The development of the Hollywood system
6.4 The development of the Hollywood system
The foundations of the media industry were laid in the early part of the last century, particularly with the foundation of the film industry in Hollywood. It is to the form and structure of Hollywood that current media organisations can be traced. The classic Hollywood form and style began to invade the world of cinema from 1910 onwards. The restrictions imposed
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on the development of the American film industry by the actions of the Motion Picture Patents Company, headed by Thomas Edison, were finally removed in 1912, when a court decision ended its monopoly of equipment. The MPPC had tied up the hardware needed to produce films in a web of patents, which had prevented the competition that could have grown from the expansion of the industry due to the relatively low capital outlay needed to start in the film industry at that time. The MPPC’s profits came not from production, distribution or exhibition of film, but from the sale or licensing of the equipment required to make and show films. Films were made to fuel the use of equipment.
The nature of film’s status as a distinctive commodity was not immediately stated. The act of film-making at this time could be said to be an artisanal craft activity. The early exhibition of films used the kinetoscope, a device for the individual to view moving pictures. However, this system proved to be
a false start, as cinema did not obtain comparable status with other forms of theatre entertainment until the public projection of films made it possible for tickets to be sold to an audience for communal viewing. The foundation of a material audience for consuming film initiated a collective mode of appropriation, which generated a film-making practice. This was dependent upon a sequence of scenes being projected, with some form of introduction. The individual segments were usually scenic shots reminiscent of nineteenth century still photography – topicals, news reporting, great events, variety acts from vaudeville, trick film and short narratives – with the emphasis in the early exhibitions on spectacle rather than narrative. The freeing of the industry from the MPPC monopoly encouraged the independent firms to merge and expand to establish a system that was to dominate the Hollywood film industry for many decades and produce the dominant product in film history – the classic Hollywood film.
There were three factors that had been pivotal in establishing the form of the classic Hollywood film; the development of the narrative form of film, the status of film as an industrial commodity subject to the economic constraints of a capitalist society, and the changes in the production method of films. The contribution made by each of these factors will be the main substance of this chapter. Noel Burch points out that in its early days the cinema addressed itself exclusively to the urban lower classes, and that its
practitioners were, for the most part, still of humble origin 8 . He suggests that the form of film during the first two decades was largely influenced by the aggregate of folk art kept alive by the urban working classes in Europe
and the USA at the turn of the century 8 . The early stories used in films did not follow the traditional closed world of the bourgeois novel, in which the
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plot, narrative and characteristics are introduced to the reader as being invented and existing only in the text 9 . They were made on the assumption that the audience had a thorough knowledge of the story being shown – a limited series of moving tableaux were shown to audiences, who were left to fill in enormous narrative gaps themselves. Burch explains that the pictures reflected in form and content the infantilism of the working classes. As long as the audience for cinema was primarily from the working class, the motivation to produce films that used elaborate narrative was absent. The development of a more elaborate narrative form came as a result of the desire to find a more linear chain of spatio-temporal sequentiality in the early genre of the chase films. The cuts from chased to chaser and back again in subsequent shots substantiated the possibility of the audience ‘reading’ a naturally developing story, and being introduced to the form of closure. Burch describes this as the first decisive step towards the linearity of the institutional mode. These films tended to offer heterogeneity of events in tableaux scenes strung together to form a story, but nevertheless the scenes were discreet and each demanded that the spectator understood what was going on. This primitive cinema, as Burch calls it, demanded a different way
of viewing 10 . Charles Musser described the early cinema as a transitional phase between the magic lantern show, with its moving slides and mixed still and moving slides, and early narratives in film. He suggested that it was during this period that the unique struggle with temporality took place. Porter’s early films are examples of the early cinema’s specificity. All the scenes are complete and whole in their own right; overlapping action in successive shots, repetition and a lack of linear progression demonstrate the absence of the seamless continuity for which Hollywood is renowned. The earliest attempts at narrative came through the use of montage; the use of several shots temporally and spatially disjointed and linked principally by knowledge of the story to which they refer – Porter’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1903) in the USA and the vast number of films made after 1896 on the theme of the Passion being examples of this development. Burch points out that during the first 10 years of the cinema it addressed itself exclusively to the urban lower classes and was produced by people from similar background, although cinema could not escape the influences of bourgeois modes of representation (specifically literature, painting and especially theatre). However, the characteristics of working-class culture, which comprised both modes of representation and narrative or gestural material deriving from melodrama, vaudeville, pantomime (in England), conjuring, music hall and circus, were the influences that most affected the cinema- going public of the period. These influences, for the main part, did not rely on a rigid linearity as much as the bourgeois mode of representation. Burch
