The Hollywood Cinema and Auteur Theory - Essay Example

Running Head: The Hollywood Cinema The Hollywood Cinema By ______________________________ The Hollywood has been in constant change from the many past decades, the changes took place so steadily that it was hard to predict that the Hollywood film industry would reach a pinnacle this soon. Science has played significant role in almost every field of life, film theory is another invention of science, which is not concerned primarily with individual films or techniques, but with something that might be called the cinematic capability itself, which governs both filmmakers and audience. While each film is a system of meanings, which the film critic tries to place exposed, all films together form a system more formally known as cinema with having subsystems, which are genres and other groups within the cinema. In Hollywood, the most known theory is known as auteur theory, which actually is not a theory but just a critical method and like all critical methods it relies on certain theoretical principles. Auteur theory also works for ranking the directors showing their worth. The word auteur means, the director who wonderfully influences the films. In the words of Allan Lovell, “By the auteur principle I understand a descriptive method which seeks to establish, not whether a director is a great director, but what the basic structure of a director’s work is. The assumption behind this principle is that any director creates his films on the basis of a central structure and that all his films can be seen as variations or developments of it”(Tudor, 130: 1974). When it comes to comparison between the works of two great directors, one having more shining career before 1960s and the other one is having after 1970s, it becomes so difficulty to find changes in the closing paths, however there are significant differences that must be found as long as we are comparing both of them in the long run, such as film production in 1940s was completely different than what arrived later in 1970s, although close gaps can be found within the films produced in 1960s and 1970s but then again afterwards from 1970s there were more technological changes that appeared on the screen, getting more attention of the audience. One of the directors who has worked and influenced the industry back from 1940s to 1960s was Elia Kazan, his masterpieces were started appearing on screen right from the black and white era, when he directed a film like “A tree grows in Brooklyn”, which is perhaps one of the best from 1940s, although released in 1945, it was an Oscar winner. “On his first directorial assignment, Elia Kazan fills the screen with such exquisite detail that it's hard to remember a better movie about growing up poor (in this case, New York City during the early years of the 20th century). Even though TREE may have been created for the most part inside 20th Century Fox Studios, it has the look of captured reality and authenticity”(n.p.). More importantly, the child actor role played in the film was much appreciated which again brings the name of Kazan as a performer who showed the inner talent of a child actor named Peggy Garner. One of the most fascinating things about Kazan was that he has made numerous films based on novels, which automatically make audience get into the novel through the films picturised by him on such a high level. Another Oscar winning, novel based film by Kazan, which is claimed to be one of the masterpieces of Kazan, is “East Of Eden”, which was released in a colorful era in 1955. “East of Eden is an epic masterpiece, well worth reading. It's also close to 200,000 words long, so obviously, some details and plot points are going to be left out or changed in a two-hour movie, and that shouldn't make a difference. The film is a separate artwork in a completely different medium that should be judged on its own merits, not compared to the book”(n.p.). The famous films directed by Kazan in 1960s were “Wild River”, which was released in 1960, “Splendor in the Grass”, which was released in 1961 and another Oscar winner “America America”, which was released in 1963. The influence of Elia Kazan remained at the pinnacle till 1960s, but one can say that for every positive direction there is a start, and that start was earlier given by Kazan, after which other directors learnt a lot from and made a significant progress. The other director that should be focused because of his versatility after 1970s is none other than Steven Spielberg, the influence that he brought on the film industry is not only pursuing one direction but it is pursuing all the directions, such as writing, production, direction, edition and even acting. The prominent facts about Steven Spielberg include his dedication to the TV series of that time which were other than just Hollywood films, also he began to settle him self by directing films such as “The sugarland Express”, which was released in 1974 as a crime genre. The other big one came from Spielberg when he directed another one after one year named “Jaws”, this was however a novel based film and also won three Oscars. “Every once in a while the right talented people are at the right place together and come up with a masterpiece. "Jaws" is definitely one of those movies, thanks to the amazing cast and the crew the classic masterpiece that it is today”(n.p.). All that auteur theory shows in the work of Kazan and Spielberg is the way these people have worked in the industry, their thinking which is quite different and also the uniqueness which both of these directors posses, both have entirely different ways of showing the feelings, one is much concerned with the drama and romance while other is intended to show a suspense, thriller and horror. The Hollywood star system started appearing in the early 1890s, the idea was simply to create an image of an actor even when he or she was off the screen, the system was mainly introduced to attract people toward names that were never heard before and the backgrounds of those name were also unrealistic, which was another strategy to create a lot of fascination in the people of a society, it was a sort of an unrealistic image of a person who has a job to entertain people through screen. The Hollywood star system did not left for long once the audience realized that the films have absolutely no such concerns with the reality and that the actor is even an actor off the screen, they started taking an actor as an entertainer rather than a real actor who can bring in the inner most emotions through expressions which was a quite new concept and which was also possible only through voice which was not a feature of that era, the actors were just mute on the screen. It was that time when the film industry realized that they should actually make their actors capable of bringing in the real emotions and expressions rather than just fake ones, and this gave birth to method acting, which was entirely different than the star system in which much of silence appeared rather than speaking and expressing actors. In the star system, which was probably invented in the studio era, the first name that appears