The Endless End of Cinema: A History of Crisis and Survival in Hollywood 9781501348556, 9781501348587, 9781501348570

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The Endless End of Cinema

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The Endless End of Cinema A History of Crisis and Survival in Hollywood Gianluca Sergi and Gary Rydstrom

BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Inc 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in the United States of America 2023 Copyright © Gianluca Sergi and Gary Rydstrom, 2023 For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. vi constitute an extension of this copyright page. Cover design by Gianluca Sergi, Gary Rydstrom and Eleanor Rose Cover image © Getty Images All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Inc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any thirdparty websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-1-5013-4855-6 ePDF: 978-1-5013-4857-0 eBook: 978-1-5013-4856-3 Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India To find out more about our authors and books visit www​.bloomsbury​.com and sign up for our newsletters.

Contents Acknowledgements

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Introduction

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Introducing: The Film Industry 9 The Motion Picture Patents Company: The Crisis of Control 33 The Big Bang: The Crisis of Sound 51 No Place Like Home: The Crisis of Television 75 When the Legend Becomes Fact, Print the Legend: The Crisis of Perception (Old Hollywood and Rise of New Hollywood) 97 Hollywood and Millennials: The Crisis of Method 119 The Value of Film in the Age of Content Plenty: The Crisis of Legacy 135 The Thieves in the Night – Spanish Flu and Covid-19: The Unexpected Crisis 153

Inconclusion (No, That’s Not a Typo)

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References Index

187 199

Acknowledgements As always, in an enterprise of this kind, there are way too many people to thank for being supportive, helpful and generally not murdering either of us over the past three years (yes, we are that slow). As well as family of all kinds and denominations in the United States, United Kingdom, Italy and Sweden (we are that international), we would like to say a great many thanks to Alan Lovell, Nick Hayes, Helen Nicholls, Miki Bulos, Anna Walas, Rebecca Senior, Jacob Smith, Larry Blake, the George Lucas Library at Skywalker Ranch and the entire editorial and publishing team at Bloomsbury who very patiently kept the faith in the book (we are that irritating). We thank and love you all dearly for having been there for us at different stages of the process. Rejoice, there was an end to the endless end book after all! We would like to dedicate this book to friends who are not with us anymore. To Nick, Alan, and Frank, let us know if you like the book . . . if the Wi-Fi is down, dreams will do the trick just as well. For the love of cinema, and its future.

Introduction

I’m not dead yet. Monty Python Hollywood is dead. One would have to be of a certain age to remember it because Hollywood initially died in 1913. The Motion Picture Trust regretted the untimely death. Then, while managing to survive the Great War, Hollywood unexpectedly died of flu-like symptoms in 1918. Not long after, in 1927, it died again. Al Jolson sang at the funeral. The movie business had not finished grieving when Hollywood died again in 1929. Still reeling from that depressing news, Hollywood died again in 1941. As the dust from a worldwide war settled, Hollywood died again in 1948. And then in 1950. And 1968. And 1980. And 1992. And every year from 2000 to the present. It feels like the mourning has never stopped. And yet, after a long, crazy history of dying, Hollywood is still alive and kicking. The film industry has had more heart-wrenching death scenes than Lawrence Olivier and faced more perils than Pauline. This is a story of survival against the odds. And, as we should expect, it is quite a ‘Hollywood’ story. The movie community can claim professional dispensation to be dramatic. Given the existential threats, and this is Hollywood after all, is it possible to be overdramatic? These days, tech companies replace traditional studios. Audiences stare at puny screens. Hollywood scandals fill the news. TV is better. Franchises fence out original ideas. Movies are no longer culturally relevant. What the hell is virtual reality? An invisible virus mothballs theatres. The common wisdom expressed in print, on social media, at water coolers and at dour industry parties is that Hollywood is dead. Absolutely, positively dead. This time for sure. The prolific and provocative director Steven Soderbergh said in a 2013 speech to the San Francisco International Film Festival: But the problem is that cinema as I define it, and as something that inspired me, is under assault by the studios and, from what I can tell, with the full support

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The Endless End of Cinema of the audience. The reasons for this, in my opinion, are more economic than philosophical, but when you add an ample amount of fear and a lack of vision, and a lack of leadership, you’ve got a trajectory that I think is pretty difficult to reverse. (Soderbergh, 2013)

That is certainly dire. But not nearly as dire as the most famous quote in Hollywood, from screenwriter William Goldman: Nobody knows anything. (Goldman, 2012)

Goldman was positing that no one knows which movies will be hits, but his quote has burst from its original moorings to become the grand, pessimistic motto of an entire industry. It sums up the current belief that many wrenches are stuck in the dream factory’s assembly line. This book reflects on the intense death-of-Hollywood scenes that have paralleled Hollywood’s history. Despite overcoming a multitude of crises, is the ‘art form of the twentieth century’ destined to fizzle out in the twenty-first? To answer that question, it is indispensable to ask what kind of industry it takes to survive a century’s worth of existential threats. To clarify a semantic point up front, we use ‘Hollywood’ to represent the film industry as a whole, not ignoring the international industry, but acknowledging that LA/Hollywood is the industry’s gravitational centre. ‘Hollywood’ is not only a lively shorthand for the film industry, but also a dramatically appropriate evocation of the extraordinary ‘life’ the industry has led. Try a movie-themed mind game: close your eyes and imagine Hollywood as a character. What kind of character would it be? Given its age and that it lives in LA, it would certainly have had a lot of work done. But beyond that, what defines the character of Hollywood? All characters – living or imagined – are defined by the fights they fought, the challenges they faced and the crises they came through. This book tells the optimistic tale of the endless ends of cinema. It describes how the industry, and the art form, surprised the mourners every time by rising from the dead and somehow still looking marvellous. When stitching together this tumultuous history, a fuller portrait of Hollywood emerges, one forged by crisis. It behoves us to ask, what is a crisis? Organizational theorist Karl E. Weick – in Enacted Sensemaking in Crisis Situations – describes crises as ‘low probability/high consequence events that threaten the most fundamental goals of the organization. Because of their low probability, these events defy interpretations and impose severe demands on

Introduction

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sensemaking’ (Weick, 1988). To the people on the ground in Hollywood, a crisis is simply something you know when you see it. But even non-academic Hollywood types would agree with Matthew W. Seeger and Timothy L. Sellnow, authors of Narratives of Crisis: Telling Stories of Ruin and Renewal, that crises are stories. The aftermaths of crises depend on the stories we tell about them. Seeger and Sellnow delineate three recurring themes for crisis narratives. ‘The Crisis Account’ attempts to organize a timeline of all the disastrous events as they actually happened. ‘The Blame Account’ aims to assign blame, determine responsibility and restore the image of some of those responsible. ‘The Renewal Account’ emphasizes recovery, restoration, and the future. Seeger and Sellnow write: The renewal narrative is a less common form of crisis response. Most often calls to work together to rebuild are overshadowed by divisive arguments about who will be blamed and who will pay for the crisis. But as a value-based and optimistic approach to creating a way forward, renewal narratives are compelling. They may spur more rapid and comprehensive recoveries and help organizations and communities create and take advantage of the inherent opportunities embedded in crises. (Seeger & Sellnow, 2016)

The humble goal of this book is to give a ‘Renewal Account’ of Hollywood’s epic history of disasters. The aim is not to wallow in past misfortunes but to prepare for future ones. Despite the justifiable accusations of naval gazing levelled at it, the movie business is usually so busy telling other stories that it is not so good at telling its own. But the tale of how Hollywood has defied death, over and over, is as fascinating, fun, unforeseeable and fantastical as anything put on screen. And what has been put on screen is valuable (and entertaining) forensic material for our examination. Movies themselves are a real-time reflection and response to crises, moments of history preserved in celluloid (or bits). In the late 1960s and early 1970s, there was probably a deep psychological explanation for the spate of ‘disaster movies’ such as The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Towering Inferno (1974). The founding film studios appeared to be dying and feared they had lost their audience. Disaster was on Hollywood’s mind, and therefore it was on its screens. Earlier, during the Depression, movies reflected the studios’ and audiences’ schizophrenic feelings of hope and horror when seemingly half the movies were musical fantasies about everyone getting rich thanks to a glorious system, and the other half were cynical tales of gangsters reeking violent revenge on a rotten system. Then there are the movies Hollywood perpetually likes to

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make about itself, self-centred films like What Price Hollywood (1932), Sullivan’s Travels (1941), Sunset Boulevard (1950) and Barton Fink (1991). Lucky for us, what movies are, and what they are about, is a door left open during Hollywood’s therapy sessions. The classic ‘elevator pitch’ pairs two existing movies that are complete opposites. This forms in the mind of the listener a new, unique movie, one that absolutely must be made. Animal House meets Rashomon! Dark Knight meets Moonlight! An Inconvenient Truth meets Sponge Bob Square Pants! The technique may be simple, but it is a bottomless gold mine. It works because opposites create tension, and tension creates drama. Cinema itself is a product of many opposites: art and science, visuals and sound, protagonist and antagonist, personal and universal, reality and dreams, freedom and formulas, intellect and instinct. This book is the result of opposites. The authors come from the opposite worlds of film academia and film production. Our worlds cross as rarely as the proton pack streams in Ghostbusters (1984). Filmmakers and film scholars share a passion for film, but they sometimes appear to share little else. This book aspires not only to tell the twisty story of Hollywood’s survival but to bridge the quiescent gap between the film industry and academia with the hope that together we can better investigate that complicated story of survival. It is because we love movies that we are writing this book, which means that a necessary critical distance will be difficult. We are not immune to the doleful worry that movies, as we have known them, are in serious jeopardy. Something so important to art, culture and humanity may disappear before our eyes. This has spurred us to look backwards to the innumerable times Hollywood thought it was dead, hoping that this could help bring perspective to today’s death watch. The distance provided by history can help our critical distance. How resonant are current crises with previous ones? Does this history of crises connect and align with a broader story? Is this really the end? Given Hollywood, it is reasonable to expect that if there ever is an ending, it will be a surprising one. The very methodology of writing this book mirrors its objective. The co-authors’ different backgrounds generate differing points of view and methods. Like in a classic buddy movie, an unlikely pairing leads to amusing bickering and then productive teamwork. The approach and tone of this book are deliberately not typical. The filmmaker-author will get the scholar-author’s writing to crack a smile. The scholar-author will get the filmmaker-author’s writing to crack a thesaurus. Through its unique dual lens, this book will examine the story of the film industry using data as much as experience. Film was born of science and art

Introduction

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equally, so it is effective to use both when assessing the film industry. This can have the effect of questioning common wisdom. We will not go against common wisdom for argument’s sake, but for the sake of the argument. The Hollywood crises that provide the turning points for our story will be familiar, but within each of these stories are unfamiliar characters, unnoticed heroes, unexplored subplots, unmet expectations and unexpected outcomes. Chapter 1 asks a relatively un-asked question: what kind of industry is Hollywood? It was born at the beginning of the twentieth century as industrialization and free time expanded in unison and shared the age’s sense of discovery and promise. Film appeared to be something excitingly and utterly new. How was, and is, this unique industry to be categorized? This fundamental question is approached from the point of view of film academia and, separately, from the point of view of deep in the film trenches. Chapter 2 relives the intense fighting over the parentage of the new industry. In its earliest crisis, the movie business was like the boy in Citizen Kane, an orphan from humble origins claimed by a rich but stifling benefactor. Thomas Edison’s Motion Picture Patents Company – more ominously known as ‘The Trust’ – harshly monopolized the earliest days of cinema. For Hollywood to exist at all, it had to fight in the courts, and even on the streets, to break free from The Trust. How did Hollywood beat back Thomas Edison, of all people, and what would it do with its hard-won freedom? Chapter 3 recounts how tectonically unnerving the coming of sound was. No other crisis has Hollywood been less prepared for, or more radically – and rapidly – transformed by. Technology shocked the studios, theatres and artists, all of whom had to scramble. Making matters worse, the expensive retooling of sound happened when audiences and studio coffers shrunk due to a dawning Depression. New technology changed the old artform. In Silent Cinema, Rick Altman wonders if Hollywood has been reborn many times, or whether it is maturing, staying fundamentally true to itself. Did sound kill silent-era cinema or save it? Chapter 4 places into context the threat of television to Hollywood. After gaining cultural importance and moral influence, the film industry was blindsided by the new medium just after the Second World War. Something Hollywood thought would be a tiny ally became a big enemy. Instead of reaping the newly disposable post-war income, Hollywood watched helplessly as ticket sales declined and audiences were siphoned by TV. Movies and television engaged in a technological food fight. Innovations battled innovations. Paradoxically, while

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struggling to look forward, movie studios were incentivized to look backwards, into their neglected vaults, for ammunition. Chapter 5 considers how Hollywood broke out of the blanketing malaise of the 1960s and early 1970s. Film studios were sucked into conglomerates, and films simply sucked. The fight against TV appeared lost. The precious cultural relevance of movies also appeared lost. The oft-told story goes that Old Hollywood was saved by the young heroes of New Hollywood, filmmakers raised on movies and with more reverence for cinema than the studios then exhibited. But like all great stories, this one might not be entirely true. Chapter 6 examines whether millennials are abandoning the movies. Their generation is blamed for so many things, but are millennials killing cinema, too? With so many entertainment choices, are films getting lost in the crowd? Are screens even smaller than 1950s televisions the new, preferred viewing platform? Is the communal aspect of movie-going still culturally important to millennials or anyone else? History has yet to be written on this question, but in perusing a wide range of research, surprising answers emerge. Chapter 7 considers the legacy of film, as Hollywood swims into the world of streaming. In a cluttered entertainment landscape, how do we define ‘cinema’? Does traditional Hollywood still exist? Does the historic legacy of Hollywood bequeath prestige to contemporary films, giving them unique value? The possibility of cinema’s future might rest on the power of its past. Chapter 8 reflects on the second time a deadly virus has shut down Hollywood and shuttered movie theatres. A century of Hollywood history is bracketed by horrendous pandemics. What can the story of the film business surviving the 1918 Spanish Flu tell us about the prospects of surviving Covid-19? How does this latest, unexpected, massively disruptive crisis tangle with already-existing crises? The conclusion wraps up Hollywood’s story of crises and resurrections as best it can, considering the ‘endless’ nature of the story. Some crises gave birth to a movie business in better shape than even movie makers could have imagined. But many crises have unwittingly planted the seed for the next deadly crisis that even moviemakers could not see coming. It is an adventure worthy of Homer. Or, more appropriately, Hitchcock. After all this time, and all the technical and creative changes, how do we now consider cinema: as an industry and art form? How can we describe the character of an industry that has survived so much? Is that character strong enough to face new and harsher headwinds?

Introduction

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Hollywood relishes its insiders, but sometimes insiders need to get out more often. Outside, they would see that instead of there being ‘no business like show business’, nearly every business now regards itself as show business. The cloistered film business can benefit from outside perspectives. Even densely written perspectives from the ivory towers of film academia can be illuminating to Hollywood – though Hollywood rarely believes that. Film academics also need to get out more often. Scholars and historians can find it invigorating to climb down from their perches to experience the indefinable, messy human instincts that drive the process of making movies. In this assessment of movies and their future, movie audiences also have a role to play. If something seems different, if the future seems bleak, if something seems to have disappeared, it would be revelatory for all of us filmgoers to contemplate what it is, precisely, that we are missing. In June 2013, addressing a USC School of Cinematic Arts event, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg – indulging their visionary reputations – warned that Hollywood was heading for an ‘implosion’. They predicted that ‘fringe-y’ movies would be displaced on the big screen by a diet of uniform, mega-budget blockbusters. Movie theatres would only show so-called ‘big’ movies. Would that experience be missing too much, then, to still call it ‘cinema’? What brings us together – industry, filmmakers, scholars, audiences – is a love of film. That love story is at the heart of this book. But as films themselves have shown us, in every love story, love must be tested. Inside the movie business, reactions to crises came from actors, directors and studio executives who had to tell different stories on film, in different ways, supported and sold with different business models. Important reactions also came from craftspeople – cinematographers, production designers, costume designers, composers, picture editors, sound editors, etc. – who had to alter their ways of working, invent new technologies, and create whole new pipelines and jobs. Seismic shifts in the film business came from a Murray Spivack as often as from a Cecil B. DeMille, from a Garrett Brown as often as from a Martin Scorsese. In defiance of the auteur theory, making movies requires an impressively large army of people. Hollywood has needed this army in every crisis. The movie studios, movies, and the people who make them change all the time. If cinema is such an evolving beast, then how can we possibly define it? Why do we keep trying? When music moved to digital outlets, no one asked, ‘What is music?’ Yet we keep asking this fundamental question about film, probably because we sense film might not be forever. ‘What is cinema?’ is

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the question that has launched a thousand heavy books. Is cinema an art or entertainment? Is it a product or an experience? Is it a meaningless distraction or culturally essential? Is it an everlasting art form? Ultimately these questions are not answerable in any definitive manner. But they are instructive questions to ask. A twist on asking the question ‘what is cinema?’ is not to ask ‘what’, but ‘who’. If Hollywood is dying – as so many believe – ‘who’ will we mourn? What stays the same while everything around it changes, what we love after all this time, what has survived so many mortal threats, that is cinema’s character. We could be so bold as to call it cinema’s soul. That is not too dramatic a word for it. What soul do we see before us, battered and battle-hardened, tied to the railroad tracks which vibrate with the rumble of an oncoming train? At this anxious moment, it would be a good idea for Hollywood to remember how it survived those earlier oncoming trains.

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Introducing The Film Industry

We don’t make movies to make money, we make money to make more movies. Walt Disney What is an industry? In what terms does one understand its worth, its literal and metaphorical ‘measure’? And why is it relevant for the purpose of this, a book on film? Understanding what an industry is is far from a straightforward task. While most contemporary discussions understandably revolve around its financial dimension – how much money is involved, profits for shareholders, jobs created, taxation and revenue generated – there are several other important facets of the term that often become side-lined in this approach. The origin of the term ‘industry’ is from the Latin word industria, which can be translated as ‘hard work’, ‘enterprise’ and ‘craft’/‘skill’. In this sense, the impact industries have on our quality of life, for better or worse, is palpable and often remarkably obvious in most of our daily life: from keeping us warm and fed to being able to interact with other people and work and play. Put differently, to speak of industry is to reconcile human endeavour and enterprise, craft and creativity, commerce and economy, often on a global scale. This is the kind of wide-angle lens we are adopting to capture the meaning of the word ‘crisis’ in film history. We are writing about film as an industry, not just as an art form or simply as a commercial enterprise. This powerful blend of art, science and commerce makes film the industry what it is. While this sounds like a very positive way to approach a book on the film ‘industry’ and its ability to survive countless crises, there is a catch – we need some drama after all! – and it is a pretty big one too. While this exciting blend is a defining feature and a definitive asset to filmmakers, studios and exhibitors

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alike, it has also exerted a limiting influence on how the film industry has been perceived, especially by those looking in from the outside. This can be summarized in one popular sentence that is as brutal as it is enduring: ‘It’s only entertainment.’ Industries as diverse as car manufacturing, food processing and pharmaceutical development – to name but three – have been extremely apt at highlighting both their profitability and the positive role they play in our society. Cars enable mass transportation, allowing people to get to and from work and to reach their loved ones when needed. Food processing and distribution means more food is available to people wherever they may be. Drug manufacturers emphasize the life-improving, and often lifesaving, properties of their products. As the recent Covid-19 pandemic and global race to create a vaccine has shown, the names of such companies can come to symbolize salvation and protection. There is also, inevitably, darker sides to those industries (as is the case of all industries): the environment has suffered hugely from car pollution, unethical farming and excessive use of harmful pesticides – all courtesy of the three aforementioned industries. As for film? Despite its importance as a creative enterprise generating billions in box-office receipts and countless other ancillary markets, as a remarkably effective instrument for soft power, and as an art form enjoyed by virtually every human being with access to a screen, film has seemingly been content to occupy a rather modest position in society than most other industry sectors. It has accepted ‘it’s only entertainment’ as its unofficial motto, often turning its gaze inwardly, unable or unwilling to make a larger case for itself. Indeed, from an outsider’s perspective, it would seem as though the film industry had adopted a ‘to hell with it’ attitude to external scrutiny and put two fingers up to it for good measure – in Latin, of course, just to be classy. The most famous of all studios logos, the roaring MGM lion, sits underneath the Latin inscription ARS GRATIA ARTIS (Art for Art’s Sake), the actual translation of which should go something like ‘We couldn’t care less what you think of us so long as you come to see our movies so that we can make more movies.’ Disney’s quotation and MGM’s motto mirror a fundamental contradiction that lies at the core of this industry, namely that for all its claims of cut-throat financial competition, money-driven career choices and unscrupulous behaviour in the pursuit of success, this remains an industry made of people who – for the most part – want nothing more than to make a living out of making movies.

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Somewhat perversely, for an industry formed around the act of seeing and hearing, film has thus chosen to play a mostly invisible and resolutely silent role in the forum of industry, letting others take centre stage and do most of the showing and telling. Why does this matter in the context of this book? The way in which people (governments, industry, the general public) perceive the film industry impacts on public policy and their willingness to invest and support the sector. Policy decisions at the government level in particular shape business opportunities that, in turn, affect production strategies and artistic opportunities. The film industry, like any industry, needs government support. The Motion Pictures Association (MPA) – that is to say, the lobbying arm of the film industry – suggests that: Maintaining and growing a thriving U.S. film and television industry requires the continuation of supportive policies, including strong copyright laws that protect creators, enforcement measures to reduce piracy, and production incentive programs to encourage investment. (MPA, n.d.)

That’s a positive and constructive statement but one that fundamentally relies on government support. To be clear, the perception and understanding of an industry at a public policy level shapes the nature, quality and level of the debates surrounding that industry. It determines what questions are asked, by whom and at what level. Put simply, how the film industry is understood moulds the future of the industry often in longer-lasting ways than any of its internal decisions, be they business or artistic. Nowhere was this more painfully obvious than during the recent (2020) Covid-19 pandemic. The need for governments to decide which industry sectors were vital to society – and thus required tailored financial support for their workforce – laid bare the relative weight placed on various sectors by those with the power to provide support at a time of greatest need. Those industries that have in the past managed to articulate their position as one of relevance – whether by the sheer number of employees, tax revenue and strategic importance – or that are high on the list of priorities for the general population (e.g. education and health) can generate support accordingly. Those deemed as ‘non-essential’ conversely struggle to raise funding and support of any kind for their workers, regardless of their relative importance

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to the core issue of quality of life, from mental well-being to social and cultural connectivity. Crucially, the perception of the relevant importance of film as an industry also impacts its internal living organs, from filmmakers to exhibitors. The sense of self-worth – that what one does is ‘important’ and has value beyond monetary remuneration – is essential to job satisfaction and attitudes. The latter, in turn, informs decisions at both the creative and business levels. The question then becomes: what type of industry is it and what is its worth? We will look briefly at this double-sided question – one that undoubtedly cannot be answered exhaustively here – from a dual perspective: (a) how the film industry is constructed in the eyes of the outside world – seen from a scholarly perspective, and (b) how that view looks from within the industry – approached from a filmmakers’ perspective. This is in the hope of providing the reader with a basic sketch of the main character in this story, before we follow her remarkable history of crises and survival.

The outside view, looking in To begin at the beginning A good starting point here is to consider the existing definitions of the film industry (or at least those that come close to providing one). The US census is a good benchmark as it offers a definition that is, by necessity, borne out of comparison with other industry sectors and subsectors. Although hardly the stuff of bedtime reading, it has the advantage of being formulated from an overview of all industry and is thus more objectively conceptualized. Crucially, it has no ego to soothe, and allows for a dialectic of inclusion/exclusion, addressing not just what the film industry is but also what it is not. NAICS, the North American Industry Classification System (so-called as it was jointly developed by Canada, the United States and Mexico), was created in 1997 as a means to analyse the US economy utilizing data available from the census: The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) is the standard used by Federal statistical agencies in classifying business establishments for the purpose of collecting, analysing, and publishing statistical data related

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to the U.S. business economy. (North American Industry Classification System, n.d.)

The latest version of NAICS at the time of writing – published in 2017 – divides the economy into twenty separate sectors, each comprised of several subsectors. Interestingly for this book, NAICS 2017 specifically cites the creation of a new ‘information sector’ that includes motion pictures as one of its subsectors: A key feature of NAICS is the Information sector that groups industries that primarily create and disseminate a product subject to copyright. Information sector brings together those activities that transform information into a commodity that is produced and distributed, and activities that provide the means for distributing those products, other than through traditional wholesale-retail distribution channels. Industries included in this sector are telecommunications; broadcasting; newspaper, book, and periodical publishing; motion picture and sound recording industries; libraries; and other information services.

The information sector comprises several rather disparate industries, including:1 i. Publishing Industries (except Internet): Newspaper, Periodical, Book and Directory Publishers Software Publishers ii. Motion Picture and Sound Recording Industries: Motion Picture and Video Industries Sound Recording Industries iii. Broadcasting (except Internet): Radio and Television Broadcasting Cable and Other Subscription Programming iv. Telecommunications: Wired and Wireless Telecommunications Carriers Satellite Telecommunications Other Telecommunications v. Data Processing, Hosting and Related Services: Data Processing, Hosting and Related Services T h e full list is available online: https://www​.census​.gov​/naics​/reference​_files​_tools​/2017​_NAICS​ _Manual​.pdf) (accessed 25 June 2020).

1

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vi. Other Information Services: Other Information Services NAICS’ creation of the information sector in its classification of industries is primarily a recognition of a development in the United States and global economy that has been reshaping the culture of what is deemed as valuable, namely the exponential rise of ideas and knowledge (often known as ‘intangible assets’ – more on this later) as a fundamental part of jobs and wealth creation. The actual definition of the film industry comes in two versions. The shorter one is not particularly detailed or revealing: This industry group comprises establishments primarily engaged in the production and/or distribution of motion pictures, videos, television programs, or commercials; in the exhibition of motion pictures; or in the provision of post-production and related services. (North American Industry Classification System – NAICS definition, n.d.)

The longer definition, on the other hand, expands on the above significantly, and it is worth quoting in full (our emphasis): Industries in the Motion Picture and Sound Recording Industries subsector group establishments involved in the production and distribution of motion pictures and sound recordings. While producers and distributors of motion pictures and sound recordings issue works for sale as traditional publishers do, the processes are sufficiently different to warrant placing establishments engaged in these activities in a separate subsector. Production is typically a complex process that involves several distinct types of establishments that are engaged in activities, such as contracting with performers, creating the film or sound content, and providing technical post-production services. Film distribution is often to exhibitors, such as theaters and broadcasters, rather than through the wholesale and retail distribution chain. When the product is in a mass-produced form, NAICS treats production and distribution as the major economic activity as it does in the Publishing Industries subsector, rather than as a subsidiary activity to the manufacture of such products.

The most interesting aspect of NAICS’ classification is its reference to film production and distribution as something other than manufacturing. NAICS clearly indicates the two activities of production and distribution as the core business of film, separating them from exhibition, in no small part thanks to a reading of the film industry as providing a service to exhibition. Indeed, this

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follows a simple logic: ideas and knowledge/innovation are often referred to as the ‘service industry’. The lack of direct outlets to the public where movies are sold (e.g. there is no equivalent of a bookshop for newly released movies) is seen here as the discriminating factor in separating film from (a) manufacturing and (b) exhibition – although the latter is still grouped under the same classification as NAICS 512 (the Motion Picture and Sound Recording Industries Group). In other words, film production and distribution – the main business of studios and production companies – is classed as a service industry (to the exhibition sector), not as manufacturing. This official US government classification is particularly interesting in terms of its conscious attempt at defining boundaries. However, it crucially does not go far enough in outlining what ‘kind’ of industry film is, other than the passage about being part of a new ‘information’ sector. A similar attempt by the European Union goes significantly further than its US counterpart in this regard. A 2014 report produced by the EU Commission to look into the film industry – significantly titled An Overview of Europe’s Film Industry – focused particularly on the ‘specific character of the film industry’, stating (again, our emphasis): The fragile balance between cultural and industrial components of the film industry is the source of significant tension between creative and market considerations. The fact that it is a ‘prototype’ industry – i.e. with fluctuating demand, high fixed production costs and relatively low reproduction costs – accounts for its strong reliance on public funding and the extensive regulation framework that accompanies it. In addition, there is a weak relation between the quality of a film and the price of a ticket (which remains stable regardless of production costs or demand). (Katsarova, 2014: 2)

The emphasis here is on defining film as a ‘prototype’ industry shaped by three key factors – fluctuating demand, high production costs and relatively low reproduction costs. Put differently, the EU’s definition would seem to place film production firmly back into the manufacturing camp, with the added caveat of defining the business as a prototype industry. Both definitions are significant for anyone trying to make heads or tails of an industry that, from the outside looking in, can often look like a sandwich short of a Vegas casino: lots of bright lights, plenty of fun, but ultimately a place where hard-earned money goes to die in a blaze of neon glory.

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The US definition clearly characterizes film studios, production companies and filmmakers as servicing exhibitors/cinemas. It ties production closely to exhibition, studios and filmmakers to cinema exhibitors, in a way that neatly echoes the development of the film industry from the 1910s onwards. The European definition steps back from that view and places those same players back into manufacturing, though making a particular kind of product that, by necessity, is of a prototypal nature. Far from describing the film industry as one devoid of risk-taking, constantly falling back on proven formulas and remakes, this definition deliberately places the business of making movies in the arena of experimentation, constantly designing and testing new products, with no guarantee of success, all the while balancing a ‘significant tension between creative and market considerations’. Both definitions thus offer a stimulating starting point, though they are inevitably in need of an update now that the relationship of film to other forms of exhibition is seemingly altering the industry’s DNA. In our attempt at sketching film as the protagonist in our story, it might be helpful to move from general definitions to some of the core features that give it its endearingly quirky personality.

A cast of millions It is difficult to quantify the film industry when it comes to the two key parameters of jobs and wealth creation. Film industry data – in terms of box office, ancillary markets receipts and the tax revenue they generate – is often aggregated under the umbrella of ‘filmed entertainment’ (that is, grouping together film and television). Moreover, studios are not always as detailed and precise in their reporting – to put it mildly – as one might wish. In other words, we can only work with incomplete and imprecise figures. The latter show global film employment at around 14.5 million jobs. Of these, around 4.5 million are directly employed in film, with a further 10 million jobs created by the activities involved in film production, distribution and exhibition. Taken in isolation, these figures don’t tell much of a story. A comparison might be helpful to make these numbers stand out a little more clearly. Car manufacturing – an industry sector that developed and industrialized at around the same time as cinema – estimates employment in the sector at

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around 50 million workers, 9 million direct and 41 million indirect jobs, to be precise. Filmed entertainment would thus appear to be roughly 50 per cent the size of car manufacturing in terms of direct jobs and around 30 per cent of jobs created overall. As for direct financial performance, the global entertainment sector (film and home entertainment) broke through the $100 billion ceiling in 2019 for the first time ever – with roughly a 40/60 split between theatrical box office ($42.2 billion, a record figure) and home/streaming ($58.8 billion). To drill down further, within that $42.2 billion figure for film, nearly threequarters of theatrical box-office receipts ($30.8 billion or 73 per cent of the total, another record) came from the international market (i.e. outside the United States/Canada), emphasizing once more the growing influence of global cinema-going. Staying with the earlier comparison, the top ten car manufacturers alone generated revenue reported to be around $1.3 trillion worldwide (that’s trillion, not billion). And while operating costs and innovation investment are vastly different, of course – Volkswagen, to mention the most successful automotive company in 2019 with revenue in the region of $280 billion, invests something in the region of $14 billion per year in research and innovation alone – it is undeniably the case that film is dwarfed in both employment size and revenue by comparison. It would be tempting to conclude that, while it is a sizeable industry sector, filmed entertainment is insignificant when compared to most key industry legacy sectors, as in the case of the auto industry. As is often the case, however, looking at ticker tape headlines alone offers a partial picture of the overall importance of filmed entertainment and not a particularly helpful one at that. Film is part of the third largest export sector in the US economy: services/ IP (i.e. intellectual property). This has proven to be a significant area of growth since the turn of the millennium, and its rate of growth, if anything, is accelerating. Reflecting on this sense of an increasingly significant aspect of human industry, a 2013 report by the United Nations on the creative industries suggested that The creative economy has become a powerful transformative force in the world today. Its potential for development is vast and waiting to be unlocked (. . .) It is one of the most rapidly growing sectors of the world economy, not just in terms of income generation but also for job creation and export earnings.

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Film’s historical role as a locomotive when it comes to IP generation (through films, franchises, characters, merchandise, etc.) remains crucial to the wider IP ecosystem supporting the service sector. Put differently, size matters only up to a point when determining the relative importance of film in the wider landscape of industry in the United States and globally. Film remains significant in financial terms because of the revenue and jobs it generates, but also, far more importantly, because of its lead role as the main artery plugged straight into the heart of IP generation and the service industry. The film industry’s key value is not in its direct financial performance but in its indirect contribution to the service sector. If you prefer a more learned economics description, film makes a significant contribution to the world economy in terms of its intangible outputs (especially in its production of IP), far more than for its tangible outputs (films). It is worth addressing this role of film as it is at the core of why it has continued to survive crisis after crisis, particularly in the internet era of the overabundance of content.