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explains that the melodrama undoubtedly constituted a theatrical form quite distinct from those of the bourgeois theatre. Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell questioned Burch’s view that the primitive cinema is marked by contradictions arising from the fact that film-makers had not yet set out
to capture a mass audience 11 . Film-makers responded to the conflicting influences from bourgeois art, nineteenth century theatre, painting, the novel, and proletarian art forms. Thompson and Bordwell particularly criticise his selection and use of historical evidence, claiming that his data tend to be either insufficient or inaccurate. Thompson argues that the development of the classic Hollywood film was not so much shaped by the formation of a narrative tradition brought about by the change from a working-class audience to one that was increasingly bourgeois, but was caused by fundamental changes in production, distribution and exhibition practices. She makes the point that no single cause, but rather a combination of conditions (the early exhibition, links to vaudeville, the very short length of individual films), encouraged film makers to model their works upon vaudeville forms, the simple narratives that resulted demanded few spatial or temporal shifts, thus minimising the need for editing guidelines. However, the steady demand for more footage, supplemented by the nickelodeon boom after 1905, encouraged longer narratives made in more systematic production circumstances. The economic practices of Hollywood operated in two main areas; first in the changes that took place in the exhibition of films in custom-built theatres – the development of the nickelodeon and picture palace – and secondly in the economic mode of production. The transition of cinema to nickelodeon in the period between 1905 and 1914 took place concurrently with film becoming a form of mass
entertainment, and required an equivalent mass production base 12 . As early as 1911 Thomas Ince had introduced practices from other
industries to film, such as Taylor’s concept of the production line and the scientific management much favoured by Henry Ford. By 1910, the nickelodeons were attracting 20 per cent of the population of the USA. It is also suggested that the audience was emerging more from the middle classes. Three factors that revisionist writers relate to the economic growth of the cinema are specifically connected with the status of the nickelodeon. The first is the correction of the view that nickelodeons were squalid, crowded and in bad locations. In fact, most were in the traditional entertainment districts between middle-class and working-class areas, and locations were selected to encourage vaudeville patrons into the new cinemas. This encouraged the second factor, the rise of the middle-class element, in that the audience promoted the use of narratives that were
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familiar to the middle class, extending the dramatology of films. Charles Musser points out that although story films appealed to both working- and middle-class audiences, there was a move towards a more elite form of narrative. Thirdly, the nickelodeon offered a symbiotic relationship between vaudeville and cinema. Films were accompanied by live acts, a reversal of the previous situation when film was seen as one of the acts. This offered the possibility of the inclusion of special attractions to the middle classes. The nickelodeon had developed an entertainment package. The proliferation of nickelodeons introduced the necessity for the frequent change of programmes, and companies calling themselves exchanges were set up. Exchanges purchased films from the production companies, and rented them to the exhibitors. Before the distributors began to send out programmes to the exhibitors, it was the exhibitors or camera operators who controlled the major of the film text, but after distribution it became the director and subsequently the producers who assumed textural control. Distribution also established the reel of film as a basic industrial commodity, separating distribution from exhibition. The distribution aspect of the film industry, generated in the first place by the nickelodeon and then by the picture palace, produced the concept of profit dominated exhibition, which pressured film production until well into the 1940s.
The development of the importance of exhibitions to the economics of the film industry was a continual movement up a class from the nickelodeon to the picture palace, and redefined the cinema-going experience. The picture palace became one of the central economic commodities of the Hollywood film industry and was an important influence upon the type and style of products produced, as well as being the area of greatest investment in the film industry. Cinema followed other members of the retail industry, such as the chain store Wool- worths, by locating picture houses in most large towns. The cinema circuits built elaborate air-conditioned picture palaces with a staff of ushers, and they showed feature length films with themed presentations and recognisable performers. By 1915, the standard film being distributed and finding an enthusiastic audience throughout the main cinema circuits was a reeled 75-minute feature film.
The Hollywood feature film is characterised by being a scripted drama, play, novel or short story, which is presented as smoothly flowing and uses self-effacing techniques that aspire to a visual clarity. The feature films produced by Hollywood in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s had become mass-produced products for consumption by a mass audience. The standard practice in the economics of Hollywood film production in the
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1920s was a system of vertical integration; the co-ordination of produc- tion, distribution and exhibition.
