The Hollywood movie, a product of "culture industry"? BIBLIOGRAPHY
Read • Frédéric Barbier and Catherine Bertho Lavenir, Media History, Diderot Internet, A Colin, 2003, chapters on film • Jean-Loup Bourget, Hollywood, The Standard and the margin , Nathan cinema, chap. Use as needed 3-5 • Jean Tulard Movies Guide and Dictionary du cinéma- Acteurs-Producteurs-Scénaristes-Techniciens, coll Bouquins, nombreuses rééditions.
Compléments (facultatif)Coll., La propagande par les rêves ou le triomphe du modèle américain, Autrement, 1991262 p.Rick Altman, La Comédie musicale hollywoodienne, Les problèmes de genre au cinéma, A. Colin, 1992, 414 p.Jean-Louis Leutrat, Le Western, Quand la légende devient réalité, Découvertes Gallimard, 1995, 160 p. Daniel Royot, Hollywood, Que-Sais-Je, 1992, 127 p.
En anglais (facultatif)Robert Sklar, Movie-Made America , 1975-1994, …Vintage Book, 417 p. Un classique maintes fois réédité, facile à lire et souvent amusant; Janet Staiger(dir), The Studio System , Rutgers University Press, 1995, 333 p. Un ensemble d’articles plein de détails concrets
Films utilisés en cours • Warner, The Public Ennemy , 1931 (gangster)• Universal, Frankenstein , 1931 (fantastique)• RKO, Top Hat , 1935 (comédie musicale) Farewell my Lovely, 1944 (gangster)• Columbia, M. Deeds Goes to Town, 1936 (comédie sociale)• Paramount : Ivanhoe, 1952 (aventure)• United Artists, Stagecoach, 1939 [distribué par ](western)• MGM : Bathing Beauty, 1944 ( ballets aquatiques)
Introduction
Les films produits à Hollywood entre 1920 et 1949 illustrent l’un des aspects de l’industrialisation de la culture. Ils sont produits au sein du « système des studios » (Douglas Gomery, The Hollywood Studio System, 1986) selon un processus qui les apparente à des produits industriels. Pourtant leur contenu symbolique et l’émergence du cinéma comme « 7e art » les inscrivent ne même temps au cœur de la culture du XXe siècle.
On décrira ans une première partie les principaux studios de Hollywood puis on examinera dans une seconde partie les caractéristiques dans le mode de production des films qui apparentent ces derniers à des produits industriels.
1.Les studios : un panorama
Avant 1912 l’essentiel des films distribués aux Etats-Unis est d’origine européenne (Gaumont, Pathé, Mélies, films italiens). Edison, industriel et inventeur, tente de verrouiller le secteur par le biais des brevets sur le matériel. Il met en place le « Trust » mais échoue finalement à contrôler l’industrie du film aux USA.
Le secteur est réorganisé à the initiative of distributors who have networks "movie theaters" in major cities and who wish to supply their own rooms in films. They set up their studios in Hollywood, away from Edison and lawyers in an area where you can turn off most of the year.
The 5 majors (majors) are MGM, Paramount, Warner, Fox, RKO. They control 88% of 1935 total sales of American cinema. Universal, Columbia and United Artists are smaller. Together they control, in 1935, 95% of films distributed in the U.S.. Each
studio has its own history and style but all have similar economic structures
A. The five "major" majors
1) MGM (Loew's)
MGM (Metro-Goldwyn Mayer) was born at the end of the year 1920 from the merger of 3 companies. His boss is Louis B. Mayer (until 1950). It is a manager more than a creator, a conservative who rejects ideological commitments. Despite the studio's motto "art for art 'in the studio the producer comes before the director.
