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Chapter 7
Movies and the Impact of Images
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Chapter Opener: Star Wars marks a cultural shift in film, pushing the boundaries of special
effects and demonstrating the marriage of technology and storytelling.
I. The Early History of Movies
Creative and bold innovators have collaborated to constantly advance the industry.
A. Advances in Film Technology. The concept of film goes back as far as the time of
Leonardo da Vinci.
1. Muybridge and Goodwin Make Pictures Move. By the late 1800s, a number of
inventors worked on capturing moving images and projecting them.
II. The Evolution of the Hollywood Studio System
By the late 1910s, the movie industry’s three basic economic divisions—production,
distribution, and exhibition (the so-called three pillars)—were controlled by five major
studios: Paramount, MGM, Warner Brothers, Twentieth Century Fox, and RKO.
A. Edison’s Attempt to Control the Industry. Edison formed a cartel of French and U.S.
companies in 1908, but a lawsuit in 1917 broke up the trust.
B. A Closer Look at the Three Pillars. Competition sparked tension between the forces of
centralization who wanted to control all pillars and those of independence.
1. Production. By the 1920s, film production had evolved into the studio system,
which turned moviemaking into an assembly-line process, with stars, directors,
III. Hollywood’s Golden Age: The Development of Style
A distinct moviemaking style developed that was characterized by narrative techniques,
sound, and movie genres.
A. Narrative Techniques in the Silent Era. Moviemaking became an art form with the use
of techniques like close-ups, fast-paced editing, and symbolic imagery.
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B. Augmenting Images with Sound. The introduction of sound further established
moviemaking’s style and dramatically increased attendance.
C. Inside the Hollywood System: Setting the Standard for Narrative Style. Three
ingredients give Hollywood movies their distinctive flavor: narrative, genre, and author.
1. Hollywood Narratives. The two basic components of the narrative are the story
(what happens to whom) and the discourse (how the story is told).
2. Hollywood Genres. These standard categories, like westerns, comedies, and horror,
enable the industry to create a set of formulas (product standardization) and a
IV. The Transformation of the Hollywood Studio System
Starting in the late 1940s, significant cultural and social changes—such as suburbanization
and television—had begun to reshape the moviegoing experience.
A. The Paramount Decision. This 1948 court ruling forced the big studios to end vertical
integration.
V. The Economics of the Movie Business
The Hollywood studio system has adapted to change and continues to make money.
A. Making Money on Movies Today. The cost of making movies has increased, so the
studios have had to find more ways to make money.
1. Box-Office Sales. Studios get about 40 percent of ticket sales.
2. DVD/Video Sales and Rentals. These sales start three to four months after a movie’s
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5. Independent-Film Distribution. Studios make money by distributing the work of
independent filmmakers.
6. Licensing and Product Placement. Sales of toys based on movie characters and fees
paid by companies that want their products featured in movies are another revenue
stream.
B. Conglomerations and Synergy in the Movie Industry. The “Big Six” (media
conglomerates) currently rule the Hollywood commercial film business. They make the
VI. The Movies in a Democratic Society
Movies function as consensus narratives by providing shared cultural experiences. This
power raises questions about the effect of American films on other countries and on our own
democracy.
LECTURE TOPICS
1. Using a Muybridge animation and early Edison films, describe the novelty of early film
images.
2. Lecture on the development of the American movie industry and how the major studios
gained control of production, distribution, and exhibition. Consider drawing parallels with the
rise of other media industries.
3. Explain the development of Hollywood storytelling, including Hollywood genres and the
LECTURE SPIN-OFFS
Star Wars
• The enormous success of the 1977 film Star Wars, produced, written, and directed by George
Lucas, changed the culture of the movie industry. As the late film critic Roger Ebert
explained: “Star Wars effectively brought to an end the golden era of early-1970s personal
filmmaking and focused the industry on big-budget special-effects blockbusters, blasting off
a trend we are still living through. . . . In one way or another all the big studios have been
trying to make another Star Wars ever since.”