The factory of dreams The ‘factory of dreams’ is an expression often used to refer to the film industry. Although the phrase originally referred to the dream-like quality of being caught up in a movie’s narrative in a dark cinema, it captures rather precisely a key dynamic: it is a factory, with specialized labour, production lines and marketing departments, but it does not primarily sell tangible products. Unlike car manufacturing, you do not walk off the forecourt with a movie, only with the experience of one. You pay a licence fee (the movie ticket) to access that experience for a limited time but do not acquire any part of the actual film. Car leasing would be much closer to movie-going in this sense. What you are buying, in other words, is access to a story, a collection of characters entwined in a narrative. Both characters and narrative are the two key ‘products’ sold both in the cinema and beyond. They are what economists call ‘intangible assets’ (i.e. you cannot hold them or use them in a physical, tangible sense) and have most decisively become central to the global economy since the late twentieth century and into the new millennium. One statistic tells the whole story: in 1975, the year Jaws was released, the market value index of the S&P 500 companies (that is, the 500 most valuable

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companies on the stock market) showed their assets as tangible in 83 per cent of the cases and intangible in only 17 per cent of cases. Overwhelmingly, the economy was built around companies that ‘made stuff ’ that you could buy and use directly, from cars to houses, from clothes to utensils and so forth. Fast forward fifty years to 2015 and the title of one of the successful films of that year – Inside Out – ironically captures the new landscape: now, the 500 most valuable companies in the world dealt in intangible assets in 83 per cent of cases and in tangible assets in only 17 per cent of cases, a complete reversal of the 1975 equation. The ability to create new ideas with the potential to power the engine of all kinds of industry sectors and types of outputs has become the key to success in today’s economy, and few industries can match the track record of the film industry in developing compelling, spreadable and popular intangible assets. Indeed, this peculiar feature of film made it a very modern, forward-looking industry from its inception. Mickey Mouse is as intangible an asset today as it was when it first appeared a century ago in 1928. It has been the seed of creation for one of the most enduring and successful empires of dreams, Walt Disney Studios; its actual value to the company and the wider economy immeasurably larger than any direct profits that cartoons featuring Mickey could ever imagine generating. An entire world of spin-off characters (themselves very valuable, especially in a growing ecosystem of platforms for audience consumption of films and related products), merchandise of all kinds and a series of hugely popular theme parks the world over (accounting for over 50 per cent of Disney’s total earnings) owe their existence to a little hand drawn mouse. That’s the power of creativity, intangible assets and innovation all rolled into one. That is also the true genius of the film industry: to have understood and internalized over time that creativity married to organization and innovation could be both valuable and long-lasting. If one wished to be playful with the actual term, intangible in the case of film fulfils rather literally its etymology: it is ‘in’ the ‘tangible’ that the greatest value of film is found, not in the film reel or hard drive or internet pipeline that delivers the actual tangible product but in what is inside it. Film would appear to be infinitely portable and adaptable across different media and platforms, a bottomless source of content, stories and characters that has helped it survive countless financial and creative crises.

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Nobody knows anything What about the enduring ‘film industry as a casino’ image then? An expression often used in relation to filmmaking, especially in terms of its unpredictability, is famed screenwriter William Goldman’s curt dismissal that ‘In Hollywood, nobody knows anything’. This widely quoted dismissal of Hollywood as a hopelessly vague, rudderless industry plays into the imagination of both the public and filmmakers as a place of endless self-indulgence and ego, where artistic and monetary rewards are more akin to gambling than to organized industry. The catch with this particular view – and related attitudes to all things Hollywood – is that even its harshest critic must eventually begrudgingly acknowledge that ‘It’s the stuff of easy parody, but it’s worth billions’ (Davidson, 2012). Indeed, the film industry has proven profitable and stable, particularly once its structures hardened in the 1920s with the system of studios and large-scale organized production that are still at the industry’s core. Once again, finding and comparing figures that provide a quick snapshot of its financial health is both difficult and fraught with problems – a classic situation of comparing apples and pears with an ensuing fruit salad that may not be to everyone’s taste. One logical approach is to look at the industry’s profitability in relation to what ultimately matters the most to studios: the value of their shares. In an industry where all the players with size and purchasing power are public companies – that is, they are all quoted on the stock exchange and are owned by their shareholders – a company can find itself in the peculiar predicament of having a wellperforming slate of movies in a given year and yet witness its shares’ price tank on the stock exchange at the exact same time. The performance of shares, both in terms of price/profit and growth/stability over time, is therefore an essential indicator of profitability for studios. One official measure of both profitability and stability is the ‘earning per share’ or EPS. Although figures – as is often the case – can be massaged to show pretty much whatever a company wants investors to believe – the EPS offers relatively simple terms for comparison with other industries. Earnings per share is meant to show the value to investors represented by purchasing shares in a particular company. The higher the return – usually expressed in percentage points to facilitate comparisons between different types of shares – the better performing the company.

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The EPS for Hollywood studios is estimated to be close to 22 per cent (21.71 per cent in 2019) against a stock market average of nearly 16 per cent overall (15.57 per cent). That is to say, film shares have earned something in the region of 6 per cent more than the average of all industry sectors. The retention rate is also good at 80 per cent against a market average of 60 per cent, meaning that entertainment shares, including film studios, for instance, retain shareholders’ loyalty significantly above the average market figure. Perhaps most significantly, the sector has had a stable growth rate, somewhere in the region of 17–18 per cent (against a market average of around 9–10 per cent) over the past few years and has proven relatively stable even through a period of great financial and market instability, such as market depressions and regional and global conflict. In other words, while Goldman may have been right that the success of any one movie may be rather unpredictable, it would appear, as the title of a scholarly article suggested a few years back, that in Hollywood ‘somebody somewhere knows something’ after all.

An industry that is concentrated and fragmented Where can all these people who know something be found? Most likely, working for one of the major studios. The studios are by far the largest employer in the film industry; they own the greatest concentration of finance and logistical power, and have done so for nearly a hundred years. Consequently, they have come to dominate the film industry and determine its shape and operations. In 2019, there were 129 companies on the record as having distributed a movie in the United States and Canada (the domestic market). That figure would seem healthy compared to other industry sectors where power is often concentrated in a few hands. However, a cursory glance at the box office will quickly dispel that impression: 87.2 per cent of total box-office receipts went to six companies alone, all legacy studios. Disney, Warner, Universal, Sony and Paramount are joined by Lionsgate on this list of the masters of the film universe. Put differently, the oligopoly that has dominated the film industry financially and creatively for the past 100 years is still alive, well and wealthier by the year. Money and power are firmly concentrated in the hands of the few – the very, very few.

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Behind those ‘brighter than the sun’ stars, there is a galaxy of small production companies, distributors, post-production and VFX houses and countless freelancers. The wealth of the film industry – both creatively and financially – is built on a veritable army of workers who often find themselves fighting for the same tiny slice of the large pie that is routinely devoured by the major studios. That slice is small and getting smaller too. There are an estimated 93,000 businesses connected to the film and television industry in the United States alone, employing roughly 900,000 people (direct employment). Nearly nine out of ten of those companies employ fewer than ten people. Put differently, 87 per cent of box office is earned by 0.006 per cent of the total number of businesses in the film industry (the six aforementioned studios). And now for the weather: according to the US National Weather Service, the chance in the lifetime of a US citizen of being struck by lightning is, you guessed it, 0.006 per cent (1 in 15,300).2 Studios, it would seem, have found the secret of bottling lightning. In summary, the film industry has a very high concentration of capital and power in a handful of companies that rely on a highly fragmented workforce. This fragmentation makes for low job security and extremely high competition. The sum total of this also means that decisions about innovation are firmly in the hands of a few studios, and that any significant change to the system is likely to come from outside the industry. Indeed, this has been the case throughout film’s history with all its crises – as the book will show – where challenges to the status quo have mostly (and increasingly so in the last three decades) come from other industries, particularly the tech industry.

There’s no business like show business In the hit parade of famously misleading quotes, we have already revisited alltime greatest hits like ‘In Hollywood, nobody knows anything’ and ‘It’s only entertainment’. Another hit that has survived the test of time is the snappily titled ‘There’s no business like show business’ (actually, this was a song, written by none other than Irving Berlin in 1946 for the Broadway musical Annie Get Your Gun and later so popular as to become the title of a homonymous major film in 1954). The notion of show business as something ‘other than’ the rest of industry is a concept that has baffled economists and students of the film industry over the If you are really curious about weather data . . . here is where we got it from: https://www​.weather​ .gov​/safety​/lightning​-odds (accessed 20 May 2020).

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years. It sounds instantly correct, but the exact contours of the truth concerning that statement have proven stubbornly elusive. Naturally, as in the case of the other greatest hits, there is some truth to the expression, as film as a manufactured ‘product’ is very much unlike most other goods and services. As the definitions at the beginning of this chapter show, there is agreement on the fact that this is an industry where each new product/film requires a significantly large upfront investment of both time and money. It also necessitates a battalion of highly specialized, relatively highly paid workers: jobs in the film industry are 50 per cent higher than the US average ($86,049 vs $57,266, respectively) and up to 78 per cent higher for jobs directly connected to film production ($101,999 vs $57,266). Said battalion is tasked with buying into a creative ‘vision’ that someone (usually a producer and/or director) is meant to communicate to all involved. Once they do, they are then supposed to leave their mark on that vision, improving on the initial sketch of a movie by adding their own strokes, colours, fabrics, sounds and stitching this gigantic cloth together in a way that resembles something of a coherent whole. This takes time, often lots of it. While being developed and produced, some movies get stuck in a variety of hellish scenarios – it is no accident that the expression ‘development hell’ is routinely used – and some simply never make it out of this stage. Those that do, usually take another big chunk of time to go through making the movie, marketing it and then, at long last, releasing it. By this stage, a small fortune – sometimes not that small – will have been invested. In 1977, 20th Century Fox, Alan Ladd Jr. and Gary Kurtz assisted George Lucas in making Star Wars for a reported $11 million. In 2019, Avengers: Endgame reportedly cost anywhere between $350 and $400 million. Harrison Ford was paid around $10,000 for his original Han Solo appearance; most of the stars playing superheroes in Endgame earned around $15 million (with some calculations putting Robert Downey Jr.’s total earnings for his role as Iron Man in this movie at an eye-watering $75 million). Both investments paid off handsomely; both became huge box-office hits (holding the record as the biggest box-office earner of all time in their day) and generated so much money via ancillary products, merchandise, spin-offs, theme park rides and sequels that they should be listed under the ‘goose that lays the golden egg’ category.

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But the history of film is littered with famous examples of movies that did the exact opposite (Cleopatra, Ishtar, Heaven’s Gate and John Carter are the kind of movies that film people mention in the same carefully whispered manner as one would with the four horsemen of the Hollywood apocalypse), laying waste to careers, weakening studios’ financial position and registering zero on the audience’s attention Richter scale. It is what is in between those two extremes, though, that is baffling economists. Films have a remarkably short shelf-life for a product that is so expensive and complex to produce; studios need to bombard audiences constantly with information about new products coming out weekly; all the while managing the delicate relationship with exhibitors/cinema owners. Confusion has been expressed around each of those key three features of the industry. On the short shelf-life and peculiarity of each movie: ‘Because each film is unique and plays in its own way, its life as a commercial product in the theatrical market is hazardous’ (De Vany, 2004: 12). On the difficulty of predicting a movie’s success and the related process of green-lighting projects by studios: ‘While maximizing the green-lighting success rate (i.e. minimizing the two types of errors) is extremely challenging, it is staggering to discover how little “science” usually goes into the process’ (Eliashberg & Elberse, 2006: 784). On the deadly nature of the box office, where constant new gladiators enter the arena only to be devoured by lions in the first weekend of their existence: Motion pictures live and die in the box-office tournament as they are challenged during their run by a randomly evolving cast of new competitors. (De Vany & Walls, 1997: 641)

In short, films cost a lot of money, require a small highly trained army to make them, take years to put on the road (and sometimes they get lost on the way there), and are available for a very limited time (theatrically, at least) with no guarantee of finding an audience – the latter needing to find out that any given movie actually exists and when/where it is going to become available in the first place. In this sense – in their size, unpredictability and short shelf-life – film is indeed a different kind of business. The combination of all these factors makes it a prototype industry, to return to the EU’s definition, and like all prototype industries its health depends on balancing creative innovation and financial prudence.

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While it is a popular pastime to poke fun at the level of self-importance that is often on display, it would be wise to remember the stakes: large sums of money are involved in each project – in each prototype – and the number of people whose jobs and livelihood depend on their success is accordingly significant.

Hugely popular and increasingly global Perhaps the most important feature of the film industry, though, remains the most obvious one to those observing it from the outside: despite a growing array of entertainment choices, film remains stubbornly and improbably popular the world over. Although the popularity of going to the movies or – to use the shorthand employed by industry professionals – ‘theatrical’ may have dipped somewhat in recent years, film remains one of the dominant forms of popular culture anywhere in the world. India, China and the United States are the three core nations in terms of production output and viewership, but the popularity of films is truly global. From Jakarta to Lagos, London to Sydney, Madrid to Moscow and beyond, audiences love movies and consume them in increasing amounts in an everexpanding modality of choice. Cinemas, television, streaming, mobile and physical formats (yes, people still buy DVDs, which contributed to something like $4 billion to the film economy in 2019) feed the seemingly unquenchable thirst for movies from people of all ages, regularly and constantly, year after year. In the US domestic market (covering the United States and Canada), over three-quarters of the entire population (76 per cent) went to the cinema at least once in 2019 (not much point in discussing figures for 2020 and 2021 yet as the pandemic kept most theatres closed and people away from crowded indoor places while vaccination programmes began to have their intended effect).3 That is, of course, the popularity of theatrical. If one adds to that equation the vast quantities of movies consumed through the various means available to audiences today, the actual extent of the popularity of movies becomes immediately obvious even to the most critical and self-flagellating studio executive or streaming enthusiast. Data source available online: https://www​.forbes​.com​/sites​/rosaescandon​/2020​/03​/12​/the​-film​ -industry​-made​-a​-record​-breaking​-100​-billion​-last​-year/​?sh​=5ef03c4634cd (accessed 7 December 2020).

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What do those self-flagellating industry professionals believe though? What are their attitudes about the industry they work in and their relationship with the need to balance creative inspiration with the financial imperatives that are essential to the functioning of the whole organism? It is time to turn our attention to considering what the film industry looks like from the perspective of those who make it what it is.

The insider’s view, from the trenches A soldier stuck in a trench has a terrible view of the war. In the trench, it is narrow, muddy and dark. Peering over the top of the trench will get you shot. News about the war’s progress is spotty, often outdated or just wrong. For those of us in the film industry, stuck in our much safer metaphorical trenches, the view of our wider industry is just as restricted, and the news is often out of date or wrong. We myopically focus on the movie we’re making, making the broader movie industry just a blur. Certainly, some people in the film industry focus on the business of film, but many more of us forget – perhaps conveniently – that it is a business. When the word ‘business’ is spoken in Hollywood, we stick our fingers in our ears and shout ‘lalalalalalalalala’. Even the man who pioneered the way box-office numbers are published in the popular press, A. D. Murphy, wrote in Variety in 1984, ‘All films are experiments, not commodities’ (Murphy, 1984). We in Hollywood assume factories are incapable of producing art. We rarely produce art either, but the hope is we are making, at the very least, cultural contributions and not commodities. Then moments happen, such as noticing a big barrel overflowing with discounted DVDs at a Walmart checkout, and we think: maybe we are just making commodities? Seeing that there really is a war out there, we jump back into our trenches. Since we barely acknowledge that the film industry is an industry (‘lalalalalalalalala’), it follows that we don’t ask ourselves what kind of industry it is. If anyone in Hollywood ever read the NAICS, they would be surprised – and a little offended – that the US government places the film business in the ‘information sector’. Movies tell stories (even documentaries tell stories), and stories are the opposite of information. They are fabricated, faked, imagined into being, not locked into reality like ‘information’. Emotions, experiences and expressions are the currency of movies. If one is looking for information, looking

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to movies isn’t recommended. Adding insult to injury, the NAICS defines movie production as a service industry to distribution. Film creators would rather believe that distribution is a service to production, which comes first after all. Factories don’t work for their trucks. But today, it is beginning to seem very different. Technology sector companies – Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Hulu – threaten to dominate traditional film studios. These upstarts are flush with money, in control of the outlets, and have the power to dictate terms. In other words, the NAICS is right: Hollywood is becoming a service industry for distribution. On top of that, this new, tech-centric distribution industry is subsuming movie production. Companies with no history of production use their deep pockets to become the new production leaders. They produce good work, and just may end up being the movie industry’s saviour, but it is interesting to note that as production migrates from the Old World to the Tech World, what used to be called ‘movies’ are now called ‘content’, ‘intellectual property’ and – to save time, I guess – ‘IP’. There isn’t a filmmaker that doesn’t cringe at those soul-crushing words. Saying a filmmaker creates ‘content’ is like saying an author creates ‘pages’.

But Old Hollywood hasn’t gone away The movie business – with a coy wink – has long called itself the ‘dream factory’. Going to Hollywood really was a dream for many who work there. Those who left home to enter the film business are like those who left home to join the circus generations ago. Like those earlier dreamers, people heading for Hollywood flummoxed many a friend, and made many a parent cry. They fled the real factories – and more recently, the cubicles – of respectable society. If you make that break, and take that risk, you want your work to mean something. But there is an attitude out in the world, the ‘real’ world, that working in movies is an unserious lark. This perception seeps into the self-identities of those of us in the movie business. Hollywood tries to compensate for this wobbly selfesteem issue with power clothes and endless award shows, but an esteem deficit remains. What helped make cinema the so-called ‘art form of the twentieth century’ was its democratic reach. It was undeniably, and still is, a populist medium, stretching across classes and peoples. Anything that popular can’t be that good, the thinking goes. The universality of cinema’s appeal hurts its prestige, especially when compared to more narrowly focused, rarefied art forms. This questioning of

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prestige is felt by everyone in the movie industry, at all levels, whether they admit it or not. Writer/director Preston Sturges, at the height of his power and success, made Sullivan’s Travels (1941) to wrestle, it appears, with his own doubts about the importance of movie work. In Sturges’ Hollywood-satirizing story, John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrae) is a successful comedy director who abandons that ‘unserious’ career to travel amongst the Depression era’s downtrodden as research for the serious, socially relevant movie he hopes to make. But after a long, tiring journey, Sullivan plops down in a theatre where he finds himself deeply moved when witnessing the power of the movie to make people, of all classes and in the midst of a Depression, laugh. He begins to realize that movies, even his comedies, really do contribute to society. In large part, Sullivan’s Travels is a great movie about movies because it taps into the low self-esteem issue deep in Hollywood’s DNA, while arguing that its broadly democratic nature doesn’t diminish but adds to its prestige. Movies are so big and expensive that tension between the art and business sides is inevitable. The business-minded in the film industry are wary of ‘art’, while the art-minded try to ignore ‘business’ (‘lalalalalalalalala’). The outside world, and even the film community itself, makes filmmakers doubt – as Preston Sturges and John L. Sullivan did – whether what they are creating can honestly be called art. In his book Chuck Amuck: The Life and Times of an Animated Cartoonist, director Chuck Jones tells many a hilarious tale of animators fighting clueless, humourless Warner Bros. executives. But Jones claims this tension spurred the denizens of Termite Terrace on to even greater work. Jones declares, ‘creativity without opposition is like playing polo without a horse’ (Jones, 1999). To the less enlightened, the art/business tension feels unhealthy for creativity, and it often feels like art is the loser. There is a reason the subset of movie theatres dubbed ‘art houses’ is small. There is also a reason these art houses have traditionally shown more foreign films. Beyond the borders of private-enterprise-happy America, publicly subsidized foreign films have seemed more able to reach towards ‘art’. The European Union’s classification of the film business as a ‘prototype’ industry, emphasizing that risk is inherent to innovation, leads to an EU recommendation of government support for its film industry. In a way, this government support frees European filmmakers to take the risks necessary to pursue art. Hollywood has financially supported its more artistic endeavours strictly internally, with studios funding so-called ‘prestige pictures’ with the proceeds from more commercially calculated pictures. Out of a fear of regulation and censorship, Hollywood has endeavoured to keep the government at arm’s

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length. It is less likely that the US government would apply the pandemic-era term ‘essential industry’ to the US film industry after years of that industry eschewing government involvement. Indeed, that term has not been applied to the US film industry. The EU approach implies that its film industry is important. Hollywood itself is ambivalent about its own importance. The classic tension between art and business leads to a split personality, often unsure of itself, unsure whether it is better at art or business – or maybe it is just adequate at both. The ‘dream factory’ is at a crossroads, wondering whether it is more dream or factory. There is a growing sense amongst those who work in Hollywood that the factory might be humming along, but the dream is dying. In an industry that likes to sell sunshine, the people working in that industry increasingly see darkness. But that’s life in the trench. War is Hell. Studios famously know Development Hell, but they also know Production Hell, Post-Production Hell, Marketing Hell and Release Hell. Hollywood’s history is haunted by what has felt like many near-death experiences, tales of which will suffuse this book. People working in a dramatic art can be forgiven for being dramatic. We are naturally pessimistic. We see many potential (probable?) deaths on the horizon, including movies are too expensive to allow for risk, commerce is killing art, streaming is killing theatres and – most heart-breaking of all – the centrality of movies to society is waning. Insular Hollywood might have to swallow its pride, acknowledge its insecurities and look to the outside world, even the government, for help. Like soldiers in a claustrophobic trench, the Hollywood workforce both yearns for and fears news of the wider battle. We especially fear news of how our business (‘lalalalalalalalala’) is doing because the expectation is that the news is all bad. So, when we get reports – as noted in this chapter – of statistics that show the film industry has high earnings relative to other industries, it is a shock. Even more shocking are the statistics showing our industry has been stable. Stable? From down here in the trenches, going from crazy job to crazier job, bouncing from failure to failure to success back to failure, faced with seemingly insurmountable challenges to both making movies and getting them seen, all while being buffeted by a technological whirlwind, the last word that comes to mind is stable. But that is from our trench perspective. It turns out, in the wider world, what is stable is the demand for filmed stories. While we wonder whether what we do is important, the importance of movies is proven by the world’s

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never-ending need for them. We would benefit from going on travels, as John L. Sullivan did, to discover the importance of this business, this art and the weird, wonderful combination of business and art that’s always been the backbone of cinema. Although Hollywood is full of fretting about the film industry, there is little thinking about what kind of industry it is. Government-produced terms such as ‘information sector’ or ‘prototype industry’ are not entirely satisfying, at least to the natural romantics in the film industry. Amazingly, number-crunching economists have come up with the most romantic way to describe our business: ‘production of intangible assets’. That we make ‘intangible’ products would sound about right to anyone in the film industry. Given that economist-defined ‘intangible assets’ have dramatically grown as a percentage of the overall economy over the last four decades, it looks like Hollywood, one of the most old-fashioned industries, was actually ahead of the curve. Hollywood was built on the rock-solid foundation of gauzy intangibles: Mary Pickford’s curls; Charlie Chaplin’s walk; Gregg Toland’s angles; Greta Garbo’s smile; W. C. Fields’ nose; Max Steiner’s melodies; John Wayne’s stance; James Stewart’s stutter; Hitchcock’s neuroses; Marlon Brando’s makeup. The unofficial slogan of Hollywood, William Goldman’s ‘Nobody knows anything’ (Goldman, 2012), is a pure declaration of film’s intangibility. Goldman said that no studio executive, filmmaker or star knows what audiences will like. The aggregate of films, with wildly different styles and stories all hoping to be a hit, usually winding up a miss, feed an unpredictable audience’s predictable need for stories. Movie production isn’t a service industry to distribution, as the NAICS claims, it is actually a service industry to audiences. In a 2019 speech to the Cinema Audio Society, Steven Spielberg said, ‘there’s nothing like going to a big dark theatre with people you’ve never met before having the experience wash over you’ (Malkin, 2019). We share the experience of movie-going with strangers. The movie industry, like Blanche DuBois, has always depended on the kindness of strangers. Despite the key role of audiences, the filmmaking process and distribution system separate filmmakers from their audience. Making movies is like putting a message in a bottle and sending it across the ocean. If an audience claps at the end of a screening, the filmmakers in far-off Hollywood don’t hear it. The filmmakers are probably well into making the next film. This separation of creation and reaction disguises what our business fundamentally is: moviemaking is a performance. We are not making a product, or providing for an

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exhibitor, we are performing. And for an audience we can’t see. Even though it rarely is, film can be fairly classified as a performing art. It is ironic that people in the picture business don’t often stop to ponder the Big Picture. I guess we’re too busy making little pictures. But it turns out that how our industry is considered and classified from the outside has a bearing on Hollywood’s economic health and on its sense of self-worth. It is eminently worth being part of these discussions. Hollywood trenches are cushy, as trenches go, but isolating. We have only the foggiest sense of how the war is going. It is informative and invigorating to hear stories from the outside world. It is just as important to hear stories of past battles from inside our world. Old war stories can be inspiring. There is no shortage of them in Hollywood. In this business, it is true that nobody knows anything – except one thing, that storytelling is survival.

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2

The Motion Picture Patents Company The Crisis of Control

‘Every history of the early US film industry is obliged to account for the appearance and disappearance of the first major attempt at monopoly: the Motion Picture Patents Company, organised in 1908.’ (Staiger, 1984: 41) We begin our journey through film’s many deaths at the very beginning of its life. It is a fact of life that birth and the early years of a child’s life are some of the most dangerous, and film is no exception. To tell this story, it may be worth setting the scene as precisely as possible, a kind of establishing shot to take in the huge vista of the United States at the turn of the century, a country in the midst of seismic changes and larger-than-life personalities that came to define the early years of film.

Prologue: Act one, scene one. Ext. Extreme long shot. The late 1800s is a time of great change in American society, as well as across the world. Profound changes are taking place, particularly with regard to the way people live and work. By 1900, over 30 per cent of the population – an estimated 30 million people – live in cities as a large pool of workers feeds the seemingly insatiable demand for labour in the industrialized era.1 Source of data available online: https://www​.loc​.gov​/classroom​-materials​/united​-states​-history​ -primary​-source​-timeline​/progressive​-era​-to​-new​-era​-1900​-1929​/cities​-during​-progressive​-era/ (accessed 6 January 2022).

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They often come from other countries: immigration reaches its peak in the years between 1880 and 1920 when over 20 million new immigrants arrive to settle in the US. Ellis Island – New York’s main immigration gate to the United States – processes as many as 5,000 people every day at this time, and 4 million people arrive from Italy alone in this period. This huge increase in urban population stimulates the growth of transportation networks. Moving large volumes of people across sprawling urban landscapes becomes a central preoccupation of cities across the industrialized world. In response to increasingly overcrowded streets, Boston becomes the first US city to build a subway in 1897 – New York City follows suit in 1904 – thus enabling the growing metropolis to expand further out from its urban centre. Larger industrial plants – relying on more sophisticated mechanization – ensure a larger volume of production at lower cost. Salaries are on the rise too. Although it is virtually impossible to give an absolute average – salaries and hours of work varied significantly between industry sectors and cities – in 1850 a general labourer in New York state on the higher end of the salary scale would earn $1.25, but by the end of the century that would nearly double to $2.46 – roughly a 50 per cent increase in salary once fewer hours worked are factored in.2 While some prosper, others are left behind in large numbers. It is estimated that roughly one in three people living in large cities at this time is on the edge of starvation.3 As mentioned above, working hours begin a downward spiral, significantly mirrored by a rise in time spent taking part in leisure activities. From an estimated national average (in the US) of between 65/69 hours a week in the mid-1800s, working hours decrease steadily to below 60 at the beginning of the 1900s, on their way down to around 50 in the mid-1920s. As for wages, hours of work varied significantly between industries and demographics. Ford, the company that came to symbolize the relationship between mechanization, production and innovation in the first part of the century, introduces a five-day, 40-hour working week in 1926.4 These changes in working practices intersect with fundamental advances in manufacturing, particularly in the quality and use of machinery. In essence, Reference: Data from: https://catalog​.hathitrust​.org​/Record​/008319974 – History of wages in the United States from Colonial times to 1928. Revision of Bulletin No. 499 with supplement, 1929–33. 3 Library of Congress data available at: http://www​.loc​.gov​/teachers​/classroommaterials​/pre​sent​atio​ nsan​dact​ivities​/presentations​/timeline​/progress​/cities/. 4 Source: Hours of Work in US History, available at https://eh​.net​/encyclopedia​/hours​-of​-work​-in​-u​ -s​-history/. 2

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this means people can now buy essentials such as food and clothing more cheaply, thus freeing income to spend on other items, something they embrace enthusiastically: With gains in productivity, particularly in the production of food, Americans spent smaller proportions of their increasing budgets on basics such as food, clothing, and housing (. . .) The income elasticity of healthcare, education, and leisure were well above one; in other words, for a one percent increase in income, spending on each of these categories of goods and services rose by more than one percent. Consumers accelerated their spending on these goods. (Surdam, 2015: 49)

In short, people at this point in time are working fewer hours and have greater discretional income at their disposal than ever before, and they choose to spend both on leisure activities. They do so in increasingly larger urban contexts, where mobility is made possible by public transport and the arrival of the more affordable motor car: Ford’s 1908 famed Model T comes at a price – $850 – that, while out of reach for many, is tantalisingly close for many Americans. Distance and cost – convenience and price by another name – are no longer an impediment to accessing live entertainment and leisure activities. Having fun in the city is also beginning to overcome one of its most severe limitations, safety at night. Several inventions and technological developments at this time make city streets safer after dusk. Electrification brings with it the arrival of street lighting and the possibility to power up all manner of activities, including, of course, transportation and illumination, both indoor and outdoor. One of Thomas Alva Edison’s companies – the Edison Illuminating Company – builds and operates the first power plant in New York City in 1882. The American West is also becoming increasingly populated and a growing centre for business. The period between 1870 and 1900 saw the culmination and end of the brutal Indian wars and the dawn of transcontinental railroad transport: the transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, with the first regular services between New York City and San Francisco, then the West’s largest and most prosperous city, starting in the 1870s. The West was finally tamed into something both accessible and (relatively) safe. The Homestead Act of 1862 had opened up the West to new settlers on an unprecedented scale and scope. Land was made available very cheaply to anybody who could claim to be American and travelled West on a first come, first served basis:

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The Endless End of Cinema The Homestead Act of 1862 lowered the price of surveyed tracts of 160 acres or less to zero, contingent on a $10 entry fee, and five years of continuous residence on the property. (Allen, 1991: 8)

Unsurprisingly, this encouraged further immigration and particularly westward migration. However successful the United States was in transforming itself from an agricultural, rural economy to one mostly based on manufacturing, it did so in a manner that was traumatic to many sections of the population. It gave rise to a period many writers came to refer to as ‘The Gilded Age’ (as Mark Twain famously called it, somewhat ironically, in his homonymous book in 1873), where political corruption was rife, and wealth became increasingly concentrated in fewer hands. Political and social commentators saw this vast realignment of political priorities and financial wealth as potentially dangerous to the general population, perhaps best encapsulated in the words of Walt Whitman: If the United States, like the countries of the Old World, are also to grow vast crops of poor, desperate, dissatisfied, nomadic, miserably-waged populations such as we see looming upon us of late years – steadily, even if slowly, eating into us like a cancer of lungs or stomach – then our republican experiment, notwithstanding all its surface successes, is at heart an unhealthy failure. (Boyer, 2015)

The birth of film Film is born into this fast-shifting social, political, economic and technological context. It emerges out of the live entertainment industry and quickly becomes ‘another act’ to add to stage shows and fairground attractions. Unsurprisingly, in these early stages, film takes the shape and form of existing successful formats: The earliest commercial exhibition was by kinetoscope, a machine through which one person at a time could view the film. For a penny, one could view a film lasting about a minute. (Busch, 2000: 16)

While successful quickly, ‘film’ at this stage, in the late 1890s, is a far cry from what it will eventually become. It is evident that not many see the newcomer as anything other than another trick to perform, an act to enjoy with no particular consequence.