MGM employs directors, however the most prestigious of the 1920s: Von Stroheim Mervyn LeRoy, King Vidor, Cukor.
the studio tends to put them in the service of stars such as Clarence Brown Greta Garbo, Clark Gable or Victor Fleming. Among the female stars at MGM (Garbo, Joan Crawford), Jean Harlow is the figure the less sophisticated. Men (Clark Gable, James Stewart) are emblems of American manhood, sports, enterprising, full of humor and common sense:
The films are made with high professionalism: the costume, sound, photographs are extremely cared
2) Warner Bros
style studio Warner Brothers is more inventive, less rich, more engaged
Owners are 4 and 3 brothers Warner. Jack L. Warner personally directed the studio in Hollywood. He is assisted by Daryl Zanuck as production director from 1931 to 1933 and Hal B. Wallis (1933-46)
Warner considers the film a bit like when one considers the press. Various methods (ground mount, ellipse, music) accelerate the tempo of the films. The studio encourages individuals involved. Warner produced films that tell a story. She produced the first films on social issues. Some tracks sound like a headline news Ex: I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang adapted from the novel by R. Burn (Mervyb LeRoy, 1932) or Heroes for sale Wellman (1933), on the bloody repression of a union demonstration by Chicago police
A Warner celebs are in the service of history. The studio (which has a reputation as actors) uses Errol Flynn adventure films (The Charge of the Light Brigade, 1936), James Cagney, Edward G Robinson in the early gangster movies. Bette Davis, Vivian Leigh depict female characters strong and independent.
The great filmmakers Michael Curtiz Warner has specialized in films of adventure or espionage ( Casablanca, 1942). He realizes 80 films in 25 years or Raoul Walsh.
3) Paramount (Famous Players Lasky)
Paramount has long chaired by Zukor who titled his autobiography The Public is Never Wrong. He died in 1976 more than a century. The "director" was in the studio, a lot of prestige: some authors are considered, and Cecil B. De Mille, Lubitsch, Sternberg. The studio producing historical films and comedies
It uses sophisticated stars often "imported" from Europe as Marlene Dietrich, Emil Jannings, Claudette Colbert, Maurice Chevalier.
4) Fox (XXth century)
Fox moved to Hollywood in 1917. It merges with the XXth Century Productions Daryl Zanuck in 1935 after difficulties in passing the talking and the crisis of 29. Fox shows the documentary tradition. It attaches great importance to the scenario. It produces Grapes of Wrath ( Grapes of Wrath ) by John Steinbeck (1940). Many of his films are devoted to America "modern." The stars are less sophisticated and more representative of a contemporary America at the Warner: Gregory Peck, Richard Widmark, Betty Grable.
5) RKO
The acronym stands for Radio Keith Orpheum. The company is a partner of CAR and is investing in techniques of excellent sound quality. "Cultural, intellectual and refined" (JL Bourget), RKO productions likes upscale decor and are considered the most beautiful scenery of Hollywood (art deco). See Top Hat (Top The dancer, 1935), the most famous films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. In a very different kind Orson Welles shot for RKO Citizen Kane (1940) and The Magnificent Ambersons (The Magnificent Ambersons , 1941)
B. The "little three"
1) Universal Universal
The company was founded by Carl Laemmle in 1912. ; He moved to Universal City in 1915. Early in the studio shows great skill in the fantasy genre (The Hunchback of Notre Dame, 1923, The Phantom of Opera, 1925, Frankenstein 1931, The Invisible Man, 1933). In difficulty in 1930 the studio will be redeemed multiple times. It merges with International Pictures in 1946 and was bought in 1962 by the giant Music Corporation of America. Its stars are Boris Karloff (Frankenstein, The Mummy 1932) and Bela Lugosi (Dracula, 1931). After 1946 Universal covers a wide range of genres: movies exotic westerns, comédies
2) Columbia
Columbia est fondé en 1924 par les frères Cohn. Harry Cohn en devient président en 1931 avec l’appui de Sam Spiegel et règne sur la société jusqu’en 1958. L’auteur principal du studio dans les années trente est Frank Capra (1927-1939) dont les comédies sociales traient des problèmes du New Deal ( Mr Deeds Does to Town, Mr Smith Goes To Washington, …). Le studio produit aussi des « screwball comedies ».
Dans les années 1940 Columbia fait des films divers illustrant les genres à succès : The Lady from ShangaI d’Orson Welles (1946, film noir), Gilda Charles Vidor with Rita Hayworth, will star in erotic affirmed (1946).
3) United Artists
Founded in 1919 by Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and DW Griffith, United Artists was originally intended to free the creators and actors of the requirements of production houses . The company is led by Joseph Schenk between 1926 and 1935. United Artists is not a "studio" in the classic sense. The company will never walk on the entire infrastructure of a studio or a network of theaters. It is a host structure intended to produce or distribute films of independent producers (JL Bourget). It has in its catalog The Thief of Baghdad where Douglas Fairbanks plays, Rosita, Lubitsch's first American film with Mary Pickford, and The Private Life of Henry VIII, 1933, Alexander Korda's British but also to films produced by independent producers Walter Wanger (Ford's Stagecoach), DO Selznick (Rebecca, Hitchcock), Samuel Goldwyn often associated with William Wyler (Wurthering heigth, 1939).