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segment of the U.S. movie audience—the twelve- to twenty-four-year-old age group—
accounting for 38 percent of theater attendance.
• Another part of the blockbuster mentality created by Star Wars and mimicked by other films
is the way in which movies are made into big-budget summer releases with merchandising
tie-ins and high potential for international distribution. By 2008, the six Star Wars films had
• Star Wars has impacted not only the cultural side of moviemaking but also the technical
form. In the first Star Wars trilogy, produced in the 1970s and 1980s, Lucas developed
technologies now commonplace in moviemaking—digital animation, special effects, and
computer-based film editing. With the second trilogy, Lucas again broke new ground in the
• “It’s official: J. J. Abrams’ Star Wars: The Force Awakens is the highest-grossing film of all
time in North America, not accounting for inflation.” So begins Pamela McClintock’s article
in the Hollywood Reporter on the 2015 film—the first in the Star Wars franchise since
Disney purchased Lucasfilm in 2012. In its first twenty days, Star Wars: The Force Awakens
earned $764.4 million. By comparison, the previous top
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North American film, Avatar, took
seven months to earn about $750 million. (Star Wars: The Force Awakens also earned more
than $10 million in later rereleases in movie theaters.)
(Source: Pamela McClintock, “Box Office: ‘Star Wars: Force Awakens’ Tops ‘Avatar’ to
Become No. 1 Film of All Time in North America,” Hollywood Reporter, January 6, 2016,
www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/box-office-starwars-force-852274.)
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Movies and Current Events
Avatar, released in 2009, which is mentioned in the chapter opener as a movie that heralded a
new era in filmmaking through technical innovation, was widely perceived as a criticism of the
U.S. war in Iraq, and it also contained strong environmental themes that resonated with the
“Green” movement. Avatar illustrates how movies reflect and sometimes drive popular culture
and public opinion on current events. Examples abound through Hollywood history dating back
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like 1934’s It Happened One Night, which featured a somewhat naïve heiress being rescued from
a loveless marriage by a down-to-earth newspaper reporter. Comedies, especially those that
mocked the wealthy, helped Americans take their minds off the economy. (It Happened One
Night is also famous for a scene in which Clark Gable removes his dress shirt and reveals that he
is not wearing an undershirt. According to Time magazine, undershirt sales dropped 40 percent in
that year.)
The Early History of Movies
• Thomas Edison’s 1911 prediction about the promise of motion pictures as an educational tool
was: “[They will make schools] so attractive that a big army with swords and guns couldn’t
keep boys and girls out of it. You’ll have to lick ’em to keep ’em away.”
Exhibition
Consider how our moviegoing experiences have changed over several generations:
• 1931: There is no television yet. We are enjoying Mary Pickford in Kiki. What’s more, we’re
sitting in a large downtown movie palace that comfortably seats more than four thousand
filmgoers. An afternoon or evening at the movies is part of a weekly ritual that includes
watching a cartoon, a newsreel, a film short or travel documentary, and a feature-length
movie.
• 1961: There are no VCRs yet. We are heading to our favorite downtown theater along with
throngs of teens and families, or we’re piling into hot rods and station wagons to go to the
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Augmenting Images with Sound
Two classic feature films, Sunset Boulevard (1950) and Singin’ in the Rain (1952), chronicle the
film industry’s transition from silent pictures to sound. Singin’ in the Rain has a few hilarious
scenes where film producers try to work with an actress trying to adapt to talking pictures. She
Global Cinema
• Foreign films are becoming less and less available in U.S. theaters, as independent features,
which are deemed more accessible than subtitled movies, grow in number. There have been
so few foreign commercial releases in recent years that Film Comment magazine has
compiled a list of the Top 150 unreleased foreign-language films of the 1990s. The golden
era of international cinema was in the 1960s, when U.S. audiences waited impatiently for the
latest films by screenwriters like Jean-Luc Godard and Akira Kurosawa. More foreign titles
are being created than ever before, however.