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The subject matter of these short films were often vaudeville acts – strongmen, circus acts, magicians – thus reinforcing the feeling that film, in its early days, was mostly viewed as a process innovation – an add-on to an existing line-up of attractions in the well-oiled machinery of live entertainment. Contrary to popular belief, these short films were not necessarily cheap to access. According to Library of Congress records: ‘The first Kinetoscope parlor, owned by the Holland Brothers, opened on 14 April 1894, in New York. Five machines were placed in a row, and a customer could view the films in each for a total of 25 cents’ (Early Motion Picture Productions, n.d.). Roughly adjusted for inflation, $0.25 in April 1894 would be the equivalent of over $7.43 in 2019.5 To put this in perspective, $0.25 in 1894 would have provided an individual with a pound each of beef, bread, sugar and rice.6 Despite the economic potential of the kinetoscope and film more widely, most entrepreneurs and inventors underestimated film at first. Indeed, to understand why film became embroiled in a bitter legal battle that threatened its very existence, it is necessary to understand the state of the entertainment industry at this point in time. A succession of nineteenth-century ‘new’ technologies had been turned into popular attractions, often travelling around the country. Anything from the telegraph to the telephone could – and often did – become something enterprising new showmen could display to new and fascinated audiences as marvellous new inventions. However, most of these were initially seen as interesting but ultimately proved insufficiently popular to build an industry around. The noticeable exception was the phonograph, an invention that would prove a precursor to film in many significant ways. Although Thomas Edison was the first to produce a working, commercially viable phonograph, he was relatively slow in appreciating the potential of the new sound technology. If anything, Edison was alerted to its potential because of what others were doing. In the 1880s he engaged in patent litigation – something akin to what he would do with film a few years later – to limit and damage the capability of the North American Phonograph Company created by Jess Lippincoat. T h ese are by necessity rough estimates as adjusting for inflation is not an exact science. The US government provides the best tool for this kind of calculations, but it only starts from 1913. For dates prior to 1913 there are only a handful of calculators. We used http://www​.in2013dollars​.com/ for pre-1913 figures as it provides sufficient information on how the figure is reached to be deemed as reliable as inflation calculation allows. 6 Source: https://hdl​.handle​.net​/2027​/uiug​.30112019293742​?urlappend=​%3Bseq​=28 (accessed 1 July 2021) 5

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Lippincoat hoped to develop a capillary network of sub-companies that would lend phonographs, a move not too dissimilar from what film exchanges would eventually do for films. Lippincoat was convinced the new technology would be in demand not for entertainment purposes but for dictation in business. Edison sought to stifle North American’s financial capacity by tying them up in lengthy and costly litigation. Crucially, neither Edison nor Lippincoat understood this new technology as a product innovation (i.e. something completely new that could stand in its own right as a form of entertainment) and tended to think of it as process innovation (i.e. a refinement of something already existing, in this case, business dictation). However, local companies tasked with licensing the phonographs quickly understood that the phonograph had the potential of attracting paying audiences, thus providing a much more profitable business model than selling the actual machines: the phonograph was priced at around $40 at its launch in 1877, roughly the equivalent of a good monthly wage. It was not long before the idea of employing the new technology to access entertainment in what was dubbed a ‘phonograph parlour’ took hold. As one of the earliest posters for the parlour spells out: ‘It talks. It whispers. It sings. It laughs. It cries. It coughs. It whistles. It records and reproduces at pleasure all musical sounds.’ This was not mere fairground attraction. It offered the opportunity to record and reproduce, thus ushering in the notion of exhibition of a mechanically reproduced act. It promised to take audiences across the whole gamut of human emotions.7 Significantly for film, the phonograph’s chances of success relied on evolving from a mere practical attraction (a coin slot machine) to taking on a life of itself that transcended any practical function, either as a dictation technology or as an affordable purchase for individuals, for what we would now call ‘home entertainment’. As Charles Musser correctly points out: ‘the phonograph played a key transitional role as it bridged the gap between the telegraph (and telephone), media whose principal function was to facilitate practical communication, and moving pictures, which serve primarily an entertainment or artistic function’ (Musser & Nelson, 1991: 22).

T h e George Lucas library remains closed to the public due to covid restrictions. Apologies for lack of reference.

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Although Edison was responsible for the introduction of the phonograph in the late 1870s, he would seemingly later ignore the core lessons that he had learned from its commercialization when it came to assessing the potential of film. It should have been evident from his phonograph experience that (a) individual viewing was never going to translate into mass popularity of the scale needed to rival existing forms of live entertainment and (b) public showings that allowed collective listening (phonograph)/viewing (film) were significantly more lucrative than individual viewing. Indeed, Edison was privately and publicly reported to be highly sceptical of the future of films and his own invention: Mr. Edison did not patent this device abroad, partly, it is said, because even he did not perceive the great value of his invention. Then it was merely a coinoperated device, visible to but one person at a time, and by many was regarded as a toy of no great practicability. (The Motion Picture Story Magazine, 1912: 158) Edison seemed oblivious to the possibility of showing films to a large audience via projection: ‘There is no evidence that in 1891, the date of his original application, Edison believed there was a practical way to project its pictures’ (Sopocy & Edison, 1989: 11).

Ultimately, the combination of individual viewing and high cost doomed the kinetoscope (and individual film viewing with it) to be a short-lived phase in the life of film. The year after the first New York kinetoscope parlour opened, projection technology made it possible to show films onto a screen, thus making the whole process instantly far more efficient in terms of cost/returns for entrepreneurs, as well as lowering the cost for audiences. Success was not immediate though. Only about 50,000 people attended film projections in 1904, that is 0.06 per cent of the then 82 million strong US population at the time. However, once nickelodeons came onto the scene with cheaper tickets on offer (a nickel, 5 cents, hence the nickelodeon moniker), attendance skyrocketed. By 1906, 200 nickelodeon licences were issued in Manhattan alone, and by 1907 more than 2 million people went to the movies every day – that’s a growth of 3,900 times the figure from 1904 in only three years. The success of film – though most evident in urban areas – expanded well beyond the boundaries of cities. Its popularity was pervasive: ‘Across the country, in even the smallest village, films were being shown’ (Musser & Nelson, 1991: 161).

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The growing popularity of film and the theatrical business became especially attractive for a number of small entrepreneurs and businessmen looking to either diversify their business or find financial footing in the United States as émigrés. This process was largely aided by the fact that it was still relatively cheap and affordable to enter the film business, particularly when compared to other entertainment alternatives, like vaudeville. In 1904, an entrepreneur would need roughly between $400 and $500 to get licensed for theatrical exhibition. Once a licence was acquired, projectors were also cheap ranging from around $75 to $95.

The Motion Pictures Patent Company The MPPC – created in 1908 and generally known as ‘The Trust’ – is a product of this time, one of great instability and uncertainty about the future. As film had not yet established itself as anything other than a ‘curiosity’, the creation of the MPPC was seen by some as an attempt at rationalizing an increasingly unruly set of producers, distributors (via film exchanges) and exhibitors. Others, particularly all the independent operators who did not have affiliation with any of the companies in the MPPC, saw it as an unscrupulous attempt at monopolizing the market via a cartel of major players. One thing was clear to all though: the MPPC represented the very first existential crisis that the infant film would have to survive. As film is born at virtually the same time in various countries; its early days were characterized by an attempt by many individuals and their companies to claim parental rights. This uncertainty over who had the (legal) rights to control the newborn was mirrored by early investors and inventors – often one and the same thing – in effect building on each other’s developments, including sharing results directly amongst them when beneficial. This fluidity is most evident in the simple observation that the new technology was, in fact, not that new at all. Film was basically a combination/reconfiguration of a set of existing technologies rather than a truly ‘new invention’. It already had a history and specificity behind each component – for example, technical knowhow, ways of using the technologies available and a sense of the limitations/ possibilities of these.

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Its early days were characterized by a dual struggle: on the one hand, the need to identify clearly who could help the infant grow – by giving her some basic rules and clear direction – and on the other hand, the imperative to determine whether she had the necessary appeal and financial wherewithal to survive those crucial early years. Indeed, many of those who were directly involved with cinema at this time declared it dead on arrival. As a technology, it was adopted relatively quickly and became successful beyond expectation by the time nickelodeons and theatrical exhibition became popular. However, its relatively quick rate of success around the world was too sudden for any meaningful infrastructure to emerge. In this sense at least, film ran the risk of being the victim of its own rapid adoption. Several companies had already grown out of that initial period of development (roughly speaking a period covering the last decade of the nineteenth century). Apart from Edison’s own company, many others, like Biograph, had enjoyed considerable success either as producers and/or importers of films (especially from Europe) or as distributors (Carl Laemmle and William Fox – who would later create Universal Pictures and Fox Studios respectively – were two of the people who belonged initially to the latter group) and exhibitors. Inevitably, the fight for industry domination spilt from creative and organizational differences over into legal and financial quarrels. The key to understanding this early period in the life of film – and the main reason for the rise of the MPPC – is undoubtedly the use of financial and legal/ political might to deter as many newcomers as possible, in an attempt to control the market. While this was a widely understood (and tolerated) practice by the late 1800s, Edison and his company had been particularly active in trying to muscle out the competition by out-spending them on legal costs. Most small companies and new entrants simply did not have the financial capital to withstand protracted legal battles and would either see their patents and services become obsolete before even entering the market or simply run out of cash and go bust. Edison had used this strategy successfully in his ventures, in all industry sectors he was involved. Using this approach to entertainment patents regarding film was therefore only logical as he had done so already successfully with the phonograph. In 1891 he filed for a patent for his new ‘moving picture camera’. This was done primarily to enable his company to go to court over possible patent

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infringements by other developers rather than to prove originality. Indeed, at this time there was no basic need in US law to prove originality at all with regard to what were defined as novelties. Edison knew that he would have the upper hand against anybody filing against him as he could easily afford protracted legal battles and their associated costs: As Edison’s lawyers later put it: ‘The expense of these suits would have financially ruined any inventor who did not have the large resources of Edison, and it could hardly be expected that he would be able to prosecute simultaneously every infringement as it arose.’ (Staiger, 1984: 46)

Edison was hoping to take advantage of the vagaries in the ways patent law was interpreted by the courts at the time, deemed by many commentators and scholars to lead often to non-sensical judicial decisions, as this passage on one such decision vividly illustrates: And there the farce completed itself. Rarely had a judiciary which professed to respect the traditions of Roman law attained such perfection of idiocy. (Sopocy & Edison, 1989: 22).

However, while Edison was winning most lawsuits – buying or putting out of business many of his competitors in the process – this was not as efficient a strategy as he had hoped, particularly with regards to securing overall control of the market. To make matters worse, there were many patent categories – on areas ranging from cameras to projectors and film stock – making the legal landscape a veritable minefield. Most importantly though, Edison had been here before. At virtually the same time as he was filing a patent for his first film camera, he was also busy fighting one of the most notoriously bitter patents fight in that period of US history. Electricity – that according to many historians was Edison’s one and only real passion – was the battlefield where this particularly titanic struggle took place. Edison had patented the first electric bulb in 1879 and with it the ‘direct current’ (DC) electrical system. He was quick to realize that the ability to generate enough current to light up entire cities would be of immense value, both financially and politically. DC could only serve electricity to nearby devices though, so Edison enlisted Nikola Tesla to solve this problem. The latter suggested they should use ‘alternating current’ (AC) as this would solve the problem. However, Tesla’s recommendation worked very differently

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from Edison’s original invention. When Edison refused to accept Tesla’s suggestion – he also refused to pay him adequately for his services – Tesla shopped his invention around town until George Westinghouse, founder and owner of the powerful Westinghouse Electric Corporation, bought his patents in 1885 and began building and installing AC generators the following year. The two entered a protracted battle to prove the merits, and oftentimes the dangers, of each other’s invention. This was a brutal legal and financial battle, with both Edison and Westinghouse resorting to ever-increasing expensive and brutal forms of confrontation – which included developing the first electric chair ever used to execute an inmate in 1890. When Westinghouse emerged victorious – he provided his AC system to the Chicago World Fair of 1893 – Edison came to appreciate the huge risks involved in fighting players large enough and armed with financial and political means matching those of his own company, a lesson that would lead to his decision to form the MPPC.8 Edison was facing competition in the film arena both from within the United States – companies like Biograph and Mutoscope, for instance, had developed a significant presence on the film market – and from abroad, particularly from France, where Méliès and Pathes had become so successful as to be a dominant force not just in Europe but in the United States as well. Although Edison was successful in his aggressive legal and business strategy, particularly with most small to medium competitors, there remained a number of larger players that proved harder to tame. This was either for technical reasons (e.g. their patents were significantly different from Edison’s to avoid patent infringement proceedings) or more often for financial reasons (i.e. they could match Edison’s legal cost investment). Others, like William Selig, had developed a successful operation beyond the immediate reach of Edison by moving West to Hollywood.9 By the early 1900s it had become obvious to Edison that any attempt at monopolizing the film market was doomed to fail. Oligopoly, banding together the most powerful players in a cartel, on the other hand, was a real possibility. In 1908 Edison and Biograph, the two main players in the United States at this time that had fought a long and inconclusive legal battle, agreed terms on forming an alliance, the Motion Picture Patents Company: T h e 2017 film The Current War (Dir. Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, USA) documents this infamous legal and personal battle – starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Thomas Edison and Michael Shannon as George Westinghouse. 9 Col. William Selig is considered by many one of the pioneers who established Hollywood as a centre for film production. For more, see Erish, 2013. 8

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The Endless End of Cinema The Patents Company consisted of ten members. These were firstly the companies that between them held the key patents on equipment – Edison, Biograph, and the Vitagraph Company. With them were conjoined four American film production companies – Essanay, Selig, Lubin, and Kalem – and one distributor, George Kleine. The number was made up to ten with the inclusion of two French companies with a long history of exporting film to the United States – Méliès and Pathe. (Izod, 1988: 16)

The newly formed MPPC began striking a series of agreements with other key partners – including a most significant one with Eastman Kodak, then the only real source of film stock for any filmmaker – that positioned it to control virtually all aspects, from film stock to production and the licensing of films to exhibitors. This amounted to a complete stronghold on the nascent industry, one that now threatened to stifle all competition and in effect disable film’s ability to grow in any direction other than that indicated by the MPPC: By September 1911, the MPPC enjoyed a near monopoly of licensed film distribution. With this control the MPPC was able to charge weekly rates as dues from its exhibitors. Rental rates for the pictures were charged according to the class of the theater exhibiting; these rates varied from $15 to $125 a week. Only then were the exhibitors allowed to show films produced and manufactured by the MPPC. (Thomas, 1971: 35)

The crisis that the MPPC precipitated was two-fold. First, its attempt at establishing an oligopoly – an illegal arrangement under US law since the antitrust Sherman Act of 1890 that prohibited small groups of people/companies from controlling an entire market – meant that all main levers of powers with regard to film and its development could only be operated by those inside the MPPC.10 While this may seem to offer a parallel to today’s situation – and in many ways it is extremely similar as mergers and acquisitions have always been central to the historical development of film – there is one clear distinction. Film was only at the beginning of its life journey, and creating a situation in which so few hands controlled the means of production and distribution acted as a formidable barrier to entry for anyone else. In short, the MPPC did not simply move the goalposts, it also raised them high just to make sure. The so-called ‘independents’, often smaller in size and Source: https://www​.archives​.gov​/milestone​-documents​/sherman​-anti​-trust​-act February 2020).

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(accessed

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funding, suddenly found themselves having to climb a much higher fence than they expected. Second, and perhaps even more damagingly, the MPPC took a particularly inflexible position with regard to innovation. While this may sound counterintuitive in view of Edison’s reputation and the companies in the MPPC being amongst the most successful innovators in their respective fields, it stands to reason for ‘The Trust’ as it came to be known, to stick to what had worked for them up to that point rather than try something new. In other words, why try something new when the old way of doing things seemingly works so well, and you can manipulate the market to your exclusive advantage? In this environment, new styles and formats – to mention one very significant example – could be quickly marginalized to protect the ‘tried and tested’. Put differently, the lack of understanding of the business and creative potential of the nascent medium ran the serious risk of stunting the growth of film, consigning it for good to the realm of the ‘curiosity’ that many had predicted for its later life. An interesting example of this is provided by the relationship between one of the most innovative filmmakers of the time, Edwin Porter, and Edison himself. Porter joined the Edison company in 1900. He was widely praised as one of the great early innovators in film style and editing in particular (most famously in his 1903 film The Great Train Robbery). In spite of gaining one of film’s better-known storytellers on his payroll, Edison did not make the most of Porter and other filmmakers’ desire to experiment with format, remaining entirely committed to producing one-reelers. While competitors were experimenting with much longer narrative formats, particularly in Europe and Australia, where three and even four-reelers were not unheard of, Edison did not produce a multi-reel film until 1911, limiting most of his productions to what was known as ‘the one-reeler’, that is, a film that lasted the duration of a single reel of film, roughly 12 minutes. Indeed, one of the most limiting features of Edison’s involvement with the MPPC was precisely that of insisting on only producing one-reelers, thus committing a true act of self-harm in the process, unwittingly paving the way for competitors to experiment with longer films and narrative styles. While the MPPC were mired in a creative quagmire, other nations like France, Italy and Denmark were developing sophisticated long films that found great favour with the general public. In view of the power and reach of the companies behind the MPPC, one might be excused to expect a long story of its domination of film and a protracted legal

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and creative struggle on the part of the ‘independents’ left out of ‘The Trust’. In reality the MPPC turned out to be the proverbial giant with feet of clay. In 1915, a mere seven years after its creation, the MPPC was declared by the Supreme Court to be in breach of anti-trust law as set out in the Sherman Act and, in effect, terminated. But why did it end so quickly and abruptly? How could such a formidable group of companies, with financial and political influence, be conquered so quickly? This is where things get messy in our story, as there is no agreement amongst historians and the facts are open to interpretation. There are at least four major views as to why the MPPC was unsuccessful. They are worth mentioning because in many ways they set out the main parameters by which most future crises would also be understood and judged. There are at least four major rather different views as to the reasons why this attempt was ultimately unsuccessful. They are worth mentioning, if very briefly, because in many ways they set out the main parameters by which most future crises would also be measured. 1. Political economical forces. This explanation focuses mostly on the power of capitalism to drive economic development, in this case through legislative means implemented via a powerful instrument of application, namely the Supreme Court (this would be in tune with as Marxist approach whereby the notion of markets behaving in a responsible, selfregulating manner is rejected in favour of one that points to government intervention as a means of protecting the status quo or fostering change that supports the current system).11 2. Competitive forces within the film industry. A second interpretation of events suggests that the MPPC failed primarily as a consequence of the independents’ rebellion against them. The most important factor in this view is the reaction by private market entrepreneurs against the MPPC’s attempt at exercising control over the whole film industry by claiming this broke anti-trust legislation. William Fox is central to this view as the instigator of government action that eventually leads to the government filing a suit under the anti-trust Sherman Act legislation. In short, while the Supreme Court and anti-trust legislation are at the core of this view too, agency is placed firmly in the hands of the markets and entrepreneurs like Fox rather than government. For more on this topic, the best source is Staiger (1984).

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3. Market forces. A further view suggests that, in effect, the markets are simply self-regulated due to the independents’ ability and agility in capturing and exploiting innovative forms of narrative (multi-reels, etc.). This view argues that by the time the decision of the Supreme Court was announced in 1915 (though immediately appealed and not confirmed until 1918), the MPPC was already in its final throes. This was the direct consequence of the smaller independents’ greater operational agility and ability to innovate. While smaller in size, money and political muscle, so this argument goes, the independents were prepared to move West, to Hollywood, to escape the legal (at times illegal) reaches of The Trust. They were also quicker to innovate on formats and narratives to meet audience demand for longer films with a clearly structure narrative, while Edison and The Trust clang to the more old-fashioned one-reelers to the late 1800s. While partly true, this version of events seems to gloss over the fact that others not involved in the dispute, and in fact some who were part of the MPPC itself, had also moved to Hollywood and were making multi-reelers. 4. The enemy within. Finally, some have claimed that, in fact, the seeds for the demise of the MPPC were homemade and grew from within.12 Any organization comprising of such disparate and varied business interests like the MPPC (and with egos to match) was always going to prove complex to keep in check. This was particularly true for actors and directors associated with the MPPC who, as in the case of Edwin Porter illustrated above. The truth, as always, is rather elusive and likely a combination of these four factors. By the time the Supreme Court’s anti-trust decision came in 1915, Edison’s company had already lost much of its influence, partly because Edison himself spread his resources over many interests rather than focusing on film. However true this may have been, a quick glance at the records available from that era shows that in fact not just Edison but virtually all members of the MPPC relied heavily on short films as late as 1913. Records from that time show, for instance, that in the period 27 May–4 October 1913 (after the Supreme Court had already ruled against the MPPC) the combined ten MPPC members released only one film out of 260 was over two reels in all (over 2,000 feet of film, roughly See Joanne Thomas’s ‘The Decay of the Motion Picture Patents Company’ (Thomas, 1971) as a good summary of internal tensions of this kind.

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20 minutes worth of footage) and even that was not actually produced by the MPPC but rather by a third-party producer represented by George Kleine, the only film distributor member of the MPPC. Most films were one-reelers or shorter (12 minutes or shorter). While a wider sample would be advisable before drawing conclusions, it is clear that the MPPC still chose to rely on a steady diet of one or sub-one-reelers at this late stage. The MPPC has been widely written about in terms of the threat it posed to the then-nascent film format. The latter was as yet neither an art form nor an industry. Film belonged firmly to the live entertainment sector in its first few years of its existence, and, in that respect, Edison’s failure to understand its fun potential might have significantly limited its development had the MPPC been successful in its attempts at standardizing and controlling production, rentals and exhibition. History recorded ‘The Trust’ as a threat posed by greedy individuals and their companies that risked stifling the growth of film, possibly irreversibly. However, in many ways, one of the key lessons here is that the MPPC acted as a spur to innovate amongst smaller competitors, which included future leaders like William Fox and Carl Laemmle, who had cut their teeth in the highly competitive garment industry. Where these small independents could not compete financially and, more importantly, lacked the political power that Edison and the MPPC held, they embraced creative innovation, in so doing positioning themselves for future success. Longer films, more articulated narratives and larger theatres for increasingly larger audiences were central to this counter-push. Where creative innovation did not suffice, other methods were often employed (there is ample evidence that Fox was very apt at gathering support from some very powerful figures in the political establishment). In short, the MPPC’s threat, while serious, likely ended up accelerating innovation rather than stunting it. Key to this was the relatively low barriers to entry in the emerging business that cinema was fast becoming. Low entry barriers (relatively speaking, low cost of cameras, projectors, and licensing in particular), the need to innovate creatively to produce more compelling films for an increasingly more demanding audience, and the growth of the nickelodeon created the perfect conditions for the demise of the MPPC, who were unable to control the tidal wave of cinema’s growth.

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The arrival of the First World War also indirectly helped this wave in the United States by in effect stopping European cinema in its tracks. Up to that point, countries like France, Italy and Denmark had been extremely successful in developing their local film business, but the war and the pandemic that followed (the Spanish Flu pandemic killed over 50 million people worldwide and infected one-third of the global population) slowed film production in Europe enough to allow Hollywood to take an unassailable position of dominance on both foreign companies and also East Coast studios (which by this time were all either moving West to Hollywood or exiting the film business altogether). It is worth noting that some scholars of this period have argued rather convincingly (Staiger above all) that there is a case to be made that would lean towards attributing a more direct connection between the action of the Supreme Court (as an instrument of the law and the US government, though of course theoretically independent of the latter) and the development of the film industry (or – potentially – any industry). In other words, far from the nascent industry merely self-adjusting in this period, it developed in the direction it eventually took because of direct intervention from the state (through legislation and the actions of the Supreme Court). There is obviously truth in both views. It would be difficult to deny that prior to the official anti-trust case in 1912 (which resulted in the 1917 final decision to disband the MPPC), cinema was already discernibly moving in a different direction than that favoured by the MPPC. In particular, the latter’s (and Edison’s role is central here) reluctance to accept that the long-format narrative (multiple-reels) was fast proving to be the kind of process innovation film needed to achieve mass popularity in effect doomed the MPPC to failure. Parallel to this, the huge development of real estate investment on the part of competitors like Laemmle and Fox, outwitted the MPPC’s attempt to regulate and control exhibition. Greater demand had to be met by a greater offer for an increasingly larger audience of film, eager and willing to invest their spare time and money in the movies. Edison and most other members of the MPPC fundamentally misunderstood the nature of the beast. They operated as though film was a manufacturing enterprise while it quickly became clear that film was primarily a service industry (to exhibition). Consequently, those who, like Laemmle and Fox, in particular, saw the theatrical experience for audiences as central to the film equation (with manufacturing and exchanging/distributing films as the corollary to that paradigm) managed more than just ‘surviving’ the MPPC battle but actually

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developed extremely successful business strategies that would shortly thereafter give birth to the studio model that still persists in some form to this day. Film’s habitual way of surviving deadly crises and coming out the other end transformed into something more resilient was born.

3

The Big Bang The Crisis of Sound

“” Charlie Chaplin Sound is hard to talk about. There are many more ways, and quite a few more words, to describe what we see. The effect of sound on us – as audiences and as human beings – sneaks under our consciousness, calling little attention to itself. It is hard to comprehend that sound snuck up on Hollywood. Scientists around the globe feverishly worked to solve the technical challenge of synchronized movie sound from the moment movies were invented. Yet the biggest transformation in cinema’s history caught studios, filmmakers and audiences by surprise. The transition to sound was a historic technological and artistic crisis, fuelled by the film industry’s shocking lack of preparation. The first response was denial. Early thoughts came from two people who would go on to be central to the establishment of sound cinema: Talking motion pictures will never prevail. (Jack Warner, qtd Warner, 1926) (. . .) things will be back to normal, and they (distributors) will be considering the quality in a silent product instead of going crazy over a lot of useless and irritating noises. (Walt Disney, qtd Gabler, 2007)

Contemporary sound artist China Blue observes that, ‘fundamentally speaking, sound is the result of something banging into something else’ (Blue, 2014). Sound sure had a violent impact when it banged into Hollywood with The Jazz Singer (1927). Al Jolson shouted ‘Momma’ in a crowded theatre and movies were never the same.

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This is a story about the collision of art and technology. How does an arts industry weather a sudden, radical change in technology? The transition to sound was a fracas, reverberating with competing inventions, heavy costs, funny voices, cameras in boxes and bad sound in even worse movies. As soon as the sound era dawned, the ‘death’ of silent cinema was mourned. It seemed like cinema itself needed to be redefined. Hollywood faced an identity crisis while less than two decades old. This is a story of art, technology, identity and timing. Synchronized sound could have arrived in Hollywood at many different times. How and when sound arrived helped determine our story’s end. But first, to the beginning.

The good old days For those who worked in the silent era, ‘Old’ Hollywood was fun and fulfilling. Lois Weber, one of several successful women directors of silent films, marvelled at the time that ‘within a few years we have come dangerously near to perfection in technique and construction’. Films such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), The Big Parade (1925) and Sunrise (1927) were compared to great art and literature. With The Gold Rush (1925) and The General (1926), Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton put polishing touches on the singular art of silent comedy. Silent Hollywood was too successful to see sound coming, and no one was expecting or planning for a revolution. None foresaw the end of an environment that was thought to be as close an industry could be to heaven. America’s sweetheart, actress Mary Pickford, remembered that time: The days of the silent film were perfect (. . .) [During shooting w]e always had a three or four piece orchestra playing right through every scene. When I had a sad scene I’d ask them to play ‘Liebestraum’ and I’d cry right then and there. If it was a fun scene I’d snap my fingers and ask them to play ‘I Want to Be Happy’ (. . .) That was a beautiful time. Work was fun. Automobiles were fun, there were dances all the time, and every star knew every other star. There was a family feeling. (Flatley, 1977)

Rugged, eye-patched director Raoul Walsh described his experience: We’d be doing a roughhouse drama, and another company would be doing a love scene nearby (. . .) We only worked when the sun was out; when it went down, we got drunk (. . .) We were a wild lot, all right, like prospectors, like the 49ers that came to dig gold. (Flatley, 1977)

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Hollywood was making popular films in still-new studios which were riotously cacophonous with sound, just not the sounds audiences would ever hear: cameramen shouting, Latin lovers with inappropriate accents, hammering, arc lights buzzing, guitar players, piano players, delivery trucks, alarms, birds, rough-running cars, a small orchestra playing ‘Liebestraum’. The process of making movies was very loud, even if the movies weren’t. Directors could shout during takes. Cameras could move freely, and film at any speed. Larry Semon enhanced the effect of his comically fast running by having his cameraman undercrank the camera. For Broken Blossoms (1919), director D. W. Griffith cruelly berated Lillian Gish while shooting a scene in which Gish’s character screams for dear life while trapped in an opium den closet. F. W. Murnau wrote a script for Sunrise that was more like a poem from which he handcrafted images to capture those elusive feelings. The difficult but defining goal of silent cinema was to find images – and only images – that told a story and conveyed emotions. Sitting atop the Hollywood hierarchy, directors of the silent era could be dictators, exuding a dash of the military (in attitude and dress), and were in charge of every last detail of their movies . . . except the rather large detail of what their audiences heard in movie theatres.

The sound of silents The silent era was never silent. The movies were silent, but movie theatres were definitely not. The experience of movie-going in the silent era is so distant from us that it took the equivalent of an archaeological dig to discover just how integral sound was to early movie-going. Film scholar Rick Altman has unearthed the incredible, diverse, but forgotten world of silent film sound. Altman’s revelations could startle modern-day film enthusiasts who thought they understood that the trajectory of cinema history was from primitive silence to fully realized sound cinema. In his essay ‘Four and a Half Film Fallacies’, Altman points out that when early synchronized sound systems came on the scene, they were not an alternative to silence: Their competition came, by the way, not from silent films, with or without musical accompaniment, but from road shows with extremely sophisticated and carefully synchronized effects (. . .) and from the many ‘wheels’ (vaudevillelike circuits) of human-voice-behind-the-screen companies with colourful names like Humanovo, Actologue, Humanophone, Humanoscope, Natural Voice Talking Pictures, Ta-Mo-Pic, and Dram-o-tone. In short, the world did not wait

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The ‘sophisticated and carefully synchronized effects’ Altman refers to were created live during silent film screenings using props and machines. In a 1912 article, Frederick A. Talbot lauded the Allefex, a box jammed with mechanical ways to produce ‘the howl of a storm, the rushing of waterfalls, the bark of a dog, and the twittering of birds’ (Talbot, 1912). Sometimes, silent-era movie-goers even heard dialogue from the screen – or more accurately, from behind the screen. Between 1908 and 1912, Adolph Zukor (later the founder of Paramount Studios) managed Humanova, one of the many ‘human-voice-behind-the-screen’ companies. Humanova alone had twenty-two troupes performing spoken dialogue for movies in theatres across the country. Flush with that success, Zukor said at the time that ‘the exhibition end of this business is the best end – by far (. . .) It is the stable, substantial, profitable side’ (Krefft, 2017). Exhibition in the silent era was very different than exhibition today. The documentary Saving Brinton (2017), directed by Tommy Haines and Andrew Sherburne, follows history teacher Mike Zahs as he discovers, in his Iowa basement, a treasure trove of turn-of-the-last-century films, equipment and materials used by William Franklin Brinton to put on shows in the Midwest. Zahs lovingly recreates these earliest film exhibitions, including – as Brinton did – live music, Victrola tracks, sound props, learned lectures and audience sing-a-longs. Early film presentations were events, complete entertainment experiences, and pure show biz, in which the films themselves played only a part. As Zahs’ recreated presentations make movingly clear, exhibitors like Brinton helped establish the involvement of community as fundamental to the magic of movies. Though much has changed in how movies are presented, this emotional connection between film and audience has continued to be central. The term ‘silent movies’ is a misnomer that has distorted our understanding of the era. Silent movies certainly weren’t called ‘silent’ in their time. Pre-sound cinema wasn’t silent, but it certainly was cinema. When screened in our time, the projection frame rate of silent movies is almost always wrong; using the soundera standard frame rate makes silent movies play artificially – comically – fast. When restored prints are played at their original speed, and supported with live

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music, and sound effects, the full experience of the silent era is stunningly realized for modern audiences. Abel Gance’s 1927 silent epic Napoleon made a splash in 1981 when it was restored and exhibited with a full live orchestra and multiple screens, recreating how the movie was experienced in 1927. In the late silent era, film production and exhibition were equally important to the movie experience. A 1946 Warner Bros. publication – emphatically titled Okay For Sound! – marking the twentieth anniversary of the studio’s pioneering Vitaphone system, describes the increasing grandiosity of the silent years: As the competition for the public’s entertainment dollar grew keener, exhibitors added elaborate stage presentations to the film programs: dance teams, singers, 75-piece orchestras, ballets and expensive stage sets. The theory was: if the picture won’t pull ‘em in, the comedian, the community singing, the organist or our orchestra will. (Thrasher, 1960)

Competition between studios to see who could fill the massive movie palaces with the biggest movie spectacles culminated in a creative cold war and swelling budgets. Benjamin Hampton (writing in 1931) called the studios’ frantic scramble for loans to cover those budgets the ‘battle of the bankrolls’ (Hampton, 1970). In the midst of this financial fearlessness, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sent a shockwave through Hollywood by ordering an end to studio block booking, a system that had forced theatre owners to accept studio-dictated packages of movies. In his book One Summer: America, 1927, Bill Bryson observes that the FTC ruling ‘left the motion picture industry in the exceedingly odd position of being hugely successful and gravely imperiled at the same time’ (Bryson, 2013). The studios proceeded to find ways to bypass this edict, until they were forced to fully comply by the Supreme Court in 1948. But in 1927, the film industry felt like it had been knocked off axis. The devastating FTC decision came in July. Three months later, The Jazz Singer debuted.

Meanwhile, back east In the decades before 1927, a multitude of sound technologies were developed by scientists thousands of miles east of the hermetic world of Hollywood. The inventors and the film industry paid little attention to each other. Artists and scientists are equally vital to motion pictures, but the arts and sciences had never been so far apart.

