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With the popularity of film culture experiencing a drastic increase, a large amount of what happens on screen is mirrored in our society. Movies can evoke thoughts and emotions that shape the average man’s ideals, sometimes even stirring up propaganda that pressures governments to create new laws.
Across the globe watching movies started as an asylum for the working class, but slowly the ideas being portrayed onscreen have evolved resulting in movie going to become almost religious. Movies have the ability to leave us in awe as a result of their ability to give us a glimpse of a dream, however unrealistic. I myself am a huge fan of the film industry. I started to feel a certain reverence for it because of the way it inspired me to dream and gave birth to my ambitions. This ultimately led to me to go into an in depth investigation of whether I was the only one who felt this way and what affects had been created because of this feeling.
PERSPECTIVES:
The United States of America:
The evolution of American cinema can be classified into four main categories, silent film, classic Hollywood cinema, new Hollywood and the contemporary period, which we are in now .During the early 20th century many eastern European Jewish immigrants were able to find work in the American film industry and eventually moved over to the production side of the movie business to become some of the biggest producers, such as The Warner Brothers.
During the 1920s and 30s seventy-five percent of all Americans are said to have gone to movie theatres at least once a week. This is because this was the time of the great depression (1930s) where unemployment reached high levels and money was infrequent. Thereby forcing Americans to take on a positiv...
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... disallowing inter-caste marriages. This was depicted in movies as well. Most often the protagonists ended together or they both committed suicide.
It is these ideas that that sometimes promote the wrong image to Indian society. By promoting the ideas of caste people may be influenced to do the same in real life which can result in an array of situations. People may run away from home, or even commit suicide as a result of not being allowed to be with whom they please.
Another huge problem that we face today in Bollywood cinema is the idea of an ‘item-girl/song’. An item girl is usually clad in revealing/suggestive clothing in which she gyrates to fast pace music in a vulgar manner. The item girl was created as a product of the theory that sex sells. Which happens to be largely true in the industry as seen with movies such as Jism, Ragini mms and Hate Story.
The overall appeal of the cinema to the masses was particularly evident during the interwar era. Audiences worldwide wanted to watch the variety of films, particularly American produced films, and they always went back. The visibly attractive and glamorous Hollywood movies often depicted the success of the underdog over unjust authority. Values of cash over culture were often a theme in the early American films and societies with restricted social mobility, such as those in Europe, could dream of such a triumph. The working class and unemployed could fantasise about wealth, fame and freedom which America as a country was portrayed as offering.
Paramount, one of the big five Hollywood studio corporations, controlled the most amount of theatres in the United States during the 1930s and 40s. This meant they had an advantage when the economy in the US turned around after the great depression. This being said, many more factors come into play when defining to what extent the studio is a typical representation of a major Hollywood studio corporation in the 1930s and 40s. In this essay I will be going in depth into what extent Paramount is a representation of other key studios in Hollywood in the 1930s and 40s. I will be discussing how Paramount’s methods as a corporation such as exhibition, distribution, star system and genre to see how it is a typical representative of a Hollywood studio corporation. I will be using material such as Richard B. Jewel’s The Golden Age of Cinema, Hollywood 1929 – 1945 to go into detail in explaining my points.
Jacobs, Lewis. “Refinements in Technique.” The Rise of the American Film. New York: Teachers College Press, 1974. 433-452. Print.
It may seem hard to believe that Americans would allow such an undemocratic practice in this nation. Fortunately, today filmmakers are allowed to make movies about the subject of their choice without being evaluated for treason. However, the memory of this dark time will live forever. The sound of it echoes through the bowels of a courtroom and reverberates in the hearts of the American people. In the words of former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, the only judge who decides whether the film industry is “good” or “bad” is the “man or woman who attends the movies”. It is the duty of an individual to evaluate a film and interpret art. The verdict is not reached in a courtroom; it is decided when ending credits appear on the screen.
