Classical Hollywood cinema
Encyclopedia
Classical Hollywood cinema or the classical Hollywood narrative, are terms used in film history
which designates both a visual and sound style for making motion pictures and a mode of production used in the American film industry
between roughly the 1910s and the early 1960s.
Classical style is fundamentally built on the principle of continuity editing
or "invisible" style. That is, the camera and the sound recording should never call attention to themselves (as they might in films from earlier periods, other countries or in a modernist or postmodernist work).
in American cinema in the late 1920s to the early 1960s, movies were prolifically issued by the Hollywood studios. The start of the Golden Age was arguably when The Jazz Singer
was released in 1927 and increased box-office profits for films as sound was introduced to feature films. Most Hollywood pictures adhered closely to a genre—Western, slapstick
comedy, musical, animated cartoon, biopic (biographical picture)—and the same creative teams often worked on films made by the same studio.
After The Jazz Singer was released in 1927, Warner Brothers gained huge success and was able to acquire their own string of movie theaters, after purchasing Stanley Theaters and First National Productions in 1928; MGM had also owned a string of theaters since forming in 1924, known as Loews Theaters, and the Fox film Corporation owned the Fox Theatre strings as well. Also, RKO, another company that owned theaters, had formed in 1928 from a merger between Keith-Orpheum Theaters and the Radio Corporation of America[3].
RKO formed in response to the monopoly Western Electric's ERPI had over sound in films as well, and began to use sound in films through their own method known as Photophone [5]. Paramount
, who already acquired Balaban and Katz in 1926, would answer to the success of Warner Bros. and RKO, and buy a number of theaters in the late 1920s as well, before making their final purchase in 1929, through acquiring all the individual theaters belonging to the Cooperative Box Office, located in Detroit, and dominate the Detroit theaters.[4] For instance, Cedric Gibbons
and Herbert Stothart
always worked on MGM films, Alfred Newman
worked at Twentieth Century Fox for twenty years, Cecil B. De Mille's films were almost all made at Paramount, director Henry King
's films were mostly made for Twentieth-Century Fox, etc.
Movie making was still a business, however, and motion picture companies made money by operating under the studio system
. The major studios kept thousands of people on salary—actors, producers, directors, writers, stunt men, craftspersons, and technicians. And they owned hundreds of theaters in cities and towns across America, theaters that showed their films and that were always in need of fresh material. In 1930, MPDDA
President Will Hays
also founded the Hays (Production) Code, which followed censorship
guidelines and went into effect after government threats of censorship expanded by 1930. [6] However the code was never enforced until 1934, after the new Catholic Church organization The Legion of Decency - appalled by Mae West
's very successful sexual appearances in She Done Him Wrong
and I'm No Angel
[7]- threatened a boycott of motion pictures if it did not go into effect [8], and those that didn't obtain a seal of approval from the Production Code Administration
had to pay a $25,000 fine and could not profit in the theaters, as the MPDDA owned every theater in the country through the Big Five studios [9].
Throughout the early 1930s, risque films and salacious advertising, became widespread in the short period known as Pre-Code Hollywood. MGM dominated the industry and had the top stars in Hollywood, and was also credited for creating the Hollywood star system altogether[10]. MGM stars included at various times "King of Hollywood" Clark Gable
, Norma Shearer
, Greta Garbo
, Joan Crawford
, Jean Harlow
, Gary Cooper
, Mary Pickford
, Henry Fonda
, Marilyn Monroe
, Elizabeth Taylor
, Judy Garland
, Ava Gardner
, James Stewart
, Katharine Hepburn
, Vivien Leigh
, Grace Kelly
, Gene Kelly
, Gloria Stuart
, Fred Astaire
, Ginger Rogers
, John Wayne
, Barbara Stanwyck
, John Barrymore
, Audrey Hepburn
and Buster Keaton
[11]. Another great achievement of American cinema during this era came through Walt Disney
's animation. In 1937, Disney created the most successful film of its time, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
[12].
