From Silicon Valley to Hollywood
Streaming platforms have become something very differente from what they were at the beginning. They have become studios. D to the initial location nellto monotone Silicon Valley have moved in the glittering Hollywood without however losing their nature as primarily technological entities, something that gives them a huge competitive advantage within the culture industry. Even a company like Apple, which to tell the truth has always filtered with Hollywood, today seems more and more fascinated by content than by means.
But nothing is ever really new in human activities. The cinema of its origins and of the great boom of the twenties it happenedo also thanks to the contribution of technology, around uno schedule which reappears again, a century later, From modern digital native streaming platforms.
Netflix and Amazon, which combine the momdistribution with that of fruition by bringing films and television to any screen connected to the Internet including that of the video entryphone, they have begun to produce their own contents directly and not only to license them from tailor. And what content? Forti of big data dethe spectators that produce knownza sulviewing habits e sutastes "cultural" of the public, they stand forcing traditional studios into a radical overhaul of their business model and are pushing them into alien territory, the cyberspace, which can be more ghostly than Mars for those used to living on Terr.
Here the companies have also thrown themselves into the fray of telecommunication, of the dinosaurs that have started to swallow film libraries, production company and studios: Comcast took NBCUniversal, AT&T has incorporated Time Warner, sending all the management home even the good one as it happened in HBO. Like the studiesos dethe years of tree of the cinema, road companiesebreastfeeding today are vertically integrating the industry for feed the incessant appetite of public for movies e fun. Adolf Zukor, who invented that integration model vertical, would not be not at all surprised, as we are, by what is happening in the cinema capital and its branches.
To tell us about it history of the cinema boom years e of the vertical integration model that made it successful is David Bordwell, professor emeritus of cinematography ALL'University of Wisconsin. We are pleased to offer our readers his considerations on this very important phase in the history of the modern cultural industry. Enjoy the reading to all who love the cinema.
The transition from Europe to the USA
World War I radically changed the landscape of cinema. Before 1914, Europeans had dominated the industry which was booming: France, Italy, Germany and even Denmark had provided film a Worldwide. At first they were just short films, but in 1913 companies they started talking longer-lasting stories, feature films which could last an hour or more. The public yes it was then scacollato in movie theaters.
War, however, brought at the end of European rule. In the old continent thee escorte di film were rationede. Workers of that industry they were sent at the front. American film companies, benefiting from neutrality, they had broke into secondary markets such as Australia and South America. Looking atEurope and atAsia, these company they began to open branches in those continents to directly distribute their products and fix prices of service. At the end of the war, the center of the global film industry becamera moved to the United States, particularly in Los Angeles, where a neighborhood already stood by posting the nameplate of the capital of the study systems emerging: Hollywood.
Content innovation
Studiesos Americans not were just lucky to be expanding in a time of turbulence in Europe. They also brought a new approach to cinema. The screenplays detailede they transformed completely the content, previously improvised on the model of vaudeville. Specialists have enlisted for realize il design, il costume, la photography, theediting and le other activities that characterize modern cinema. This system integrated and extended helped manage the complicated stories requests fromthe production of feature films.
The directors also conceived an effective and impactful method of storytelling. Rapid editing, close-ups of faces and scene details, storylines driven by well-characterized characters, scenes full of action, humor, fights, chases and stunts: these techniques crystallize into a well-defined national style.
That style si was fully formed already in 1919, with films such as the melodramatic Broken lily by DW Griffith o il mordant Blind husbands by Erich von Stroheim. "He heals her strength of American will created a true film” he wrote a German critic in the 1920s about the movie. “What is happening on the screen can no longer be called a plot. It's a new onedynamic, a breathless rhythm".
The style suited the performers. The close-ups exalted the sweetness of Lillian Gish, the sparkling mischief of the perennial teenager Mary Pickford, the stoic sadness of the cowboy William S. Hart. The editing had to be punchy to keep up with the exuberance of Douglas Fairbanks, who leapt over hedges and hurdles and leapt out of windows.
The return of Europe and the expansion in the world
The American boom has not But wiped out European cinema; as the continent recovered from the war, its directors maintained a high quality of production. In 1919 Mauritz Stiller in Sweden turnsva the love story Mr. Arne's treasure, while in Denmark Carl Dreyer directed his first film, un American-influenced melodrama, Entitled The President. The RGerman aegist Ernst Lubitsch succeededìduring the riotsuosi years of the Weimar Republic, a create thea historical sagaa Madame DuBarry. Il movies it began a fiorire also in lands fare, from Japan to the new communist Russia. Lenin nationalized the film industry in 1919 and later declared: "Of all the arts, cinema is the most important to us."
