In this episode we will discuss the rise of the studio system. But in order to understand the studio system we must first understand what the studio system was a response to. In 1908, French mega studio Pathé had completely controlled the international market. With a discontented ego, Thomas Edison sought to combat this competition by establishing the Motion Pictures Patent Company or simply referred to as the trust.
The trust aimed for complete control over the industry emphasizing patent rights the trust standardized the price per foot and also scheduled the release of films. As a way of around the trust, foreign studios began to roadshow their features across the nation. Noticing the attraction of these new roadshowed foreign films, a new, different type of producers began to arise.
These producers were referred to as the independents. These independent producers, such as William Fox, began to exhibit their films to much success. Of these independent producers, none rose more highly than Adolf Zucker.
Adolf Zucker is likely the most influential film producer of all time. With his studio paramount, he managed to do what Thomas Edison and the Trust could not. He gained complete control over production distribution and exhibition of films.
Zucker's success can be attributed to a few factors. First, he fully took advantage of an industrialized factory system of production. Also, Zucker was the first to appeal to Wall Street for financial backing. Attracting investors, the mogul had to take a step back.
had enough capital to vertically integrate his business, purchasing theaters and exhibition venues across the nation. Zucker looked overseas for profits, and with the political support of Will Hayes and others, he lobbied for open international markets. However, Zucker not only possessed a business savvy, he had a deep understanding of the public. Centering his promotion on his studio's stars, Zucker influenced the public to idolize the stars that were contractually obligated to participate in his films.
Zucker Lucas'mastery of the business of film, his political support, and his perfection of the Hollywood star system ultimately explain why he became one of the most defining figures in early cinema. Now it's really difficult to overstate the importance of theater ownership at this time. Massive, elaborate theaters found ways to attract new cinema goers. Going to the movies very much became its own social movement.
of the experience depended on not only the quality of the film, but the quality of the cinema. Looking to expand overseas, the independent studios employed government official Will Hayes to lobby and convince Washington to pressure foreign markets into opening up for the American cinema. Hayes liked to explain America's victory over the international market by bringing up America's multiculturalism and democratic message.
This reasoning is at best questionable. The real reason for American success can be explained by political and global factors around the time. In the summer of 1914, three major events happened.
The Panama Canal opened, Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated, and production began on a birth of a nation. All three of these events explain America's rise to power. The opening of the Panama Canal illustrates a reality of the time.
America was in perfect economic condition. With control over the world's largest domestic market and trade way, Hollywood employed all the modern methods of business to rule out competition. Not having to spend money on tariffs or oversee taxes.
American production companies could focus all of their money on increasing production value and making more competitive films. The birth of a nation is a perfect example of this. And finally, with the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, Europe entered World War I, a conflict that completely severed a unified European film movement. Seizing this opportunity, Americans began to establish production hubs in these European...
countries. American studios knew that the same star system that worked for American audiences would also work for European audiences. However some of these stars under the star system began to rebel. In 1919 Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and DW Griffith established United Artists.
A studio which declared independence from the independents. The irony here is hard to miss. But despite the success with now classics like The Gold Rush and Thief of Baghdad, United Artists had to eventually comply with the studio system since it could not keep up with the rate of production of the capital-rich studios.
However, United Artists wasn't the only opposition. Overseas, the opposition was even stronger. Like America, Germany saw the economic and political potential of this new entertainment. However, German opposition was cut short when major German studio UFA went bankrupt.
Ironically, it was the Americans who bailed them out. Most countries defended against what they saw as a rise in American imperialism. Perhaps the most vocal of this opposition came from the USSR.
The Soviets would release a knockoff Cheap version of an American movie, perhaps with the same title or similar title, a day or a week before the American movie came out, to detract audiences from going to the American film. More than just economic competitors, the Soviets sought to define their own style of cinema against the American way. The rushing acting theorist Konstantin Stanislavski formulated the influential method. where actors internalize their performances, focusing on motivations and objectives. On the editing front, the Soviets developed the theory of montage, and a series of famous experiments.
Lev Kuleshov illustrated that the meaning of a montage sequence is not determined by the content of the montage elements, but by their juxtaposition. Here to put this in simpler terms is Alfred Hitchcock. Now we have a close-up.
Let me show what he sees. Let's assume he saw a woman holding a baby in her arms. Now we cut back to his reaction to what he sees. And he smiled. Now what is he as a character?
He's a kindly man. He's sympathetic. Now, let's take the middle piece of film away, the woman with the child.
But leave his two pieces of film as they were. Now we'll put in... A piece of film of a girl in a bikini. He looks, girl in a bikini, he smiles. What is he now?
A dirty old man. To get a firm understanding of Russian filmmaking at this time, it's best to look at the quintessential Russian film, Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin. Directed by Sergi Eisenstein, Battleship Potemkin is regarded as one of the best films of all time.
The film dramatizes the crew of the Battleship Potemkin and its rebellion against the Tsarist officers. The film demonizes the Tsarist regime and glorifies the plight of pre-Soviet Bolsheviks. In the famous Odessa Steps sequence, Eisenstein employs every experiment of montage theory to render an emotional response from the viewer. Violent by even today's standards, The sequence highlights the massacre of the Bolsheviks under the hands of the depressive Tsarist soldiers. The film's powerful effect caused the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels to endorse the film, stating it was, and I quote,"...a marvelous film without equal. Anyone with no firm political conviction could become a Bolshevik after seeing the film."The film not only influenced political leaders and propagandists, it influenced the work of famous filmmakers, such as Terry Gilliam in Brazil.
Coppola in The Godfather and De Palma in The Untouchables. Because of its influence on the history of film and the entire 20th century, Battleship Potemkin is easily one of the best films ever made. Although highly regarded, the Russian theory of montage was more admired than it was imitated.
The only true system that was emulated around the world was the Hollywood classical system. Through Hollywood's easy to mimic and comprehensive editing style, as well as its exploitation of the star system, and the American studio system rose to complete power, ushering in the what we now call golden age of Hollywood. But more on this in the next episode. I can't be able to say it correctly.
It's Goebbels. Just call him Goebbels. Goebbels, yeah.
Goebbels? Yeah, Goebbels. Goebbels? Just Goebbels.
Goebbels, baby. Shut up, Frank. You're just making it worse. No, that's really how you're supposed to pronounce it.
Gerbil baby? That's not how you pronounce his name. Okay, I gotta get on with this or we're gonna not get very far.