldier to direct the film version of “The

Clansman.”

Going to the Movies

Interview someone who is old enough to remember going to the movies in the

1940s or 1950s. Ask them the following questions (and any others you can think

of) and record the answers. Be prepared to share the information in class or write

an essay based on what you learned. Compare your interviewee’s answers to your

own answers to these questions. How are they similar? How do they differ?

• When do you remember seeing your first movie? What was the movie? What did you

think of the experience?

• How often did you go to the movies? What did it cost?

• When did you see your first color film? What was the film?

• What was your favorite movie as a child? As a teenager? As a young adult? What is

your favorite movie today?

• Who were your favorite movie stars as a child? As a teenager? As a young adult?

Why?

• Did you ever go see the same film over and over again? Which ones? Why?

• How did the Depression or World War II affect your movie–going habits? Did you see

movies less often? What films do you remember from those days?

• Did you read movie magazines as a teenager or young person? Which ones? Do you

read any movie magazines today? Which ones?

• Who were your favorite actors or actresses as a young person? Why?

• What movies have you seen recently that you enjoyed? What do they have in common

with the films you remember enjoying as a young person?

• Do you have favorite actors, actresses or directors? Who are they? Why?

• What do you like about movies today? What don’t you like? Why?

• How have movies changed in your lifetime? How have movie theaters changed? Which

do you prefer?

• Do you own a DVD player? Do you mostly watch movies on video now or in the

theater? Do you own any movie videos or DVDs? Which ones? Do you buy videos or

DVDs for others? Who?

• Do you go to movie theaters more or less frequently than you used to? Why?

• If you could buy it (them), which film(s) would you own and watch today?

• Do you stream movies and/or subscribe to Netflix? How have the availability of these

services affected your willingness to go to the theater to see a movie?

Chapter 7 Quiz

Multiple Choice

1. Eadweard Muybridge:

a. invented the kinetoscope.

b. opened the first nickelodeon.

c. directed the first narrative film.

d. first photographed motion.

2. D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation:

a. cost five times more to make than any other American film up until that time.

b. presented a dramatic view of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

c. portrayed racial stereotypes.

d. All of these answers are correct.

3. The first feature-length motion picture with sound:

a. premiered in 1905.

b. was produced by United Artists.

c. was The Jazz Singer.

d. was Birth of a Nation.

4. During the 1930s:

a. box office receipts sagged because of the Depression.

b. labor unions for actors and screenwriters formed.

c. the Hays production code was in full force.

d. All of these answers are correct.

5. The MPAA began a rating system:

a. modeled on Italy’s system.

b. modeled on Great Britain’s system.

c. as the result of a lobbying campaign in the 1990s launched by the wife of Vice

President Al Gore.

d. at the request of major movie stars.

6. In the 1950s:

a. the number of television sets quadrupled.

b. movie attendance declined 45 percent and thousands of movie theaters

closed.

c. movie makers sought to attract viewers with technological improvements and

gimmicks.

d. All of these answers are correct.

7. Which of these 1940s events helped reverse the growth of the movie

industry that began in 1930?

a. the invention of radio

b. the hearings of the House Un-American Activities Committee

c. the consolidation of major movie studios

d. World War II

8. The most active period for portrayals of African Americans in movies

was:

a. 1900–1920

b. 1910–1950

c. 1960–2000

d. 1980–2010

9. Which of the following is a direct responsibility of the producer in the

movie industry?

a. arranging funding for a movie project

b. writing the script

c. publicizing the movie

d. managing day–to-day sets, filming and editing

10. Which film industry personality was linked with scandals that led to the

establishment of the film industry’s Hays Office to impose self-regulation

on the movie industry in the 1920s and 1930s?

a. William S. Hart

b. Charlie Chaplin

c. “Fatty” Arbuckle

d. Florence Lawrence

True/False

1. Étienne Jules Marey invented the first motion picture camera in 1882.

2. Block booking allowed theater managers to pick and choose the movies they

wanted to show.

3. The Hollywood Ten were distinguished writers, directors, and producers who

supported blacklisting.

4. Movies today are the most fragmented media industry—created by one group,

funded by another, sold by a third group, and distributed by a fourth.

ANS: T

5. According to the Impact / Profile box, “Lighting Up a Black Screen: Early ‘Race

Films’ Pioneered the Art of Breaking Stereotypes,” Oscar Micheaux’s Within Our

Gates was designed to counter the racism in The Birth of a Nation.

ANS: T

Essay Questions

1. Hollywood’s response to the movie scandals of the 1920s was self-

regulation. Which events affected the evolution of self-regulation from

1922 to 1956?

2. Discuss how the relationship between movies and television today differs

from the relationship after television was introduced in the 1950s.

3. Discuss how the movie industry moved from almost complete vertical

integration in the 1930s to the most fragmented of media industries today,

with different groups creating, funding, distributing, and exhibiting films.

4. Discuss how developing technologies in the 21st century are supporting

and threatening the movie industry’s production, distribution, and

exhibition stages.

5. Explain how ancillary rights and ancillary products help support the film

industry being squeezed by entertainment competition, dwindling

audiences, changing audience demographics, piracy, and other drains on

revenues.