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Way out in New Jersey, way back in 1888, Thomas Edison debuted his motion picture machine, the kinetoscope. The movie business grew from this invention. From the beginning, Edison worked at integrating his phonograph and kinetoscope, imagining a system which would allow us to ‘see and hear a whole Opera as perfectly as if actually present’. Despite his resources and determination, it took two decades for Edison to finally succeed and introduce a synchronized sound movie device, in 1913, which he called the kinetophone. The earliest synchronized sound presentations audiences ever saw were via the kinetophone, short films miraculously matching sound to moving images. Rumbling underneath the magic though, were myriad technical problems (largely because electrical recording was still a decade away). The phonograph had to be at the front of the theatre so the sound would emanate from the screen, linked by a very long linen cord to the projector at the back of the house. Rats feasted on the linen cords. Small increases in amplification could only be achieved by making deeper grooves in the cylinders. In New York City, motorized projection was illegal – it was considered a fire hazard – so projectionists had to hand crank and maintain synchronization by eye. One bedraggled projectionist, M. R. Hutchison, wrote an angry letter in 1913 to Edison himself: I am dictating this at 1 A.M., after a very hard day in New York, and think I will have to blow a fuse and go home to get a few hours sleep. I have never come across anything that has as many angles to it as this infernal talking picture. (Hutchinson, 2007)

To Edison, the most important element of cinema was his machine, in particular the profitability of its licensing. The fledgling industry Edison himself helped create fled the East Coast under threat from the Motion Picture Trust, safely settling a movie colony way out west in remote Hollywood. Meanwhile, back East, the sound films Edison produced were awful. Actors had to shout to be picked up by receiving horns just off camera, though no one seemed to really care what they were saying. The thrill of the technology was the selling point. But it turned out that wasn’t enough. The kinetophone died an early death in 1914. Many people thought that if the great and famous Edison couldn’t crack film sound, no one could. If anyone was paying attention to this in distant Hollywood, the abandonment of the sound project by Edison was reason enough to pay no further attention. On the East Coast, and in Europe, other innovators continued to experiment, and – like Edison – spawned sound movies, which were decidedly the creations

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of scientists. After starting research in Berlin, Lee de Forest – inventor of the audion tube that would solve the amplification problem – created shorts in New York for his Phonofilm technology, which recorded sound directly onto film. His subjects were existing vaudeville acts, or sometimes not-so-scintillating politicians. In Auburn, New York, scientist Theodore Case also produced movies, most infamously 1925’s Gus Visser and His Singing Duck, in which Mr Visser gooses a duck to make it quack every time ‘Ma’ is sung in ‘Ma, He’s Making Eyes at Me’. Sadly, this was one of the most profound expressions of sound’s early potential. Not only was sound technology not enough to move audiences, it was also confounding. Here is an (abridged) list of early synchronized sound systems: Animatophone, Biophon, British Phototone, Movietone, Gaumont Chronophone, Hepworth Vivaphone, Kinoplastikon, Lubin Cinephone, Selig Polyscope, Talkaphone, Tri-Ergon, Vocafilm, Walturdaw Cinematophone. The audience wasn’t listening.

Sound goes west In New York, Bell Laboratories developed Vitaphone, a sound-on-disc format that attracted the attention of at least one important person from far away Hollywood. Sam Warner followed the development of Vitaphone, then bought the system for Warner Bros. in defiance of his older brother (and studio president) Harry’s adamant refusal to pursue sound. Don Juan (1926) was the studio’s first Vitaphone release, using synchronized music, sparse sound effects and no dialogue. The insubordinate but forward-thinking gamble of Sam Warner really paid off in 1927 when The Jazz Singer – and its Vitaphone track featuring Al Jolson singing and talking – became a massive hit. This technical and artistic success revitalized the Warners studio. All the other studios, unprepared as they were, had to hustle to catch up. The Warner Brothers’ celebration of their success was dampened, however, by a plot twist worthy of a Warner Bros. tearjerker: Sam Warner died the night before The Jazz Singer’s premiere. Sound had finally gone Hollywood, but not without bumps and twists. Synchronized sound cinema was a sophisticated technical advance, but for many filmgoers, especially those in the biggest cities, the quality of the sound they now experienced precipitously declined. Vitaphone discs and Phonofilm optical reproduction could not match the sonic fullness of an orchestra, actors, mechanical sound effects machines, or even the sound of a single piano or

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lecturer’s voice. Nevertheless, the Brinton/Zukor style of showbizzy film exhibition ended, quickly passing into ancient history. After three decades of the earlier era’s full and live presentations, the thin, monophonic hiss of early sound reproduction must have felt odd to audiences. But – strikingly – it also must have felt right, because ultimately the thin, monophonic hiss is what audiences chose. For the film industry, a time of reckoning had arrived, vibrating with possibilities, uncertainties and loss. The musicians and performers who had created the accompanying sound of silent cinema lost their jobs. The jobs in fun-loving Hollywood fundamentally changed. Filmmakers had to seriously consider sound, an aspect of the movie-going experience they had never had to consider before. (A few prominent silent-era directors oversaw the compositions of original scores, which could be played by orchestras in the bigger cities, but this was rare.) While in the midst of production on his silent cartoon Steamboat Willie (1928), Walt Disney attended the 1927 premiere of The Jazz Singer. Al Jolson in blackface has become the iconic image of sound coming to Hollywood. But another character in blackface was as important to the sound revolution. Appropriately, this character had big ears.

Animating sound Steamboat Willie was the third Mickey Mouse short, after Plane Crazy (1928) and Gallopin’ Gaucho (1928), but Disney couldn’t find a distributor for these films. Immediately after seeing The Jazz Singer, and the exuberant audience reaction to it, Disney decided to turn Steamboat Willie into a synchronized sound cartoon. Animator Wilfred Jackson protested, ‘why should a voice come out of a cartoon character?’ (Gabler, 2007). The frame rate had to be retooled from 18 frames per second (FPS) to the new sound standard of 24 FPS, which had an obvious impact on the tedious frame-by-frame production of animation; by the time it was finished, the film’s cost had increased by 50 per cent. In the yard behind the studio bungalow, a live demonstration of sound effects and music was performed for the film’s crew behind a sheet on which the current cut of Steamboat Willie was projected. Wilfred Jackson played music on harmonica, animator Johnny Cannon made sound effects with his mouth and Walt Disney himself was the voice of Mickey. After this proof of concept, final sound production was done

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across the country in New York City, still the centre of cinema sound technology. The success of Steamboat Willie – the first sound cartoon – put Walt Disney Studios on the path to becoming a major studio. From 1929 to 1939, Disney produced the innovative sound cartoon series Silly Symphonies, many directed by former sound-doubter Wilfred Jackson. Steamboat Willie was designed – or, more accurately, re-designed – to take advantage of the fresh possibilities of sound. It made very early, and very creative, use of voice, music and sound effects. Mickey whistling at the steamboat’s wheel is as iconic an image of the coming of film sound as Jolson singing on his knees. Thanks in large part to Disney, animated films attained a sound sophistication that live-action films took longer to attain. There were many complaints about early sound cinema, but Disney cartoons received surprising acclaim. Composer Arthur Honegger, writing about Mickey Mouse in 1931, stated: The sound cinema will only come into its own when it achieves a union between the visual and musical expression of the same thing so tight that they explain and complement each other as equals (. . .) In Mickey it is clear that it is the musical rhythm itself that gives rise to the images. Here the music has become as important as the cinema, yet it is still, indeed more than ever, cinema; it is sound cinema. (Jacobs, 2014)

Sound stages Animators making sound films didn’t have to deal with many of the annoying issues live-action filmmakers had to deal with. On movie sound stages, clackety cameras had to be baffled in boxes, impending sneezes repressed, construction paused, balloons sent aloft to keep noisy planes from flying overhead. Warner Bros., the studio that sparked the transition to sound in 1927, was still building sound stages without soundproofing as late as 1929, underlining that big changes take time to sink in. Celebrated directors suddenly had to deal with so-called ‘Dialogue Directors’ brought in to focus solely on that one, new aspect of making movies. Famous actors had to submit to voice tests. A Paramount Studios newsletter from July 1928 featured an article soothingly titled ‘Sound Has No Terror For Stars’. Oh yes it did. The article has a photo of actress Jean Arthur speaking into a hubcap-sized microphone under the cold gaze of casting director Fred Datig. Acting candidates ‘will be handed a book and asked to read a paragraph or two into Datig’s test microphone. If this preliminary examination proves successful,

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they will then face more exhaustive voice tests in the sound effects department’. Old Hollywood hands chafed at the tyranny of the ‘technicians’. But this wasn’t just a technological revolution. Dealing with the technology of sound filmmaking was a hurdle, but the more vexing revolution was creative. Sound had been a part of movies, but only within the walls of movie theatres. All the thinking about, planning for and performing of sound, which had been handled by musicians, dialogue-behind-the-screen troupes, sound effects machines and exhibitors, was now dumped into the lap of Hollywood. The film industry – which had been humming along so comfortably – would now have to think about something they never had to think about before. If George Lucas is right that sound is 50 per cent of the movie-going experience, then almost overnight Hollywood’s workload doubled. Hollywood had to struggle with an existential question: what is cinema? A question that has occupied film academics for over a century. But in 1927, filmmakers faced this question in a day-to-day, down-and-dirty, rubber-hits-the-road kind of way. So many of the crises Hollywood has faced have been external – courts, wars, economies, competitors – but the crisis of sound was searingly internal. Marking the fiftieth anniversary of the talkies in 1977, the New York Times’ Guy Flatley interviewed people he called ‘survivors’ of the conversion to sound. They gave first-hand accounts of the upheaval. King Vidor, director of many silent classics, recalled: We felt we were bursting forth with a fresh channel of expression in each new movie. Silent techniques constituted a universal language; Chaplin, after all, was the best known man in the whole world. Then, bang, we were hit with the sound thing, and the technicians began to dominate the scene. (Flatley, 1977)

Director Raoul Walsh complained: I knew we’d have problems when the actors had to learn lines. They had drama coaches, of course. I don’t know if they had conducted class in a subway before they came west, or what, but I do know they were terrible. (Flatley, 1977)

Actress Myrna Loy declared that ‘It was a dreadful time, believe me. If anyone says it wasn’t, he just wasn’t there.’ Legendarily optimistic director Frank Capra – It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) – was not very Capraesque: When film found its larynx, it astonished, amazed, and absolutely threw everyone into a tailspin (. . .) Nobody knew if audiences would take to these pictures; they were used to looking at motion pictures, not photographed plays.

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Men like L. B. Mayer, powerful men who were in the habit of telling everyone in Hollywood what to do, were suddenly sitting in their offices, completely stunned (. . .) It was funny and tragic to us. It destroyed everything we knew, all of our carefully developed methods. (Flatley, 1977)

Words, words, words By 1929, nearly every Hollywood movie was talking. But to many critics, talking was the problem. These early dialogue films were called ‘speakies’, and ‘talkers’ due to an over-reliance on the new-fangled effect of synchronized human voices. 1950s Sunset Boulevard darkly ruminated on that time. In Billy Wilder’s film, ageing silent star Norma Desmond exclaims to screenwriter Joe Gillis: ‘Words, words, more words! Well, you’ll make a rope of words and strangle this business!’ (Wilder, 1950). Early sound film acting was slow, loud and over-enunciated. It was more likely supervised by a sound technician than a director. As soon as the first ungainly sound movies filled theatres, critics were mourning the loss of silent film. The title of Gilbert Seldes’ 1928 Harper’s Magazine essay is blunt: ‘The Movies Commit Suicide’. He bemoans, ‘After some twenty years of being only in its infancy, the moving picture which gave promise of an interesting adult life, has gone suddenly senile – and garrulous.’ He writes that sound cinema ‘will have a minimum of illusion and will make a minimum appeal to the imagination’. Seldes even thought that sound cinema, full of that incessant, stagey chatter, could kill legitimate theatre. One of the few hopes he ventured for the future was that ‘the film with full dialogue will become a separate form of entertainment’ (Seldes, 1928). When Seldes wrote this, it was the case, in a way. Often, silent and sound versions of a movie were released simultaneously. After being shot as silents, some films clumsily wedged in a few synchronized sound scenes. Many silent films added a soundtrack after the fact, most often just music. A long-forgotten term, used at the time to describe these hybrid movies, is ‘goat glands’. This curious term is derived from a medicinal treatment that used said ‘glands’ to treat impotence. What this says about the period’s attitudes about these early half-sound films is pretty clear. Film history is both painful and sublime. And so, even as Seldes was later writing things like ‘Not one of the talkies shown by mid-summer, 1929, is worth a minute of any intelligent person’s time’ (Seldes, 1929), the ‘talkies’ were springing to life. Raoul Walsh might have been right that much of the acting was bad, but one secret to synchronized dialogue’s undeniable popularity was hiding underneath

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the surface of acting. Actors could now convey emotion with their voices, with the sound of their voices. From Al Jolson sweet-talking his mom in The Jazz Singer, to Mickey Mouse expressing joy in Steamboat Willie, to Bessie Love crying in Broadway Melody of 1929, underlying emotions could speak louder than words. Bessie Love moved audiences in a scene in which, after sacrificing her true love to her sister to secure her sister’s happiness, she alternately cries and laughs at the thought of what she has just done. With no words, and the sound of great acting, a new way to connect was created. Actor and audience weren’t separated by silence anymore. In 1927, Harry Warner reportedly said, ‘who the hell wants to hear actors talk?’ Turns out, everybody. The shockwave of sound famously upended Hollywood’s acting community, and many fine actors with supposedly ‘funny’ voices fell into obscurity. The surviving generation of film actors were able to communicate with their faces and voices. Mae West, Gary Cooper, Bette Davis, W. C. Fields, Clark Gable, Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx. (Okay, not Harpo, but an important aside: the Marx Brothers are irrefutable evidence that sound comedies gained from the addition of voice, while holding onto – not killing – the visual, voice-less wonder of silent comedies.) The sound of the human voice has a strong, but subconscious, impact. Even for the most professionally experienced amongst us, the effect of sound really does sneak up on you. William Fox, who invested in Phonofilm but lost the race to Vitaphone and Warner Bros., was nonetheless visionary about what sound, and in particular the sound of dialogue, could add to films. In The Man Who Made the Movies: The Meteoric Rise and Tragic Fall of William Fox, Vanda Krefft shares an insight Fox had that was ahead of its time: With the arrival of sound, Fox understood that the door could open wider to minorities. Silent films had inclined audiences to perceive characters almost entirely visually and to attend sharply to differences in skin shades and facial features. Talking pictures added the humanizing dimension of speech and literally gave characters their own voices. (Krefft, 2017)

Throwing away the past As sound was established, and silent cinema went from art to relic, the industry faced a profound identity crisis. Protagonists in coming-of-age stories often

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consider their younger days to be embarrassing. Shortly into the sound years, Hollywood stunningly rejected who it had only recently been. During the earliest days of sound, Hollywood studios produced short subjects that brutally mocked silent films – their own silent films! Jack Henley’s series Movie Album Featurettes, and Burnet Hershey’s Thrills of Yesterday dredged up the silliest looking silents from their own studio’s vaults, and overdubbed them with snarky, scornful commentary. One series described the silent era as ‘when movies were too good for words’. Spurred by competition from the new technology of radio, and a relentlessly electrifying world, Hollywood callously abandoned its past in the name of progress. The very foundations of film were now considered antiquated. The old, pre-sound films were derisively called ‘dummies’. Silent film was dead. There would be no parallel paths to accommodate both silent and sound films, no separate but equal artforms as Gilbert Seldes (and others) dreamed of. The most influential account of this ground-shaking movie era is from a movie itself, Singin’ in the Rain (1952). Screenwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green ingeniously set their story in that crazy time when sound shoved silence aside. The film was released only 25 years after The Jazz Singer. The old equipment hadn’t collected too much dust in the MGM storerooms. Skewering the silent era as archaic and hammy, the movie was Hollywood’s triumphant story of New conquering Old. As Singin’ in the Rain was being made in the early 1950s, Hollywood was in fierce competition with the new medium of television, and therefore desperate not to appear old-fashioned. Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly’s musical is the most buoyant example of Hollywood throwing its silent era under the bus. Singin’ in the Rain also made quite-accurate fun of the early sound era’s hardto-hide microphones, bad actor voices and cameras stuck in boxes. These soundimposed restrictions made sweeping visuals less possible. Thanks to locked-down cameras and a new reliance on dialogue, playwrights and stage actors flocked west, beckoned by panicked studio heads. Many of the first sound features were simply filmed plays, stiff and sedentary. The primitive sound technologies put filmmaking in a physical and creative lockdown. The limitations were stifling. At this point in our story, it is good to be reminded of a famous quote that Hollywood has mostly ignored: The enemy of art is the absence of limitations. (Orson Welles, qtd Jaglom, 1992)

Thanks to how craftily it dealt with the limitations new sound technologies imposed on it, Hollywood slowly re-discovered itself and its confidence.

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Hollywood finds its voice Occasionally, big creative risks were taken in the late 1920s and early 1930s, because . . . what the hell? Who knew what films were anymore? How to make them? What they could be? What audiences would like? This openness to experimentation was an important assault on creative lockdowns, and a valuable side-benefit of Hollywood’s identity crisis. Directors faced a blanker slate, but a fuller toolbox, having completely taken over from exhibition the creative choices about sound. All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) is a unique hybrid, both epilogue to the silent era and prologue to the sound era. Director Lewis Milestone planned the production as a silent, but as technology became available, he shot some scenes with sound, added a full music and sound effects track, and released the movie in both silent and sound versions. Milestone was one of the first filmmakers to thoughtfully use synchronized dialogue, music and sound effects. His use of battle sounds powerfully amplified the film’s war scenes, but also, through contrast, prepared the ground for moments of relative silence. Silence could be remarkably effective now that it was a filmmaking choice. Sound-onfilm made the absence of sound a technical possibility, but more importantly it made the absence of sound a dramatic choice. In Notes on the Cinematograph, French director Robert Bresson wrote – in all caps, for added effect – ‘THE SOUNDTRACK INVENTED SILENCE’ (Bresson, 2016). Amongst the most trailblazing, and popular, genres during the emergence of sound cinema were musicals, horror movies and gangster films, which succeeded by taking advantage of opportunities presented by sound. Music was an obvious go-to when trying to exploit sound. The first musicals recorded performances on the set – often in a single shot – with singers really singing and musicians really playing. This process was no different than in the rudimentary kinetophone shorts that straightforwardly filmed and recorded performers. In early sound musicals, storylines were chosen to justify why there were on-set performances in the films, which often led to the genre of ‘backstage musical’, in which musical performances were justified as part of stage shows. This genre had the additional advantage, as far as the studios were concerned, of showing actresses dressing and undressing backstage – a startlingly frequent motif until the Production Code got serious in 1934. MGM’s Broadway Melody of 1929 was the first all-talking musical. A backstage musical (of course), it featured many on-set performances, but the biggest set piece, ‘Wedding of the

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Painted Doll’, is one of the first uses of music playback, shot with performers lip-synching to pre-recorded singing and music. This technique gave film shoots much greater latitude, freeing the camera and the microphone. Over time, the initial sound-imposed limitations were overcome. Quieter and more mobile cameras liberated the craft of cinematography. New technologies such as prerecords, microphone booms, optical recording and mixing consoles liberated the craft of film sound. Musicals would learn to internalize music, integrating it into storylines that no longer had to be excuses for on-set performances. Songs in The Wizard of Oz (1939), for example, could seamlessly arise from characters’ thoughts and emotional moments, instead of stagey setups. Horror movies took advantage of sound in a strikingly different way. Early synchronous sound quality was thin, noisy and notorious for not reproducing certain musical instruments or types of voices. It certainly didn’t sound natural. Ingeniously, or perhaps unconsciously, some directors used the abnormalities of early, primitive sound to tell stories that were unnatural. Watching and listening to Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931) is unnerving even to our modern sensibilities. In Uncanny Bodies, Robert Spadoni argues that the horror films of the period create unease in large part because of the limitations of the first sound formats. Recorded voices sounded unnatural in a way that added to the effect of Bela Lugosi’s oddly cadenced, accented voice. Microphones struggled in reverberant spaces, resulting in an echoey sound that added to the hollow creepiness of Frankenstein’s laboratory. Spadoni defines ‘uncanny’ as ‘thinking something alive then suddenly realizing otherwise’ (Spadoni, 2007). What better term for the sorrowfully undead? What better use of fledgling sound systems that were, themselves, uncanny? Both Dracula and Frankenstein use music sparingly, to what must have been an astonishing effect at the time since music had been ubiquitous and continuous in silent film theatres. How radical it must have seemed to audiences to be confronted by films with so much silence. Sound effects, too, were sparing in these movies, surprisingly so, given how soundeffects rich radio drama was at the time. Directors Tod Browning on Dracula, and James Whale on Frankenstein may have made these decisions consciously. Their film’s silences are cold and harrowing. As it was for All Quiet on the Western Front, silence in horror films was a psychologically rich, brand-new creative option. Not so silently, gangster films exaggerated societal problems into loud, brash, violent melodramas. Like backstage musicals and horror films, they enjoyed the relative freedom from censorship during the years just before the Production Code

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took full effect. These sordid, streetwise movies tended to rely less on musical score than on newly available real-world sound effects. Gangster movies maxed out their soundtracks with gunshots, screeching cars, crashes, punches and sirens. In silent movie theatres, sound effects could only be created live and artificially with contraptions like the Allefex. Thanks to sound-on-film, audiences could now be assaulted by the sounds of actual explosions, ricochets, skids and alarms. But most impressive amongst the many sounds in gangster films were the gritty, classaccented, profane, human voices: James Cagney in Public Enemy (1931); Edward G. Robinson in Little Caesar (1931); Paul Muni in Scarface (1932). These were voices that could cut through the literal noise of early sound systems. As it was with Al Jolson, Mickey Mouse and Bessie Love, what actors in gangster movies were able to convey with the sound of their voices was as important as what they conveyed with words. Writers might beg to differ, but who’d argue with James Cagney? In his essay The Roar of The Crowd: Urban Noise and Anti-Noise in Silent Cinema, Dennis Hanlon points out that just as Hollywood was creatively wrestling with how to add ‘urban’ sounds to soundtracks, there was, in the 1920s and 1930s, an anti-noise movement in response to the increasing racket of cities. Director King Vidor used images to suggest obnoxious city sounds in his silent film The Crowd (1928), but sound films that came a short while later could use real city sounds. Filmmakers worried about how a noise-sensitive public would react. Some movies used urban sounds only for ‘colour’ or montages. Hanlon quotes a New York Times review of Street Girl (1929) that praised the film for ‘neatly avoiding the brooding cacophony of sound for sound’s sake’ (Hanlon, 2009). Some directors dared to fill the sonic backgrounds of all scenes, notably Rouben Mamoulian in Applause (1929). In these early sound years, it wasn’t clear to filmmakers what artistic approaches to take. But ultimately, audiences settled the issue. Emily Thompson, a historian of technology, writes: Sounds that city-dwellers were seeking to escape in real life were vicariously enjoyed when experienced with the artificial – and highly controlled – setting of a sound motion picture theater, and the noises themselves were artificially created and controlled by sound engineers in the studio. (Thompson, 2004)

Changing jobs With its technical demands and artistic dilemmas, synchronized sound redefined jobs from top to bottom. Newly created jobs, barely understood, had

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to be filled quickly. Fresh arrivals in Hollywood included sound pioneer Murray Spivack, who joined RKO just as sound began. (RKO was formed by RCA in part to market its sound-on-film technology, RCA Photofilm.) A world-class drummer, Spivack performed for silent movie presentations, and eventually early sound films. In Hollywood he helped establish the new profession of sound editor. His first office at RKO was a tin shack where silent cowboy star Tom Mix had kept his horses. Spivack designed and built machines to create sound effects – wind, rain, footsteps, snow, thunder – and during the earliest days of sound production had to operate these contraptions live on sets. Sound effects, musical performances and even background musical scores were captured as part of original camera shots. Just as cinematography had to be freed from its lockdown on sound stages, so did sound. The development of sound editing and mixing tools expanded film post-production, so that sound effects, music, and even dialogue could be crafted and fine-tuned after the shooting stopped. Murray Spivack went to RKO in 1929, the same year soon-to-be-famous composer Max Steiner joined the studio as an ‘assistant conductor’. In addition to his sound effects work, Spivack managed the business side of RKO’s music department, while keeping an eye/ear on recordings as only his music-savvy mind could. Ultimately, he was an important partner on the path Steiner would forge. In the first sound movies, Hollywood’s approach to music was all over the map. Filmmakers tested the waters, exploring many permutations of musical sources, styles and placements. Existing music was appropriated then cut and pasted with little hope of continuity. Music was avoided for fear of distracting from actors talking. Original music was likely composed by a committee of composers. A fundamental question – one hard to understand from our contemporary perspective – was seriously grappled with in those early years: Did music in sound movies need to be justified by seeing the source of that music on screen? The future is hard to see, even by those destined to shape it. Max Steiner was quoted in 1931 as saying: Music will be largely incidental, and often atmospheric. It will not come into a picture from some mysterious source (. . .) but by some logical, and if possible, visual means – such as the turning-on of a radio or a phonograph in a scene, or a glimpse of an orchestra or chorus. (Slowik, 2012)

Soon, Steiner was – perhaps to his own surprise – composing scores not reliant on ‘visual means’. Increasingly, he wrote film-length, one-composer, original scores. In Making Music in Selznick’s Hollywood, Nathan Platte argues that

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producer David O. Selznick was a major driver of film music’s first ‘Golden Age’, most impactfully in collaboration with Max Steiner. Selznick came to RKO in 1932. While Steiner had no background in movies (he was in his forties when he started at RKO), Selznick began his career in silent film exhibition. At the 3,500seat Strand Theater in New York, Selznick programmed music to accompany silent films. Selznick carried into the sound era the silent era’s dramatic approach to music. For technical and creative reasons, early ‘talkies’ eschewed the headto-tail, singular, emotional music of the type silent-era audiences were used to. In 1931, Nathaniel Finston, then head of music for Paramount, lamented that when sound came in, music was forgotten and ‘the work of twenty years went for naught’. David O. Selznick pushed Max Steiner to use the ‘old-fashioned’ power of music to parallel cinematic storytelling. Producer Selznick oversaw composer Steiner’s work on Bird of Paradise (1932), Symphony of Six Million (1932) and – transformationally – King Kong (1933). Murray Spivack helped engineer Steiner’s score, making great use of his percussionist’s ear, and at the same time created King Kong’s iconic sound effects. Spivack ventured out of the studio to record real-world sounds, such as trees felled and animals in a zoo. He could then tinker with those recordings back in the studio – reversing them, slowing them down, layering them – until he had created utterly original sounds for a giant ape, a T Rex and Skull Island. The same exact techniques were used sixty years later for 1993’s Jurassic Park. In revolutionary ways, Steiner and Spivack coordinated how sound effects and score worked together, how they handed off to each other and how they could equally reinforce the story. Early settlers in Hollywood’s sound era were drawn by the radically new complications and possibilities of synchronized sound. Thanks to evolving inventions and the inventiveness of trailblazers like Steiner and Spivack, film music and sound grew from burdensome technical adjuncts into art forms. Picture editors also had to deal with radical technological and artistic changes. Cutting with synchronized sound was, at first, considered cumbersome and constricting. Pioneering editor Margaret Booth reminisced wistfully about silent film editing that ‘you could throw the film around in any way’. But it didn’t take long for editors to use sound in ways that powerfully liberated picture editing. In a 1929 article titled The Art of Sound, director Rene Clair noted an effective use of off-screen sound in Broadway Melody of 1929: we hear the noise of a door being slammed and a car driving off while we are shown Bessie Love’s anguished face watching from a window the departure which we do not

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see. The short scene in which the whole effect is concentrated on the actress’s face, and which the silent cinema would have had to break up in several visual fragments, owes its excellence to the ‘unity of place’, achieved through sound. (Clair, 1985)

Clair noted the then-revolutionary ability to use the soundtrack to tell one aspect of a story, while the camera is at liberty to tell another. Filmmakers and audiences today take this ability for granted, but it was an epiphany in the early sound era. After applauding the editorial use of sound in Broadway Melody, Clair sounded a pessimistic note: ‘But will the public, and, above all, the filmmakers, be satisfied with such a discreet use of sound? Will they prefer an imitation of all the noises to an intelligent selection of a few useful ones?’ Indeed, Clair’s worry was, is and will be a central concern to those whose job it is to add sound to film. How do we make sound more than merely ‘noise’? Adding sound to an image radically expanded the capability of cinema. Russian cinema, which had helped establish the art of editing, was both excited and wary about the sound revolution. The great Russian directors were anxious to add sound editorial to their art but cautioned – as Rene Clair did – that it could be misused. In a 1928 essay, Eisenstein, Pudovkin, and Alexandrov warned that there could be a ‘commercial exploitation of (. . .) Talking Films, those in which sound recording will proceed on a naturalistic level, exactly corresponding with the movement on the screen’ (Eisenstein et al., 1928). The Russians theorized that sound was most effective when used as a counterpoint to the visuals, not beholden to repeating what we see, but adding a dimension that is unseen, or even unrealistic. The power of this idea – central to the art of sound – has been demonstrated over subsequent years by a wide range of films, and by directors such as Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, David Lean and David Lynch. Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954) is a head-to-tail study of the psychological effectiveness of counterpoint, powerfully using off-screen sounds and music chosen for their dissonance with the visuals. Lynch filled Eraserhead (1977) with abstract sounds which bore no relation to what was on screen. The philosophy of counterpoint was most entertainingly demonstrated by Tregoweth Brown, sound man for Wile E. Coyote, Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig and the rest in the classic Warner Bros. cartoons. Director Chuck Jones claimed that Treg Brown’s creative secret was that ‘he never used an appropriate sound’ (Jones, 1992). While international cinema considered artsy theories, American movies conquered the world. Once sound was established, American studios feared that the English dialogue in their films would limit their share of the international

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market. It didn’t. In Film: The Creative Process, Marxist writer John Howard Lawson notes, with poorly hidden disgust, ‘The technological skill with which Hollywood met the challenge of sound increased the prestige of American films’ (Lawson, 1967). In an unexpected twist of fate, American movies broadened their reach and influence around the world. As part of his reflections on the tipping-point year of 1927, Bill Bryson observes: Moviegoers around the world suddenly found themselves exposed, often for the first time, to American voices, American vocabulary, American cadence and pronunciation and word order. Spanish conquistadores, Elizabethan courtiers, figures from the Bible were suddenly speaking in American voices (. . .) The psychological effect of this, particularly on the young, can hardly be overstated. With American speech came American thoughts, American attitudes, American humor and sensibilities. Peacefully, by accident, and almost unnoticed, America had just taken over the world. (Bryson, 2013)

What started as a woefully unprepared-for crisis that melted Hollywood into a puddle soon led to Hollywood’s world dominance. All crises should be as lucky.

Timing is everything What if sound had arrived later? Musical, horror and gangster films were able to explode into theatres with risqué subjects, shadowy morals and gutter language because they preceded 1934’s heavier censorship from the Production Code. Early sound films enjoyed only a few years of mild censorship, but that was enough time to establish fresh styles of movies, and with them, hook audiences. Thanks in great part to provocative subjects, Hollywood enjoyed a healthy box office. Hollywood surely needed its movies to be popular enough to pay for the steep investments the transition to sound demanded starting in 1927. Financial outlays of that magnitude would not have been possible during the economic collapse of the 1930s. It was fortuitous that sound settled in Hollywood just before the Great Depression. Especially given competition from refined audio dramas on free radio, silent films might not have sustained audience interest through the Depression. If sound had been delayed as late as the 1940s, Hollywood wouldn’t have had the opportunity to find its own way before having to do battle with television. Because sound came when it did, the film industry had the financial resources, freedom and time to discover what sound cinema could be.

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What if sound had arrived earlier? If Edison had perfected synchronized sound with the kinetophone in 1913, movies could have been considered primarily a recording medium, a technical means to capture the performances of others. The first scientist-produced sound movies were miraculous in their own right, but hard to foresee as an art in itself. It is easy to imagine that the tendency would have been to use the medium to capture opera, theatre, vaudeville and other performing arts. The success of cinema owes an odd debt to Edison’s failure, because when the first Hollywood films were relegated to silence, they were able to become a medium unlike any other. Visual cinema was free to flower on its own, without what could have been the crutch of synchronized sound. Sound took its sweet time arriving, which had the unexpected benefit of giving Hollywood two decades to establish an industry, an art form and identity. The purity of telling stories with moving pictures, and pictures only, made movies popular across language and geographic borders. This led to the first movie studios, to the first stars, to the first directors and to cinema as we know it.