II. The studios, one industry?
What makes that one can speak of "industry" About the studios?
The term "studio system" was released through the book by Douglas Gomery, The Hollywood Studio System , 1986. It means how to produce films in Hollywood between 1919 (installation of Adolph Zukor in Hollywood) and 1941, when the court against Paramount forcing the studios to divest their theater networks.
This system is characterized by: high capital intensity (the studios have a lot of capital), vertical integration (the same firm has the systems of production and distribution and sometimes operating) ; Division and rationalization of labor, the marketing of films considered products, the use of advertising
1 ° A capital-intensive
value of assets in 1936
Paramount 136 Warner
RKO 173 117
Fox Universal
67 57 10
Columbia
UnitedArtists 13
Source, Paul Morand, "Capitalism Hollywood" ... in Hollywood 1927-1941 ... Otherwise, 1991, p . 38
The studios are large capitalist firms. Between 1924 and 1925 Paramount made a profit of $ 24 million. Investment in technical sound between 1929 and 1931 require a lot of capital. The drop in cinema attendance, due to the economic crisis in the mid-thirties, then puts companies in a difficult position. They must turn to large investors and go public to raise capital. Warner is well supported by the Morgan Bank. RKO by the Chase National Bank, which belongs to the Rockefeller group.
2 ° Vertical Integration
Adolf Zukor is inaugurating the form of vertical integration in 1919 when it took control of distribution for Paramount and fund films in the Famous Players-Lasky. It invests in a network of 600 rooms and requires the block-booking (rental forced to work grouped) to independent operators.
In the early 1940s, Paramount has 1239 rooms, Warner 507, Loew's MGM 139. The studios are not content to show their films in their own rooms, they are also distributors and rent their movies at independent venues. This allows them to limit risks: it can be considered the minimum guaranteed revenue to a film is about $ 500 000.
The role of the studios is to supply films cinema networks. Production policy is subject to a strategy determined by estimating the likely revenues. Daniel wrote at the MGM Royot "the directors of New York establish the budget for production based on the needs expressed by the mining sector. They show the distribution of the financial burden by type of film and their wishes on the choice of celebs. Although these provisions are negotiable with management studio, the production policy is determined by the most profitable sector of the system. "(P. 31) All the studios produced about 500 films a year in the early 1940s. The
MPPDA (Motion Picture Producer and Distributor Association) is to organize agreements on prices, programs, loans actors, the industry's image among the public. Cartel (allowed) since 1918 organizes export: negotiations with foreign governments on Tariffs and quotas. Export reports in the late 1930s, roughly one third of the revenue the studios.
Another third of revenue comes from the studios of direct exploitation films and the rest of dividends from foreign subsidiaries. This system
lamin independent distributors who are obliged to accept the films they are offered
2 ° Division and rationalization of work
The studios are specialized areas that contain all that is necessary for production. Trades and professions are specialized hierarchy.
* Producers
At the top are the producers. The most powerful are the owners of the studios. The "Mughal" is the origin of entertainers. They have an amazing career longevity and their mark on the studios. Harry Cohn of Columbia rules the 1931 to 1958. Joseph Schenk founded the Loew's in 1910, leaving in 1917, became president of United Artists in 1925, led the Fox from 1935 to 1941 (and returning as producer in 1952). Louis B Mayer remains at the head of MGM studios until 1951. Adolph Zukor, founder of Famous Players in 1912 was president of Paramount after 1935.Cecil B De Mille, co founder Lasky in 1913 became a producer at MGM in 1929 before moving to the Paramount, where he remained until the 1950s.
The best-known independent producers are Sam and David Glodwyn O'Selznick. At a lower level, the studio producer, under the authority of the head of production, oversees all stages of the film, the screenplay to its release.
* Developers
The director leads a host of assistants, cameramen, editors. From the late twenties and forties studios have contracted directors whom they outsource everything from the production. A Western film series B may be asked six westerns per year. Before we move to production of a movie everything is recorded. When a film attacking the filmmakers take the scenario in a locker: budget, time, actors, number of horses everything is clear.
