Hollywood's Golden Age

Posted by Winnie Melda on October 18th, 2018

                Moving pictures was the term used to describe films in the early days of the industry starting from the 1850s. It literary meant the movement of pictures whereby photographers and others were experimenting with the reproduction of human motion in telling a story. The earliest motion pictures began in the 1890s. In this first phase motion pictures mainly placed emphasis on the only movement but did not focus on story, plot or sound. Instead, it only displayed movement. The movies were short and lasted for 15 to 30 seconds scenarios as seen in the case of “shows” by Lumiere Brothers of France. The scenarios lasted five to eight minutes showing man watering his garden arriving at the stations, people highlighting from a ferry boat or men playing cards. These early presentations by Lumiere did delight many people in Paris making them gather in large crowds. In the United States during that time, Edison Thomas also produced the same short shows such as waves crashing at the ocean, the Niagara Falls and the colliding of two trains (Washington Edu.com, 1).

                 For the standards of today such short presentations that lack sound, or plot are very primitive. Modern day films have highly elaborated movie effects as we see in the case of James Bond movies and movie series like the Star Wars. People during the start of the movie era involving the primitive films found them to be realistic and exciting. Position pictures of waterfalls or the Atlantic Ocean were considered real by American viewers. A film showing a train pulling into the station is displayed as coming directly to the viewers, and some could panic and ran out believing that the train would come into the theater and knock them(Washington Edu.com, 1).

            These early motion pictures started in the late 1890s up to the early 1900s that involved human motions pictures. The brothers Louis and Auguste soon afterward started to craft the hand-cranked machine known as the cinematographer, that captures pictures and also project the frames in quick succession.  The 1900s was a time of major advancement in motion picture and film technology. The filmmakers started to explore on visual flow, backdrops, and editing and were further motivated to a new creative territory. The new creativity in Nickelodeon films helped to increase public appeal along with the use of theaters in passing the propaganda of World War 1. The end of the WW1 marked a major cultural boom in the US film industry. Hollywood became the motion pictures home in America.

            The industry’s myth show that the films The Squaw Man in 1914 by Cecil B. DeMille have and In Old California by DW Griffith were the first films that transformed the American cinema face showing all the glamour that Hollywood had to offer. The 1920s marked the introduction of the concept of the movie star that is still present in today’s film. Hollywood also became the movie studios birthplace which has since then played a major role in shaping the public image of America. The affluent film companies that are still present today started in the 1920s such an RKO, Paramount Pictures, Warner Brothers Pictures, 20th Century Fox, and Metro Goldwin Mayer. These companies have grown since then in their film production studios and sets.

           The 1920s was also a time when Wall Street started to invest in motion pictures heavily. Five major studios of Hollywood and three small ones had to consolidate their power so as to strive towards dominating the world market. The little three are Columbia Pictures, Universal Pictures, and United Artists. The Big Five Were MGM / Loews, Paramount, Fox, RKO, and Warner. The Golden Age Period of Hollywood in the years of 1927 to 1948 did operate in the studio system production mode.  It was the earliest model of vertical integration (Jacobs, 89). The various production stages such as production, financing, distribution, screenplays, post productions as well as exhibition were controlled ad owned by the studios as a way of maximizing their profits. The film making the form of studio system was characterized by genres having starred in the leading role which was part of the standardized process of filmmaking in Hollywood. The studio employed directors and other film personnel such as creative as well as the technical crew. The production house did specialize in a specific genre and had a uniform style like the musical genre for MGM. The exception was the case of directors like Orson Welles, John Ford and Alfred Hitchcock who worked hard to establish their unique style. The star system enabled the studios and Hollywood gave a chance for success for new films and young actors. Hollywood’s Golden Age came to a close after 1948 when the US government passed the anti-trusts laws blocking booking among studios in eliminating competition.

          The increased viewing of television and the blockage of the booking system meant losses for all studios. Universal. Paramount and MGM started to rennet their equipment and hired young independent directors like Martin Scorcese, Francis Coppola Ford, and Steven Spielberg. Eventually, the studios lacked independent control over their creative film-making. The new wave of filmmaking from France became a major source of inspiration for Hollywood filmmakers in starting to develop and experiment with their unique style. The 1970s was also a time of new changes and varieties from young graduates who negotiated their deals (Film Site.  Org, 1).

             Currently, the Hollywood studios have gone through changes regarding ownership. They have become large multi-national companies through acquisition and mergers. These companies do not hold long-term exclusive contracts for their creative personnel. Stars, producers, directors and writers have the power to negotiate their deals via media or agents. The studios no longer negotiate their personnel packages. The filmmaking process is still dependent on the hero or heroine relationship with the audience. Stars are still an essential vehicle through which the film is marketed and financed. The main specialization genre for 20th Century Fox Films is the action genre in which stars like Bruce Willis, Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts, Nicole Kidman, Angelina Jolie, Jonny Depp and Toby Maguire have starred in most of them. These actors with the help of their agents do manage their career. They can negotiate their salaries and earn millions in each set. Also, the film revenue is no longer solely dependent on the receipts of the box office. The security of a film’s financial success relies on its distribution in various windows. It is unlike the 1950s to mid-1970s when most films exploited on television popularity to sell their films to syndicates and networks. The current alternative windows for distribution are television, video, DVD, digital channels, the internet like Netflix, cables, and satellite (History Cooperative, 1).

Work Cited

 Film Site.  Org. The History of Film the 1930s.  The Golden Age of Hollywood'

Part 2.  

 History Cooperative History of the Hollywood Movie Industry.  2016. 

Jacobs, Lewis; Rise of the American film, Harcourt Brace, New York, 1930; p. 85

Washington Edu.com. “The history of motion pictures.”  

Sherry Roberts is the author of this paper. A senior editor at Melda Research in best nursing writing services if you need a similar paper you can place your order for custom nursing papers.