Introduction to Film Studies

Jill Nelmes, Jill Nelmes

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136777141
• Edition: 5
• Topic: Médias et arts de la scène
• Subtopic: Film et vidéo

I ntroduction to Film Studies is a comprehensive textbook for students of cinema.

This completely revised and updated fifth edition guides students through the key issues and concepts in film studies, traces the historical development of film and introduces some of the worlds key national cinemas. A range of theories and theorists are presented from Formalism to Feminism, from Eisenstein to Deleuze. Each chapter is written by a subject specialist, including two new authors for the fifth edition. A wide range of films are analysed and discussed. It is lavishly illustrated with 150 film stills and production shots, in full colour throughout. Reviewed widely by teachers in the field and with a foreword by Bill Nichols, it will be essential reading for any introductory student of film and media studies or the visual arts worldwide.

Key features of the fifth edition are:

• updated coverage of a wide range of concepts, theories and issues in film studies
• in-depth discussion of the contemporary film industry and technological changes
• new chapters on Film and Technology and Latin American Cinema
• new case studies on films such as District 9, Grizzly Man, Amores Perros, Avatar, Made in Dagenham and many others
• marginal key terms, notes, cross-referencing
• suggestions for further reading, further viewing and a comprehensive glossary and bibliography
• a new, improved companion website including popular case studies and chapters from previous editions (including chapters on German Cinema and The French New Wave), links to supporting sites, clips, questions and useful resources.

Individual chapters include: The Industrial Contexts of Film Production · Film and Technology · Getting to the Bigger · Picture Film Form and Narrative · Spectator, Audience and Response · Cinematic authorship and the film auteur · Stardom and Hollywood Cinema · Genre, Theory and Hollywood Cinema The Documentary Form · The Language of Animation · Gender and Film · Lesbian and Gay Cinema · Spectacle, Stereotypes and Films of the African Diaspora · British Cinema · Indian Cinema · Latin American Cinema · Soviet Montage Cinema of the 1920s

Contributors: Linda Craig, Lalitha Gopalan, Terri Francis, Chris Jones, Mark Joyce, Searle Kochberg, Lawrence Napper, Jill Nelmes, Patrick Phillips, Suzanne Speidel, Paul Ward, Paul Watson, Paul Wells and William Wittington

Part one

Cinema as Institution: Technology, Industry and Audience

Chapter 1

The Industrial Contexts of Film Production

Searle Kochberg

Introduction

The origins of the American film industry (1900 to 1915)

The studio era of American film (1930 to 1949)

Case study 1: Warner Brothers

The contemporary film industry (1949 onwards)

Case study 2: A blockbuster in the pre-internet era: Jurassic Park (1993)

Case study 3: Marketing in the internet era. Paramount’s online marketing campaign for Paranormal Activity (2007) prior to general release

Case study 4: The ascendancy of 3D animated digital production: Avatar (2009)

Case study 5: A US ‘blockbuster’ production: Gladiator (2000)

Case study 6: A medium-budget UK production: Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

Film audiences

Case study 7: Building an audience on the web: The Blair Witch Project (1999)

Conclusion

Question for discussion

Notes

Further reading

Further viewing

The industrial contexts of film production

Introduction

Films do not exist in a vacuum. Marxist theory of history postulates that the material, economic and social relations of society are the true basis of society, and that to a great degree they determine the way a society thinks. We can apply this theory on a microlevel to film and say that it is the socio-economic organisation of the film industry – its labour relations, its apparatuses, its resources – that largely determines the films that are made, their values, and their aesthetics.

The chapter that follows is a journey through the mainstream institutional frameworks of US and UK film. The American film industry has dominated all others for the last 100 years and for this reason the section largely centres around it. I do not claim the itinerary to be definitive, but I have sought to cite some key issues in the socio-economic infrastructure of American and British film.

The origins and consolidation of the American industry are traced from 1895 to 1930, a period which saw a fledgling industry harness new industrial practices and quickly grow into an important popular medium, organised into highly defined exhibition, production and distribution components.

The Hollywood studio era (1930 to 1949) is the next stop on the tour. Monopolistic practice and the finely tuned industrial organisation of the Hollywood ‘factories’ are discussed at some length. This section looks specifically at Warner Brothers as an example of a vertically integrated film company during the studio era.

There then follows an exploration of the contemporary institutional framework of US (global) and UK commercial film, starting with a review of the position of the ‘Majors’ in the light of multi-media empires, new media technologies and (mainstream) independent production. Avatar (2009) and Paranormal Activity (2007) are reviewed in the light of new media technologies appropriated by the Majors to make money. At the end of this section the production/distribution histories of Gladiator (2000) and Slumdog Millionaire (2008) are taken as case studies.

The chapter ends with a review of building audiences for film – the context of viewing – from the 1940s onwards. The Blair Witch Project (1999) is taken as a case study.