Did sound kill silent cinema? In the early 1930s many critics complained, as Gilbert Seldes did, that sound movies were a regression to stage-bound stodginess. What they were frightened of losing was a special artform, one that had flourished within – because of? – the limitations of its technology. Did Hollywood have to re-invent the reel? Did mild-mannered sound kill the beautiful, pure art of silent cinema? Silent cinema had years to mature, then met its demise in what felt like an instant. But what had actually died was a Golden Age of exhibition, with its theatres full of musicians, dialogue troupes and sound effects machines. Film sound hurt the live performance aspect of ‘silent’ movie exhibition but helped movie-making. Technology and Art clashed, then cooperated. Soundtracks – now carefully created by directors to fit their films – were reproducible in every theatre, experienced by every audience as the filmmakers intended. What resulted was a Golden Age of filmmaking. The emotional and storytelling power of sound was now a compelling resource for soon-to-be-legendary directors. When a sound can replace an image, cut the image or neutralize it. The ear goes more towards the within, the eye towards the outer. (Bresson, 2016)

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The ear goes towards the within. Sound is a strong, yet sneaky, carrier of emotion. Its power, in many ways, derives from its stealthiness. Sound films attained greater emotional resonance precisely because of the addition of sound. Actors drew on the sound of their voices, directors chose sounds to counterpoint visuals, composers deepened stories with music, sound editors crafted sounds never heard before. Despite the handwringing by artists and critics, Hollywood survived. Prospered, even. In The Talkies – American Cinema’s Transition to Sound, 1926–1931, Donald Crafton sums up sound cinema as ‘a welcome improvement on a good thing, not the end of a golden age’ (Crafton, 1999). Sound-on-film brought sound, and all its potential, out of movie palaces and into the hands of filmmakers. Its enhancement of emotion didn’t kill, it strengthened the medium. What didn’t change was the heart of cinema, a heart which goes back to the silent era: audiences emotionally engaging with the film.

The real hero In 1917, director Lois Weber wrote: But if pictures are to make and maintain a position alongside the novel and the spoken drama as a medium of expression of permanent value, they must be concerned with ideas which get under the skin and affect the living and the thinking of the people who view them. (Norden, 2019)

Hollywood worried about how audiences would react to sound movies. It scrambled and experimented, using the well-established technique known as ‘throw everything at the wall’. It was the audience that chose what stuck. More than studio heads or visionary directors, movie-goers steered Hollywood through the sound crisis. Audiences voted with their ears, growing from 60 million in 1927 to 110 million in 1930. This speedy success had the effect of making Hollywood look to technological ‘gimmicks’ to combat future crises. But the sound revolution was deeper than a Technical Revolution; it was a Cinematic Revolution. Filmmaking was made whole by adding sound to a visual medium that had the time to blossom into a distinctive art form on its own. The original art form wasn’t lost; it was harmonized. Kevin Brownlow, author of the silent cinema elegy The Parade’s Gone By..., has kept the dimly remembered silent era in the public consciousness. Brownlow was the one who brought Abel Gance’s silent epic Napoleon to modern audiences in

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1981. After finishing a day’s work with the legendary French director, Brownlow was about to leave when Gance stopped him to make one last point: I want to tell you that enthusiasm is essential in the cinema. It must be communicated to the people like a flame. The cinema is a flame in the shadows. Fed by enthusiasm it can dispel them. That is why enthusiasm is everything to me. It is impossible to make a great film without it. (Brownlow, 2004)

Hollywood had weathered an identity crisis, and – guided by its audience – became more confident of who it was. The enthusiasm of scientists, studios and filmmakers was important, but it was the defining enthusiasm of filmgoers that was the indispensable light leading the way through the shadows of an unplanned-for, unconventional, uncertain time. Synchronized sound arrived like a classic big-screen hero, in the nick of time. The story of Hollywood’s sound crisis got a happy ending nobody saw coming, which is the best kind of happy ending.

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I am big! It’s the pictures that got small. Norma Desmond Mighty Hollywood was laid low by a tiny box. To the movie business, television is Lex Luther, the Wicked Witch of the West, Moriarty, Ming the Merciless and that train heading for Pauline all rolled into one. Every hero needs a villain, and Hollywood – forever the hero of its own story – imagines television as its wiliest, deadliest nemesis. In the United States, television began to take off dramatically in the late 1940s. In 1948 Hollywood sold 4.8 billion movie tickets. In 1958, after television had stormed into over 80 per cent of American homes, Hollywood sold only 2 billion tickets. As Tino Balio notes in The American Film Industry, during that ten-year stretch the industry’s labour force declined from 24,000 to 13,000, the number of actors under studio contract plummeted from 742 to 229, and 4,000 movie theatres closed (Balio, 1976). This was an epic crisis. But a crisis with a twist: it featured a villain not originally perceived as a villain. From its conception, the technology of television grew up enjoying the keen interest and encouragement of Hollywood. It was expected to be controlled by, and to be fully absorbed into, Hollywood. What happened instead is a complex tale of strange new technologies, shaken studios, hidden treasures, unlikely alliances, broken business models and an intervening government for good measure. Television ended up being walled off from the movie studios. Subsequently, television became an existential threat to movies, in what must have felt in Hollywood like a family betrayal.

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Technology vs technology While the coming of sound to Hollywood can be described as a clash between technology and art, the coming of television can be described as a clash between technology and technology. In production, distribution and exhibition the technologies of television and cinema are radically different. But the art – telling stories with moving pictures and sound – is nearly identical. The two mediums share artistic DNA. The most titanic battles are often the ones in which equally matched combatants know each other too well. TV and film fought like bitter siblings. By the late 1950s it looked like the younger, upstart television had Hollywood on the ropes. But a back-and-forth fight for audiences, for status and for cultural relevance was only beginning. It has been going on for decades. Indeed, it is still going on. Who will win? Stay tuned.

Great expectations Movie studios hoped there would be a place for their products in people’s homes long before television came on the scene. In 1917, inspired by Thomas Edison’s Victrola, Iwan Serrurier invented a home projection device he dubbed the Moviola, a self-contained box that could play movies on a small screen for home viewing. While it turned out to be too expensive and unwieldy for the consumer market, the Moviola became the standard machine for professional film editing for nearly seventy years. Given television’s potential for bringing filmed entertainment into the home, it attracted Hollywood’s attention from the moment experiments in the technology began. In the 1920s the Motion Picture Producer and Distributors Association (MPPDA) generated comprehensive reports on television, which was just in its infancy. The MPPDA hired Mortimer Prall, son of the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), who reported that ‘the motion picture industry has its greatest opportunity for expansion knocking on its door’ (Wasko, 2021). Seeing the promise of television even more clearly, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences sponsored a flurry of studies in the 1930s about how the movie industry could incorporate television. The well-established film industry had reason to be confident it would control the new medium. A 1939 report by the MPPDA confidently stated that ‘Television needs us, and very badly’ (Lev, 2006).

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In 1940 the chairman of the FCC, James L. Fly, visited Hollywood to invite the studios to pursue stations and stakes in the burgeoning television industry. The United States government and Hollywood both believed that the movie business, given its expertise in screen entertainment, would be a good home for television. The Second World War delayed the introduction of television in the United States, but in anticipation of the new market the major studios applied to the FCC to acquire television stations, which they planned to string into national networks. In 1948, Paramount held a 25 per cent stake in television manufacturer DuMont, owned four out of the first nine local US TV stations and was angling for more. In 1949, Harry Warner was put in charge of the expected expansion into television at Warner Bros. Meanwhile, radio and television benefitted from a friendly and profitable relationship, two golden ages running nearly in parallel. Noting how radio had made broad inroads into homes, movie studios eagerly put stars and stories on the radio airwaves. Amongst the Hollywood-connected productions for radio was Lux Radio Theater, first aired in 1936 and hosted by the famous Hollywood director Cecil B. DeMille. Lux Radio Theater featured the biggest movie stars in radio adaptations of their movies. Christopher Anderson, in Hollywood TV: The Studio System in the Fifties, points out that the important thing to the studios was that these movie-radio productions ‘brought Hollywood’s glamorous aura across the threshold of the American home’ (Anderson, 2013). Movie studios expected television to do the same. They had every reason to see television as a big part of their future. Given Hollywood’s full-throated embrace of radio, few would have predicted that Hollywood would eventually wield a closed-door antagonism towards early television.

The separation United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. et al. was originally brought in 1938 but not settled until the Supreme Court ruled on it in 1948. This case finally put an end to block booking, studios forcing exhibitors to buy packages of movies – a practice first challenged by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 1927. The decision led to the Department of Justice’s ‘Paramount Consent Decree’. Most impactfully, this anti-trust standard compelled studios to jettison their

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exhibition arms and divest their movie theatres. On top of the loss of business, the loss of theatres across the country meant studios had far smaller real estate holdings, which they had been using as collateral for loans. In hindsight, the Paramount ruling was additionally devastating for Hollywood because, although the case was unrelated to television, it had the effect of blocking Hollywood from entering the television business. This was because the Court considered broadcast television a form of exhibition, and therefore off limits to the studios. Even before 1948, the FCC became stingy in approving film studio acquisitions of TV assets and stations in cautious anticipation of the Supreme Court ruling. After initially seeing the studios as natural participants in television, the government came to fear that Hollywood would constrain television to protect its larger movie business. Reflecting this new anti-trust, anti-Hollywood attitude, FCC Chairman Paul A. Porter told the studios in 1945 not to expect to play any role in the television industry. Porter said he would not allow television to become a ‘Hollywood bauble’. The radio industry would take the lead on television. The alluring market of the home, long anticipated as the inevitable extension of Hollywood, was cut off from the traditional movie studios. Media historian Janet Wasko writes that ‘at this point it was clear that the government favoured the “public interest” orientation of the broadcast industry against the “crass commercial” interest of Hollywood companies’ (Wasko, 2021). Hollywood wasn’t a very old industry, but old enough to have gained a reputation. The young industry of television was quaking with promise. As early as 1939, David Sarnoff of RCA declared that TV ‘will materially raise the dramatic taste of the nation’ (Cerf, 1984). By the early 1950s it appeared that promise was being met. The East Coast networks were high-minded. Television dramas were dominated by live productions of quality plays. Television news was serious. Television events had a crackling immediacy. The new medium was stretched and shaped by risk-taking pioneers such as Rod Serling, Edward R. Murrow and Ernie Kovacs.

Fighting television with television New York Times television critic Jack Gould wrote in 1947, as television was in the midst of its post-war flowering:

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Up to now the Hollywood film industry has carried on a cautious flirtation with television – trying to decide whether it should woo the girl and take her into the family or hit her on the head with the big financial rolling pin it possesses. (Gould, 2013)

This ‘hit her on the head or not’ dynamic would resonate through the years to come. What Hollywood couldn’t control, it now had to compete with. At first Hollywood competed by fighting television with television. It promoted ‘Theater Television’, an auditorium-based system which cranked up the power of TV projection to fill screens nearly as big as cinema screens. This created presentations in size and setting familiar to movie-goers, while using a business model familiar to film studios. Seeing this as a promising new distribution model, all the major studios established Theater Television venues. They lobbied the FCC for frequency allocations to support these venues with nationwide networks. A survey in 1945 found that 60 per cent of movie exhibitors wanted to add Theater Television to their businesses. There were, admittedly, dangers. From an article in Better Theaters, by F. H. Richardson: The high tension rectifiers supplying the 50,000 volts are mounted in a separate room and protected by a heavy wire screen (. . .) I was assured by the engineers that there would be no insurmountable difficulty facing the projectionist. (Richardson, 1939)

More dangerous yet, this high-voltage technology made Hollywood stars look less star-like. A Columbia executive saw a Theater Television showing of Gilda (1946) and was shocked that Rita Hayworth looked awful. Any technology that made Rita Hayworth look awful was destined to fail in Hollywood. Still, the studios bankrolled Theater Television, peaking at seventy-five theatres in 1952, until the venture died due to poor attendance and the FCC’s denial of a networking infrastructure. The film studios also experimented with subscription television – dubbed by Variety as ‘Pay-See’ or ‘Toll-Video’ – which would broadcast movies into people’s homes for a fee. But this business model couldn’t compete with free broadcast television. Studios lobbied the FCC to grant ‘movie bands’ on the broadcast spectrum, to give them a direct conduit into homes. That request was denied. All these wild-swing business propositions revealed how desperate Hollywood was to do something about the growing competition from television.

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The Cold War In 1939, when television was merely looming, an odd Bela Lugosi picture called Murder by Television portrayed the new-fangled technology as sinister. Deadly even. Lugosi plays an evil scientist who transmits death rays via television broadcasts, killing people by zapping them in their living rooms via their own TV sets. Thankfully, it turned out this wasn’t how TV killed off Hollywood’s audience. Hollywood’s box-office numbers started to decline in 1945, just as the Second World War ended. This downward trend was firmly established years before the negative effect from television kicked in (around 1952). Movie attendance declined in this period for a variety of demographic reasons unrelated to television: the migration from cities to suburbs began to leave urban movie theatres behind, and fuelled a Golden Age of radio as families, filled with children from the post-war boom, consumed free radio entertainment in their suburban homes. While Hollywood could do little to fight these historic societal shifts, it knew where it could aim its fire once it spotted television advancing on the horizon. In the beginning, it was a very cold Cold War. In 1948, Jack Warner stuck his typewriter on all caps and sent this memo to the Warner Bros. New York office: POLICY WE HAVE ADOPTED HERE AT STUDIO AND YOU DO SAME AT HOME OFFICE RE TELEVISION IS THAT WE WILL NOT AT ANY TIME GIVE ANY OF OUR PRODUCTIONS, SHORTS, CARTOONS OR FEATURES TO BE USED FOR TELEVISION BROADCAST REGARDLESS OF PRICE. (Porst, 2013)

All the major Hollywood studios adopted this Iron Curtain approach. There would be no collaboration with the enemy. Jack Warner went so far as to order that television sets should not be seen in Warner Bros. movies. No big movie stars were to be seen on small TV screens. Not even ads for movies appeared on television (Hollywood didn’t place an ad on TV until 1953, for Beast from 20,000 Fathoms). And most definitely, no Hollywood movies were to be shown on the TV networks. This was nothing like the film industry’s warm embrace of radio. The movie studio boycott of television wasn’t just an emotional decision; there were business reasons films didn’t make their way onto early television schedules. Well into the 1950s the television market was small and could not

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pay the high prices for films that studios expected. Guilds were threatening strikes while negotiating for broadcast residuals (royalties paid to performers); this was, of course, very new legal territory for everyone, even the lawyers, and it took a number of years to sort out. The American Federation of Musicians (AFM) went so far as to try to prevent studios from using a film’s original music recording for broadcast versions. Republic Pictures, one of a group of smaller studios which did want to sell movies to TV stations, made the effort to re-record musical scores. Major studios did not do this, but they did sell to TV some of their older, lower-profile movies (Westerns, shorts, cartoons, B-movies) that they considered of lesser worth, and which – importantly – pre-dated Guild agreements. However, Hollywood endeavoured mightily to hide that fact from theatrical exhibitors, who were putting pressure on studios not to release films for broadcast. In 1952, movie exhibitors complained to the Los Angeles Times that they couldn’t compete with ‘40,000,000 little home theaters’. For a while the exhibitors didn’t have to worry, because as a rule during the first decade of the television industry, movie studios refused to offer their films – or stars, or ads, or talent – to the networks.

Cultural dominance Ironically, what became known as TV’s first ‘Golden Age’ benefitted from its lack of access to Hollywood’s movies. Courtesy of the courts, the FCC and Hollywood’s stubborn protectionism, nascent television had independence from the film studios. Network schedules had to be filled with original programming. A financially viable videotaping system wasn’t introduced until 1956 (by Ampex), so for television’s first decade it had to be live. But live was good. It gave TV an immediacy not possible for film. In One Night on TV Is Worth Weeks at the Paramount: Popular Music on Early Television, Murray Forman posits that live music performances were key to the birth of television, and central to its development. He relates how live music on embryonic TV in turn shaped the music industry – an early indication of the cultural reach TV would have. Dramas were live too. Drawing on talent from the New York stage, anthology programmes such as Playhouse 90 and General Electric Theater presented live versions of established plays while also showcasing original teleplays like Marty and Requiem for a Heavyweight. This was an intense, ambitious artform only possible on the small screen, and the heart of this ‘Golden Age’. The new medium

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profited creatively and financially – whether it knew it or not – from the initial necessity of live programmes, and the time and freedom to find itself. Television quickly surged past movies for cultural dominance. Youthful TV outshined ageing Hollywood. Towards the end of 1953, in the midst of Hollywood’s growing alarm, Walt Disney wrote a guest column for Variety entitled ‘The Crucial Year for Pictures’. Facing this ‘new era’, Disney wrote that the film industry ‘calls for constant adaptation and adventure in showmanship’. He declared that ‘Ours has long been a chance-taking business’ (Disney, 1953). Hollywood was no longer a wunderkind, and so needed to find ways to make itself exciting again. As it was losing the struggle to fight television with television, it began to fight television with cinema. Bigger, better, newer cinema. On this technological field of battle, movies had two powerful weapons: colour and scale.

Fighting television with cinema When television came on the scene, Hollywood had been making colour features for decades, albeit rarely, and primarily for spectacles. The ‘three-strip’ Technicolor process (shooting with three cameras through different colour filters) was responsible for the vibrant colour of such films as The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Disney cartoons starting with Flowers and Trees (1932). But Technicolor was cumbersome and expensive. The introduction of Eastmancolor’s more economical ‘monopack’ colour film in 1950 came just in time for Hollywood to ramp up colour productions as a manoeuvre to combat TV. It helped that television was dragging its feet; the television networks did not introduce colour – despite the availability of the technology – until after nearly two decades of black and white broadcasting. Television didn’t fully convert to colour until the mid-1960s. Hollywood, during the years it was able to take advantage of colourless television, eagerly embraced colour. Hollywood films not only got more colourful, they also got bigger. At the dawn of television in 1946, Darryl Zanuck sneeringly observed ‘People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night’ (Cerf, 1984). Movies were motivated to take advantage of TV’s smallness. The movie business had toyed with widescreen technologies from its earliest days. Abel Gance used three screens for sequences of his silent epic Napoleon (1927). William Fox, smarting

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from losing the race for synchronized sound to the Warner Brothers, promoted a widescreen, 70mm format called Grandeur in 1929. But he was talked out of the project by Adolph Zukor and David Sarnoff, who warned that the transition to sound was enough of an upheaval for the industry at that time. It took the later threat of television to spur Hollywood to look with new vigour to widescreen, hoping to make that ‘plywood box’ seem even smaller by comparison. In 1939, inventor Fred Waller built an eleven-projector widescreen system for the New York World’s Fair, called Vitarama. During the Second World War, Waller built a five-projector system for military training known as the Waller Gunnery Trainer. In 1952, Waller finally got the full attention of Hollywood by demonstrating a three-projector system on an indoor tennis court at Oyster Bay, New York. He called it Cinerama. Like Gance’s system, Waller’s used three cameras and projectors to project onto an impressively wide screen, and multiple speakers to fill the space with sound. Hollywood and financial backers were impressed. Given the fierce battle with television, the time was right. With audiences, Cinerama was a massive – in every way – hit. This is Cinerama (1952) played for 122 weeks in New York City. Cinerama Holiday (1953) was just as successful. It was the format that proved widescreen presentations were profitable. Its success led to a crazy quilt of competitors, including Superscope, ArnoldScope, Circarama, Emel Panoscope, Technirama, Thrillarama, Kinopanorama, Cinemiracle, Varioscope and Wonderama. The time was also right for 3D, a technology that promised audiences a ‘third dimension’. Bwana Devil (1952) led the 3D onslaught, followed by House of Wax (1953), a box-office hit despite the fact that director Andre Toth had only one eye and could not perceive 3D. Pushing even beyond 3D, and good taste, William Castle employed crude in-theatre gimmicks. These included literally shocking audiences in their seats for The Tingler (1959). All these cinematic expansions were part of what came to be known as the ‘Blockbuster Strategy’. Hollywood was going for experiences. Cinerama ignited this frenzy to broaden cinema’s scope. William Castle’s ideas, and even 3D, never quite outgrew gimmick status, but widescreen did. Ultimately, Cinerama proved too expensive and burdensome, and despite its early popularity fizzled out by the 1960s. Cinerama’s legacy is how it paved the way for the widescreen technology that stuck: CinemaScope. Way back in 1926, Henri Chretien patented his anamorphic lens process, a system that cleverly needed only a single camera, and single projector, to capture and project a widescreen image. In 1953, CinemaScope finally gained attention

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thanks to being less expensive and cumbersome than Cinerama’s multi-camera/ projector technology. Taking a risk with the new format, Twentieth Century Fox released The Robe (1953) in CinemaScope. The super-sized format figured heavily in Fox’s marketing. The Robe’s box office was heavenly. After the success of his Biblical epic, Fox president Spyros Skouras (on a mission from God, one could say) optioned CinemaScope from Chretien. Skouras soon announced that all Fox films would be released in CinemaScope. That was overly optimistic – not all movies would be widescreen – but CinemaScope is responsible for movies not only getting bigger but staying bigger; it created wide screen and stereo sound standards that exist to this day. In the short term, Skouras revitalized his struggling studio by betting on widescreen technology. Hollywood was revitalized, too. Studios embraced widescreen, looking to a higher power when filling bigger screens with epics such as The Ten Commandments (1956) and Ben Hur (1959). Alas, Hollywood’s widescreen high turned out to be a sugar high. Within a few years, financials fell back to earth. Perhaps this was because, as critic Andrew Sarris noted, the era’s technical innovations led Hollywood in a direction that was ‘neither forward nor backward but sideways’. The creative merits of some of these films might be debatable, but from a financial perspective the brighter colours, fuller sound and greater scale of 1950s movies allowed Hollywood to do a very important thing. They were able to raise ticket prices. This was most welcome because increased ticket prices compensated for the decline in ticket sales.

Prying open the vaults The US government played a large role in motivating reluctant film studios to eventually make their films available to television. In 1950, the FCC warned studios about withholding talent and products. In 1952, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed United States v. Twentieth Century Fox et al., an anti-trust suit accusing studios of conspiring to restrain trade by withholding products from television. Fox’s Skouras took the DOJ’s suit to mean that movie studios were ‘kindly requested to cut their own throats’ (Porst, 2013). The court case wasn’t decided until 1955, when it was decided in the film studios’ favour, but during those years the legal and commercial pressures were building. The major studios gradually began to test the waters of the television market. Skouras himself came around to selling his films to television, but made an interesting distinction in a 1953 letter to Fox stockholders:

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Up to this time, for our own sound business reasons, we have refrained from disposing of these pictures to television stations. However, with the advent of CinemaScope and other new techniques, it is anticipated that the theatrical demand for motion pictures will be generally for pictures of the new types. The demand for the older pictures will greatly decrease for theatres. Therefore, it is likely that these older pictures will be made available for television. (Porst, 2013)

Skouras cleverly cited the ‘new types’ of cinema (widescreen, stereo, colour, 3D) in order to feel better about giving up ‘older’ pictures for broadcast. Studios wanted to make not only bigger, but better films. They made fewer B-movies, aiming for prestige while leaving the more pedestrian productions – in their mind – to TV. Hollywood was defining itself in contrast to television, and scrambling to invent technologies for a wider, louder, brighter future. But even as it resolutely looked to its future, Hollywood was incentivized to reach into its past. The opportunity to sell films to television spurred Hollywood to crack open its vaults. In the late 1920s when Hollywood transitioned to sound it was quick to abandon – even mock – its past, as a way to promote what was new. Television prompted Hollywood to find value in its past. Slowly seeing the potential of television, Hollywood searched its archives. Before television provided a new outlet, the film properties stored in studio archives were used for remakes, the rare (and rarely profitable) reissue and as a source for B-movie stock footage. Howard Hughes’ 1955 sale of the television rights for the RKO film library was a key catalyst for studios opening the floodgates and selling libraries. Amongst major studios, RKO was first into the fray, then unwittingly a cautionary tale about undervaluing assets. RKO sold its entire library for $15 million in 1955. Only eighteen months later the estimated revenue from that library – no longer going to RKO – was $150 million (according to Tino Balio’s Hollywood in the Age of Television). Fox’s Darryl Zanuck told Forbes that ‘every company now has assets that nobody realized until a couple years ago’. By 1960, Hollywood had negotiated new Guild agreements, most importantly with the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the AFM, which defined residuals and cleared legal paths for selling films to television. This was a twoway street, benefitting Hollywood and TV. NBC’s Saturday Night at the Movies premiered in 1961, using the aura of Hollywood to add prestige to primetime. The networks paid higher and higher prices for the rights to broadcast movies. ABC paid $1.8 million for The Bridge Over the River Kwai in 1966, nine years after the film was released. Also in 1966 ABC paid $15 million for Cleopatra,

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only three years after it was released (to infamously tepid box office). In 1978, CBS paid $35 million to broadcast 1939’s Gone With the Wind. As the number of TVs in homes and hours of broadcast skyrocketed, local stations and networks desperately needed programmes. Once videotaping was a possibility, in 1956, networks reduced the number of live broadcasts, which were expensive, risky and unaccommodating to multiple time zones. The prestigious live dramas precipitously declined from fourteen programmes in 1955 to just one in 1959. Filmed content was needed. Lots and lots of it. How television furiously burned through content was dramatically described as the ‘glass furnace’. To grow as a business, television needed Hollywood. To offset declining business, Hollywood needed television. What Hollywood found in its archives was gold. But not just financial gold. The old libraries provided inspiration. Hollywood lives for the moment. But when Hollywood looked to its past, as it was compelled to do by television, everyone from executives to writers, directors and crew members discovered a legacy – what worked, what didn’t, invigorating techniques, images, sounds, tones, plots, locations, characters. It was very difficult to find and watch old movies . . . until television. The editing of movies for broadcast could be brutal, especially in the early days of television when it was sometimes deemed necessary to remove wide shots and dark moments from movies because they didn’t translate well to the small screen. Even so, the positive impact of releasing a flood of old movies into the broader culture was immense. Andrew Sarris, after complaining about how TV chops up movies, observed that nonetheless ‘television made a prodigious contribution to film scholarship and history’ because if not for TV ‘much of the cultural heritage of the American sound film would have crumbled into dust in the studio vaults’ (Cerf, 1984). By the mid-1950s, thousands of movies had been pulled out of vaults and shown on television, seen not just by film fans but filmmakers. And future filmmakers. Young Martin Scorsese watched the programme Million Dollar Movie on New York City’s WOR-TV, which at first was flush with the RKO movies Howard Hughes sold, obscure Westerns, cheesy B-movies, funny shorts and, for good measure, Italian films. On a tiny screen is how Scorsese first saw Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941). Despite the limitations of early TV, that classic film – and a variety of other films on WOR-TV – educated and excited Scorsese and shaped the director he would become. Classic Hollywood movies on TV shaped Steven Spielberg. Classic Hollywood cartoons on TV shaped John Lasseter. Television remains the most common way we can watch, and discover for ourselves, classic cinema.

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Some films that didn’t find an audience when originally released – a long list that includes It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) – found wide audiences on TV. Cinema’s engagement with television influenced its technological future, but perhaps more impactfully it influenced its creative future. Even viewed through small plywood boxes, old movies rescued from Hollywood archives have galvanized generations of filmmakers. By re-discovering past films, Hollywood was able to clarify its sense of self, one based on what it could be, as well as what it had always been.

Cultural exchange In the mid-1950s, the warring TV and movie industries warily entered a period of cultural exchange. An early ambassador from Hollywood to television was Walt Disney. He was as instrumental in breaching the divide between film and TV as he was in breaching the divide between silent and sound cinema (when he released the first sound cartoon, Steamboat Willie, in 1928). Disney was amongst the first studio executives to accept television as an ally, instead of a foe. In his book Hollywood v Hardcore, Jon Lewis argues that when Disney had to capitulate to the Cartoonist Guild after a bitter strike in the 1940s, he lost interest in movies and looked towards parks and television. Whatever the motivation, Walt Disney broke ranks with the other studios, at first selling older Disney films to TV stations, then actually pitching a TV show to ABC. As the newest, least profitable television network, ABC wanted to establish relationships with the movie studios. The television show Disneyland debuted on ABC in 1954. For ABC, it was an instant hit and shot them up the ratings. For Walt Disney, it was both promotion and payment for his soon-to-be theme park. To get the show, ABC invested heavily in Disneyland, the park. Disney famously said, ‘ABC wanted the television show so damned bad they bought the amusement park’. To fill the TV time they now had, Disney Studios produced filmed TV shows, starting in 1954 with Davy Crockett, and followed shortly by Zorro. Disney, the person and the brand, became more famous because of exposure on TV. Disney’s success in the new medium cracked opened a door for movie talent to explore television. This soon included A-List director Alfred Hitchcock who, through TV exposure, became a brand name much as Disney had. Hitchcock produced, starting in 1955, the TV show Alfred Hitchcock Presents, directing seventeen episodes himself. These early shot-on-film TV shows had feature

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film production values, fused with the new and remarkable cultural reach of television. To get those Hollywood production values, Disney and Hitchcock used Hollywood crews. Other filmmakers and studios followed suit, adapting their established resources and processes to produce filmed television shows. Hollywood wasn’t just making old movies available to television, it was making television. This had the benefit of reversing Hollywood’s trend towards laying off workers. The old movie studios became a major production source for the insatiable ‘glass furnace’ of television. Movie stars gradually made their way onto television, bypassing initial bans by the studios and overcoming their own fearfulness. In her book It’s the Pictures That Got Small, Christine Becker recounts the fascinating, fitful way big-screen actors started showing up on the small screen. Stars that played steady, relatable characters in the movies, such as Mickey Rooney, transitioned smoothly to TV. Stars with bigger-than-life screen auras, such as Clark Gable, were more circumspect. Studios watched with alarm as TV lured their stars in an effort to entice viewers. Becker relates how the flow of movie actors to television had the effect of eroding the control Hollywood traditionally had over its stars. Thanks to this newly competitive landscape, film actors increasingly freelanced, making them freer to choose career and publicity paths. One consequential category of actors who transitioned to TV were the unknowns, whose successes were surprising. Television was a fresh, rewarding outlet for many under-utilized and unappreciated actors. In 1952, New York Times critic Jack Gould wrote about Lucille Ball, ‘How she was ever wasted as a sexy glamour girl in the motion pictures passes all understanding anywhere except Hollywood’ (Gould, 2013). Undiscovered talent at the old studios was profitably discovered at the new networks. To combat the potential loss of talent, Hollywood offered residuals to some of its actors – something it was previously loath to do – in yet another upending of its long-standing business model. Despite the breaking down of the movie/TV barrier, the tension between being a movie or TV star certainly continued. Burt Reynolds caught fire on television talk shows, with his attitude and wit, but was warned by New Yorker critic Pauline Kael that real movie stars don’t do that. Kael declared that movie stars could not be formed on television. She believed small screen appearances ruined an actor for the big screen. However, film director John Boorman said he cast Reynolds in Deliverance (1972) after noticing ‘the man’s power, vulnerability and style’ on TV, particularly guest appearances on The Tonight Show (Smith,

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2005). Television and film were still worlds apart – but if two universes could share stars, what else could they share? In the mid-1950s the major Hollywood studios held their noses and worked with the networks to produce television shows for the purpose of publicizing their films. Following Disneyland’s lead, The MGM Parade, The Twentieth Century Fox Theater, and Warner Brothers Presents were TV shows designed to promote big-screen releases. This marketing approach was known as ‘windowing’. At the same time, studios came around to the utterly new idea of advertising their films on television. If TV was stealing their audience, maybe they could use TV to steal some of it back. From production to publicity, the Hollywood business model was being upended. Old-school minds were changing. Even Jack Warner, who in 1948 slammed the door on television and banned TV sets from his movies, had a change of heart. Recounted by Chris Anderson in Hollywood TV, Warner declared in a 1959 speech that television ‘has been a very healthy influence on the motion picture industry. It’s the ninth wonder of the world’. Anderson offers a historical perspective: Thus, commercial television, far from sounding the death knell of the Hollywood studios, offered a perfunctory salvation, an opportunity to reorganize and sustain established production operations when other social, economic, and political forces threatened to end the studios’ established hegemony in the movie industry. (Anderson, 2013)

What began for cinema as a battle for survival settled into something quite different, but just as important – a competition for cultural relevance. Across this new battle line, TV and movies took pot-shots at each other.

Culture wars Both cinema and television feared losing their identities to the other. Film was afraid of losing its audience, and TV was afraid of losing its liveliness. As filmed content started filling more of the airwaves, many decried the loss of live television. Critic Jack Gould wrote, in 1952, ‘Take away the actuality of television and there is lost the heart of TV. To regard television as a variation on the neighbourhood motion picture house is to misunderstand the medium’ (Gould, 2013).