The most famous directors (Capra at Columbia, John Ford at Fox, King Vidor (MGM) have more freedom. They have a say on the script and editing. The final cut (final cut) belongs the studio.
· The technicians
Trades film techniques individualized sound, image, decor, makeup, costumes ... Pierre Renoir writes "You have the operations department, itself divided into special effects department , Dept. of tricks, Department of operators who travel outside off etc.. I spend Departments advertising, scripts, service commitment of the actors, the finance department, legal department "... (1927-1941 Hollywood, Otherwise p. 49)
In the late 1930's there to Hollywood 30 000 employees including 13,000 in the month. The hiring is controlled via a union "International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employee" that exists in Hollywood since 1920. He signed in 1926 the Studio Basic Accreditation. In 1933 a major strike occurs. IATSE in 1936 has over 12,000 members, but "is gradually infiltrated by gangsterism and racketeering (Royot).
In 1927 is created sous le contrôle des studios l’Academy of Motion Picture qui rassemble les acteurs. Scénaristes et acteurs engagés ( Hammett) s’organisent au sein de la Screen Actor’s Guild qui tente de résister à la baisse des salaires lors de la crise des années 1930.
*Le texte comme matière première
Le texte peut être considéré comme une matière première. Le studio se procure des histoires et optimise leur utilisation.
Le Reader Digest fournit ainsi des idées de scénario pour les films de série B. Hollywood acquiert à Broadway les droits des pièces à succès : en 1925 la Fox dépense 150000$ dans ce but ce qui déstabilise l’économie des théâtres et provoque une réaction. Ces textes sont retravaillés par une armée de spécialistes : script editor, dialoguistes.…La MGM salarie plus de 60 écrivains-scénaristes qui travaillent sous une même direction. À un moment elle a sous contrat W. Faulkner, F Scott Fitzgerald, Joseph Mankiewicz …Le séjour de Faulkner à Hollywood inspire aux frères Cohen le film Barton Fink.
4° Marketing et publicité
* Une gamme de produits ?
En 1927-28 le schéma de production de la Universal répond à la notion de gamme (développée à l’origine dans l’industrie l’automobile)
• 11 films de prestige (5 tirés de romans célèbres, 2 de pièces à succès)
• 33 films « ordinaires » (fictions type Reader Digest)
• 22 films populaires ( surtout des westerns issus de Western Novels)
Les films partagent avec les produits industrialisés de la consommation de masse (savon, corn-flakes, boissons…) le fait qu’ils sont calibrés pour que le consommateur sache toujours à quoi s’attendre lorsqu’il effectue un achat et que le produit corresponde toujours à son attente.
*Le goût du public
- Les « moghuls » souvent issus d’une immigration récente, se targuent de connaître et de partager le goût du grand public au contraire des écrivains ou des « intellectuels de la Côte Est ». Samuel Goldwyn en fait un système.
- C’est au producteur qu’il revient d’arbitrer entre les contraintes financières, les désirs supposés du public, les choix des scénaristes et ceux du réalisateur. Le « happy ending » est souvent imposé ;
- Le système des previews permet d’éliminer au montage les parties qui heurtent le public (voir cahier de documents, le compte-rendu de la preview de Citizen Kane).
L’autocensure participe du souci de ne pas laisser partir sur le market a film that faces problems of distribution, will not shock or a portion of public opinion.
Films in effect are considered commercial and do not enjoy the protection of first amendment. At the beginning of the century a system of censorship was established in municipalities and local police. Is cut before showing scenes that show attacks on police or suggestive themes. This makes censorship dispersed yield more random movies.
In the early 1920s, Hollywood has a bad reputation. Scabrous films are many, the image in the opinion poor. The death of a starlet at a party raises a watered scandal resulting in the sidelining of the comic Fatty Arbuckle, Buster Keaton partner. Mary Pickford "Little America's sweetheart" shocked public opinion by divorcing to remarry quickly with Douglas Fairbanks.
