Classical Hollywood cinema

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Film classic Gone with the Wind (1939) starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh

Classical Hollywood cinema is a term used in film criticism to describe both a narrative and visual style of filmmaking that first developed in the 1910s to 1920s during the later years of the silent film era. It then became characteristic of American cinema during the Golden Age of Hollywood, between roughly 1927 (with the advent of sound film) and 1960.[1] It eventually became the most powerful and pervasive style of filmmaking worldwide.[2]

Similar or associated terms include classical Hollywood narrative, the Golden Age of Hollywood, Old Hollywood, and classical continuity.[3] The period is also referred to as the studio era, which may also include films of the late silent era.[1]

History

1910s–1927: Silent era and emergence of the classical style

For millennia, the only visual standard of narrative storytelling art was the theatre. Since the first narrative films in the mid-late 1890s, filmmakers have sought to capture the power of live theatre on the cinema screen. Most of these filmmakers started as directors on the late 19th-century stage, and likewise, most film actors had roots in vaudeville (e.g. The Marx Brothers[4]) or theatrical melodramas. Visually, early narrative films had adapted little from the stage, and their narratives had adapted very little from vaudeville and melodrama. Before the visual style which would become known as "classical continuity", scenes were filmed in full shot and used carefully choreographed staging to portray plot and character relationships. Editing technique was extremely limited, and mostly consisted of close-ups of writing on objects for their legibility.

Still from the silent film The Birth of a Nation (1915), starring Lillian Gish (second from right)

Though lacking the reality inherent to the stage, film (unlike the stage) offers the freedom to manipulate apparent time and space, and thus create the illusion of realism – that is temporal linearity and spatial continuity. By the early 1910s, when the

Edison Trust to make films independent of the manufacturing monopoly. Films worldwide began to noticeably adopt visual and narrative elements which would be found in classical Hollywood cinema. 1913 was a particularly fruitful year for the medium, as pioneering directors from several countries produced films such as The Mothering Heart (D. W. Griffith), Ingeborg Holm (Victor Sjöström), and L'enfant de Paris (Léonce Perret) that set new standards for the film as a form of storytelling. It was also the year when Yevgeni Bauer (the first true film artist, according to Georges Sadoul[5]) started his short, but prolific, career.[6]

Theatrical release poster for Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)

In the world generally and America specifically, the influence of Griffith on filmmaking was unmatched. Equally influential were his actors in adapting their performances to the new medium. Lillian Gish, the star of film short The Mothering Heart, is particularly noted for her influence on on-screen performance techniques. Griffith's 1915 epic The Birth of a Nation also starring Gish was ground-breaking for film as a means of storytelling – a masterpiece of literary narrative with numerous innovative visual techniques.[7] The film initiated so many advances in American cinema that it was rendered obsolete within a few years.[8] Though 1913 was a global landmark for filmmaking, 1917 was primarily an American one; the era of "classical Hollywood cinema" is distinguished by a narrative and visual style which began to dominate the film medium in America by 1917.[9]

1927–1960: Sound era and the Golden Age of Hollywood

See also: Pre-Code Hollywood and Hays Code

The narrative and visual style of classical Hollywood style developed further after the transition to sound-film production. The primary changes in American filmmaking came from the film industry itself, with the height of the studio system. This mode of production, with its reigning star system promoted by several key studios,[10] had preceded sound by several years. By mid-1920, most of the prominent American directors and actors, who had worked independently since the early 1910s, had to become a part of the new studio system to continue to work.

The beginning of the sound era itself is ambiguously defined. To some, it began with

20th Century Fox for twenty years; Cecil B. DeMille's films were almost all made at Paramount Pictures;[13] and director Henry King's films were mostly made for 20th Century Fox. Similarly, actors were mostly contract players. Film historians and critics note that it took about a decade for films to adapt to sound and return to the level of artistic quality of the silents, which they did in the late 1930s when the Greatest Generationers became of age.[citation needed
]

Many great works of cinema that emerged from this period were of highly regimented filmmaking. One reason this was possible is that, as so many films were 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. This was the case with

The Wizard of Oz; Gone with the Wind; The Hunchback of Notre Dame; Stagecoach; Mr. Smith Goes to Washington; Destry Rides Again; Young Mr. Lincoln; Wuthering Heights; Only Angels Have Wings; Ninotchka; Beau Geste; Babes in Arms; Gunga Din; The Women; Goodbye, Mr. Chips; and The Roaring Twenties.[14]

Style

The visual-narrative style of classical Hollywood cinema, as elaborated by David Bordwell,[15] was heavily influenced by the ideas of the Renaissance and its resurgence of mankind as the focal point. It is distinguished at three general levels: devices, systems, and the relations of systems.