Many film historians have remarked upon the many great works of cinema that emerged from this period of highly regimented film-making. One reason this was possible is that, with so many movies being made, not every one had to be a big hit. A studio could gamble on a medium-budget feature with a good script and relatively unknown actors: Citizen Kane
, directed by Orson Welles
and often regarded as the greatest film of all time, fits that description. In other cases, strong-willed directors like Howard Hawks
, Alfred Hitchcock
and Frank Capra
battled the studios in order to achieve their artistic visions. The apogee of the studio system may have been the year 1939, which saw the release of such classics as The Wizard of Oz
, Gone with the Wind
, Stagecoach, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
, Young Mr. Lincoln
, Wuthering Heights
, Only Angels Have Wings
, Ninotchka
, Gunga Din
, and The Roaring Twenties
. Among the other films from the Golden Age period that are now considered to be classics: Casablanca
, The Adventures of Robin Hood
, It's a Wonderful Life
, It Happened One Night
, King Kong
, Citizen Kane
, Some Like It Hot
, All About Eve
, The Searchers
, Breakfast At Tiffany's, North by Northwest
, Dinner at Eight
, Rebel Without a Cause
, Double Indemnity, Mutiny on the Bounty
, City Lights
, Red River, The Manchurian Candidate
, The Bishop's Wife
, Singin' in the Rain
, The Great Escape
, Goodbye Mr. Chips, Roman Holiday
, Jezebel, and Sabrina
.
, has been heavily influenced by the ideas of the Renaissance
and its resurgence of mankind as the focal point.
Thus, classical narration progresses always through psychological motivation, i.e. by the will of a human character and its struggle with obstacles towards a defined goal. The aspects of space and time are subordinated to the narrative element which is usually composed of two lines of action: A romance intertwined with a more generic one such as business or, in the case of Alfred Hitchcock
films, solving a crime.
Time in classical Hollywood is continuous, since non-linearity calls attention to the illusory workings of the medium. The only permissible manipulation of time in this format is the flashback
. It is mostly used to introduce a memory sequence of a character, e.g. Casablanca
.
Likewise, the treatment of space in classic Hollywood strives to overcome or conceal the two-dimensionality of film ("invisible style") and is strongly centered upon the human body. The majority of shots in a classical film focus on gesture
s or facial expression
s (medium-long and medium shot
s). Andre Bazin
once compared classical film to a photographed play in that the events seem to exist objectively and that cameras only give us the best view of the whole play.
This treatment of space consists of four main aspects: centering, balancing, frontality and depth. Persons or objects of significance are mostly in the center part of the picture frame
and never out of focus. Balancing refers to the visual composition, i.e. characters are evenly distributed throughout the frame. The action is subtly addressed towards the spectator (frontality) and set
, lighting (mostly three-point lighting
) and costumes are designed to separate foreground from the background (depth).
The characters in Classical Hollywood Cinema typically are the causal agents. They also have clearly definable traits. They are active and goal oriented.
and the star system
, which standardized the way movies were produced. All film workers (actors, directors, etc.) were employees of a particular film studio. This resulted in a certain uniformity to film style: directors were encouraged to think of themselves as employees rather than artists, and hence auteurs did not flourish (although some directors, such as Alfred Hitchcock
, John Ford
, Howard Hawks
, and Orson Welles
, worked within this system and still fulfilled their artistic self).
. Hollywood classicism gradually declined with the collapse of the studio system, the advent of television, the growing popularity of auteurism among directors, and the increasing influence of foreign films and independent film
making.
The 1948 U.S. Supreme Court decision
, which outlawed the practice of block booking
and the above-mentioned ownership and operation of theater chains by the major film studios (as it was believed to constitute anti-competitive and monopolistic trade practices) was seen as a major blow to the studio system. This was because it firstly cleared the way for a growing number of independent producers (some of them the actors themselves) and studios to produce their film product free of major studio interference, and secondly because it destroyed the original business model utilized by the studios who struggled to adapt.
"At the time of the Court decision, everyone said the quality, consistency, and availability of movies would go up and prices would fall. Quite the opposite happened. By 1955, the number of produced films had fallen by 25 percent. More than 4,200 theaters (or 23 percent of the total) had shut their doors. More than half of those remaining were unable to earn a profit. They could not afford to rent and exhibit the best and most costly films, the ones most likely to compete with television."
