Film Industry: Then and Now

Film:

Then and Now

The film industry has always been somewhat of a dichotomy. Grounded firmly in both the worlds of art and business the balance of artistic expression and commercialization has been an issue throughout the history of filmmaking. The distinction of these two differing goals and the fact that neither has truly won out over the other in the span of the industry’s existence, demonstrates a lot of information about the nature of capitalism.

The modern film industry was born around the beginning of the twentieth century. On April 23rd 1896 Thomas Edition showed the first publicly-projected motion picture at Koster and Bial’s Music Hall in New York City. From there the film industry had an explosive growth rate. In fact, not only was Thomas Edison the inventor of film but he is also responsible for the birth of media censorship. “The Kiss … was the first film ever made of a couple kissing in cinematic history. May Irwin and John Rice re-enacted a lingering kiss… from their 1895 Broadway stage play The Widow Jones… was also notorious as the first film to be criticized as scandalous and bringing demands for censorship.”1 By 1900 films had already started taking their modern form as story telling narratives became the most popular production instead of documentaries. Between 1910 and 1914 Hollywood was born, annexed by Los Angeles and replaced the East Coast as the center for the new burgeoning film industry. The beginning of the First World War brought European filmmaking to a complete halt and made room for America as the world center for film production2. During this time some of the most influential names in film history made their names.

D.W. Griffith directed some of the most famous films of the early twentieth century including Birth of a Nation, and Intolerance. The more famous of the two, Birth of a Nation was met with mixed reactions. Some called it “an ultimate in motion picture achievement” and “the greatest of all motion pictures” but other disagreed3. The film had a production and advertising budget of roughly $210,000 and a total U.S. box-office gross of $10,000,000.4 The story was based in the revolutionary war, and it was attacked and denounced by pro-African-American groups throughout the nation. It was even credited to the revival of the Ku Klux Klan. Intolerance was released just after Birth of a Nation and was “ahead of its time”5 in more ways than one. As four stories of intolerance and hatred throughout time wove together through the image of Lillian Gish rocking a baby the complex techniques have been said to be brilliant by many modern filmmakers, but audiences at the time found it too confusing and the film ultimately failed.

During this time of film legends, all of the popular themes and practices of today were born. Western movies were made popular at first by the Bronco Billy series in 1907, the New York Times printed its first film review in 1908, and in 1910 Thomas Edison’s kinetophone made “talkies” possible. Between 1900 and 1930 the film industry was born and exploded into the minds of the world. German expressionism lead to techniques that were used in future horror films and later film noir. Walt Disney Productions formed in 1929 and was the first company to cater to the child audience.6 Today we still watch Disney films, and many of the early techniques live on, what has truly changed is the dynamics of the business of film.

Today the most desired and most profitable audiences have been children. While Walt Disney was the first to see the potential within this market it is the staple market of many of the top media conglomerates. According to authorities in youth marketing in 2002 alone American children influenced consumer sales by $630 billion. “[In 1998] Viacom earned more from its Nickelodeon channel than from its Paramount Studio. Fox’s top earning film for the year was the animated Ice Age… Sony meanwhile earned more from its PlayStation than from all its movies and television programming combined.” 7

No longer is box-office the main source of revenue for studios as it was in the early days of Hollywood. Today only 6 conglomerates are responsible for almost all of the world’s filmmaking. Lucrative licensing deals, merchandising, spin-offs, television shows and so forth have become more important than the actual box-office generated. According to Jay Epstein