To avoid intervention by the federal government and unite the studios recruit H. Hays, lawyer, former head of the Post Office to develop a "code of conduct." The Hays Office (1922-193) multiplies the public relations with women's leagues, decency and religious ... bureaux municipaux de censure des grandes villes. Les représentants de la culture traditionnelle s’accordent pour penser que montrer des conduites transgressives au cinéma peut entraîner à les reproduire dans la réalité par imitation et que certains publics sont particulièrement sensibles à la suggestion : gens de condition modeste, immigrés récents, enfants, femmes …
En 1930, lors de l’avènement du parlant, les studios adoptent le Hays Code qui indique aux producteurs et aux réalisateurs au moment de l’écriture du tournage et du montage des films ce qu’ils doivent éviter. Il est appliqué généralement après 1934. La plupart des interdictions sont en rapport avec le respect du aux autorités et aux religions, les conduites transgressives ( assassinats, viols) et le sexe. Le résultat devient parois burlesque : on mesure la hauteur des jupes, la profondeur des décolletés, le torse de Tarzan est rasé ( pas de poils …), deux personnages, même mariés ne peuvent s’asseoir sur le même lit…
Jean-Luc Douin, Dictionnaire de la Censure au cinéma , PUF, 1998, p. 166Confidences de Joseph Breen, responsable du bureau Hays« …périodiquement je fais passer des circulaires qui donnent le ton et la tension du monde : « Attention ! Plus de jarretelles visibles ! L’Europe centrale does not. Less than adultery. Massachusetts protested. "Thus our policy of black stockings and corset she evolves each year, depending on whether or not the universe melted on evoking the Cancan ..."
But the studios have to deal with public interest and the transformation of society: women liberated heroines constraints of the Victorian era or gangster movies reflect the society of the thirties. Applying a kind of "law of compensation," the producers leave a little room in the portrayal of gangsters and killers provided that the corporation is saved to the end and 'bad' are always punished. The writers and directors learn to outwit censorship (words with double meanings, situations ... transposed). This is one of the springs' Screwball Comedy. Developers need to dial: John Houston is asked to represent more discreetly homosexual in The Maltese Falcon.
The system begins to expire in 1953 when United Artists decided to leave The Moon Is Blue Preminger without the seal of the Hays Office.
- The Star system
The star system is part of advertising. Some actors are being equipped with a borrowed personality that sets the fantasies of the audience. Their name, physical appearance (hair color), their personal history: everything is invented. An image is produced, reproduced millions of copies in popular magazines (pinup).
The images thus produced are not without complexity. Jean-Loup Bourget offers a typology of stars
journalists specialized in gossip (Louella Parsons, Hedda Hopper) feeding a press echoes in the lives of stars widening the gap between real life and made life. Some die no more successful to conform to their image (Marilyn Monroe).
Result: world domination
American cinema in the classic era Hollywood to conquer international markets.
At the silent era, there is no language barrier. The war of 1914-18 closed the U.S. market to European products and "studios" Europeans are struggling.
In France Gaumont and Pathé gradually cease to produce and fold over the distribution activities. But there are only 4,500 rooms in France in the war between two cons 25 000 United States. In 1926 we import 444 American films per year in France. Production in France increased from 150 major films in 1921 to 52 in 1929.
Parliament is more market-friendly "national". Paramount studios in Joinville installs to run again with French actors of the films produced in Hollywood already closely following the indications of staging. This is not a success. The films are shot in studios d'Epinay and Boulogne remains of empires Gaumont and Pathé and the Victorine in Nice but the French cinema remains vulnerable because the system of film production on an ad coup qui se met en place est vulnérable aux crises. En 1935 Gaumont dépose son bilan. Nathan qui avait repris les studios Pathé a fait faillite peu avant. Jean Zay ministre du Front populaire n’arrive pas à imposer une intervention des pouvoirs publics dans un secteur économique qui demeure hostile à l’intervention de l’Etat.
C’est pourtant l’intervention de l’Etat qui permet dans les régimes autoritaires d’Allemagne et d’Italie de construire une industrie nationale du cinéma profondément liée aux capitaux publics autour en Allemagne de la UFA et des studios de Babelsberg et en Italie de Cinecitta. Le projet des régimes fasciste est de faire obstacle à penetration of American cinema they see as a cultural threat. In 1937, on 324 films in Italian, 250 are American. Even the USSR was subjected to the onslaught of American films during the NEP, Stalin did not resume until the matter in hand.
III. Creative works (to follow)
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