History of film
The history of film is the historical development of the medium known variously as cinema, motion pictures, film, or the movies.The history of film spans over 100 years, from the latter part of the 19th century to the present day...
which designates both a visual and sound style for making motion pictures and a mode of production used in the American film industry
Cinema of the United States
The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...
between roughly the 1910s and the early 1960s.
Classical style is fundamentally built on the principle of continuity editing
Continuity editing
Continuity editing is the predominant style of film editing and video editing in the post-production process of filmmaking of narrative films and television programs...
or "invisible" style. That is, the camera and the sound recording should never call attention to themselves (as they might in films from earlier periods, other countries or in a modernist or postmodernist work).
The Golden Age
During the Golden Age of Hollywood, which lasted from the end of the silent eraSilent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
in American cinema in the late 1920s to the early 1960s, movies were prolifically issued by the Hollywood studios. The start of the Golden Age was arguably when The Jazz Singer
The Jazz Singer (1927 film)
The Jazz Singer is a 1927 American musical film. The first feature-length motion picture with synchronized dialogue sequences, its release heralded the commercial ascendance of the "talkies" and the decline of the silent film era. Produced by Warner Bros. with its Vitaphone sound-on-disc system,...
was released in 1927 and increased box-office profits for films as sound was introduced to feature films. Most Hollywood pictures adhered closely to a genre—Western, slapstick
Slapstick
Slapstick is a type of comedy involving exaggerated violence and activities which may exceed the boundaries of common sense.- Origins :The phrase comes from the batacchio or bataccio — called the 'slap stick' in English — a club-like object composed of two wooden slats used in Commedia dell'arte...
comedy, musical, animated cartoon, biopic (biographical picture)—and the same creative teams often worked on films made by the same studio.
After The Jazz Singer was released in 1927, Warner Brothers gained huge success and was able to acquire their own string of movie theaters, after purchasing Stanley Theaters and First National Productions in 1928; MGM had also owned a string of theaters since forming in 1924, known as Loews Theaters, and the Fox film Corporation owned the Fox Theatre strings as well. Also, RKO, another company that owned theaters, had formed in 1928 from a merger between Keith-Orpheum Theaters and the Radio Corporation of America[3].
RKO formed in response to the monopoly Western Electric's ERPI had over sound in films as well, and began to use sound in films through their own method known as Photophone [5]. Paramount
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
, who already acquired Balaban and Katz in 1926, would answer to the success of Warner Bros. and RKO, and buy a number of theaters in the late 1920s as well, before making their final purchase in 1929, through acquiring all the individual theaters belonging to the Cooperative Box Office, located in Detroit, and dominate the Detroit theaters.[4] For instance, Cedric Gibbons
Cedric Gibbons
Austin Cedric Gibbons was an Irish American art director who was one of the most important and influential in the field in the history of American film. He also made a great impact on motion picture theater architecture through the 1930s to 1950s, the period considered the golden-era of theater...
and Herbert Stothart
Herbert Stothart
Herbert Stothart was a song writer, arranger, conductor, and composer. He was also nominated for nine Oscars, winning Best Original Score for The Wizard of Oz.-Biography:...
always worked on MGM films, Alfred Newman
Alfred Newman
Alfred Newman was an American composer, arranger, and conductor of music for films.In a career which spanned over forty years, Newman composed music for over two hundred films. He was one of the most respected film score composers of his time, and is today regarded as one of the greatest...
worked at Twentieth Century Fox for twenty years, Cecil B. De Mille's films were almost all made at Paramount, director Henry King
Henry King (director)
Henry King was an American film director.Before coming to film, King worked as an actor in various repertoire theatres, and first started to take small film roles in 1912. He directed for the first time in 1915, and grew to become one of the most commercially successful Hollywood directors of the...
's films were mostly made for Twentieth-Century Fox, etc.