is Florence Lawrence, she is also known as the first movie star or girl with having thousands of faces, quite surprisingly she was a silent actress, this does not really mean that she was unable to speak but as discussed earlier she was much more related to acting which was having no expressions as the voice is the only thing that can express the feelings, which was not a feature of her on screen performance. When it comes to discussing someone who remained an icon in the history of Hollywood, starting career right from 1950s, we all start thinking of Marilyn Monroe, a girl named Norma Jean, who was almost a part of the same star system we discussed earlier, though the movies that she did such as Niagara, which was more of a thriller, the film was having surrounding of Niagara falls and it had contained emotions up till some extent, by now method acting had taken place in the industry, this shows that the industry was in a constant but steady change. If discussing someone from 1970s, also slightly changing the views, we should try to bring out an action hero who perhaps was good and mostly remembered as one of James bonds, Roger Moore. By now the Hollywood film industry had faced almost a century in making films and it was a time till which it had explored almost every secret and every way to attract the people to see films. Roger Moore played a role in giving action a boost and also brining in a concept of perhaps a good looking man showing some action, it was completely a method acting situation where the hero had to realize himself in an action situation where he is making unrealistic move very realistically. The institutional mode of filmmaking was just a way the characters were shown over the screen. In the Classical Hollywood, which started from 1915, the problem was that each and every single person was a self thinker as people were restricted not to do so many acts, they were all working within a limit or one can say it, a studio, outside which was not allowed, this resulted in serious affect on the work of everyone related to the project, every one had to think about the self, even a director was much concerned about his own work, and not having any interruption in the actor’s job, which certainly resulted in loose performances. “We could start with a description of the Hollywood style derived from Hollywood’s own discourse, that enormous body of statements and assumptions to be found in trade journals, technical manuals, memoirs, and publicity handouts. We would find that the Hollywood cinema sees itself as bound by rules that set stringent limits on individual innovation”(Bordwell, Stagier, Thompson 3: 1988). In the postclassical Hollywood or new Hollywood, one can imagine even bigger things than just a work in a studio, the private and independent productions have now given Hollywood a boost, one cannot simply call it as something that is restricted to one small place. As the following sentence supports the argument. “In classical Hollywood, the referential component of violence (the x-axis) elicited tremendous concern and vigilance. In post-classical Hollywood, it is the styling of violence (the y-axis), the extension of violence in time and space to graphic effect, which has helped to fuel debates over the social effects of violent movies. “Violence” emerges as a thing-in-itself in the contemporary sensibility when and because the links to reference, which oriented the public and industry discourse of classical Hollywood, have been augmented by expansion in the stylistic domain. This domain, and its changes, is central to understanding the history of American screen violence”(Stephen 36: 2003). The classical and post classical Hollywood have although not a big difference when we talk about genres, but due to the steady change and progress made by the industry, the films of today are entirely different than those in past or before 1960s, at that point of time we never had expected to see films that were completely fictitious, those were targeting more on the realities, the Epic/historical films were having an upper hand, such as the thief of Baghdad and The prisoners of Zenda, most of these films were picturized in the classical Hollywood. There were different adventurous movies in the classical Hollywood such as the Mask of Zorro and The Robin Hood. The comedy movies had no high charm in the classical Hollywood, many of those were prepared in the silent mode but none were having great recognition. In the post classical Hollywood, the comedy movies were most commendable and it also attracted most of the family members at a time, the films such as The Mask, Ace Ventura, Beetle juice and Austin Powers are yet remembered as the most well presented comedies. The crime films were always a part of Hollywood, whether they were in classical Hollywood such as The Big sleep or post classical, such as The Godfather. Horror films were also a part of Hollywood, such as Dracula series that started way back from early twentieth century. Even science fiction has always been a part of Hollywood with movies such as Frankenstein in classical and Matrix in post classical Hollywood. So the only differences that viewers are likely to find in such films of both classical and post classical Hollywood are because of the use of technology and latest equipments with a combination of a changed thinking style. The director Spike Lee showed at numerous occasions that he is a racist, simply by showing so many points which can prove this fact true, in him film Malcolm X, he has done similar sort of act. The vision of Spike Lee was to bring the actors of African American race to the roles that were other than just farming and lower class roles, he became very successful indeed in doing so as he not only turned the image high but also the people he adopted off the screen were top black executives, he mostly keeps on portraying the African Americans of the country. One can say that previously the African Americans were downtrodden in the studio era of Hollywood, but as the time proceeded and as the changes took place, there was even a bigger change in the roles of the races, this time Spike Lee put some damage on the White race working in America. “While Lee might be confusing to others, he is not confused about his mission to motivate, to entertain, to make the moviegoers think. In Do The Right Thing, the book, he writes: I've been blessed with the opportunity to express the views of Black people who otherwise don't have access to power and the media. I have to take advantage of this while I'm still bankable”(Norment 140, Vol 44: 1989). References & Bibliography Andrew J.D, “The Major Film Theories: An Introduction”, London, Oxford University: 1976. Norment L, “Spike Lee: The Man Behind the Movies and Controversy”, Vol 44, Issue 12: 1989. n.p. . Bordwell D, Staiger J, Thompson K, “The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film style and Mode of Production to 1960”, London, Routledge: 1988. Stephen, “Classical film Violence: Designing and Regulating Brutality in Hollywood Cinema”, NJ, Rutgers University Press: 2003. Tudor A, “Theories of Film”, New York, Viking Press: 1974. Read More