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On television’s side of the cultural battle line, ‘Hollywood TV’ was a derogatory term used to characterize Hollywood-filmed TV products as a desecration of the fresh, high-minded promise of television. Todd Gitlin lauded early live TV, writing that ‘television, the bastard child of the movies and radio, has triumphed over its parents, leaving Hollywood to revel in revenues, passable product and past glories’ (Anderson, 2013). Meanwhile, across the battle line, Hollywood attacked television in a series of 1950s movies – including A Face in the Crowd (1957) and Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter (1957) – that lampooned television’s indecent dependence on advertising, race to the lowest common denominator and all-around vacuousness. An emotionally devastating example of Hollywood’s depiction of television is in Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows (1955). Jane Wyman is a single woman living in upscale suburbia who falls for her gardener, a much younger Rock Hudson. Wyman’s family and neighbours shame her into breaking off this inappropriate relationship. But this leaves her lonely. To cheer her up, her children buy her a new television set. As the TV deliveryman says, ‘All you have to do is turn the dial, and you’ll have all the company you want, right there on the screen’ (Thompson et al., 1955). Sirk’s camera pushes in until the little television screen fills his big movie screen, and on the TV’s dark glass is the distorted reflection of a very sad, and still lonely, Jane Wyman. Hollywood anticipated that one way it could better television was by making films about important social issues, such as anti-Semitism and racism. Studios hoped to attract what they called the ‘Lost Audience’, assumed to include sophisticated filmgoers eager, after the moral trauma of the Second World War, to engage in social issues. To this end, Hollywood produced movies such as Gentleman’s Agreement (1947), Crossfire (1947) and Home of the Brave (1949). Hollywood’s high-minded conscientiousness didn’t quite last. It wasn’t just mediocre box office that quashed it – the House Un-American Committee (HUAC) had a large hand in thwarting Hollywood’s moral courage. HUAC investigated Hollywood in 1947 and again in 1951. The first hearing featured opening statements from Walt Disney and SAG president Ronald Reagan. It was claimed that ‘communists, radicals and crackpots’ were a serious threat to the movie industry. The hearings resulted in the blacklisting of the ‘Hollywood Ten’, a group led by the avowed Marxist screenwriter John Howard Lawson, and which included the director of the socially conscious Crossfire, Edward Dmytryk. Crossfire particularly caught the attention of HUAC because

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it was about a racist serviceman who kills a Jew. HUAC and its supporters associated anti-racist and anti-anti-Semitic themes with the Communist Party. Scant evidence of a communist threat was produced at either of the hearings; nevertheless, as Tino Balio commented, ‘Hollywood, in typical fashion, panicked’ (Balio, 2013). Adding insult to Hollywood’s injury, the 1951 hearings were shown on live television. Partly in reaction to the intense pressure from HUAC, Hollywood’s output became less socially relevant, more family friendly and safer. In other words, movies became as safe as television. Hollywood’s hoped-for ‘Lost Audience’ would remain lost. The convenience and growing number of televisions in American homes catapulted TV ahead of cinema for cultural reach. But Hollywood tried to make up for lesser reach with greater prestige. As demonstrated by the exalted prime time slots broadcasters gave to movies (once movie studios made them available), Hollywood enjoyed a lofty stature. This stature would be further enhanced by growing artistic freedom. In the 1952 case Burstyn v. Wilson, the Supreme Court put its stamp on the film industry once more, deciding that the First Amendment right to free speech applied to motion pictures. The case concerned the New York Board of Regents rescinding of the exhibition licence for The Miracle (1948), a ‘sacrilegious’ Italian film by Roberto Rossellini. The Supreme Court ruled that The Miracle could not be barred, reasoning that film is a ‘business’, and as such has the same freedom of expression afforded other businesses. From Hollywood’s point of view, Burstyn v. Wilson can be considered truly a ‘miracle’ decision, since it had the effect of loosening the old Production Code and granting movies a constitutionally protected freedom of speech that television – bound by broadcasting regulations – could not enjoy. Remnants of the weakened Production Code were dramatically rewritten in 1968, ushering in a nearly unrestricted era of Hollywood filmmaking, and resulting in films that could use themes, words and images not available to television.

Fighting movies with movies The television industry fought back against movies by making their own movies. Many ‘Made for TV’ movies were being produced by the early 1960s. These homegrown ‘movies’ allowed TV networks to control costs, but also gave them control over content. As Hollywood moved to wider screens and more

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provocative content, many current Hollywood films could not easily be shown on television, where the screen was squarer and acceptable content just as square. ‘Made for TV’ movies fit television perfectly. There was another, less obvious, way television fought movies with movies. Going to the cinema was a grand communal experience, in a way that TV could never be. To counter this, television attempted to create for viewers an artificial sense of community. Media scholar Lynn Spigel relates how early television dramas and sitcoms emphasized Ozzie and Harriet-style neighbourhoods, impossibly friendly neighbours and idealized visions of community as a way to appeal to audiences that might be – especially those watching in suburban homes – very much isolated (Spigel, 1992). The effort to fabricate human connection was heartbreakingly overt in programmes such as TV Dinner Date and The Continental, which promised a way for single viewers to not spend evenings alone. Less overt, sneakily even, laugh tracks were added to comedy programmes to make viewing feel more communal. Shows shot live could include cutaways to live audience reactions, but when it became more common for programmes to shoot on film, the sound of a ‘live’ audience had to be added artificially. For its second season, in 1952, the Red Skelton Show switched from live to filmed. The show made up for the loss of a studio audience by employing a laugh track – one of the first uses of this common (and later controversial) technique. There was good reason the TV industry kept the use of ‘canned laughter’ under wraps for as long as they did: they didn’t want to break the illusion for their viewers that they were watching along with a crowd. Film scholar Jacob Smith argues that laugh tracks are meant to create an ‘authentic presence used to bridge the gap between recorded sound and listener’ (Smith, 2012). It can also be said that TV shows use laugh tracks to bridge the experience gap between watching television and watching movies. Laugh tracks simulate the sound of sitting in a theatre, surrounded by human reactions. This was effective, but only to a point. The second season of the Red Skelton Show, shot on film and sweetened with a laugh track, was not a ratings success. So, for its third season through to its last in 1971, the Red Skelton Show dumped canned laughs and went back to taping in front of a live audience. In her 1967 New Yorker essay ‘Movies on Television’, Pauline Kael condemned TV laughter tracks, claiming that they short-circuited the natural reactions of viewers. She proclaimed TV should not try to simulate the experience of being in a movie theatre. Essentially, Kael maintained that television and film are distinctly separate mediums. She decried the ‘commodification’ of Hollywood movies when shown on TV. For Kael, showing films out of historic context,

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chopped up, diminished in size and rudely interrupted by ads ‘dishonoured’ those films. If the first time one sees a classic film is on television, she argued, the film would inevitably ‘lose meaning’. Yet, Martin Scorsese saw Citizen Kane for the first time on WOR-TV, and still experienced something profound. Understandable as Kael’s nostalgia was, television brought classic Hollywood films out of their vaults and into our world. But the world wasn’t always kind to Hollywood. It didn’t help Hollywood’s fragile sense of self that, starting in the mid-1960s, traditional studios were gobbled up by huge, unrelated conglomerates. Corporate suitors were attracted by the value of studio real estate, low stock valuations (a result of the long fight with television), and the increasing value of studio libraries (thanks to television). Formerly all-powerful moguls were victims of this restructuring. Gone With the Wind producer David O. Selznick wrote to a friend: Our old stomping ground, what is laughingly known as the motion picture industry, is very mixed up and unhappy. Whatever the weakness of the old and rugged pioneers, who are all disappearing from the scene almost simultaneously – what a hardy race they were! – their successors are pygmies by comparison. There is no leadership; all is chaos. (Anderson, 2013)

‘Old Hollywood’ was being displaced by ‘New Hollywood’, run by many executives with no movie experience, or – worse yet! – television experience. In a later crisis, ‘New Hollywood’ would have to be saved from its failures by a young generation of filmmakers weaned on watching ‘Old Hollywood’ on TV. But we get ahead of ourselves.

Silver screen linings It has become clearer in hindsight that even as it battled with that damnable small screen, the silver screen found many silver linings. After losing legal and commercial battles, the film industry was forced to compete with, rather than incorporate, television. In defining itself in opposition to TV, cinema became more cinematic. The wunderkind was forced to grow up. After years of wilful forgetfulness about its own history, Hollywood was enticed by the market of television to discover its past. Movies that went from studio basements to TV broadcasts ended up adding to cinema’s prestige, and inspiring cinema’s future.

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After Hollywood-produced shows for TV displaced the live dramas of television’s first ‘Golden Age’, the West Coast was inundated with East Coast talent trained in the trenches of programmes like Playhouse 90, Kraft Television Theater and Alfred Hitchcock Presents – a talent bonanza for Hollywood that included Sidney Lumet, Arthur Penn, George Roy Hill, Robert Redford and Robert Altman. After years of Production Code restrictions, Hollywood enjoyed new, creatively invigorating freedom, thanks to First Amendment court successes and inspiration from provocative foreign films. This post-Code freedom helped Hollywood differentiate its content from television’s. After realizing that bigness was an advantage it had over television, Hollywood expanded the scope of movie-going, using new technologies to make films more of an event. It revitalized itself with widescreen, colour and stereo – innovations that became lasting, defining cinema standards. After adding to its prestige, and scaling up presentations, Hollywood could get away with increasing ticket prices. This financially offset an ongoing decline in movie-goers. After all this, cinema seemed to have survived the television crisis, even thrived in unexpected ways. But a modern, yet strikingly familiar crisis looms with the fierce competition from streaming. Contemporary debates about what cinema is, and how it is different from streaming still pull from arguments dating back to the beginnings of the conflict between film and TV. This debate is muddied by the fact that the difference between movies and television has become harder to discern. Quality shows like The Sopranos, Better Call Saul and The Mandalorian take advantage of improving technologies and top talent, offering big, cinematic experiences on what used to be thought of as the ‘small screen’. As television surges past its old limits – by widening screens, increasing resolution, expanding sound, losing ads – it becomes more like cinema. The line of separation Pauline Kael saw as essential to both mediums has gotten fuzzier. Are television and cinema becoming the same thing? That would be one way to end their competition. But even as they become more alike, there remains one defining difference. This difference hangs by a thread. But it is a strong thread. What TV and film don’t share is the experience. Our experience of the movies is not just watching but going to the movies. In a communal setting. The American motto E Pluribus Unum could be Hollywood’s as well: one among many. Viewing experience is the strong thread that keeps movies on one side and television on the other. The widely shared communal aspect of cinema is something neither

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television nor streaming can reproduce. In the long battle with TV, Hollywood’s greatest asset turns out to be boots on the ground. Or more accurately, butts in the seats. The real hero of Hollywood’s war with television is the filmgoing audience. To end his 1953 Variety article ‘The Crucial Year for Pictures’, Walt Disney wrote: We like to enjoy ourselves in crowds, at sports arenas, at picnics, fairs and carnivals, at concerts and in the theatre (. . .) People are always going to demand and enjoy movies in the theater. We must compete as never before. (Disney, 1953)

The competition is as intense now as it was in 1953. Can either side actually win this seemingly endless battle? Through the fog of war, it is hard for TV and Hollywood to see that victory doesn’t require your opponent’s failure. At least in this crazy, complex, unique battle, it requires your opponent’s success. The rich history of this competition teaches us this, over and over again. There is only one way for this epic story to end. The war will end when our two heroes realize they are on the same side.

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When the Legend Becomes Fact, Print the Legend The Crisis of Perception (Old Hollywood and Rise of New Hollywood)

‘You’re not going to use the story, Mr Scott?’ ‘No, sir. This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.’ Carleton Young as Maxwell Scott replying to a question by James Stewart as Ransom Stoddard in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance Bang. Doom. It’s all over. The end . . . but no, wait! Easy riders and raging bulls on the horizon. They are here to save the day. Out with the old, in with the new: there’s a new sheriff in town . . . Around the mid-1960s, a consensus began to form that Hollywood was not just that anymore. It had become Old Hollywood. The idea of a film industry that had grown stale and was anchored to a past that is fast vanishing from sight mirrored developments in other parts of the world, particularly in France. The Nouvelle Vague (New Wave) filmmakers – young, well-educated, often from an academic or film criticism background – openly rebelled against the cinéma de papa – daddy’s cinema – as they disparagingly called it. The latter was a cinema based on old values, those belonging to the fathers of that young generation now protesting in academic halls and soon to take to the street to demand the world caught up with them. It was a type of wordy cinema with good production values, almost invariably shot on a soundstage, but aesthetically and thematically uninteresting to the young filmmakers who wanted to use the newly available lighter cameras to film their stories in the streets, away from the artificiality of studio settings.

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Their American counterparts admired the French New Wave and even more their attitude. Willing to talk more frankly and directly about the issues of the day, their approach offered the tantalizing promise for Hollywood young guns to make movies about what mattered to them: drugs, sexual liberation, civil liberty movements and in particular opposition to the Vietnam War provided the fuel to that bonfire of Old Hollywood tropes. The New Hollywood that would emerge out of those ashes was to be daring, free and different in the eyes of the filmmakers at the centre of that change. They emerged out of a generation that had grown up at a time when film became a ‘legitimate’ subject taught at universities around the United States, United Kingdom and Europe. They were young and eager to change the old system and make films that reflected the new times in content, style and filmmaking practices. The halls at USC, UCLA and NYU produced the young film-literate graduates who would turn that ambition into a reality and who would soon become household names: Coppola, Scorsese, Lucas, De Palma and many more beyond them. Their films succeeded in connecting with the youth of the day about their issues in ways they could relate to, in so doing saving cinema once again from the oblivion that had seemingly looked inevitable. Old Hollywood died, and the New Hollywood was born. Fade out. The end. It is a neat and tidy narrative that has been narrated many times and proven resistant to the passing of time, and is still recounted as such today: As studio films floundered and ageing studio executives lost control of the industry, foreign and art house films filled the gap, influencing a generation of American filmmakers who ushered in the era of New Hollywood (. . .) While indies like Easy Rider and The Wild Angels were thriving, the Big Five were collapsing (. . .) By the close of the decade, the golden age of studios had ended and New Hollywood was ascendant. (Malouchou, 2020)

In this story, studios and Hollywood in general come out bruised and battered. How could they not see this particular ‘end’ coming? Why did they stubbornly continue to pursue such a losing strategy as ‘bigger, more expensive = better, larger profits?’ Problem is the truth is a lot more complicated than this.1 At the risk of sounding obvious, we are not the first ones, as the chapter mentions, to suggest that the narrative is more complicated than this.

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Far from being inactive and caught entirely unaware of the changes taking place in their audience, studios – and the film industry more widely – were in the midst of a widespread effort to reconfigure virtually all aspects of cinema. Put differently, Hollywood was on the move well before those young guns moved in. The actions of the former laid the foundation for the emergence of the latter. In ways that, understandably, most of those young filmmakers were not ready to acknowledge, their emergence was because of the way Old Hollywood had reorganized, not despite it. While the legend that got printed is indeed compelling and dramatic in equal measure, for the purpose of this book it may be worth taking the reverse journey and, unlike Maxwell Scott’s choice, print the facts. It is a tale in five acts, all occurring roughly in the same period, the time in the 1960s leading up to the arrival of the aforementioned New Hollywood filmmakers. We will take each act in turn but make no mistake: they were less isolated occurrences and more an industry-wide reconfiguration. The five acts are: ●

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Act one: diversification of studio business models (new ownership brought diverse income/revenue streams that finally removed studios from the ‘all eggs in one basket’ problem typical of many of them) Act two: opening up to new talent (university educated, aware of developments elsewhere, both in society and in the film world – e.g. France) Act three: creation of National Association of Theatre Owners (as a more effective player in organizing the exhibition sector) Act four: political lobbying/advocating at the highest level (Nixon, MPA as ‘the little state department’, Reagan) Act five: birth of the multiplex (improving film theatres, matching more effectively social and demographical dynamics)

But first, let’s set the scene.

Preamble: a classic case of doing the wrong thing . . . by doing the right thing Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Box-office strategy in the 1960s seemed to work well. Domestic and global box office continued to grow – since the ‘jump’ forward in income that had taken place in the mid-1950s (partly a consequence of the

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industry’s response to the growing competition from television, as outlined in Chapter 4). Since the mid-1950s, triple-digit yearly box-office figures had become the norm rather than simply signalling a year when Walt Disney unleashed one of his monster performers onto the public, raising the roof of the box office pretty much single-handedly: Cinderella accounted for $260 million of the global $320 million box office in 1950, and it was by no means an exception when it came to Disney’s dominance of the market whenever it released a new animated feature. The pattern was easily and seductively discernible too. One or two movies anchored the success of the entire year. These were usually genre pictures (musicals and epics in particular, apart from the aforementioned Disney outliers), large in budget and scope: exotic locations, a cast of thousands and extremely elaborate studio sets were employed at an increasingly larger cost to the studios. Suddenly, everyone seemed to need a cast of thousands, Walt Disney providing once again the exception to the rule: 101 spotted dogs or even seven dwarves always did the trick for him. However extravagant, lavish and indulgent the system may have appeared to outsiders and those who experienced it, it actually worked. Year after year, whether it was Heston/Moses, Douglas/Spartacus or O’Toole/Lawrence, audiences loved those huge movies: Larger! Grander! Better! By the mid-1960s, studios had reached the outer limits of what this particular business model allowed. The problem was that if there was any hint or clue of this imminent demise, they were nowhere to be seen in the box-office numbers. The latter grew steadily in the 1950s, ballooned in the late 1950s (quite literally in the case of Around the World in 80 Days) and continued to grow in the 1960s. Indeed, the mid-point of the decade marked the apex of that system with yet another musical that broke all box-office records: the mighty Andrews/ Maria singing and dancing nun spectacle in The Sound of Music in 1965 by all intents and purposes displayed the mighty power of studio filmmaking taking a record $80 million at the box office, while David Lean’s Russian spectacular Doctor Zhivago was not far behind ($61 million domestic). Indeed, aside from a misfire year in 1966 (when the top two films of the year took a by-then paltry $15 million each), most indicators pointed to strong box-office performance and to the studio model as functioning well. What could possibly go wrong? In reality, studios were in the middle of a seismic swarm that threatened to shake the entire industry into dust. The success of a few major movies with very large production budgets that had seen huge returns at the box office – like the aforementioned The

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Sound of Music (production budget of $8 million) and Doctor Zhivago ($11 million budget) had pushed production costs up significantly and convinced minds that the only way was higher: larger and costlier movies for accordingly fatter returns.2 By this point though, the old model of producing films shown in cinemas that people would go to see in huge numbers had seemingly run its course. Post-war suburbanization and the advent of TV – as we have seen in previous chapters – had dealt serious blows to the notion that going to the movies was in fact the only game in town when it came to popular entertainment. Although studios had indeed responded to these threats in equal measure by embracing them (with the creation of large movie libraries that could be monetized via TV rentals) and fighting them (with technological innovations like widescreen and stereophonic sound in the cinemas), the fundamental belief in their business model as remaining steady and profitable had not wavered sufficiently to force them into deeper, non-technologically driven analysis of ongoing trends. They were making big movies, and the public was rewarding them with big bucks, while a veritable chasm between those movies, the people who made them and the changes that were taking place in American and Western societies was opening for everyone to see. In short, studios were not so much blind to the changes taking place but had become prisoners of their own success. It was a classic case of knowing that what you are doing right is also what you are doing wrong and could ultimately doom the entire system. This crisis was a systemic one where confidence in all that had seemed stable and reliable – from government to family, and particularly between older and younger generations – was evaporating. We pick up our five-act (short, we promise!) story at this point of inflexion.

Act one: diversification of studio business models (new ownership brought diverse income/revenue streams that finally removed studios from the ‘all eggs in one basket’ problem typical of many of them) Although the 1960s had begun with declining audiences, and in spite of growing production costs and some high-profile flops like Cleopatra, studios remained profitable: Production budgets figures are from https://www​.the​-numbers​.com (accessed 1 August 2020).

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For the makers of motion pictures, the 1960s began in the doldrums. Attendance at theaters was declining as television drained off the vast bulk of film audiences, and the advent of color television portended even more damage. Despite this, the industry managed to stabilize itself (. . .) and audiences continued to attend theaters. Prices at the box office began to rise, and the film business entered a healthy period. (Balio, 1985: 606)

Their increased reliance on large-scale movies and corresponding promise of large returns had, however, created a very dangerous situation whereby studios were over-leveraged in their expenditure with no significant alternative source of income, bar renting their movies out to television (a lucrative practice that, however, did not defray financial risks sufficiently). In short, they had all their eggs in the same basket. If the latter failed, so would the studios. It is at this time of extreme financial vulnerability that studios became the target of larger, better-capitalized companies, often from different industry sectors, looking to acquire a more diverse portfolio of activities and the kind of popular exposure the film industry in all effects guaranteed. Insurance companies (Transamerica Corporation, a subsidiary of Bank of America with United Artists), oil companies (Gulf and Western with Paramount), music companies (MCA with Universal) and even parking lot and cleaning operators (Kinney National Services with Warner) all bought significant, often majority, stakes in these historic studios. In this rather unstable period of ownership, with so many mergers and acquisitions, studios were at pains to emphasize to the outside world – that is, shareholders – that in fact these were all moves made towards achieving greater stability and financial responsibility so that: ‘All the madness has gone from picture making.’ As proclaimed rather typically by Robert M. Weitman in 1964, then MGM’s Vice President in charge of production. MGM itself had become the target of several large conglomerates and their wealthy owners, when liquor giant Seagram’s CEO Edgar M. Bronfman (whose family owned the company) purchased a majority stake in the studio in 1959 (‘Movie Industry Is Booming Again’, 1964: 1). The era of ‘the suits’ – as the businessmen (few or no women, it should be noted) who took over running the studios came to be derogatorily known – had begun. This quickly became the boogieman of creatives who – correctly – expressed dismay at the lack of film credentials, both creatively and as a business. True though those concerns may have been, the diversification of studios via these acquisitions had two main effects, often overshadowed by the narrative of the suits destroying Old Hollywood.

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First, they enabled spending to continue, while introducing stricter cost control measures, at a time when banks were beginning to be extremely suspicious of the largesse of studios in producing their increasingly lavish movies. They could do so because losses deriving from a year of poorly performing movies at the box office could relatively easily be absorbed in a diversified book of assets without necessarily impacting too dramatically on the studio in question. These companies were large enough, and rich enough to take a financial loss out with the trash on a Friday afternoon. This, it should be noted, was not without risk for the buyer: Transamerica saw a constant decline in its share prices after the acquisition of UA. Second, far from being the enemy of ‘small films’, they most likely created the necessary conditions for those smaller, riskier movies to be made in the latter part of the decade: The inexpensive film, even if as a sleeper it returned unexpected millions on a small investment (as Easy Rider (Columbia, 1969) and Breaking Away (Twentieth Century Fox, 1979) did), could not service a major’s capital account, though it would provide a pleasant gloss to its accounts. (Izod, 1988: 181)

Put differently, shareholders owning stock from the major studios would not be placated by mild financial success, no matter how impressive in view of the original investment. The scale of investment and return was important to them as much as it was to David Lean. It was the financial might of the new owners that placated those investors’ nerves and allowed studios to invest in younger filmmakers towards the latter part of the decade in particular.

Act two: opening up to new talent (university educated, aware of developments elsewhere, both in society and in the film world) This one is a well-known story and the A-track of the record being played over and over again by film historians: in the late-1960s, a small group of young filmmakers entered the industry. Most had studied film at university – particularly at one of the ‘big three’: University of Southern California (USC), University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and New York University (NYU) – and had been exposed, often as part of their courses, to a variety of film styles and talent that stimulated their curiosity and desire to experiment.

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New technologies – particularly the introduction of a lighter 16mm camera – made filmmaking a less prohibitively expensive enterprise. They also made filming on location more viable, crucially severing the need for studio space (i.e. soundstages) and allowing young filmmakers the flexibility to get closer to their stories, both figuratively (in terms of theme and content) and literally (as they could now film virtually anywhere, at relatively low cost). Their names soon became associated with a term that was meant to indicate their arrival onto the scene marked much more than just a new bunch of hungry talent: they were the heralds of the New Hollywood. Their movies symbolized the upheaval taking place in society, with themes that were more ‘serious’ in nature, unvarnished in style, and that broke free from traditional restraints as to what constituted a Hollywood movie. Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, Brian DePalma, Steven Spielberg and many more belonged to this group. Although very different in personality, background and taste, they coalesced around the notion of the filmmaker as author, a concept that had been coined by a group of French critics writing for the film publication Cahiers du Cinema (Cinema Notebooks) in the late 1950s, who argued that the director of a movie was the real and only author of a movie. Originally a ‘political’ suggestion to wrestle French cinema away from wordy, literary ‘quality’ adaptations that, in the view of those critics, had stifled creativity in French cinema for too long, the word auteur and the concept of the ‘politique des auteurs’ became a lens through which films and their directors in particular were to be judged. Crucially, the Cahiers critics (most of whom would become very successful filmmakers shortly thereafter, from Francois Truffaut to Eric Rohmer, Jean-Luc Godard and many more) specified Hollywood directors as their examples of what a true auteur really was, in so doing lending an aura of prestige to filmmakers who, up to that time, had likely never heard the word auteur and would not have called themselves as the only true author of a movie. Cahiers changed all that, infusing the young generation studying at school with a sense of the director as the master of filmmaking, the captain of the ship and the only real authority on a movie, above all other aspects and considerations of what contributed to making a good movie. Andre Bazin, one of the most celebrated film critics and historian in film history, writing in Cahiers pointed out the risk of this rather absolutist aspect of the auteur theory: The American cinema is a classical art, but why not then admire in it what is most admirable, i.e. not only the talent of this or that filmmaker, but the

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genius of the system, the richness of its ever-vigorous tradition, and its fertility when it comes into contact with new elements – as has been proved, if proof there need be, in such films as An American in Paris, The Seven Year Itch and Bus Stop (. . .) the politique des auteurs seems to me to hold and defend an essential critical truth that the cinema is in need of more than the other arts, precisely because an act of true artistic creation is more uncertain and vulnerable in the cinema than elsewhere. But its exclusive practice leads to another danger: the negation of the film to the benefit of praise of its auteur. (Bazin, 1957)

Crucially, at a time when studios were looking for ways to respond to the challenges that the 1960s presented – particularly amongst young people, the key demographics for cinema-going at the time – auteur theory provided studio executives with the perfect rationale to justify handing over the keys to the young gun filmmakers fresh out of college, a badge of honour they were only too happy to wear on their sleeve for sure: Here at Paramount we believe that the finding of new creative directors and producers is just as important as discovering new stars. It is only logical to assume that the best person in the world to develop a story properly is the author himself. As a result, the new policy at Paramount is to elevate to “star status” many of our writers working on major properties, affording them the opportunity of working as writer-producers or writer-directors (. . .) The enormous potential of these arrangements is being demonstrated at the box office right now with ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ which is on its way to being one of the biggest blockbusters in Paramount’s history. (Evans, 1968: 82)

Act three: political lobbying/advocating at the highest level (Nixon, MPA as ‘the little state department’, Reagan) Everything must change so that everything can stay the same. (Alain Delon, as Tancredi in Luchino Visconti’s 1963 film The Leopard)

The 1960s were a decade of transition and great socio-economic upheaval. Hollywood, it seemed, had lost touch with what was happening in the ‘real world’. Studios had to acknowledge the situation and adapt or die. Escapism had become a suspicious word even amongst studio heads:

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There will always be a place for the ‘escapist movie’. But if we ask, ‘What does the film audience want today?’, the answer is certainly not ‘to escape’. ‘Telling it like it is’ is a clear demand from today’s audience. And they won’t wait in line for a film if we pussy-foot around the truth. (Silverstein, 1968: 82)

The ‘truth’ is that while publicly stating their wish to ‘tell it like it is’, studios were developing ever stronger links with a different side of the 1960s, one that is often overlooked in conversation about the rise of New Hollywood. In focusing on the main politically left-of-centre movements of the decade – from civil rights to feminism – historical accounts of the film industry in this period tend to underplay the equally important changes that were taking place right-of-centre and that, arguably, were to have an even deeper impact on the fortunes of film than their more well-known left-wing counterpoints. The late 1950s had seen the rise of an increasingly powerful conservative movement that had found fertile ground in the anti-big-government sentiment that characterized a large section of the population in California, as well as in the United States in general. Crystallized in the economic teaching of Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago (the latter becoming a literal and metaphorical epicentre of ideological clashes between conservatives and liberals in the mid-1960s) and publications such as The National Review (both of which took shape and prominence in the latter part of the 1950s), this highly influential political movement came to be known as the ‘New Right’. One of his most successful proponents was none other than Ronald Reagan, who would eventually become governor of California in 1966. Reagan, formerly a Democrat who had strategically switched alliance to the Republican Party, knew the film industry only too well. A moderately successful actor in his own right, he had entered politics via the Screen Actors Guild (SAG). He became president of that powerful and influential guild – representing all actors in contractual negotiations with studios – in 1947 and remained in a position of power in the Guild on and off the ensuing decade until 1960, when he engineered the first-ever industry-wide strike in Hollywood’s fifty years history over the issue of ‘residual payments’ for actors.3 With his success with SAG, coupled with his openly anti-communist stance during the infamous HUAC hearings soon after that, as well as his espousal of For more see: Federman, 2011.

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the New Right main economic viewpoints – where the power of the individual to reach the American dream through hard work and perseverance is ideologically preferred over the ability of government to support its citizens – his political star grew exponentially, and in 1966 he was elected governor of California (he would of course eventually become a two-term President of the United States in 1980 and 1984). As California lurched towards the right – if California ever did such a thing, it was in this period – Hollywood saw an opportunity to lobby more aggressively and effectively both state and national government. This job was greatly assisted by the parallel development of the MPA (Motion Pictures Association). Under the presidency of Eric Johnston in the late 1950s and early 1960s (he died suddenly of a stroke in 1963, to be replaced the following year by Jack Valenti), the MPA developed its ability to lobby the government on behalf of Hollywood, particularly with regards to the international market. This allowed a close alliance between Washington and Hollywood around the role of Hollywood movies in promoting US social, political and economic values across the world at the height of the Cold War with the USSR. It proved so successful that it became known as ‘the little state department’ in Washington circles: The MPA was formed in 1945 as the Motion Picture Export Association of America, with the goal of re-establishing American films in the world market in the aftermath of World War II, and in response to growing barriers to the importation of American films. The organization’s experience in negotiating on its own with foreign governments has earned it the moniker of ‘the little State Department’, and its foreign activities span the diplomatic, economic, and political arenas. (Lee, 2008: 375–6)

In short, the 1960s saw the emergence of Hollywood as a powerful lobbying machine both on behalf of the film industry and, internationally, on behalf of the US government. Highly influential political figures who would assume power in the following decades were cutting their teeth in California politics. Just like Reagan, Richard Nixon had used the state as a political trampoline. His first political appointment was as a congressman representing California’s twelfth congressional district in 1947, and he had later unsuccessfully run as governor in 1962, following his years as President Eisenhower’s vice president and his own failed presidential run in 1960.

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Most Hollywood filmmakers had a profound distrust – if not downright hatred – of Republican figures following McCarthy’s communist witch-hunt days: It would be an exaggeration, then, to say that everybody in the film industry hated Nixon, but the New Hollywood sure did (. . .) He was the opposite of what the New Hollywood stood for. (Kirshner, 2018: 30–1).

In a particularly twisted counterintuitive fashion though, that same New Hollywood partly owed its existence to Republican politics and policies. By expediency or conviction, this was a decade that saw Hollywood politics develop into an efficient political machine. While the MPA could confidently act as the ‘public relations’ arm of the US government through Hollywood films abroad, studios lobbied ever more aggressively for direct government aide to the industry at a time when it needed it most. Tax credits, the early sign of what would become a key aspect of the industry both at home and abroad (today we would likely call those ‘incentives’) began to be discussed seriously at this time and in 1972, following a visit to Hollywood, Nixon announced a raft of measures aimed at supporting Hollywood, more precisely, studios: The President provide as good as his word. Since the San Clemente meeting, everything has been coming up roses for the movie industry – at least in its dealings with government. Legislation setting up the investment tax credit, to cite a major example, makes it apply to the movies, and not just to studio purchases of cameras and sets; 7% of the entire cost of making a film now can be deducted from the producer’s tax bill. Also, the Internal Revenue Service has changed its depreciation rules for motion pictures, providing for faster write-off of production costs. (Loehwing, 1972: 23)

By the beginning of the 1970s, as Hollywood studios were about to reach financial heights that they would only have dreamed of a few years prior, studio heads were confident enough that their strategy had paid off to announce it as proudly and boldly as they could. In their view, the era of experimentation was over, the ‘madness’ had gone and the relationship with audiences was being restored to past paradigms that had never really gone out of fashion. The position expressed only a few years before at MGM about ‘telling it like it is’ had morphed once again into ‘telling it like we wish it to be’ stance: We’re gearing up for entertainment. The industry got away from that for a time and was making pictures about social issues – drug abuse, college revolutions, racial problems. But in today’s difficult economy and world crises, we don’t think

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people want to leave their homes and spend $2 or $3 each to be reacquainted with those problems. Douglas Netter, Executive Vice President, MGM Inc. (Loehwing, 1972: 3)

The ability of the industry to play both sides, the liberal audience through content and talent, and the conservative audience through lobbying and flag waving, showed once more that the genius of the system was to have understood and assimilated the lesson in Visconti’s The Leopard, another product of that same era.

