Classical Hollywood Cinema
Classical Hollywood Cinema is the time duration of the film industry that began with the movie discharge of “The Birth of the Nation.” It incorporates both the Silent Era and Studio Era of filmmaking. Unique to Classical Cinema, the mode of production in this timeframe encouraged film directors to view their work in the perspective of an employee of the studios rather than as auteurists who exercised creative treatments for their works together with a person film style. The Classical Cinema period of time ended in the 1960s when the film industry ushered in a new Post-Classical film style by auteurist film directors with the discharge of “Bonnie and Clyde” (1967) as well as other landmark films of that decade.
Silent Era
The Silent Era is commonly known as the “Age of the Silver Screen” from 1917 to 1928. During this time period, there is no sound or synchronized speech accompanying the character’s images being projected about the movie screen. To accommodate for the lack of sound, on-screen captions were utilized to emphasize important points and dialogue within the story. Oftentimes, the projection of silent films onto the giant screen was accompanied by live instrumental music (pianist, organist, or even a large orchestra). The standard stylistic elements fundamental to classical Hollywood silent filmmaking were implemented with the Silent Era’s Director-Unit System. This technique of filmmaking included a fully integrated employees having a set of employees that had precise regions of responsibility under the leadership from the film director.
Studio Era
The Studio Era was a period in film history that started after the end from the Silent Era (1927/1928) with the discharge of “Jazz Singer”, the first complete film that contained talking sequences in it. The advent from the Studio Era also marked the beginning of the “Golden Age of Hollywood.” The contribution of Irving Thalberg was significant in development of Hollywood’s Central Producer System during the Studio Era while he was Chief of Production at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). In fact, the successful transition of classical Hollywood film production style in the Silent Era’s Director-Unit System towards the Studio Era’s Central Producer System at MGM took place under Thalberg’s leadership. His capability to create a quality film with aesthetic value was demonstrated through his balanced look at budgetary controls, script and story development, and employ from the “star system” within the successful movie “Grand Hotel.”
Intrinsic towards the studio system, the marketing strategies for movies utilized by the major Hollywood film studios was rather straightforward and uncomplicated since the studios obtained most of their cash from theater box office ticket sales throughout America. In those days, there were five major studios that owned a production studio, distribution arm, contracts with actors and technical support personnel, as well as a theater chain. These studios were known as the “Big Five” and included Warner Brothers, Paramount Pictures, Twentieth Century-Fox, Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO), and Loew’s, Inc. (owner of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/MGM). Their revenues originated from monies paid through the theaters for renting films from the studios. Since the “Big Five” studios controlled nearly every theater throughout America, they received the majority of their money from box office ticket sales.
To further extend their power within the movie houses throughout America, these studios took steps to control almost all of the smaller independently owned theaters, too. With the contracting process of “block booking”, theater owners was required to show a block of films (typically in blocks of ten) at their movie house. When the independently owned theaters did not agree to purchase a block of films from a studio, they received no films in the studio whatsoever. Thus, throughout the Studio Era, the Hollywood film industry was tightly controlled by the powerful studio moguls. However, in 1948, a federal court case outlawed block booking. The United States Supreme Court ruled the vertical integration of the majors violated federal anti-trust laws and ordered the “Big Five” companies to divest themselves of their theaters on the five-year period. This decision basically brought the studio system era to some close by 1954.