Still, there's no question that, at least for the time being, the standards of cinema as an art and an industry had their home in America. And things were about to change again, thanks to the simmering struggle between stars, studios and the owners of the screening venues.one.
Everyone against everyone
Most entrepreneurs who have createo the American film industry - Samuel Goldwyn, Marcus Loew, William Fox, Carl Laemmle, Jesse Lasky, Adolph Zukor - they were Eastern European emigrants. While businessmen more snobbish they looked down on the crowd that yes crowded in nickelodeons and vaudeville houses, newcomers took risks their money giving birth to production company for that crowd proletarian. The war had helped their businesses achieve success.
But by the end of the war, the fees they paid to the stars were increasing dizzyingly and causing production costs to skyrocket. Some producers had tried to play down star power by acquiring major literary properties and hiring famous directors. The owners of the screening rooms they were starting to melt and questi agglomerates bigger and bigger increased their bargaining power. On February 5, 1919, a group of actors he decided di far weigh your own influence.
“Challenge to the trust of billionsAries: The movie star revolt is a bombshell for movie houseshe“, headlined the “Los Angeles Times”. Defying the studios, four of the biggest names in Hollywood - Pickford, Fairbanks, Griffith and Charlie Chaplin - they had created the United Artists Corporation.
Other stars were setting up their own production companies, but the "Big Four" of United Artists claimed complete autonomy in developing projects. They also aimed at cut outside the distribution companies that rented films to movies. La United Artists offered the stars' films directly to the owners of the halls.
Pickford presented the maneuver as an act of defense against the growing power of the cinema chains. Griffith, taking the “Artists” label seriously, argued that if partners could control their work, they could break with that formula. “We are willing to certifyi films in which we don't expect to make money,” he said.
United Artists, a boulder in a pond
Indeed the Big Four knew how to make money. They relied on aa formula already in vogue at the studios more, That which required the booking of entire film packages, in which they were mixede mediocre productions with films deserve it exceptional. The fdominant ormula, calla "reservation program", forced theater owners to take a distributor's entire annual production. Fairbanks lamented: “We were used as aa nails against the merchants and the swivel chair magnates made their money.
Vero, ma the stars oflla United Artists they had astronomical salaries, with Pickford and Chaplin collecting every yearthey took him the equivalent of 13 million dollars current. But the artists they knew is the power of control which they claimed it was even more important than salaries. By offering directly to merchants their product would canuto do un profit greater of their usual fees.
United Artists aimed high, planning for eacho of the partners the production of three films a year. Fairbanks fu fastest with His Majesty, the American is debutò in September 1919 at the new Capitol Theater in New York, said to be the largest in the world. He then continued with Superstitious Douglas (When the Clouds Roll By) in December.
Ma Fairbanks associates they had commitments with other companies. Pickford managed to pull out two feature films in 1920, but Chaplin did not complete theat first production for United Artists until 1923, and that (The woman of Paris) it was a failure, partly because it simply appeared in aa appeared. Griffith fu able ffront ai own commitments immediate with la United Artists only by purchasing the film at a considerable price The broken lily from the company of Adolph Zukor, is he had it product.
I problems by United Artists
The new company needed productsi and was soon having to turn to other producers, including Samuel Goldwyn, to meet his obligations. Another problem, as historian Tino Balio has shown, was funding. Thanks to the schedule reservation and a rigid piano of exits, it was needed of financial support. But the banks decided not to back a company of independents working at irregular intervals to please their own ambitions. In most cases, the Big Four had to finance themselves.
La United Artists survived into the 20s, mostly for merit of Pickford and Fairbanks. They got married and, like Hollywood royalty, enjoyed a huge fan following; crowds have filled up the streets during their world tours. Pickford made ofverses projects, in particular Rosita (1923), directed by Lubitsch, which had arrivedtor recently from Germany, e sparrows (1926). Fairbanks changed his image, from that of the nice rogue a that of the indomitable adventurer, in roles like Zorro, D'Artagnan, Robin Hood, the Thief of Baghdad and the Black Pirate. The heroes he played would be "reinvented" by Hollywood filmmakers for decades to come.
Under the leadership of Joseph Schenck, president of United Artists, and thanks to Goldwyn's fine independent productions, the company was able to to survive, but things becomesrono more difficult for founders. Fairbanks and Pickford they devised lush and expensive productions, while Chaplin walked at a slow pace. Griffith, plagued by financial problems, retired briefly daltheUnited Artists, then vi he returned at intervals to conduct a series of flop. Shortly after sound arrived, nearly all of the founders dell 'United Artists they concluded la their career. Chaplin continuous, but in the 40s, abandonando his character di wanderer, he also lost his audience.