Movie making was still a business, however, and motion picture companies made money by operating under the studio system
Studio system
The studio system was a means of film production and distribution dominant in Hollywood from the early 1920s through the early 1960s. The term studio system refers to the practice of large motion picture studios producing movies primarily on their own filmmaking lots with creative personnel under...
. The major studios kept thousands of people on salary—actors, producers, directors, writers, stunt men, craftspersons, and technicians. And they owned hundreds of theaters in cities and towns across America, theaters that showed their films and that were always in need of fresh material. In 1930, MPDDA
Motion Picture Association of America
The Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. , originally the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America , was founded in 1922 and is designed to advance the business interests of its members...
President Will Hays
Will H. Hays
William Harrison Hays, Sr. , was the namesake of the Hays Code for censorship of American films, chairman of the Republican National Committee and U.S. Postmaster General from 1921 to 1922....
also founded the Hays (Production) Code, which followed censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
guidelines and went into effect after government threats of censorship expanded by 1930. [6] However the code was never enforced until 1934, after the new Catholic Church organization The Legion of Decency - appalled by Mae West
Mae West
Mae West was an American actress, playwright, screenwriter and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned seven decades....
's very successful sexual appearances in She Done Him Wrong
She Done Him Wrong
She Done Him Wrong is a Pre-Code 1933 Paramount Pictures comedy romance film starring Mae West and Cary Grant. Others in the cast include Owen Moore, Gilbert Roland, Noah Beery, Sr., Louise Beavers and Rochelle Hudson....
and I'm No Angel
I'm No Angel
I'm No Angel is Mae West's third motion picture. West received sole story and screenplay credit. A young Cary Grant plays her leading man for the second time. Being Pre-Code, this was one of the few Mae West movies that was not subjected to heavy censorship...
[7]- threatened a boycott of motion pictures if it did not go into effect [8], and those that didn't obtain a seal of approval from the Production Code Administration
Production Code Administration
The Production Code Administration was established by the Motion Picture Association of America in 1934. The PCA required all filmmakers to submit their films for approval before release.-See also:* Pre-Code* Joseph Breen* Will H. Hays...
had to pay a $25,000 fine and could not profit in the theaters, as the MPDDA owned every theater in the country through the Big Five studios [9].
Throughout the early 1930s, risque films and salacious advertising, became widespread in the short period known as Pre-Code Hollywood. MGM dominated the industry and had the top stars in Hollywood, and was also credited for creating the Hollywood star system altogether[10]. MGM stars included at various times "King of Hollywood" Clark Gable
Clark Gable
William Clark Gable , known as Clark Gable, was an American film actor most famous for his role as Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh...
, Norma Shearer
Norma Shearer
Edith Norma Shearer was a Canadian-American actress. Shearer was one of the most popular actresses in North America from the mid-1920s through the 1930s...
, Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo , born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, was a Swedish film actress. Garbo was an international star and icon during Hollywood's silent and classic periods. Many of Garbo's films were sensational hits, and all but three were profitable...
, Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford , born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American actress in film, television and theatre....
, Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow was an American film actress and sex symbol of the 1930s. Known as the "Blonde Bombshell" and the "Platinum Blonde" , Harlow was ranked as one of the greatest movie stars of all time by the American Film Institute...
, Gary Cooper
Gary Cooper
Frank James Cooper, known professionally as Gary Cooper, was an American film actor. He was renowned for his quiet, understated acting style and his stoic, but at times intense screen persona, which was particularly well suited to the many Westerns he made...
, Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford was a Canadian-born motion picture actress, co-founder of the film studio United Artists and one of the original 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
, Henry Fonda
Henry Fonda
Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...
, Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....
, Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...
, Judy Garland
Judy Garland
Judy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage...
, Ava Gardner
Ava Gardner
Ava Lavinia Gardner was an American actress.She was signed to a contract by MGM Studios in 1941 and appeared mainly in small roles until she drew attention with her performance in The Killers . She became one of Hollywood's leading actresses, considered one of the most beautiful women of her day...
, James Stewart
James Stewart
James Stewart was a Hollywood movie actor and USAF brigadier general.James Stewart may also refer to:-Noblemen:*James Stewart, 5th High Steward of Scotland*James Stewart, the Black Knight of Lorn James Stewart (1908–1997) was a Hollywood movie actor and USAF brigadier general.James Stewart...
, Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...
, Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh, Lady Olivier was an English actress. She won the Best Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire , a role she also played on stage in London's West End, as well as for her portrayal of the southern belle Scarlett O'Hara, alongside Clark...
, Grace Kelly
Grace Kelly
Grace Patricia Kelly was an American actress who, in April 1956, married Rainier III, Prince of Monaco, to become Princess consort of Monaco, styled as Her Serene Highness The Princess of Monaco, and commonly referred to as Princess Grace.After embarking on an acting career in 1950, at the age of...
, Gene Kelly
Gene Kelly
Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer...
, Gloria Stuart
Gloria Stuart
Gloria Frances Stuart was an American actress, activist, painter, bonsai artist and fine printer. Over a Hollywood career which spanned, with a long break in the middle, from 1932 until 2004, she appeared on stage, television, and film, for which she was best-known...
, Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
, Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers was an American actress, dancer, and singer who appeared in film, and on stage, radio, and television throughout much of the 20th century....
, John Wayne
John Wayne
Marion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...
, Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck was an American actress. She was a film and television star, known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a strong screen presence, and a favorite of directors including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang and Frank Capra...
, John Barrymore
John Barrymore
John Sidney Blyth , better known as John Barrymore, was an acclaimed American actor. He first gained fame as a handsome stage actor in light comedy, then high drama and culminating in groundbreaking portrayals in Shakespearean plays Hamlet and Richard III...
, Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn was a British actress and humanitarian. Although modest about her acting ability, Hepburn remains one of the world's most famous actresses of all time, remembered as a film and fashion icon of the twentieth century...
and Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton
Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...
[11]. Another great achievement of American cinema during this era came through Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...
's animation. In 1937, Disney created the most successful film of its time, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 film)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a 1937 American animated film based on Snow White, a German fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm. It was the first full-length cel-animated feature in motion picture history, as well as the first animated feature film produced in America, the first produced in full...
[12].
Many film historians have remarked upon the many great works of cinema that emerged from this period of highly regimented film-making. One reason this was possible is that, with so many movies being made, not every one had to be a big hit. A studio could gamble on a medium-budget feature with a good script and relatively unknown actors: Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...
, directed by Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
and often regarded as the greatest film of all time, fits that description. In other cases, strong-willed directors like Howard Hawks
Howard Hawks
Howard Winchester Hawks was an American film director, producer and screenwriter of the classic Hollywood era...
, Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
and Frank Capra
Frank Capra
Frank Russell Capra was a Sicilian-born American film director. He emigrated to the U.S. when he was six, and eventually became a creative force behind major award-winning films during the 1930s and 1940s...
battled the studios in order to achieve their artistic visions. The apogee of the studio system may have been the year 1939, which saw the release of such classics as The Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)
The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed primarily by Victor Fleming. Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, but there were uncredited contributions by others. The lyrics for the songs...
, Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind (film)
Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American historical epic film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer-winning 1936 novel of the same name. It was produced by David O. Selznick and directed by Victor Fleming from a screenplay by Sidney Howard...
, Stagecoach, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is a 1939 American drama film starring Jean Arthur and James Stewart about one man's effect on American politics. It was directed by Frank Capra and written by Sidney Buchman, based on Lewis R. Foster's unpublished story. Mr...
, Young Mr. Lincoln
Young Mr. Lincoln
Young Mr. Lincoln is a 1939 partly fictionalized biography about the early life of President Abraham Lincoln, directed by John Ford and starring Henry Fonda. Ford and producer Darryl F. Zanuck fought for control of the film, to the point where Ford destroyed unwanted takes for fear the studio...
, Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights (1939 film)
Wuthering Heights is a 1939 American black-and-white film directed by William Wyler and produced by Samuel Goldwyn. It is based on the novel, Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. The film depicts only sixteen of the novel's thirty-four chapters, eliminating the second generation of characters. The...