Independent Films
Developed by Robert Redford as an alternative (non-Hollywood) venue for independent
The Economics of the Movie Business
• One of the reigning champions of product placement is MGM’s James Bond series. In the
2002 Bond film Die Another Day, placements were sold to more than twenty companies,
which paid more than $120 million. Placed products included Swarovski crystal chandeliers,
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1. Classic: The product is incorporated into the stage set (e.g., an iPhone on 30 Rock).
2. Corporate: The product’s brand name is highlighted in the film’s or show’s dialogue
(e.g., when Hugh Grant talked about “Googling” his love interest, Drew Barrymore, in
the 2007 film Music and Lyrics).
3. Evocative: Placement doesn’t show or cite the product, but its packaging or shape is
Convergence: Movies Adjust to the Digital Turn
• A 1999 New York Times essay compared the movement in film from celluloid to digital with
the transformation in painting from fresco to oil paint on canvas, which took place in the
fifteenth century. The piece was written by Walter Murch, a sound-mix editor based in
Hollywood (and an Oscar winner for editing and sound mixing for The English Patient).
Fresco was a painstaking process that required amazing preparation and a precise
knowledge of pigments. No revisions were possible, and it was a collaborative process
overseen by the artist. Oil paint on canvas freed artists to paint wherever and whenever they
wished, without having to worry about the paint color changing when it dried. They could
paint over areas they didn’t like and have more control over every aspect of their work,
• Digital filmmaking has significant advantages:
• A foot of film costs $1 to buy and process versus 1.5 cents for digital tape; the cost of
processing a conventional film is roughly one hundred times that of producing high-
definition video.
• Because tape is so cheap, filmmakers using digital cameras can shoot more footage,
which gives them more choices in the editing room. Because tapes run up to an hour, they
also enable directors to keep cameras rolling longer than the ten-minute maximum for a
film reel. Directors can also review a shot immediately after it is completed rather than
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• Studios are the big beneficiaries of digitally distributed films. They can save a couple of
million dollars on each movie they release if it goes to theaters as digital files (via satellite,
high-speed network, or on hard drives). Currently, studios ship most film prints at around
• To pay for this investment, theater chains are selling more ads, which play before a movie.
These ads are increasingly slicker and much more expensive, featuring blue-chip marketers
such as Revlon and American Express (rather than concessions or local car dealerships).
Advertisers are even developing two-minute mini-movies just for movie audiences that star
actors such as Julianne Moore and Halle Berry. Moreover, one consumer study found that
• One significant savings that will result from going digital will come from having fewer
employees. Only one operator is needed to ready a digital film for screening: One has to
simply select the appropriate trailers (and ads) from the computer listings.
• The time it takes for a film-to-video release has decreased from six months to between four
and five months—or less, particularly for digital release. The Star Wars film Rogue One, for
example, came out in theaters mid-December 2016; was released on Digital HD on March 24,
2017; and was available on Blu-ray and DVD on April 4, 2017. (See Andrew Liptak, “Rogue
• Movie companies are also experimenting with simultaneous release of films online and in
theaters. In 2014, Sony canceled the release of The Interview, a comedy about the
assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, after terrorist threats and hacking of the
company’s computer system. Six days later, though, Sony announced that it would release the
movie online and on DVD with a limited release in theaters. The movie quickly became
Sony’s most successful digital release, suggesting that it might be a model for future releases.
Many in the industry are cautious about damaging attendance at theaters, however.
(Sources: Sebastian Anthony, “The Interview Breaks Online Movie Sales Records: A Case
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MEDIA LITERACY DISCUSSIONS AND EXERCISES
IN BRIEF: IN THE THEATER OR AT HOME?
(Note: A version of this activity is now available on LaunchPad for Media Essentials. See the
Media Literacy Practice Activity for this chapter.)