Act four: exhibition on the move – mergers and the creation of NATO (as a more effective player in organizing the exhibition sector) It was not just studios, talent and content that was changing. The other side of the equation, exhibition, was also reconfiguring aggressively. Prior to the Second World War and the Paramount Decree of 1948 (in effect creating the conditions for studios to divest their interest in theatre ownerships), cinema exhibition had been split down the line with independent cinemas on one side, and ‘affiliated’ cinemas (owned by studios). A number of organizations had come to represent both, often state-wide first (e.g. in New York, Ohio, etc.) and then grouping together to achieve greater bargaining power with studios and lobbying power with Washington. Following the Paramount Decree though, the move to consolidate such organizations into fewer, or even one, intensified as the old division lines began to blur and hundreds of new cinemas looked for representation. Talks started – and broke down – regularly throughout the 1950s but the dawn of the 1960s and the changes it brought seemed to focus minds on the need to steady the exhibition ship in view of choppy waters and strong headwinds. In particular, exhibitors had witnessed not just the arrival of television as a strong competitor in the previous decade, but also the emergence of early discussions around pay-TV, the need to find a way out of the increasingly limiting Hays code (the voluntary code regulating censorship on cinema screens). The changes in film audience that owners had witnessed, particularly when matched to ongoing social changes, had also brought into sharp focus the need for greater and better audience research. It is at this time of mounting challenges that the two main professional organizations representing exhibitors – the Allied State Association of Motion

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Picture Exhibitors (ASAMPE) and the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO) – finally agree to put aside differences and merge: In April 1964, the Allied States Association of Motion Picture Exhibitors and the Theatre Owners of America had agreed on a merger, talks for which had begun over a decade before. The challenges and changes of the 1960s brought an end to the ideological differences that had divided the two major exhibitor groups. In addition to enforcing ratings, in its early days NATO organized defenses against the industry’s greatest threats. It campaigned against the FCC for the regulation of pay TV, instituted a ‘movie month’ with discounted prices, and pushed for more research on patron behavior. (Malouchou, 2020)

One of the first results of the change was the development and introduction of a rating system for movies. This was seen as paramount for a number of reasons, but particularly because of the ‘new’ and more explicit movies that studios were beginning to produce to address their young audience. The system, introduced in 1968, replaced the Hays code and remains in place to this day. The particular importance of the rating system is that it quickly became a useful tool to research audience behaviour and attitudes – particularly on understanding the impact that a more restrictive rating may have on a film’s performance at the box office – as well as providing greater flexibility in providing young audiences with the kind of movies they were now demanding, with greater freedom of expression, particularly around issues like the representation of drugs, sex and violence on screen at the top of the wish list. In short, the introduction of a unified rating system enabled studios and filmmakers to understand their potential audience with a far greater degree of clarity and precision than ever before. This was not the only major change happening on the exhibition side. Another, perhaps even more significant, change was taking place that would shape the industry for decades to come and would bring a revolution in the way films were shown and audiences could access them: the birth of the multiplex.

Act five: multiple weddings and a funeral – the end of theatre segregation and the birth of the multiplex The changes taking place at the organizational level with NATO reflected the developments that were taking place in the shape of movie theatres, both literally and metaphorically.

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Although experiments with multi-screen cinemas had taken place in the 1930s (a handful of theatres ran two screens/auditoria), it was not until the early 1960s that the notion of the multiplex came firmly into focus, particularly in Canada and in the United States. Providing a very attractive combination of logistical flexibility (rationalizing staff time and cinema equipment), financial returns (greater choice for audiences and staggered starting times generating greater sales) and audience choice (more movies to choose from at the same location, better maximization of seating capacity with movies moving from a larger screen to a smaller one as they cycled through their theatrical run), the development of the multiplex in the 1960s represented one of the most potent signals the industry was fundamentally repositioning itself to take advantage of an as-yet-unclear future: This rise of the multiplex forms the second factor in the historical development of scale in the American movie theater: the existence of a historical juncture at which the typical theater went from having a single screen in a single auditorium to having multiple screens in multiple auditoriums. At this juncture (beginning in the mid-1960s and lasting to the end of the 1970s), American movie theaters began to ‘scale’ in the sense that the number of auditoriums could range from one to upwards of ten (and after the mid-1990s, upwards of twenty), depending on the needs and strategies of exhibitors. By 1980, the multiplex movie theater became the norm in the United States, thereby creating two vectors of scale for American movie theaters: one scale (the size scale) consisting of the seating capacity of an individual auditorium, the other scale (the number scale) consisting of the number of auditoriums in a movie theater complex. (Meissner, 2012)

The rise of the multiplex – and corresponding number of screens – were amplified in impact by the drive to conglomerate theatres into chains. The world’s largest cinema chain at the time of writing – AMC – is perhaps the most noticeable product of this move towards greater concentration of theatres into fewer hands, going ‘from little more than a handful of second-run venues to one of the largest exhibition chains in the world, redubbed American Multi-Cinema, with more than 2,700 screens in the U.S., Canada, Japan, Hong Kong, Spain and Portugal’ (Klady, 1999). If the birth of the multiplex and the rise of cinema conglomerates brings multiple weddings in this act; desegregation in cinemas provides the funeral. Movie theatres had remained stubbornly segregated in the face of the move to desegregate in other aspects of US life, including key areas like schools and

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housing. In Washington, the country’s site of government, sporting a large African American population – according to the US census, 53.9 per cent of the population in Washington, DC was African American in 1960, by far one of the largest shares in the country – these tensions played out for the whole nation to see:4 In 1948, a blue-ribbon panel, the National Committee on Segregation in the Nation’s Capital, issued Segregation in Washington, a report condemning the District of Columbia as an all-too-graphic illustration of the failure of democracy. A series of newspaper exposes followed, pointing out obvious contradictions in public access. Citizen organizations, many of which were racially mixed, demanded change and pursued a brilliant series of legal and moral challenges to segregation. As a result, housing covenants were ruled unenforceable (1948), and Catholic schools were integrated (1949). Also in 1948, 33 playwrights, composers, and lyricists announced that they would not permit their productions to play at the National Theater in Washington unless all race discrimination was ended. While this demand was backed by civic leaders and the Washington Post, the theater’s management refused to integrate its audience and switched to presenting European movies. (Gomery, 1997)

The ongoing drive to improve civil rights in America that had accelerated in the late 1950s finally brought desegregation to the movie theatres in 1963. This was significant not merely in terms of what it meant for oppressed communities but also for studios and filmmakers: if the country was finally witnessing the funeral of (official) segregation, then the notion of movies playing to white and non-white audiences alike looked increasingly and tantalisingly like a possibility. It was, of course, to prove a false dawn – or an extremely long wake – as segregation turned out to be far more than an issue of what was legally prohibited: Theater revenues in DC fell after a plausibly exogenous court ruling desegregated movie theaters, making them available to theater goers regardless of race. This result points toward customer discrimination as a driving force behind the practice of refusing service to black customers. (Gil & Marion, 2019).

Although it would take decades for the dynamics unleashed by desegregation to unfold, the seed for future change was evidently and very publicly planted in the early part of the decade, providing yet another driver for change in Hollywood, Data source: https://www2​.census​.gov​/library​/publications​/decennial​/1960​/pc​-s1​-supplementary​ -reports​/pc​-s1​-52​.pdf (accessed 30 June 2020).

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particularly resonant with the wider civil rights movement that was at the epicentre of those same social dynamics that were shaping up the industry’s understanding of what ‘audiences want now’. Through better political lobbying, new ratings systems, the consolidation of representation via NATO, desegregation and the birth of the multiplex, by the mid-1960s exhibition had crucially and strategically positioned itself to take advantage of whatever changes the ‘content guys’ were going to come up with and had secured a position of greater strength in negotiating rates with the studios producing their movies.

Epilogue: the numbers game Film became globally popular in the first part of the twentieth century on a simple diet: sell people tickets for very little money each, betting on films’ ability to sell large quantities of stubs. In this, cinema was aided by simple maths: a night at the movies was relatively cheap – at times very cheap – and certainly affordable to most. This continued for several decades: at the end of the 1940s, the price of a ticket was still remarkably low – patrons in the United States could see a movie for (on average) $0.36 in 1948. To get some perspective: a pound loaf of bread (450g) that year would average at $0.15, a quarter (roughly 1 litre) of fresh milk would cost you $0.20, and a dozen eggs retailed at the princely sum of $0.72. In short, the price of a cinema ticket would buy you six eggs or – if you prefer a somewhat simpler breakfast – a loaf of bread and a bottle of milk.5 It worked beautifully: in 1949 audiences flocked to see Hedy Lamar seduce Victor Mature in one of Cecile B. DeMille’s historic epic extravaganzas, Samson and Delilah. To be precise, the film sold 62.8 million tickets for a grand boxoffice total of $28.8 million (domestic market). Unsurprisingly, the price of tickets went up across the following decade. At the doorstep of the 1960s, in 1958, the average ticket price had increased to $0.68. It would continue to rise throughout the decade – breaking the psychological

Data sources: Ticket prices: https://www​.natoonline​.org​/data​/ticket​-price/ (accessed 12 May 2020). Food retail prices: United States Department of Labor – Retail prices of food, 1948, p. 8 available at: https://fraser​.stlouisfed​.org​/files​/docs​/publications​/bls​/bls​_0965​_1949​.pdf (accessed 5 May 2020).

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barrier of $1 per ticket in 1965 – and in 1969 it would reach the figure of $1.42 per ticket. Although this acceleration was faster than inflation ($0.36 in 1948 have the equivalent purchasing power of $0.43 in 1958 and $0.56 in 1969) there are, of course, other factors that impacted on the price rise. Exhibitors, understandably, would argue it was justified by inflation, the purchasing power of the US dollar, general economic conditions and beyond). The focus on price alone, however, hides a much bigger transformation that took place in the 1960s, one that would fundamentally shape the future of the industry, more than any of the changes illustrated above. Buckle up, there is going to be a few numbers thrown at you. We’ll try to make your patience worth the ride! In 1949, the aforementioned sandals epic Samson and Delilah sold approximately 62.6 million tickets on its way to its cumulative domestic box office of $28.8 million (note: figures from this period are, inevitably, imperfect in that reporting at that time was not as detailed as it became in the ensuing decades. Nevertheless, the figures are reliable as they mostly come from reliable sources like NATO). Extrapolating a little from those figures, each ticket sold (let’s assume it is one ticket = one spectator as repeat viewing figures are not available) accounted for a value of 46 per cent to the US$. In other words, the ‘purchasing power’ of a cinema ticket for that film was roughly $0.46 (put differently, to make $1 you would need to sell roughly 2.2 tickets). For argument’s sake, we will refer to this particular metric as a ticket purchasing power (TPP) Fast forward ten years and in 1959 another sword and sandals epic dominated the box office: Ben Hur amassed a box-office total of $73 million. To do so, the film sold 143.1 million tickets. That figure translates into a TPP of $0.51. This was an obvious increase from 1949 but all in all not a significant one. The value attached to each potential audience member was stable from a decade prior, up a relatively marginal 11 per cent Here come the 1960s . . . and everything changes in these short ten years. The 1960s saw a complete transformation of that relationship: in 1969 the Paul Newman and Robert Redford-led Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid took $102 million at the box office, needing 72 million tickets to reach that huge total. That translates into a TPP of $1.42, an explosive 180 per cent increase from the previous decade. That is to say, the 1960s saw the beginning of a fundamental tectonic shift in the relationship between films and audiences. From a business that had relied on

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selling a lot of tickets for little money to one where each customer was asked to account for greater per head value. This was not simply a matter of constantly increasing the price of tickets to account for fewer heads purchasing. The latter obviously remains the most noticeable of changes from the outside (average prices increased from around $0.60 at the dawn of the 1960s to $9.16 in 2019 – in spite of the fact that $0.60 in 1959 would be roughly the equivalent of $5.25 adjusted for inflation in 2019). The biggest differences come from less easily quantifiable figures: as films had to reach fewer people than before to make significant gains, this impacted inversely on marketing costs, which began to rise at the same time (while it is difficult to be precise on this figure as data is scarce, they are likely to have reached a 1:1 ratio, that is to say, studios spend around $1 in marketing for each dollar spent on production, thus significantly inflating costs, particularly so for blockbusters). This translates into a psychologically adverse factor where each audience member becomes an increasingly valuable target, which is likely to lead to increasing specialization of production (for instance, less variety, with studios focusing on films likely to attract those high dollar value movie-goers). Whether this is a chicken and egg situation is open to interpretation, of course. Did the increase in ticket prices cause a mass exodus from theatres or did the latter force the studios and exhibitors’ hand in raising prices to keep income relatively steady? Regardless of the answer (which is incidentally crucial to understanding why some audiences have been missing from theatres), the change was both epochal and progressive. By the late 1970s the TPP had increased to $2.50. Today (early 2020s) this is approaching the rather incredible barrier of $10 ($9.16 in 2019), and there is no sign of slowing down. And what about those eggs, milk and bread? Today’s prices – as of the end of 2019 – read $1.50 for that loaf of bread, $0.90 for a quarter of milk and $1.70 for your dozen eggs. Put differently, one cinema ticket will buy you just over 64 eggs. Talk about putting too many eggs in one basket. It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. (Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities)

As we reach the end of the story of this crisis, it is legitimate to ask the question, what kind of crisis was it then? The answer is one of perception and perspective.

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The situation in which the United States (and most of the Western world) found itself became the obvious focus of attention: political turmoil, a most unpopular and bloody war in a faraway country, assassinations occurring with alarming frequency and the ensuing protest had transformed the economic and social stability of the 1950s into a veritable nightmare where violence and social unrest had become a staple component in every day’s diet. Television’s ability to broadcast the Vietnam War into every American home had also made sure that the nightmare was in living colour, announcing itself with the sound of battle and punctuated by the screams of agony of those on the battlefield, civilians and soldiers alike. This was not a time of crisis for the cinema; it was a time of crisis for society at large, touching everything and everyone. It is thus perfectly understandable that the narrative around this time of crisis would eventually become one of how Hollywood survived as it finally, belatedly woke up to the need for change that all those events and movements had made impossible to elude, saved by a group of young filmmakers who looked and sounded like the people in those very movements. Thus goes the fantasy. Manhola Dargis, the film critic of the New York Times, puts it very succinctly: A familiar take on New Hollywood is that the inmates took over the asylum. But the truth is that the wardens were also smart enough to hand over the keys, at least as long as it made dollars and sense (. . .) The fantasy is that it’s the individual who conquers the system, when it’s part of the genius of the system to have, decade after decade, done much of the conquering. (Dargis, 2010: 12)

Indeed, far from being an example of indecisiveness and unpreparedness, the 1960s testify perhaps more than any other decade in recent times to the ‘genius’ of the Hollywood system in rethinking and reinventing itself in the face of new challenges. Studios are accused – often correctly and often enough in this book alone! – to take the short view and panic easily. But this was not the case on this occasion. Studios took the long view in the 1960s, one that enabled them to see Cleopatra (a flop that would scare off even the bravest of studios executives from making big budget movies) in the same frame as The Sound of Music (which made Fox back all the money they had lost with the Liz Taylor-led epic and then some). More flops would come but ultimately also more hits.

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What is more impressive is that there is plenty of evidence – as illustrated above – that every section of the industry was intent on reconfiguring, changing and morphing into something else, driven by a necessary impulse to adapt and survive, fully aware of the scale of the challenges ahead, if not entirely conscious of its ultimate direction: The ‘60s and ‘70s? Who knows? Everybody talks about pay-TV in the home, bringing vastly increased production needs for Hollywood. Some say that’s piein-the-sky. But with a constantly expanding population, and people’s desire to go out for entertainment, the movie industry will survive in one form or another (‘Movie Industry is Booming Again’, 1964: 1)

Far from being simply caught out unprepared by the changes that were taking place in society, the ‘system’ was looking for a way to reconfigure itself following the same age-old principle so often on display when it comes to studios, famously immortalized in the words spoken by Alan Delon’s character, Tancredi, in one of the defining movies of that decade, The Leopard (1963): ‘Everything must change for everything to remain the same.’

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Hollywood loves a good crisis. Consider these few 2016 headlines on millennials and their movie-going habits: ‘Hollywood Has a Big Millennial Problem’, proclaimed an article in The Atlantic (Thompson, 2016); ‘Millennials are killing the movie business’, reinforced The New York Post (Atkinson, 2016); ‘2016 Is on Track to Be Hollywood’s Worst Year for Ticket Sales in a Century – Not even Captain America can save this industry in crisis’, quipped Vanity Fair (Miller, 2016). Industry analysts joined in and expanded: Rising ticket prices, fueled by 3D, Imax, and other premium formats, have enabled the industry to paper over a huge gulf in attendance. On a per-capita basis, the movie-going audience is at its lowest levels in nearly a century. Most disturbing, millennials are avoiding theaters’ announced Variety. (Lang & Rainey, 2016)

The argument these headlines announce is deceptively simple: since millennials have an unprecedented array of entertainment opportunities, ranging from video games to streaming services, then the logical conclusion is that cinemagoing/ticket sales are accordingly facing an unprecedented threat. When this difficulty is compounded by money losses owed to film piracy and the terminal state of physical home video sales, then it is not difficult to understand why studios and exhibitors alike see this as an existential threat second to none. In the words of Disney’s distribution chief Dave Hollis: We all believe that films should be seen in the theater. We’ve also seen this proliferation of alternatives of choices (. . .) their (movie-goers) habits are changing (. . .) This is disruption personified. (Busch & D’Alessandro, 2017).

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This type of narrative of crisis is obviously not new. It has frequently recurred over the history of cinema despite the fact that, invariably, all of those perceived threats ultimately ended up boosting the popularity and profitability of film in the long run. Yet, when a new story about threat and crisis is told, it is readily espoused by all strata of the industry, from studio executives to filmmakers, and from technology developers to exhibitors, as the quotes above illustrate. As in any such narrative, this is a response to a perceived threat to the established narrative of how things are/ought to be. The fear for those affected is that they may be ‘losing the plot’, something that both novelists and social scientists have come to term as ‘denarration’, a process by which people experience a loosening of their work/life narrative, with all the negative consequences this is likely to bring. The latter may include something as profoundly affecting as loss of clarity of purpose, lack of direction, inability to plan effectively and so forth. Canadian novelist Douglas Coupland put it most succinctly when he describes the term as: ‘The process whereby one’s life stops feeling like a story’ (Coupland, 2010: A31). This desire to ‘keep it together’ to avoid the danger of diluting the plot is a powerful driver in determining a response to a crisis. The film industry has turned such narratives of fear into a bedrock of its modus operandi: from the introduction of television to the arrival of home video and more recently from the introduction of the internet to the rise of streaming behemoths à la Netflix, Hollywood loves to fear. One recent headline (amongst many of this kind) about one of Hollywood’s favourite boogeymen, Netflix, simply and concisely encapsulates this ‘mode’: Hollywood fears it fueled the rise of an unwieldy monster. (Shields, 2017)

These fears of monstrous ‘events’ always on the verge of destroying the precarious balance of the industry are not exclusive to film, of course. However, the film industry affords such anxieties further fertile conditions for it to develop, particularly in the way Hollywood operates as an echo chamber: while cinema has become a truly global industry, its centre of power still resides in and around Hollywood, both as an industrial construct and as a physical place. The views of those in charge of the narrative are obviously central in shaping the understanding of and responses to any crisis, thus having most

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of those narrators effectively in one place and seemingly sharing the same information ecosystem (feeding off publications based in Hollywood, run by Hollywood insiders, whose primary source of information are studio insiders and filmmakers) creates a dangerous echo chamber: Because narratives function to help shape our perception of the world around us and narrators are responsible for those perceptions, it makes sense that their particular views, perspectives, life experiences, social standpoints, and deeper ideological views would influence how they interpret and organize the narrative. (Seeger & Sellnow, 2016: 28)

Put differently, if it is always the same people discussing and circulating the same narrative, the latter eventually hardens into accepted wisdom and becomes less open to being interpreted differently and/or challenged, especially counterintuitively. As responses cannot be generated outside of those narratives, their scope and variety inevitably remain trapped within that same echo chamber. When a new crisis appears – of Netflix, Amazon, China, millennials, etc. – Hollywood acts as an amplifier of that crisis as there simply is no immediate escape valve (e.g. in the form of an alternative viewpoint from observers outside the echo chamber). To be sure, the film industry – as it has virtually always been the case in its history – was facing an unprecedented set of challenges when the conversation around millennials took centre stage. Hollywood narratives of crisis sit atop a veritable heap of bona fide ongoing concerns: from business models that are often predicated on increasingly narrow business margins to the quickening pace of technological change forcing continuous retraining and reworking of pipelines, from workflows and scheduling having to respond to an increasingly crowded release schedule to impatient shareholders demanding return on investment with unfailing precision every quarter and so forth. This veritable maelstrom of challenges evidently needs an approach that manages to escape the never-ending narrative of crisis, focusing more on knowledge and informed analysis: You can’t make intelligent investments within your organization unless you understand how your whole industry is changing (. . .) The need to understand change in your industry may seem obvious, but such knowledge is not always easy to come by. (McGahan, 2004)

The core challenge therefore is not merely that of acquiring more information and data (useful though they are) but rather in the ways in which questions are

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asked of that information. In other words, it is as much an issue of method as it is of data and resources. This question of method has received considerable attention from scholars, particularly those looking to discern as to whether Hollywood has developed effective methods for dealing with the challenges it faces. In 2005, a major study conducted by researchers from three of the world’s most prestigious schools (Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Amsterdam) looked at, amongst others, the thorny issue of how films are green-lit for production. Dispiritingly, the answer is as unequivocal as it is critical: While maximizing the green-lighting success rate is extremely challenging, it is staggering to discover how little ‘science’ usually goes into the process. (Eliashberg, Elberse & Leenders, 2006: 641)

The science they refer to is an issue of method, not technology or data, or for that matter resources, either human or financial: anybody approaching the film industry from a methodological perspective quickly encounters the problems illustrated in the quote above and cannot but conclude that the industry responds to challenges in an unscientific fashion, no matter the objective limitations. What happens then if we apply some method to the core question of millennials and cinema-going? Does the resulting evidence and analysis align with this particular industry narrative strand, or does it contradict it?

Millennials and the future of cinema-going1 Let us begin by stating the obvious. The notion that millennials are deserting cinemas is predicated upon one core assumption, namely that we do indeed have a problem with audiences, particularly millennials. Its corollary is that if this problem is big enough it will necessitate industry-wide, large-scale change. So the initial question is clear: is there actually a big problem with millennials? T h e chapter adopts a ‘present tense’ narrative about the crisis around millennials for functional reasons and to avoid over-complications around ‘new generations’ Z and X. It is perhaps too early to discern any significant difference in terms of movie-going habits at least between these different generations and any significant differentiation is for future work to analyse. Interestingly, Pew Research (see Dimock, 2019, which places 2018 as a ‘cut off ’ point when a new generation became evident – Generation Z – confirming it is too early to draw any conclusions of the kind we can with Millennials.

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From an industry perspective, the main thrust of the argument is that the increase in entertainment options and means of delivery coupled with piracy and ticket price increases has resulted in audiences, and millennials in particular, shunning cinema-going in significant numbers: Everything in the attention economy is connected: The rise of mobile and the fragmentation of young audiences will continue to drive a blockbuster strategy in Hollywood where the movies get bigger, and the franchises get longer. The more young people’s attention is fragmented, the more expensive it is to create an audience for each film, the more desperate studios are to find franchises that birth many fruitful sequels, and the more it makes sense to create fewer films and conserve production and advertising budgets for a handful of them. (Thompson, 2016)

The first question is whether there is hard evidence to support this view. It is worth investigating a period that covers a sufficiently long timeframe to observe these changes (rather than a year-on-year analysis that may suffer from unusual spikes or drops in attendance). The 2005–15 period offers a particularly interesting timeframe for a number of reasons. In 2005 YouTube was born, Netflix was in its infancy (and not yet online), and the only two real major players online were the porn industry and MLB.TV (the baseball streaming service that successfully pioneered the first major sport’s online subscription service for large audiences in the United States). Videogame platforms were only available as stand-alone consoles (i.e. not connected to the internet) and had not yet mushroomed into the global online communities they are now. Smartphones, iPhones/Pads and other portable devices were similarly only in their infancy (the first iPhone was produced in 2007, the first Android phone became available in late 2008 and the iPad in 2010). Finally, broadband and mobile internet were very much in their infancy and had limited availability. Put differently, the ten years between 2005 and 2015 saw the breadth and scope of the entertainment offer increase in unprecedented ways, with cinemagoing (and other established forms of entertainment) consequently coming under significant pressure from these new ‘distractions’. How did cinema fare in weathering that pressure? Did it hold its own or did it suffer from such strong winds of change? For an answer it is more effective to look at ticket sales figures than box-office figures as the former is a more reliable indication than the latter, which is obviously influenced by ticket price increases.

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In 2005, 1.37 billion tickets were sold at the domestic box office (United States and Canada) alone. Ten years later that figure had gone down, but only marginally, to 1.32 billion (a decrease of 3.6 per cent). This enduring popularity needs also be placed against the backdrop of increasing ticket prices rendering movie-going significantly more expensive. In the same decade, prices increased from $6.41 to $8.43, an increase of 24 per cent, roughly eight times the decrease in ticket sales. Cinema-going frequency also went down: on average, cinema-goers attended a cinema 4.4 times in 2005 against 3.8 times in 2015, a contraction of 13.5 per cent. Fewer people went to the cinema (13.5 per cent), but those who did evidently bought more tickets as the overall decrease was only 3.6 per cent, as indicated above. The most recent sets of official figures (2016 at the time of writing) confirm the trend above, with ticket sales holding at 2015 levels and with an increase in the number of people going to the cinema (against a decrease in number of tickets purchased by frequent movie-goers, which still make up roughly half of cinema-goers). Box office, both in the United States and globally, continues to grow: in the same 2005–15 frame box office takings went up from $8.8 billion to $11.1 billion (breaking records in both 2015 and 2016 in the process, in part due to higher ticket prices, of course). In other words, while there was indeed a measurable decline in movie-going, it was nowhere as precipitous or widespread as it could have been: such an unprecedented increase in competition for eyeballs should have been matched by a similarly unprecedented decrease in cinema attendance. It did not. In fact, each of the major movie-going age groups has seen an increase in 2016 from the year prior, signalling the continuing appeal of cinemas, as the MPAA is understandably keen to emphasize: In 2016, 18–24-year-olds went to the movies an average of 6.5 times over the year, up 0.6 from 2015. This was the largest increase of any age group. Per-capita attendance was next highest for 12–17-year-olds (6.1). Per-capita attendance also increased for 25–39-year-olds and 50–59-year-olds compared to the previous year. (MPAA, 2016: 4)

As though these figures were not puzzling enough when placed within the narrative of millennials being a ‘huge problem’ there is another, rather basic, consideration that is worth making. How much do we actually know about

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millennials and their behaviour as consumers? If we are to build a realistic narrative of their behaviour as cinema-goers, it is logical that we should pose this question and try to build as detailed a picture as feasible.

Connecting the dots and wider trends: millennials as consumers To truly understand where your industry is headed, you have to shut out the noise from the popular business press and the pressure of immediate competitive threats to take a longer-term look at the context in which you do business. (McGahan, 2004)

What happens if we do indeed ‘shut out the noise’? How much do we know about millennials and their preferences and behaviour? Unsurprisingly, questions concerning the behaviour of millennials have preoccupied most industry sectors for some time. Consequently, there is a veritable deluge of data concerning millennials, their preferences and behaviour as global consumers. Significantly, there are some common features that millennials seem to share, no matter the geopolitics involved. It is useful to signal the most important and relevant of these wide trends amongst this key group of consumers because (a) they impact on their movie-going habits and (b) there are obvious important lessons that can be learned with respect to the future of cinema-going.

From ownership to access: millennials value ‘experience’ over material possession This is perhaps the most important of all trends. Though not a new concept (this has been researched and studied in social sciences and economics for some time now), the move to what some have termed the sharing economy is pervasive and the data reflects this. As several recent reports from major research firms have highlighted, three in four millennials choose to spend on an ‘experience’ over buying something to own.2 This trend is particularly acute in the entertainment sector as live events have emerged as a major entertainment destination for young people. Ranging from See Morgan, 2019.

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concerts to live sport and from fan conventions to product/brand launches, these events are increasingly seen by millennials as the premium source of experiences, and they are evidently prepared to spend an increasing amount of their income on them: since the 1980s (millennials are often defined as people who were born from 1980 onwards) there has been an increase in excess of 70 per cent in the share of consumer spending on live events. This is evidently the case also in the film industry, where ‘live events’ have increased in importance as a marketing platform for studios (e.g. Comic-Con, CinemaCon, Disney’s D23 events, Star Wars Celebrations conventions, etc.). To fully appreciate the significance of this trend, it needs to be placed in the wider context of how millennials approach spending in general. In the United States and globally, younger generations have comparatively less disposable income than the previous generation, mostly the result of a combination of higher prices for housing, insurance and other primary goods, as well as the stagnation of wages. Unsurprisingly, millennials have consequently adopted a different approach from that of previous generations: put crudely, the goal for them is to gain access to goods and services, without investing the large sums of money that ownership would entail. At the time of writing, US millennials own the fewest mortgages and life insurance policies in US history. Marriages are also at a historical low, and the phenomenon goes across all industry sectors. The takeaway is clear: millennials value accessing experience over ownership of goods and spend their income accordingly. It is also worth pointing out that, in this important sense at least, cinema-going is the prototype of access over ownership where people pay to access an experience, not to buy/own something.

Mobile technologies (and social media) are increasingly important to millennials’ purchasing habits, but ‘bricks and mortar’ remain central to their shopping experience One of the central correlations of the narrative on millennials as consumers plays thus: the greater the time millennials spend on their devices choosing and purchasing goods/services, the less time they will spend doing so in actual bricks-and-mortar locales. Translated for the film industry, this correlation, if proven, would confirm one of the key concerns expressed in the narrative of crisis about millennials and their cinema-going habits, namely that they simply go less to the cinema, preferring to choose, rent/purchase and watch films on

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their devices (a less optimistic version of this paradigm would read choose, pirate and watch films on their devices). Any data supporting the notion of millennials spending more time on and money via their phones will exacerbate the paradigm. So what exactly does the data suggest? Do millennials increasingly use their phones and mobile devices to choose and purchase goods and activities (including films)? The answer is most emphatically yes, they do, globally. Figures suggest that at present there are roughly 25 billion devices connected to the internet, a number that is destined to grow to 50 billion devices as early as 2020. That translates to roughly 3.5 connected devices per each person on the planet, with that number possibly destined to double in the next few years. More importantly, this increased level of mobile connectivity is matched by a decrease in the historical consumer reluctance to shop online due to security concerns: the percentage of people who never shop online has decreased dramatically from 70 per cent to 46 per cent between 2012 and 2015 alone. At this rate, that natural resistance to online purchasing will likely have disappeared altogether by the early 2020s. Young people also increasingly identify their mobile devices not just as one method for purchasing goods and services but as the method for doing so. That figure is currently relatively low globally (around the mid-30 per cent), but it spikes significantly in wealthier countries and, perhaps most crucially, in China where that number is now the very significant figure of 60 per cent. Figures concerning millennials’ preferences also confirm that virtually all sectors of the economy are impacted upon by these developments in consumer behaviour. Goods and services ranging from clothing to computers and from appliances to furniture record an increasing number of millennials choosing and purchasing online for up to, and in some cases over, 40 per cent of total purchases. That is, for every ten items sold, four are chosen and purchased online, with that figure increasing. Entertainment figures are usually grouped together (e.g. books, films, music, etc.), so it is difficult to give a precise figure for film alone; one thing is clear though: the trend is greater in entertainment than in other sectors: up to 65 per cent of entertainment products and services are chosen and purchased online.3 In short, the data shows in no uncertain terms that the direction of travel is towards an ever-increasing use of the internet and mobile devices as the primary Data on consumer behaviour available online https://www​.pwc​.com​/gx​/en​/retail​-consumer​/ publications​/assets​/total​-retail​-global​-report​.pdf (accessed 25 April 2019).

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means of shopping. However, what it does not show is the final destination of this trajectory. That is where things become far more complicated: there simply is no evidence that the equation of greater time spent on devices (and choosing and purchasing goods and services) means traditional bricks-and-mortar stores are being deserted. Quite the contrary is true, in fact. Recent consumer surveys unequivocally show that bricks and mortar still remain central to the millennial consumer experience, both for choosing and purchasing goods and services. This is the case not simply for traditional sectors like clothing and home appliances, but also for sectors where the internet has come to dominate over recent years, as in the case of consumer electronics, where up to nearly 70 per cent of millennials prefer to shop in-store (a 2016 Deloitte survey puts the overall figure to a staggering 82 per cent of millennials preferring in-store purchasing over other methods). Increasingly, the relationship between millennials and their choices is characterized by a sophisticated interplay of mobile/online and physical stores. Far from being mutually exclusive, millennials see the two as complementary. Crucially, this is dependent on the store offering something they cannot get online: millennials know that while they can get information about products and services online, that is not a substitute for in-store interactions, particularly if these generate a positive experience. The notion of what constitutes a ‘positive experience’ is also worth outlining, as it may contain a crucial item of information that is relevant to cinemagoing. While price and convenience remain the two key factors for choosing how and where to shop (online and/or in-store), the third factor on that list is customer care. In a global survey carried out in 2016, PwC asked what would make the in-store experience better: significantly, the top answer (40 per cent of respondents) was ‘Sales associates with a deep knowledge of the product range’. In other words, the very old-fashioned notion of having well-trained and knowledgeable staff in your store at the point of contact with customers remains the most important aspect of the interaction between companies and their customers. This is not to underestimate the importance of factors like social media and other online developments, but it should act as a reminder that the equation that is routinely being circulated – namely that as social media and online usage increase, physical interactions become less important – is being formulated incompletely. Social media are (and will continue to be) extremely important for millennials in this equation, but it is not a zero-sum game.