, Only Angels Have Wings
Only Angels Have Wings
Only Angels Have Wings is a movie directed by Howard Hawks, starring Cary Grant and Jean Arthur. It is generally regarded as being among Hawks' finest films, particularly in its portrayal of the professionalism of the pilots, its atmosphere, and the flying sequences.It inspired the 1983 television...
, Ninotchka
Ninotchka
Ninotchka is a 1939 American film made for Metro Goldwyn Mayer by producer and director Ernst Lubitsch which stars Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas. It was written by Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett and Walter Reisch, based on a screen story by Melchior Lengyel. Ninotchka is Greta Garbo's first full...
, Gunga Din
Gunga Din (film)
Gunga Din is a 1939 RKO adventure film directed by George Stevens, loosely based on the poem of the same name by Rudyard Kipling, combined with elements of his novel Soldiers Three...
, and The Roaring Twenties
The Roaring Twenties
The Roaring Twenties is a 1939 crime thriller starring James Cagney, Priscilla Lane, Humphrey Bogart and Gladys George. The movie was directed by Raoul Walsh, and written by Jerry Wald, Richard Macaulay and Robert Rossen based on the story "The World Moves On" by Mark Hellinger...
. Among the other films from the Golden Age period that are now considered to be classics: Casablanca
Casablanca (film)
Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid, and featuring Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Dooley Wilson. Set during World War II, it focuses on a man torn between, in...
, The Adventures of Robin Hood
The Adventures of Robin Hood (film)
The Adventures of Robin Hood is a 1938 American swashbuckler film directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley. Filmed in Technicolor, the picture stars Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, and Claude Rains.-Plot:...
, It's a Wonderful Life
It's a Wonderful Life
It's a Wonderful Life is a 1946 American Christmas drama film produced and directed by Frank Capra and based on the short story "The Greatest Gift" written by Philip Van Doren Stern....
, It Happened One Night
It Happened One Night
It Happened One Night is a 1934 American romantic comedy film with elements of screwball comedy directed by Frank Capra, in which a pampered socialite tries to get out from under her father's thumb, and falls in love with a roguish reporter . The plot was based on the story Night Bus by Samuel...
, King Kong
King Kong (1933 film)
King Kong is a Pre-Code 1933 fantasy monster adventure film co-directed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, and written by Ruth Rose and James Ashmore Creelman after a story by Cooper and Edgar Wallace. The film tells of a gigantic island-dwelling apeman creature called Kong who dies in...
, Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...
, Some Like It Hot
Some Like It Hot
Some Like It Hot is an American comedy film, made in 1958 and released in 1959, which was directed by Billy Wilder and starred Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and George Raft. The supporting cast includes Joe E. Brown, Pat O'Brien and Nehemiah Persoff. The film is a remake by Wilder and I....
, All About Eve
All About Eve
All About Eve is a 1950 American drama film written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, based on the 1946 short story "The Wisdom of Eve", by Mary Orr.The film stars Bette Davis as Margo Channing, a highly regarded but aging Broadway star...
, The Searchers
The Searchers
The Searchers may refer to:* The Searchers , a 1956 American movie** The novel it was based on, by Alan Le May* The Searchers , a music group* The Searchers , a 2009 Iranian television show* A comic from Caliber Comics...
, Breakfast At Tiffany's, North by Northwest
North by Northwest
North by Northwest is a 1959 American thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason, and featuring Leo G. Carroll and Martin Landau...
, Dinner at Eight
Dinner at Eight (film)
Dinner at Eight is a Pre-Code 1933 comedy of manners/drama produced by MGM Studios. The film was adapted to the screen by Frances Marion and Herman J. Mankiewicz from the play by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber, with additional dialogue supplied by Donald Ogden Stewart. Produced by David O...
, Rebel Without a Cause
Rebel Without a Cause
Rebel Without a Cause is a 1955 American drama film about emotionally confused suburban, middle-class teenagers. Directed by Nicholas Ray, it offered both social commentary and an alternative to previous films depicting delinquents in urban slum environments...
, Double Indemnity, Mutiny on the Bounty
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935 film)
Mutiny on the Bounty is a 1935 film starring Charles Laughton and Clark Gable, and directed by Frank Lloyd based on the Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall novel Mutiny on the Bounty.The film was one of the biggest hits of its time...