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In class, make a tally of students who prefer to attend movies in the theater and students who
prefer to watch movies at home on DVD, Blu-ray, or a device. Discuss the advantages and
IN DEPTH: FILM SUCCESS: FINDING THE BALANCE BETWEEN FAMILIARITY AND
NOVELTY
Pre-Exercise Question: Why do some films succeed and others fail?
This discussion/exercise investigates the factors that determine a movie’s success with
audiences. To begin, select two recent big-budget films (one success and one flop) and two small
independent films (one that became commercially successful and one that never made a huge
impact).
1. Description. Isolate the major elements of the four films: What genre (or combination of
genres) does each film belong to? What are the major attractions of each film: popular actors,
renowned directors, special effects, a familiar story, an unfamiliar story? Review the
CLASSROOM MEDIA RESOURCES
VIDEOS/DVDS/CDS
The Artist (2011, 100 minutes). The arrival of talking pictures and the effect on the stars.
Behind the Screens: Hollywood Goes Hypercommercial (2000, 40 minutes). Tracking the
phenomenal rise in product placements, tie-ins with fast-food chains, and mammoth toy
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The Jazz Singer (1927, 89 minutes). The first feature-length film with spoken dialogue.
Midnight Ramble: The Story of the Black Film Industry (1994, 55 minutes). This program
examines the role of race movies—films that featured all-black casts—in American culture
from the turn of the century through the 1940s. The documentary illustrates that race movies
The Monster That Ate Hollywood (1999, 60 minutes). A Frontline coproduction with Riot
Pictures. PBS’s Frontline takes a look at America’s changing movie capital, Hollywood, and
POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold (2011, 87 minutes). Morgan Spurlock
exposes product placement in movies and television.
The Story of Film: An Odyssey (2011). 15-part TV mini-series about the history of film.
Sunset Boulevard (1950, 110 minutes). A screenwriter hired to rework a former silent film star’s
script develops a dangerous relationship.
Trumbo (2015, 124 minutes). Biopic about Dalton Trumbo, one of the “Hollywood 10,” who
wrote two Oscar-winning scripts (anonymously) while blacklisted. Cast includes Bryan
WEB SITES
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A nonprofit organization devoted to preserving America’s film heritage.
News and numbers of the film industry
A Web site devoted to box-office tallies.
Box-office reporting service. Owned and operated by IMDB.
Hollywood and media news.
Represents film and television directors in the U.S. and abroad.
Sponsors the Golden Globe awards.
Hollywood-based trade newspaper that covers the movie industry.
An online database for film festivals and other filmmaking competitions.
Known colloquially as IMDB, a comprehensive online database of films both past and
The MPAA is a nonprofit business and trade association that administers and monitors a
rating system from G to NC-17.
Trade organization representing theaters across the U.S. and the globe.
Actors union.
Film industry insight.
One of the most famous entertainment-industry newspapers.
Digital news organization that covers the business entertainment and media.
Labor union representing TV and film writers.
FURTHER READING
Bart, Peter. The Gross: The Hits, the Flops—The Summer That Ate Hollywood. New York: St.
Martin’s Press, 1999.
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Corrigan, Timothy, and Patricia White. The Film Experience: An Introduction. 5th ed. New York:
Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2018.
Epstein, Edward Jay. The Big Picture: The New Logic of Money and Power in Hollywood. New
York: Random House, 2005.
Friedrich, Otto. City of Nets: a Portrait of Hollywood in the 1940's. New York: Harper Perennial,
2014.
Gomery, Douglas. Shared Pleasures: A History of Movie Presentation in the United States.
Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1992.
Gunning, Thomas. D. W. Griffith and the Origins of American Narrative Film. Urbana, IL:
University of Illinois Press, 1991.
International Motion Picture Almanac. 85th ed. New York: Quigley, 2015.
Levy, Emanuel. Cinema of Outsiders: The Rise of American Independent Film. New York: New
York UP, 2001.