It is a common mis-conception that films are merely entertainment, and serve no other purpose than to provide for the viewer a two-hour escape from reality. This is a serious under-estimation of the power, purpose, and potential of film, because film, upon reflection, revea...
...creased monitoring of censorship throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Hollywood experienced a major shift in the way pictures were made. Going from depictions of a carefree lifestyle, characteristic of the California dream, to a more monitored approach to filmmaking, Hollywood make the necessary transition in order to abide by the mass request of censorship to the filmmaking process. In this, the California dream was lost, as Americans were brought back to reality, but the action offered a stepping stone to enter a new age where films were praised for decades to come. Today, censorship is still a major issue in Hollywood, and has moved not only to include movies, but all forms of mass media. This shows that the ideals of morality in media will continue to encompass a majority of issues in society, and is one that should continually be addressed in order to find harmony.
Woodburne, A. S. "Can India's Caste System Survive in Modern Life?” The Journal of Religion, Vol. 2, No. 5. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. pgs. 525-537. Web
Often times people neglect the fact that the things- such as films- that they see and hear day to day can actually be worthwhile in teaching them. They come into contact with them purely for the purpose of being entertained and, sometimes, do not even realize that they are being taught valuable life lessons in the process. In conjunction with this theory, Professor Michael Taylor once said, “We don’t often think of the value of media beyond its entertainment, but there is a whole area that has to do with education through entertainment. As filmmakers, the work that we do has a huge impact on our culture. With that comes an opportunity, and may be even a responsibility, to use that impact for greater good.” Many French and Francophone films
Before the civil rights movement could begin, a few courageous individuals had to guide the way. Dr. Vernon Johns was one of those individuals. Dr. Vernon Johns was a pastor and civil rights activist in the 1920s. Johns became the pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama in the late 1940s. During his time as a pastor, Johns preached many sermons on how African American people were being treated not only in the community but in society. Johns on multiple occasions upset his community through his ideas on social change. Through a sociologist perspective, many sociological concepts were displayed in The Vernon Johns Story. Some of those concepts included: ascribed status, conflict theory, deviant behavior, alienation, and
“The biggest mistake we have made is to consider that films are primarily a form of entertainment. The film is the greatest medium since the invention of movable type for exchanging ideas and information, and it is no more at its best in light entertainment than literature is at its best in the light novel.” - Orson Welles
In Hollywood today, most films can be categorized according to the genre system. There are action films, horror flicks, Westerns, comedies and the likes. On a broader scope, films are often separated into two categories: Hollywood films, and independent or foreign ‘art house’ films. Yet, this outlook, albeit superficial, was how many viewed films. Celebrity-packed blockbusters filled with action and drama, with the use of seamless top-of-the-line digital editing and special effects were considered ‘Hollywood films’. Films where unconventional themes like existentialism or paranoia, often with excessive violence or sex or a combination of both, with obvious attempts to displace its audiences from the film were often attributed with the generic label of ‘foreign’ or ‘art house’ cinema.
... 30 year veteran journalist, producer, then a president of CBS News and now the chairperson and CEO of Sony Corporation of America, had this to say about the future of movies, "I think domestically, it's video on demand. There will be huge audiences for movies that people want to see when they want to see them. And they'll be able to download them on a multitude of devices at convenient moments in convenient places. And that's got to change the nature of viewing.” The world listens when business giants like Stringer make such statements, and it sounds like the home theater experience will only become even more convenient and desirable.
Sklar, Robert. Movie-made America: A Social History of American Movies. New York: Random House, 1975. Print.
How do movies affect our brain? Is the movie culture directing our thoughts in a certain path? Do movies change our behavior? Do movies carry a certain message? Perhaps a warning? These are all questions that we don’t normally give much thought to when we watch a film. However, it is important to employ our critical thinking skills when we analyze a movie we just watched.
Susan Bayly. (1999). Caste, Society and Politics in India: from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age. Cambridge University Press