, City Lights
City Lights
City Lights is a 1931 American silent film and romantic comedy-drama written by, directed by, and starring Charlie Chaplin. It also has the leads Virginia Cherrill and Harry Myers. Although "talking" pictures were on the rise since 1928, City Lights was immediately popular. Today, it is thought of...
, Red River, The Manchurian Candidate
The Manchurian Candidate (1962 film)
The Manchurian Candidate is a 1962 American Cold War political thriller film starring Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh and Angela Lansbury, and featuring Henry Silva, James Gregory, Leslie Parrish and John McGiver...
, The Bishop's Wife
The Bishop's Wife
The Bishop's Wife is a 1947 Samuel Goldwyn romantic comedy feature film starring Cary Grant, Loretta Young, and David Niven in a story about an angel who helps a bishop with his problems. It was released by RKO. The film was adapted by Leonardo Bercovici and Robert E...
, Singin' in the Rain
Singin' in the Rain
Singin' in the Rain is a 1952 American comedy musical film starring Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor and Debbie Reynolds and directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, with Kelly also providing the choreography...
, The Great Escape
The Great Escape (film)
The Great Escape is a 1963 American film about an escape by Allied prisoners of war from a German POW camp during World War II, starring Steve McQueen, James Garner, and Richard Attenborough...
, Goodbye Mr. Chips, Roman Holiday
Roman Holiday
Roman Holiday is a 1953 romantic comedy directed and produced by William Wyler and starring Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn. It was written by John Dighton and Dalton Trumbo, though with Trumbo on the Hollywood blacklist, he did not receive a credit; instead, Ian McLellan Hunter fronted for him...
, Jezebel, and Sabrina
Sabrina (1954 film)
Sabrina is a 1954 comedy-romance film directed by Billy Wilder, adapted for the screen by Wilder, Samuel A. Taylor, and Ernest Lehman from Taylor's play Sabrina Fair...
.
Style
The style of Classical Hollywood cinema, as elaborated by David BordwellDavid Bordwell
David Bordwell is an American film theorist and film historian. Since receiving his PhD from the University of Iowa in 1974, he has written more than fifteen volumes on the subject of cinema including Narration in the Fiction Film , Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema , Making Meaning , and On the...
, has been heavily influenced by the ideas of the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
and its resurgence of mankind as the focal point.
Thus, classical narration progresses always through psychological motivation, i.e. by the will of a human character and its struggle with obstacles towards a defined goal. The aspects of space and time are subordinated to the narrative element which is usually composed of two lines of action: A romance intertwined with a more generic one such as business or, in the case of Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
films, solving a crime.
Time in classical Hollywood is continuous, since non-linearity calls attention to the illusory workings of the medium. The only permissible manipulation of time in this format is the flashback
Flashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
. It is mostly used to introduce a memory sequence of a character, e.g. Casablanca
Casablanca (film)
Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid, and featuring Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Dooley Wilson. Set during World War II, it focuses on a man torn between, in...
.
Likewise, the treatment of space in classic Hollywood strives to overcome or conceal the two-dimensionality of film ("invisible style") and is strongly centered upon the human body. The majority of shots in a classical film focus on gesture
Gesture
A gesture is a form of non-verbal communication in which visible bodily actions communicate particular messages, either in place of speech or together and in parallel with spoken words. Gestures include movement of the hands, face, or other parts of the body...
s or facial expression
Facial expression
A facial expression one or more motions or positions of the muscles in the skin. These movements convey the emotional state of the individual to observers. Facial expressions are a form of nonverbal communication. They are a primary means of conveying social information among humans, but also occur...
s (medium-long and medium shot
Medium shot
In film, a medium shot is a camera shot from a medium distance. The dividing line between "long shot" and "medium shot" is fuzzy, as is the line between "medium shot" and "close-up"...
s). Andre Bazin
André Bazin
André Bazin was a renowned and influential French film critic and film theorist.-Life:Bazin was born in Angers, France, in 1918...
once compared classical film to a photographed play in that the events seem to exist objectively and that cameras only give us the best view of the whole play.
