An Approach to Classical Hollywood History ****************************************************************************************** * An Approach to Classical Hollywood History ****************************************************************************************** In the middle of November, the Faculty of Arts of Charles University offered a series of l Professor Richard Maltby from Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia. Richard Maltby is the Faculty of Education, Humanities and Law in addition to being Matthew Flinders Disting of Screen Studies. He moved to Flinders from the UK, where he established the Bill Douglas History of Cinema and Popular Culture at the University of Exeter, before becoming Researc Film Studies at Sheffield Hallam University. He is currently working on a history of regul politics of Hollywood in the 1920s and 1930s. In the final of a series of lectures on approaches to ‘Classical Hollywood’, Prof. Richard on the production, distribution and exhibition of entertainment films on an industrial sca lecture Warner Bros film, Jezebel (1938, Director William Wyler), was showed as an example ‘star vehicles’ in Classical Hollywood’s system. Since the 1970s film making has become much more complicated and has influenced film criti Most notably, the idea of genre has become less and less tenable but Maltby argues that it important for understanding the history of the Hollywood Film making process. It has been there are 775 different genres, but Classical Hollywood cinema was generic; ‘…all that has has been sincere attempts to find order among variety’ (Janet Straiger). In this way, genr conventions in the production of consumer quality. However, genre categorises audience and the products (the films) need to appeal to these categories of audience to be a success. N categorisation is done by age but for Classical Hollywood films it was done by gender and expectations of urban and rural populations. In other words, it was based on whether the f to be sophisticated or not, as well as where most of the population were situated because the film’s turnover. Genre is anachronistic (belonging to a period other than that being portrayed). According means that the approaches to Classical Hollywood are categorised according to the views of who are studying it. He had used the Google NGRAM statistics to show how categorisation ha popularity since 1960 and that previously, Classical Hollywood had been produced on a bala loss. The statistics showed that the word ‘genre’ increased 6 times in its use since the p when the word only appeared 12 times a year (mostly used in music, journals, or artwork). melodrama which was for male audiences as they included a fighting scene. Melodramas count the overall productions whereas 2 of 3 films were made for audiences with a female majorit the success of the various categories, the industry was compelled to produce more of the t it would gain revenue. The Classical Hollywood film industry was certain that they produced movies in 'cycles', t fashion industry. Maltby allured to the idea that the categorisation of films into genres ‘cycles’. Warner Bros. consistently claimed to be 'cycle starters', but unsurprisingly, ot such as Universal and Columbia, also claimed this, as did Paramount when advertising its f ‘70,000 witnesses’. These so called ‘cycles’ could be begun by a range of circumstances: c success, ‘no sooner than a certain kind of story hits the screen and clicks, practically e starts making pictures of the sure fire box-office type…’ (Variety, 1927). But the cycle m perhaps by failure; legal difficulties; or mere exhaustion of the cycle. The industry pres about ‘cycles’ to present how the industry gets into its pattern of production at a given The 'pendulum public taste’ was the driving force behind film fashion. The swing of the pe public’s taste towards a production method would depend on some topical event that had tak cultural landscape. ‘Film stars’ became very important as film producers were making films public taste rather than on more complex, unique story lines (as they are nowadays) so the was afforded to the popularity of the star’s role. The film’s budget would therefore be de much the film ‘star‘ would make. Jezebel, starring Bette Davis, was used by Maltby as an e production method. Maltby commented that the film ‘looked pretty but the plot was not up t Davis’ starring role was paramount for the film to get a good return. Davis achieved stardom by her ability to show anger in Jezebel, rather than sexiness or gl other film stars of her time were famous for. She was a female star that viewers empathise than emulated. In Jezebel, the scenes were pre-formed so that the star, Davis, could show characteristics best. This ‘star vehicle’ technique was arranged to deliver her characteri anything else because this is what would make or break the film. The ‘star vehicle’ for Da was certainly achieved: she won an Oscar and was nominated for the best actress for the fo Maltby described the possibility of success of the ‘star vehicles’ technique as ‘a little if you hit the wave right at beginning then it will be a good ride, but if you don’t you w ride’.