Devices

The devices most inherent to classical Hollywood cinema are those of

cross cut, which establishes the concurrence of action in different locations. Jump cuts are allowed in the form of the axial cut, which does not change the angle of shooting at all, but has the clear purpose of showing a perspective closer or farther from the subject, and therefore does not interfere with temporal continuity.[16]

Systems

Narrative logic

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. This narrative element is commonly composed of a primary narrative (e.g. a romance) intertwined with a secondary narrative or narratives. This narrative is structured with an unmistakable beginning, middle and end, and generally there is a distinct resolution. Utilizing actors, events, causal effects, main points, and secondary points are basic characteristics of this type of narrative. The characters in classical Hollywood cinema have clearly definable traits, are active, and very goal oriented. They are causal agents motivated by psychological rather than social concerns.[2] The narrative is a chain of cause and effect with causal agents – in classical style, events do not occur randomly.

Cinematic time and space

Time in classical Hollywood is continuous, linear, and uniform, 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.[17]

The greatest rule of classical continuity regarding space is object permanence: the viewer must believe that the scene exists outside the shot of the cinematic frame to maintain the picture's realism. The treatment of space in classical 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 gestures or facial expressions (medium-long and medium shots). André 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.[18]

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, especially high-key lighting), and costumes are designed to separate foreground from the background (depth).

Legacy

The New Hollywood of the mid-1960s to early 1980s was influenced by the romanticism of the classical era,[19] as was the French New Wave.[20]

Major figures from classical Hollywood cinema

Main article: AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars

These were recognized on the American Film Institute's list ranking the top 25 male and 25 female greatest screen legends of American film history.[21] As of 2024, Sophia Loren (89) is the only living star listed.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "Music and Cinema, Classical Hollywood". Oxford Bibliographies Online. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on April 11, 2020. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
  2. ^ a b Goldburg, Michael. "Classical Hollywood Cinema (Internet Archive)". Archived from the original on May 31, 2007. Retrieved May 31, 2007.
  3. ^ The Classic Hollywood Narrative Style at the Department of History, University of San Diego.
  4. ^ "The Marx Brothers – Vaudeville Shows". Archived from the original on June 24, 2021. Retrieved June 18, 2021.
  5. ^ Georges Sadoul. Всеобщая история кино. Moscow, Iskustvo, 1958. Т. 3. p. 178
  6. ^ Evgenii Bauer (1865-1917) by William M. Drew Archived August 29, 2017, at the Wayback Machine Evgenii Bauer (1865–1917)
  7. HistoryNet
    . Retrieved February 4, 2023.
  8. ISBN 0-520-03068-0
    .
  9. ^ "1917: The Year That Changed The Movies — The San Francisco Silent Film Festival". Archived from the original on June 24, 2021. Retrieved June 18, 2021.
  10. ^ "The Star – Annenberg Learner". Annenberg Learner. Archived from the original on June 24, 2021. Retrieved June 18, 2021.
  11. ^ "Golden Age of Hollywood: Movies, Actors and Actresses ***". www.american-historama.org. Archived from the original on July 26, 2018. Retrieved July 26, 2018.
  12. doi:10.14418/wes01.1.208
    . Retrieved March 14, 2023.
  13. ^ "The Studio System – Annenberg Learner". Annenberg Learner. Archived from the original on June 24, 2021. Retrieved June 18, 2021.
  14. ^ "The Top 25 Films Of 1939: A Look Back At "The Greatest Year In Movies"|Film Inquiry". June 3, 2019. Archived from the original on June 24, 2021. Retrieved June 18, 2021.
  15. ^ Bordwell, David; Staiger, Janet; Thompson, Kristin (1985): The Classical Hollywood Cinema. Film Style & Mode of Production to 1960. New York: Columbia University Press. 1–59
  16. ^ "Continuity Editing in Hitchcock's Rear Window". slideshare.net. Archived from the original on June 11, 2010. Retrieved April 7, 2010.
  17. ^ "The Hollywood Style – Annenberg Learner". Annenberg Learner. Archived from the original on June 24, 2021. Retrieved June 18, 2021.
  18. ^ Bordwell: 24
  19. ^ "New Hollywood - JT Esterkamp – Medium". Archived from the original on July 17, 2018. Retrieved January 29, 2020.
  20. ^ "French New Wave: The Influencing of the Influencers – The Film Stage". May 28, 2010. Archived from the original on January 29, 2020. Retrieved January 29, 2020.
  21. ^ "AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars: The 50 Greatest American Screen Legends". American Film Institute. Retrieved November 10, 2019.

Further reading

External links

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