Within this system of mass production, the American cinema became definitively orientated towards narrative form. Porter’s The Great Train Robbery (1903), an early prototype for the classical Hollywood film, has the action developing with a clear linearity of time, space and logic. From 1908 until 1913, D. W. Griffith made hundreds of one and two reelers (running about 15 and 30 minutes respectively). These films introduced relatively complex narratives in short spans. Griffith’s contract with the Biograph Company included a bonus clause for production speed and quality. These industrial products could be regularly made in the studio, costs carefully controlled, and the predictable release programme required by the cinema circuits achieved. Charles Musser suggests that the increasing number of films being produced meant that the concept of the viewer having previous knowledge of a film could not be relied upon, and therefore the narrative form had to be strongly identified. Self-sufficient narrative films were developed, which depended upon the use of elaborate inter-titles. The economic practices that had developed during the nineteenth century, when applied to the emerging film industry, generated particular forms of representation. Efficiency justified the standardisation of products. Thus the film industry began in a general industrial structure of a well-developed corporate capitalism, positioned between the economic practice of standardisation for efficient mass production and the economic practice of product differentiation. At the most functional level, the style of productions was influenced by such cost factors as the re-use of sets, scenery and costumes. This had the effect of encouraging the production of films with particular genres, themes, serials and series. Companies often called for scenarios that would use established sets. The multiple use of sets and costume meant that it was possible for the Hollywood producer to budget for the most lavish material, knowing that it would be economically put to use in many productions. Advice to freelance writers in 1913 suggested that unity of place was also of economic importance for the production, permitting the use of the same settings for many scenes. In this way the producer felt justified in spending more money upon settings themselves. As
he was more or less limited by the owner of the motion picture company as to the outlay for each picture, the result could be more elaborate and artistic stage effects. In the same manual, the writer was advised to use fewer characters in the plot because it allowed the producer to budget for more settings and costumes. All aspects of production were costed. Jeanette Staiger points out that a handbook author wrote that the cost factors
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related to the techniques of style were significant 14 . Rehearsals were cheaper than retakes, dissolves less expensive than double exposures, and having characters discovered in scene rather than using entrances cut costs. Another effect of the emphasis of budgetary constraints was that innovations could be financed. These were important in promoting the studio’s style and identity for brand name advertising. The rise of the narrative film developed the discourse on acting, and admitted the pos- sibility of acting in film rather than posing. This led to the producers supplying performers’ names in response to public demand. The picture personality and his or her work became linked, and the production companies began to
circulate information about actors 14 .
By 1914, the fully-fledged ‘star’ system that has come to signify much of the classic Hollywood style had emerged. The life of the actor outside the workplace became part of the public domain. The star system introduced a new element into the economics of Hollywood and the cinema institution; the economics of publicity, printed material (including advertisement), hobby cards, trade and fan magazines, items in newspapers, approach to film manufacturing, and the separation of conceptualisation from production. This created minute divisions of labour for those involved in the industry. Ince’s company, for instance, used six units shooting at the same time with
a pool of six writers and nine directors. At the top of this bureaucratic pyramid, Ince took full responsibility for overall planning. This became known as the central producer system, and developed between 1912 and 1931. The mass production and the central producer system created a studio identity, the maintenance of a regular output in terms of quality, quantity and budget (the budgets were meticulously prepared), and the introduction of
a continuity of script (paper planned) prepared by the management for the workers to follow. This took the form of a blueprint for shot breakdown, mise en scene and titles. The status of the director changed; he controlled the actors and the crew, bound by the management’s paper model. The introduction of the industrial mode of production into the Hollywood system was instrumental not only in putting a particular style and form of presentation into the hands of a select band of managers, but also in bringing about the consolidation of the industry into a limited number of companies, who prospered under the studio system by producing the classic Hollywood film. It would be convenient in summing up to suggest that the classic Hollywood film was shaped equally by narrative concerns, economic constraints and industrial modes of production. However, it would also be true to say that it was equally affected by the unique ideological constraints operating in the USA during the period. The moral and religious codes
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imposed by the various states resulted, in many cases, in a high degree of self-censorship in the industry, and the over-patriotism of many of the first- generation immigrant movie moguls dictated a preference for narratives demonstrating positive political values such as progress, success, etc. The unique qualities of the classic Hollywood film were largely a result of the studios being geared for efficiency. However, there is an underlying complex ideological significance in the classic Hollywood film. It allows identification, the standard signifying practice; it declines to call attention to its own construction through editing; and it organises spectator attention – for example, through centring the image and thus creating linearisation through pictorial composition. This results in the audience having little or no choice when viewing the film, but at the same time it involves the viewer by promoting spectator identification. The audience becomes the uncritical consumer of entertainment. By denying criticism, the form substantiates the dominant ideology of the USA, that of capitalism. The film’s narrative tells stories in the traditional way, by using the disruption of equilibrium and its restoration as the basis for the plots. The films centre on individual protagonists who resolve the problems of the plot by action and romance. The implicit ideology is patriarchal and individualistic.
The results are only troubled in two ways; when the star is a woman, and when problems cannot be given full social significance because of closure. Classic Hollywood films do not question capitalism or individualism; in fact they depict both as being solutions to problems. The history of the form can
be seen as a social drift from depicting the working-class poor towards showing the wealth and consumption of the upper class. The classic Hollywood film is a good example of the effect Raymond Williams has called ‘cultural materialism’; that is, the creation of an object by the operation of the various agencies working in the economic, cultural and political aspects of society. The three elements of narrative, economics and mode of production have worked in an intricate way in a complex ideological system to produce the manifestation of the American film industry, the classical Hollywood film.