This treatment of space consists of four main aspects: centering, balancing, frontality and depth. Persons or objects of significance are mostly in the center part of the picture frame
Film frame
In filmmaking, video production, animation, and related fields, a film frame or video frame is one of the many still images which compose the complete moving picture...
and never out of focus. Balancing refers to the visual composition, i.e. characters are evenly distributed throughout the frame. The action is subtly addressed towards the spectator (frontality) and set
Set construction
Set construction is the process by which a set designer works in collaboration with the director of a production to create the set for a theatrical, film or television production...
, lighting (mostly three-point lighting
Three-point lighting
Three-point lighting is a standard method used in visual media such as video, film, still photography and computer-generated imagery. By using three separate positions, the photographer can illuminate the shot's subject however desired, while also controlling the shading and shadows produced by...
) and costumes are designed to separate foreground from the background (depth).
The characters in Classical Hollywood Cinema typically are the causal agents. They also have clearly definable traits. They are active and goal oriented.
Production
The mode of production came to be known as the Hollywood studio systemStudio system
The studio system was a means of film production and distribution dominant in Hollywood from the early 1920s through the early 1960s. The term studio system refers to the practice of large motion picture studios producing movies primarily on their own filmmaking lots with creative personnel under...
and the star system
Star system (film)
The star system was the method of creating, promoting and exploiting movie stars in Classical Hollywood cinema. Studios would select promising young actors and glamorise and create personas for them, often inventing new names and even new backgrounds...
, which standardized the way movies were produced. All film workers (actors, directors, etc.) were employees of a particular film studio. This resulted in a certain uniformity to film style: directors were encouraged to think of themselves as employees rather than artists, and hence auteurs did not flourish (although some directors, such as Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
, John Ford
John Ford
John Ford was an American film director. He was famous for both his westerns such as Stagecoach, The Searchers, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and adaptations of such classic 20th-century American novels as The Grapes of Wrath...
, Howard Hawks
Howard Hawks
Howard Winchester Hawks was an American film director, producer and screenwriter of the classic Hollywood era...
, and Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
, worked within this system and still fulfilled their artistic self).
Periodization
While the boundaries are vague, the Classical era is generally held to begin in 1927 with the release of The Jazz SingerThe Jazz Singer (1927 film)
The Jazz Singer is a 1927 American musical film. The first feature-length motion picture with synchronized dialogue sequences, its release heralded the commercial ascendance of the "talkies" and the decline of the silent film era. Produced by Warner Bros. with its Vitaphone sound-on-disc system,...
. Hollywood classicism gradually declined with the collapse of the studio system, the advent of television, the growing popularity of auteurism among directors, and the increasing influence of foreign films and independent film
Independent film
An independent film, or indie film, is a professional film production resulting in a feature film that is produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system. In addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies, independent films are also produced...
making.
The 1948 U.S. Supreme Court decision
United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc.
United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 334 US 131 was a landmark United States Supreme Court anti-trust case that decided the fate of movie studios owning their own theatres and holding exclusivity rights on which theatres would...
, which outlawed the practice of block booking
Block booking
Block booking is a system of selling multiple films to a theater as a unit. Block booking was the prevailing practice among Hollywood's major studios from the turn of the 1930s until it was outlawed by the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc....
and the above-mentioned ownership and operation of theater chains by the major film studios (as it was believed to constitute anti-competitive and monopolistic trade practices) was seen as a major blow to the studio system. This was because it firstly cleared the way for a growing number of independent producers (some of them the actors themselves) and studios to produce their film product free of major studio interference, and secondly because it destroyed the original business model utilized by the studios who struggled to adapt.
"At the time of the Court decision, everyone said the quality, consistency, and availability of movies would go up and prices would fall. Quite the opposite happened. By 1955, the number of produced films had fallen by 25 percent. More than 4,200 theaters (or 23 percent of the total) had shut their doors. More than half of those remaining were unable to earn a profit. They could not afford to rent and exhibit the best and most costly films, the ones most likely to compete with television."