For discussion of Gladiator and classical cinema see pp. 102–4.

The Origins of the American Film Industry (1900 to 1915)

The American film industry has been in existence as long as there has been American film. This section looks at how the film industry organised itself into three main divisions in the early years of this century, divisions that exist to this day – exhibition, distribution and production.

For an account of the invention of film see Chapter 2.

exhibition	Division of the film industry concentrating on the public screening of film.
distribution	Division of the film industry concentrating on the marketing of film, connecting the producer with the exhibitor by leasing films from the former and renting them to the latter.
production	Division concentrating on the making of film.

Exhibition Until 1907

By 1894, the exhibition of moving pictures had been established in New York City with the introduction of the box-like kinetoscope. This allowed an individual customer to watch a 50-foot strip of film through a slit at the top of the machine. In 1895, a projector called the Pantopticon was demonstrated, again in NYC, and for the first time more than one person could watch the same moving images simultaneously.

Once projectors were available, single-reel films started to be shown in vaudeville theatres as novelties. Exhibition outlets began to multiply and by the first years of the last century small high street stores and restaurants were being converted into small-scale cinemas or nickelodeons. As the name suggests, the cost of entry to these cinemas was 5 cents – an amount affordable to the (predominantly) working-class audiences of nickelodeons. By the end of 1905 there were an estimated 1,000 of these theatres in America and by 1908 there were 6,000.

• Plate 1.1 A nickolodeon (5 cents entry fee) in New York City in the first decade of the twentieth century. Converted high street stores like this one were typical of the first cinemas

Distribution Until 1907

As the film industry expanded, exhibitors had a growing commercial need for an unbroken supply of films to show. To meet this need, the first film exchange was in operation by 1902 and acted as a go-between for the producers and exhibitors (Balio 1976: 14). The exchanges purchased (later leased) films from producers and distributed films to exhibitors by renting to them. By 1907 there were between 125 and 150 film exchanges covering the whole of the USA.

Production Until 1907

Until 1900 the average length of films was around 50 feet. Three major companies dominated production in the US: Edison, Biograph and Vitagraph. Although filming on location was very common at this stage, as early as 1893 the world’s first ‘kinetographic theatre’ or film studio was in operation. This was built by the Edison Company and called the ‘Black Maria’.

kinetograph

Edison’s first movie camera

After 1900, films started to get longer, and by 1903, films of 300 to 600 feet were fairly common. The Edison Company’s The Great Train Robbery (1903) was over 1,000 feet long (ibid.: 7–9) and is an example of early cinema utilising increased running time and primitive continuity editing to tell, for then, a fairly ambitious story. By this time there were several major film producers in the USA, including (as well as the companies mentioned above) Selig, Kalem, Essanay and Lubin. These companies ensured their dominant position in the industry by holding patents in camera and projection equipment.

The industrial organisation of film production until 1907 has been referred to as the ‘cameraman’ system of production (Bordwell et al. 1985: 116–17). As the name suggests, films were largely the creation of one individual, the cameraman, who would be responsible for planning, writing, filming and editing. Edwin Porter, working for the Edison Company, is a good example of such a craftsman.

Thus, by 1907, the American film industry was already organised into three main divisions: exhibition, distribution and production. The creation of these separate commercial divisions demonstrates pragmatic, commercial streamlining by a very young industry, which was designed to maximise profits in an expanding market.

The Motion Picture Patents Company and Industry Monopolies (1908 t o 1915 )

In 1908, the Edison and Biograph companies attempted to control the fledgling film industry through the key patents they held in camera and projection technology. They set up the Motion Picture Patents Company, a patent pool, which issued licences for a fee to companies on a discretionary basis. Only licensed firms could legally utilise technology patented by or contracted to the MPPC without fear of litigation. The MPPC was soon collecting royalties from all sectors of the industry, including manufacturers of equipment, film producers and exhibitors. The MPPC’s ultimate ambition was to monopolise the film industry in the US. Its goal was a situation in which films would be shot on patented cameras, distributed through its General Film Company and screened on its patented projectors.

Patent Pool

An association of companies, operating collectively in the marketplace by pooling the patents held by each individual company.

Exhibition and Audience During the MPPC Era

An important contribution to the profits of the MPPC was from the licensing of projection equipment to exhibitors. In 1908 the most important exhibition outlet was the nickelodeon.

The year 1910 marked the peak of the nickelodeon theatre, with an estimated 26,000,000 people attending the 10,000 ‘nickels’ in the continental US every week (Balio 1976: 63). The meteoric rise of the nickel theatres was remarkable and reflected the general expansion of popular entertainment during America’s prosperous start to the twentieth century. Enormous expansion in film exhibition occurred throughout the USA and inner-city locat...