Adolf Zukor
No one understood the power ofand star better than producer Adolph Zukor, a dapper ex-furrier at the top of the motion picture industry. He had quickly understood the importance dethe feature film and of theprogram bookingby mastering these initiatives. He had built a colossus dher production by merging his company, Famous Players, with that of Jesse Lasky and then adding a distributor called Paramount.
Zukor, who had hired Pickford and Fairbanks a stamp stratospheric. did she know that the star they could become difficult to manage. His refusal to raise pay to the pickford theha thrust to create la United Artists. At that juncture, she faced the dangerous competition from First National, an alliance of chains of cinema which was starting to sign with le star. In the summer of 1919, Zukor ebb the support of Wall Street to finance il suo againstproject: to buy screening rooms.
Zukor had estimated at 15.000 the number of cinemas in America. Allora, like today, the screening rooms of first vision in city they practiced the highest ticket prices. Within a few months, Zukor went around to vantarsi that over 2.200 screens in America they were projecting his movies e ne he was already buying hundreds best.
This was Hollywood's second breakthrough in the boom years. Minus kingclammed up of the creation of United Artists, had far-reaching consequences. Wall Street money began to shape the film industry. And Paramount, as Zukor's company would soon be called, would seamlessly combine production, distribution and screening. Through vertical integration, the studioss they would provide a reliable supply chain of controlled films from conception to consumption.
Nascites and dismemberment of a monopoly
Zukor's rivals do they hurried to recover the lost ground. With the help of delle banks and of the broker, they melted them their production activity, with those of distribution e of projection. From the 20s onwards, the best studiosos - Paramount, Warner Bros., Fox, MGM and RKO, named collectively “the majors” - they united in an oligopoly. While competing with each other, they collaborated for hold off censorship and dominate foreign territories.
It is therefore not surprising that United Artists has failed to capture a significant space. “Producers have bottled up the best cinemas to such an extent – protested Pickford – that it is impossible to get a screening of my films in thatlle salt". The stars they could evaporate, but the screening rooms, it seems, were there to stay.
Thanks to vertical integration, the majors they created an entertainment empire that spanned the entire planet. Finally, after WWII, the Supreme Court ruled that theirs oligopoly violated antitrust laws. The studios, then, they got rid ofthe screening rooms. It was also a lucky choice. Moviegoers wouldro soon dropped dramatically. Reasonably, Paramount was the first defendant in the antitrust lawsuit; the Federal Trade Commission had been after Zukor since the 20s.
La United Artists she would reinvent herself many times. Its aim to produce movies like attractions memorable has encouraged ambitious projects such as Red shadows, Cime tempestose e Red River. After the seeming of the studio system, it revamped and made dozens of major films. The model of filmmakers collaborating to supervise their work, although it has had a bumpy ride, remains an ideal for the filmmakers ambitious independents.
The return of the studio system
Il study systems is coming back fashionable. Netflix and Amazon, which merge the corporate finance sector, including private debt and the direct lending transactions, as well as the issue of bonds, minibonds and other types of financial instruments; distribution with that of projection, bringing movies on our home screens, have now started create your own content. Telecommunications companies bought film libraries and production companies, with Comcast which took NBCUniversal and AT&T that has absorbed Time Warner. Like the studiesos of the boom years, the companies of distribution today's digital are integrating vertically for fulfill theunceasing world's appetite for movies.
Adolph Zukor does not certainly not would be surprised. It's the story that comes back.
Further reading
Tino Balio, ed. The American Film Industry, rev. ed., Universalrsity of Wisconsin Press, 1985;
Tino Balio, United Artists: The Company Built by the Stars, University of Wisconsin Press, 1976;
David Bordwell, How Motion Pictures Became the Movies, https://vimeo.com/57245550;
Leslie Midkiff DeBauche, Reel Patriotssm: The Movies and World War I, University of Wisconsin Press, 1997;
Douglas Gomery, The Hollywood Studio System: A History, British Film Institute, 2005;
Richard Koszarski, History of the American Cinema. Vol 3: An Evening's Entertainment: The Age of the Silent Feature Picture, 1915-1928,” Scribners, 1990;
kristin thompson Exporting Entertainment: America in the World Film Market 1907-1934, British Film Institute, 1985.s