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In short, millennials appear to be a far cry from the widely held perception of a group that fundamentally prefers online activities to physical. They value the notion of experience a great deal more than ownership and regularly engage in communal activities, both online (via social media in particular) and in physical spaces, like shops and live events. If we are prepared to accept these basic truths about them and young consumers at large, then the landscape for cinemas and film looks substantially different from the one in which studios and cinema owners have developed their strategies.

What does it all mean for cinemas? From the outset, cinemas were places that people go to join in a community of cinema-goers to share an experience (the film but also the environment, the ushers, the decor and so forth). They did (and continue to do) so not by spending to own something but by paying a fee to access an experience (the ticket to access the show). The notion of film ownership is a concept that emerged much later in the 1980s with home video. In other words, technologically, socially and economically, ‘owning a movie’ is a concept that belongs more to television than it does to the cinema. Cinema-goers like to share an experience as part of a community by paying a fee to access that experience: as the data shows, that is exactly how millennials behave. Put differently, and as bluntly as possible, there is an almost perfect alignment of interests between cinemas and millennials, not so much in spite of the increase in entertainment opportunities but partly at least because of them. The evidence is not difficult to find; in fact, it is hiding in plain sight. When asked in a recent survey about what they like about cinema-going, time and time again millennials returned to that key word: experience. ‘I love watching films on the big screen – I enjoy the whole experience of it.’ When asked the question as to why they spend so much time on social media afterwards, the answer is ‘talking about it afterwards extends the experience and it’s more fun that way’ (Digital Cinema Media, 2015). Millennials use physical spaces in much the same way as the previous generations have as a place to congregate, to communicate with knowledgeable staff about goods and services on offer and to meet other people who do the

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same, to share an experience. Cinemas can do this by re-focusing their attention on their core offer: films. Setting price and convenience aside as a given variable, knowledgeable staff, a welcoming environment facilitating interaction amongst customers and staff (not just as a quid-pro-quo affair of purchasing a ticket and seeing a film) and a film shown in comfortable and well-functioning surroundings are the key ingredients, as the data about millennials show across all industry sectors. This marriage of price, convenience and community building is not just the holy trinity for millennials when it comes to cinema-going, it reflects their overall take on what is worth investing time and money in. As the recent pandemic has shown, the need for communities, be they physical or virtual, is non-negotiable in humans, young and old. Movies and cinemas have a great role to play in this dynamic because they do not merely create communities – in cinemas and online in countless configurations of fandom and general interest – as the space they provide for congregation becomes itself an important cog in the local community which it inhabits. Local shops, local cinemas and local communities are valued greatly in today’s economy for a variety of reasons, ranging from the environment to sustaining the local economy and beyond, and young people – however one wishes to define them as a group – are very much at the forefront of this return to a pre-globalization sense of the importance of locality and vicinity in creating sustainable economies. For those readers who prefer a more succinct proclamation: as a recent study concluded, the message for the film industry could not be simpler: ‘Don’t be afraid of millennials’ (Smyth, 2016).

The wider implications: the challenge of method The work presented above does not void concerns about audiences and the importance of theatrical exhibition. Rather, it demonstrates the complexity of the subject matter and the accordingly sophisticated set of responses it requires. Encouragingly, there may be signs of an awakening to the fact that previous proclamations about consumers rejecting movie-going in favour of other forms of viewing were, at the very least, premature. One interesting example is the way in which the US government has modified the language it employs when describing the health of the film sector to international investors. A report by the Department of Commerce in 2016 suggested the following:

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Box office will grow modestly as theatres adopt digital screens and ticket prices rise, hovering in the $11 billion range in the next few years until reaching $12.2 billion by 2018. Theatres are diversifying, offering snacks, beverages, and sometimes dinner, to attract viewership. The digital transition is undeniable (. . .) While Hollywood still produces phenomenal blockbusters, major funding is more difficult to come by, and the industry is simultaneously moving to many different formats as consumers no longer flock to the cinema to see a movie but can watch films on multiple devices any time they wish to, practically anywhere in the world. (‘Top Markets Report, Media and Entertainment’, 2016)

However, a year later (2017) the same governmental overview stated virtually the same but with one noticeable key change: Box office numbers are expected to grow as theaters: adopt digital screens; ticket prices rise; diversify concession options, including full meals; sell movie or brand related merchandise; and offer membership discounts, to attract viewership. The digital transition is undeniable (. . .) While major studios still produce traditional blockbusters, the industry is simultaneously moving to different formats as consumer habits change. (‘Media and Entertainment Spotlight – The Media and Entertainment Industry in the United States’, 2017)

The new version carefully avoids any mention of ‘consumers no longer flocking to the cinema to see a movie’ nor is there a direct link made between this supposed exodus and ‘watch(ing) films on multiple devices any time they wish’. This could, of course, simply be a way to present the US film industry as a stable investment proposition rather than one in a state of flux. Regardless of motive, the change in tone is both significant and telling. Similarly, within industry circles there are signs that adopting a methodologically sound approach to these issues is central to their understanding. In his opening address to the audience of exhibitors at the 2017 edition of CinemaCon, John Fithian, president and CEO of NATO, the National Association of Theatre Owners, remarked that: [A] common misconception about our industry is that millennials aren’t going to the movies. Research indicates otherwise. According to data from comScore’s PostTrak in-theater polling, 55% of frequent moviegoers – defined as seeing four movies in theaters over the past two months – fall into the 18–34 age range. (Fithian, 2017)

The analysis of the data available evidently points to a much more articulated picture than the one to which most studios and exhibitors have been reacting.

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Millennials are not ‘flocking away from cinemas’, nor are they doing so because they can watch films on their mobile devices. While there may be a correlation, this has not been proven in any significant manner and to develop strategies based on such a tenuous link would be unwise. Conversely, a much clearer picture of millennials and their behaviour as consumers has emerged: this should provide a formidable platform for the film industry to build on, especially so for studios and exhibitors. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars / But in ourselves (Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, 1.2.140–1)

If anything, the analysis above confirms that the problem in addressing the various challenges the industry is facing does not lie with an unresponsive and uncaring millennial audience demographic but rather in the industry’s lack of method in its approach. Aristotle believed that thought in drama is revealed by the language used by characters and, crucially, by their actions: for an industry that lives or dies by the dramatic arts, leaders in this industry and all its principal characters would do well in remembering that what they say or do at this or any crucial juncture in a crisis reveals a great deal about their thinking, or lack thereof. In this sense, the case of millennials and cinema-going is not merely a particularly grave instance of the entire film industry misunderstanding behaviour that is crucial to its health and future growth. Rather, it reveals a systemic problem. The toxic combination of a succession of narratives of crisis – coupled with Hollywood operating as an echo chamber, so rarely opened to external input and analysis – makes for the very serious risk of underestimating the need to develop a different approach to problem solving. This is not an academic consideration; it is a vital structural issue that threatens the whole industry: A risk incubates in the sense that it goes unaddressed or even unrecognized. A comparatively small flaw in the design of an aircraft may become exacerbated over time through normal stress. A risk may interact with other risk factors to create the kind of dramatic failure that triggers the onset of a crisis. The small flaw in an aircraft may interact with the wind shear caused by a thunderstorm and lead to the crash of an airplane. (Seeger & Sellnow, 2016: 38)

The comparatively small flaw in the film industry aircraft is the lack of attention to method. Lack of method reinforces legacy behaviour, where experience and

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instinct (‘gut feeling’) replace careful analysis and critical investigation. This is a well-known problem that can easily lead to ignoring any emerging narratives that appear to contradict well-rehearsed accounts of ‘what works’: When data is unreliable, managers quickly lose faith in them and fall back on their intuition to make decisions, steer their companies, and implement strategy. They are, for example, much more apt to reject important, counterintuitive implications that emerge from big data analyses. (Redman, 2013: 4)

When faced with calls such as the one in the quote above, namely, to step back, collect data, carefully consider the wider picture that it suggests and connect the dots with wider trends, most industry insiders counter a scientific approach with William Goldman’s famous adage that in Hollywood ‘nobody knows anything’. Goldman’s statement rings true because it is but only in so far as it relates to the difficulty in predicting the box-office success of any given film. In this sense at least, ‘nobody knows anything’ becomes no more than a means to avoid considering different viewpoints, alternative readings and critical enquiries: we may never learn how to predict the success of a movie, but we can certainly learn how to avoid making assumptions that, as in the case of millennials and cinema-going, are based on narratives that are often, quite simply, false. As we mention later on in the ‘Inconclusion’ chapter, somebody in Hollywood must evidently know something. The key challenge for the industry would thus appear to be how to develop such a method: how to build a ‘buffer zone’ for the industry to think and reflect before making important decisions; how to gather and capitalize on intelligence and support from whatever quarter necessary to ensure there is clarity on the issues in hand; how to develop the necessary leadership structures and collaborative platforms to do so. Make no bones about it either: failure to respond to this challenge would fatally undermine the response to future crises. As for millennials, they happily continued to attend cinemas until the pandemic hit (see Chapter 8), pushing box-office returns globally to heights never witnessed before, with ticket sales up in virtually all major foreign markets and remaining relatively stable in the US. This, it appears, was not a crisis of confidence, nor one of cinema attendance. It was also not a harbinger of doom for theatrical exhibition, nor did it prove that the internet, streaming and other forms of entertainment necessarily meant young people would not go to the cinema. It was a crisis of logic and analysis. In

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an increasingly complex world of seemingly ever-increasing opportunities for leisure time and dollars to be spent somewhere other than cinemas, it should have proved essential in highlighting the need for greater sophistication in assessing, developing probing questions and carrying out open-minded analysis of this and any future crisis. Failure to do that could well prove fatal. Again.

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The Value of Film in the Age of Content Plenty The Crisis of Legacy

You’ve got so many options for viewing content that there has to be a need for you to leave your home. What is going to drive you to do that? Joe Russo, director, 2019 I just don’t want us to self-impose rules where we say, ‘This can’t be put in a movie theater because nobody will go see it.’ If we decide that, then it will happen, and that will be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Amy Pascal, producer, 2019 (Please note: this was originally meant to be the last chapter of the book, until Covid-19 struck and we realized we were facing another ‘endless end’ appropriately enough. We chose not to change the original chapter to re-engineer it to show how clever we were in predicting another crisis, so please bear with us if at times it feels a little out of date. Events and crises can evidently upend even the best-laid plans!) Usually, the last chapter in a story is when the killer is unmasked, the scoundrel exposed, (most) wrongs are righted and the hero gets rewarded. But in this story of crises, the reader would rightly be forgiven for expecting no final resolution that neatly ties all the loose ends. Indeed, it is not a resolution that we wish to offer here but a set of coordinates in an attempt to identify where our hero stands at this point in her journey. As the two somewhat contrasting quotes above illustrate, the late 2010s saw a return of the familiar refrain about the end of cinema, this time most particularly through a terminal crisis of the very core of film as a legacy business and art form, namely theatrical exhibition, the latter presumed killed once again, this time by streaming and streamers.

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The important corollary to this new death is that the growing belief that home and mobile streaming are here to supersede cinema-going for good raise a number of important questions around the role of filmed content in the entertainment value chain. While nobody is predicting the end of filmed content, most are suggesting the role of traditional films (i.e. made for – and distributed to – movie theatres) is significantly reduced as people choose to access movies at home or on mobile devices. In short, this is a crisis of value, both financial and cultural. This crisis of legacy and value can be broken down into a number of key questions before film can be declared dead, at least in theatrical terms. Is the theatrical experience really on the wane, and about to be superseded by other forms of consumption of films? Is film losing its ability to engage audiences worldwide? At a time when audiences have access to an increasingly large, varied and seemingly bottomless reservoir of content, what can any one film – and the filmmakers and studios behind it – hope to achieve? In short, is film still relevant today, and if so, to whom and in what ways?

The age of content plenty We undoubtedly live in an era of filmed content plenty. To avoid rehearsing arguments that everybody reading this book will know, there is a multitude of filmed content outlets available to consumers these days. Outlets demand content, the current quantity and variety of which is unprecedented. In short, choice has never been wider in scope, more convenient and readily available to consumers than in the present landscape of media content. This huge ecosystem of films, TV shows, streaming material, user-generated content and live streaming has provided consumers with ever greater choice. Conversely, the value of traditional films seems to suffer from having to share the spotlight with seemingly countless competitors. Its previous value – culturally, socially and financially – seems dwarfed by such competition. But what if choice was not as good and convenient as it may appear? This is worth exploring in detail as it is arguably one of the key factors informing current thinking and planning about the future. So, could there be something wrong with greater choice? Enter the ‘paradox of choice’. The basic notion espoused in the paradox of choice is counterintuitive in nature: contrary to what one may believe, more choice does not equate to

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greater satisfaction. In fact, it increases complexity to a level that most will find both paralysing and depressing (in both the larger and stricter meanings of the word). This concept builds on empirical studies of consumer behaviour carried out in psychology: A recent series of studies, titled ‘When Choice Is Demotivating’, provide the evidence. One study was set in a gourmet food store in an upscale community where, on weekends, the owners commonly set up sample tables of new items. When researchers set up a display featuring a line of exotic, high-quality jams, customers who came by could taste samples, and they were given a coupon for a dollar off if they bought a jar. In one condition of the study, 6 varieties of the jam were available for tasting. In another, 24 varieties were available. In either case, the entire set of 24 varieties was available for purchase. The large array of jams attracted more people to the table than the small array, though in both cases people tasted about the same number of jams on average. When it came to buying, however, a huge difference became evident. Thirty percent of the people exposed to the small array of jams actually bought a jar; only 3 percent of those exposed to the large array of jams did so. (Schwartz, 2004: 20)

Put differently, the greater the choice – presumably past an initial ‘sweet spot’ of choice that consumers may find familiar and manageable – the less the capacity of people to decide as to which product to buy. This can also have a knock-on effect on people’s happiness with their choices: When people have no choice, life is almost unbearable. As the number of available choices increases, as it has in our consumer culture, the autonomy, control, and liberation this variety brings are powerful and positive. But as the number of choices keeps growing, negative aspects of having a multitude of options begin to appear. As the number of choices grows further, the negatives escalate until we become overloaded. At this point, choice no longer liberates, but debilitates. It might even be said to tyrannize. (Schwartz, 2004: 5)

In an audience landscape of seemingly infinite choice, this is a very important factor to consider. For instance, does the choice of seeing a particular film lead to greater satisfaction and engagement when the choice is somewhat restricted and conversely becomes less satisfactory, impossible even, when confronted by a Netflix-like amount of choice? The counter-argument to this view comes, unsurprisingly perhaps, from computer science. In particular, experts in this field display a far more optimistic

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view of the power of computational tools – algorithms in particular – to take the sting out of the problems connected to seemingly infinite content. In a recent piece on this topic, Michal Piasecki and Sean Hanna attempt to reframe the paradox of choice to accommodate a more positive worldview: We propose to redefine the paradox of choice with an emphasis on the meaning of choice in conjunction with the number of available options, rather than just the quantity of choice. We propose that it is the lack of meaningful choice, rather than an overwhelming amount of choice, that can cause customers’ feelings of decreased happiness, decreased satisfaction and paralysis. We further propose that since users themselves are often not able to explicitly define what constitutes a meaningful choice, the task they face belongs to the category of ill-defined problems. The challenge for mass customization practitioners is thus not to limit the scope of choice, as has been suggested in previous literature, but to provide users with choice that is relevant to them. (Piasecki & Hanna, 2011: 347)

However positive this latter view may seem, empirical evidence (from data released by streamers and also their own spending/buying choices) shows that when faced with ‘infinite’ choice, audiences will gravitate to the well-known film and TV shows, particularly when these are deemed as high quality (however one wishes to define this). The importance of this set of complex and surprising dynamics of consumer/ audience choice becomes particularly relevant when related to the present landscape of the age of content plenty, one that some have come to define as ‘the long, thin tail of content’. In his book The Long Thing Tail – Why the Future of Business is Selling More of Less, Chris Anderson suggests that: TV shows were more popular in the seventies than they are now not because they were better, but because we had fewer alternatives to compete for our screen attention (. . .) The economics of the broadcast era required hit shows – big buckets – to catch huge audiences. The economics of the broadband era are reversed (. . .) There’s still demand for big cultural buckets, but they’re no longer the only market. The hits now compete with an infinite number of niche markets, of any size. And consumers are increasingly favoring the one with the most choice. The era of one-size-fits-all is ending, and in its place is something new, a market of multitudes. (Anderson, 2008)

The fundamental idea – highlighted in the passage above – is that we now live in an era when a multitude of niche tastes are served by a multitude of

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products, courtesy of the availability of affordable and effective means of delivery. This replaces the old system whereby a handful of players ruled over audiences by providing a limited ‘fat’ head of products (hits, blockbusters) while simultaneously controlling the limited and extremely expensive means of distribution. Put differently, this is a transition from the old era of ‘less of more’ (i.e. an ecosystem relying on a few big movies every year – the short fat head) to a new age of ‘more of less’ (i.e. a new ecology of filmed content that is reliant on a lot more content but of a smaller, simpler, cheaper nature – the long thin tail). While this view, backed up with some seemingly convincing data (Anderson uses music consumption as the starting point for his argument), appears to effectively summarize the present landscape of content available to audiences worldwide, the complexity of the present film and media landscape does not lend itself to this kind of overarching explanations and ‘grand theories’ of what audiences want and how they want it. In particular, the notion of the ‘more of less’ economy is severely undermined by a series of considerations and objections that have been raised around human behaviour and limitations. One such core objection concerns the availability of time: There is almost no limit to the supply of entertainment choices in every category, but people’s awareness of these products and their ability to find them is constrained by the time and attention they can spare. Overwhelmed by the abundance of choice, they will generally buy what they are most aware of. The algorithms used to make recommendations, offered by many sites, reinforce this trend: they push consumers to what is popular rather than send them off to explore obscure parts of the tail. (Epstein, 2017)

In other words, the notion that ‘Most of us want more than just hits. Everyone’s taste departs from the mainstream somewhere, and the more we explore alternatives, the more we’re drawn to them (. . .) suddenly, popularity no longer has a monopoly on profitability’ (Anderson, 2014) is countered by the realities of audience behaviour, one that privileges the known quantity versus the kind of content available in the thinner part of the tail, as data from players seemingly committed to the idea of infinite content – like Netflix – appears to confirm: ‘Netflix touts its original content, but 72% of viewing minutes on the service are spent on library programming, such as TV reruns licensed from other studios’ (Fling & Sharma, 2019).

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Perhaps more importantly, there is virtually no evidence (at least in the filmed entertainment sector) that it is easy, or at all possible, to monetize content outside the ‘fat hits’: An item further down the long tail may rarely be chosen but is not ‘scarce’ in the sense that it can command a premium; on the contrary, a relatively obscure item is worth very little. One reason is that the internet leads consumers to expect most things to be free, especially content without a brand name. Second, consumers believe (rightly) that there is not much difference between most of the obscure items on offer. And third, they reckon (also usually correctly) that those items have cost hardly anything to produce, so they are almost worthless. Conversely, consumers will pay a premium for famous brand names. (Epstein, 2017)

When it comes to watching long-format content (film, TV shows, etc.), regardless of platform, there is no evidence that motivation has changed much over the past few years, with participatory rates also holding up steadily over the past decade or so. In fact, data shows that when averaging out ticket sales over the forty-year period from 1980 to 2019 (not box office, as the latter has gone up significantly thanks to increases in price) theatrical attendance in the past twenty years is on average roughly 15 per cent higher than the twenty years prior. That is to say, more tickets have been sold in the age of the internet, YouTube, piracy, Netflix, etc. than in the period when none of these existed. While population growth and other social dynamics may account for some of that increase, it also remains true that – away from cinemas – television, not mobile technologies, remains the main platform for viewing for both terrestrial, satellite and OTT/streaming and VOD. To name but one particular significant set of data, Netflix reported in 2019 that over 70 per cent of its subscribers stream via their TV app, with a further 15 per cent streaming on a computer, with only the remaining 15 per cent watching on mobile devices. Put succinctly, people still prefer to watch film and long-format content on traditional means rather than mobile (particularly when the latter involves smaller screens). And while audiences consume short format content in great quantities, often using mobile devices, the evidence is that they understand this type of content – abundantly available in the long thin tail, and constantly growing – as primarily

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cheaply made, of lesser value and quality than traditional longer format and, crucially, expect this to be available for free. While audiences choose and engage with this kind of material, they tend to do so in ways that are fundamentally different from – though obviously not incompatible with – the ways in which they choose and engage with traditional ‘fat tail’ content made by studios and leading independents. The dynamics illustrated above inevitably end up reinforcing the old ‘less of more’ structure (relying heavily on high-value productions, known directors and actors, etc.), and most significantly are a bonus to existing dominant players. Consequently, the latter firmly remain the principal beneficiaries of the digital economy as they can rely on large media platforms and economies of scale. In other words, the promised digital democratization – the notion that anybody with a camera and computer/access to the internet can create content and reach millions – is ‘a lottery’ at best and an attempt at commodifying the audience – literally getting them to produce free work and in some sense becoming themselves the product that is sold (see YouTube) – at worst. This also adds a further, unintended but significantly complex, dynamic: greater concentration of power in fewer titles means that those responsible for the latter can demand huge monetary rewards, just as their products command premium budgets. This pushes up the cost of production across the board, thus placing inflationary pressures (i.e. making everything else more expensive) all the way down the tail. As The Hollywood Reporter recently outlined: Netflix will spend about $15 billion on content this year, the company disclosed Wednesday, even as it expects to burn $3.5 billion in cash. Due to rising competition, the streamer has seen the cost of content rise. According to Ted Sarandos, a competitive project could cost 30 per cent more this year compared with last year. ‘In any environment, when you’ve injected a few new buyers, you’re going to catch that dynamic on a highly competitive show’, he said. (Jarvey, 2019)

The value of film: fatter and higher than ever Previous knowledge of products remains essential for audience choice, regardless of platform, and still dominates over novelty or scope of choice; film,

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particularly well-known films, therefore remains a very valuable property across all platforms to lessen the problems associated with choice. If you like paradoxes, at a time when individual users are increasingly directed (by both hardware and software) towards greater personal choice, film represents one of the few stable products that can find an audience not just on conventional TV, but also on mobile/online platforms. If one were to summarize this particular seemingly paradoxical ‘quality’ of film into a single sentence, it could read thus: film remains arguably the most highly portable entertainment product across all platforms and means of delivery/consumption. Film on TV and OTT/streaming, and other new distribution platforms continue to represent a safe offer that will likely find an audience because (a) it remains in many ways rather unique (in terms of quality, length, etc.) and (b) it is a known quantity and a relatively low risk for consumers looking for entertainment with which to engage). This is because film brings with it an element of audience commitment to the product that other types of filmed content need to seek/build. Netflix has high brand recognition, but its products need to find an audience (again, hence the emphasis on licensing hugely successful TV series that come with a high degree of user commitment). In this sense, a recent statement by Netflix’s co-CEO Ted Sarandos on this aspect is exemplary of this: ‘Movies are very valuable. People are used to paying a lot for that.’ Sarandos later added, ‘These are big, theatrically ambitious type films that you’ll be able to watch on Netflix’ (Netflix Q3 Earnings Call, 2019). In view of the considerations above, it is also possible to suggest that this translates into a dynamic whereby the greater the choice available to audiences, the greater the value of traditional high-value tickets/offers, like film. The value of film in this context therefore appears to be fatter and higher than ever as it spreads across an increasing more varied entertainment value chain.

Understanding film audiences today Why is this the case though? What may explain this remarkably slow pace of change with regards to viewing habits and audience behaviour, regardless of what popular narratives about disruption would wish us to believe? Population in the United States has been growing fairly rapidly over the past twenty years. The 2000 census placed the estimate of people living in the United

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States at roughly 290 million; in 2010 that figure went up to approximately 320 million; the projected figure for 2020 is that it may be nearing the 400 million mark. More significantly, data from various organizations clearly show that audiences today enjoy the greatest ratio of discretionary hours vs working hours ever recorded and that they choose to spend their increasingly large amount of free time in leisure activities (United Nations data shows a 10:1 ratio for the period between 1880 and 2040 – whereby for every one hour of additional discretionary/free time we spend roughly a further ten hours in leisure activities). Sleeping, eating and hours at work have also shown remarkably little change since the arrival of digital technologies. Indeed, these appear not to have shifted in any significant manner since President Roosevelt introduced the eight-hour workday in the mid-1930s – part of the response to the Great Crisis following the Wall Street crash of 1928 – that had been trialled successfully most notably by Henry Ford a decade earlier. Put differently, while it is true that most of us can watch films anytime, anywhere in whatever manner we choose, we remain tethered to a set of habits and social and work engagements that have not changed for over eighty years, nor is there any indication that they are likely to change in the immediate future. Indeed, once we broaden our viewpoint to include overall consumer behaviour, it becomes even clearer just quite how resilient traditional habits have proven in spite of narratives of digital disruption that have proven so pervasive in the popular imagination. One aspect in particular shows just quite how imprecise those fears of digital dominance actually are: consumers still prefer bricks-and-mortar experience over online purchasing, decisively so in fact: ‘According to the latest U.S. Census data released in August 2017, 90 percent of all retail purchases in America were made in brick-and-mortar locations during the last quarter.’ This is not limited to older generations either, with nearly 70 per cent of millennials preferring brick-and-mortar for their choices (while using the internet for ‘virtual window shopping’) (Lee, 2017). In other words, a combination of cultural obstinacy and the persistence of habitual behaviour (in shopping, entertainment, eating, sleeping, etc.), matched by an increase in population has fuelled an increase in content consumption that has remained firmly close to familiar shores. As the analysis above shows, it is imperative to pursue a greater understanding of how these socio-economic changes are impacting on consumer choice. However, this is where data and research are, sadly, lacking, as most industry

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research has understandably tended to focus on market research for specific products/films, while scholarly work has focused on audience motivation at the expense of this wider lens approach. This has resulted in a fundamental misconception, namely that access to content – placing films on a streaming platform accessible from mobile devices anywhere, anytime – inevitably leads to cultural buy-in and purchase. In the case of film this is then further compounded by the incorrect assumption that this is happening at the expense of cinema-going. As scholars have pointed out, these matters: extend beyond issues of physical access to those of cultural access and, as such, raise questions regarding the demographic composition of the audience for online methods of film distribution and different types of international film. We lack sufficient understanding of these issues, however, due to the limited emphasis upon socio-demographic variables in existing academic research into online film consumption, and the limited consideration of particular film content in relevant market research. (Huffer, 2017: 138)

Whatever the methodology ultimately adopted, the real challenge unsurprisingly lies in what kind of questions are being asked, for what purpose and to whom, as well as in remaining open-minded as to possible counterintuitive findings. However, film research and data gathering appear to be strongly biased towards positive response surveys and data as opposed to negative results research. The latter, intriguingly defined by some as ‘the Dark Matter of research’, is commonly employed in fields like medicine, where it is crucial to account for negative results of clinical trials, as well as monitoring the positive results naturally. There is virtually no example of such a wide-lens approach to research in the arts and entertainment. For instance, we know a considerable amount about who goes to the cinema, their background – such as ethnicity, gender and age – and what they choose to see and how frequently. The MPA (Motion Pictures Association) to mention but one notable example, publishes very helpful yearly statistics on these important items.1 However, we know next to nothing about those who choose not to attend cinemas and what are the reasons behind this choice – and the obvious

T h eir recently launched centenary site is a good example of this: https://www​.mpa100​.org (accessed 30 April 2022).

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observation that not attending is as much a choice as attending, and not an inescapable audience black hole. Is it because of price, convenience, service, film quality, or other reason? Put differently, film research tends to measure what people are exposed to, but not what they are missing out on and, crucially, the reasons for the latter. This creates a very skewed view of audiences and their engagement with film. For instance, does the fact that audiences choose not to see comedies in cinemas – as much as they once did at least – mean that: (a) studios should invest less in them (as a money-losing enterprise) or (b) invest more (as a loss-leader to return to previous levels of attendance)? The answer to this kind of question is obviously unlikely to lie with those who go to the movies to see comedies but rather with those who do not. However, information on the former group is far more easily captured than the latter. To make matters worse, there are very few attempts that try to contextualize the data that is available, for instance, by marrying big data, wider trends, to specific instances of the relationship between film and its audience. Do people living in poorer areas fail to attend cinemas because of cost? Similarly, is there a correlation between cinema attendance and financial background? The risk, almost a certainty in fact, is to move from a limited pool of positive results (e.g. a survey of ‘x’ number of people and their preferences) to extrapolate and assume that we do not need to investigate negative samples (e.g. assuming that the reason why group ‘y’ does not go to the cinema is the opposite of what group ‘x’ thinks/does). This is one of the greatest challenges ahead if the industry is to effectively address crises of the kind illustrated in this chapter, namely, how to design systems that collect, sift and analyse data that focus on the left behind, the negatives, the sections of the audience that have been lost over the decades. While negative results research may ultimately prove too expensive or logistically complex for an industry that has not historically been geared up for this kind of effort and analysis, there are ways to limit this significant research and analysis deficit. The emerging consensus, across several disciplines outside film, is that this may be possible by correlating (a) big data and (b) localized data sets. Big data sets would help address the bigger picture – thus helping film and television research move outside the confines of the entertainment industry – and are widely available via several data agencies, including governments – see the US

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census is a very good example of this – as are organizations like the UN and the World Bank and, of course, scholarly work and industry-generated data reports.2 As for localized datasets, however, addressing the need to understand better dynamics in specific sections of the population, geographical areas and socioeconomic strata of film audiences is where we – both in academia and in the film industry – are almost entirely deficient. One of the best and most relevant examples of the importance of this kind of research on consumer choice can be found in the Nobel-Prize-winning work of Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo, two economists whose work focuses on poorer sections of society and extreme poverty (classed as those living on less than $2 a day around the world – roughly 10 per cent of the world population). In one of their books, Poor Economics (2012), they suggest that: What is striking is that even people who are that poor are just like the rest of us in almost every way. We have the same desires and weaknesses; the poor are no less rational than anyone else – quite the contrary. Precisely because they have so little, we often find them putting much careful thought into their choices: They have to be sophisticated economists just to survive. Yet our lives are as different as liquor and liquorice. And this has a lot to do with aspects of our own lives that we take for granted and hardly think about. (Banerjee & Duflo, 2012: ix)

The statement above can apply to any subset of the population, including cinema-goers, of course. As mentioned before, historically, audience research has almost entirely disregarded those who do not see/watch movies. The assumption, incorrect, is that the latter have little to teach us as they are simply not participating. But ‘not attending’ the cinema is as much a rational choice as attending, so this group of people – that we may here define as the ‘unknown audience’ – is making rational choices that ought to be addressed as they are as revealing of audience needs as much as any other sections of the audience. What can we learn from their reasons for not attending? How are they ‘sophisticated’ in their choices? More research is clearly needed if the unknown audience is to be better understood. The reward is not merely preventing further losses but reverting this process and bringing back portions of the lost audience to films, in whatever form or on any platform that they may be available. US Census data available at: https://data​.census​.gov​/cedsci/; UN data available at: https://data​.un​ .org; World Bank data available at: https://data​.worldbank​.org (all accessed 20 May 2020).

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The research challenge: beyond the data Regardless of the important issues illustrated above, data alone will never suffice in answering a crisis comprehensively. Even if we were to gain access to all necessary datasets, both big and localized, ultimately it is the ability to interrogate the data in imaginative and non-prejudicial manners that will determine how the data is interrogated, and a workable response is accordingly arrived at. As highlighted earlier, data on and observation of audiences and their interaction with films is limited and biased towards those who engage with film, regardless of platform. This then combines with a rather toxic approach to narrating the present moment of crisis that is often characterized by sweeping generalizations borne primarily out of concern rather than unbiased analysis – as illustrated in this statement given to the press by an anonymous filmmaker: It’s hard to be a filmmaker and to still believe that your nostalgia for a theatrical experience is somehow superior to the way people want to watch movies today. (Sperling, 2019)

This kind of resigned statement is presented as though all information, data and analysis had been exhausted and the book on this matter closed shut, when in fact all indications point to the contrary. What is required then is a cultural shift towards a more agnostic position with regards to the ever-changing relationship between film and audiences, one that builds on reliable data as a starting point and looks at where that data may point, all the while exercising critical judgement without prejudice or fear. This kind of open-minded, forward-looking analysis is essential to avoid becoming over-reliant on data and potentially missing out on counterintuitive solutions. As Seth Kahan eloquently puts it: ‘Data is only ever looking in the rear-view mirror. And drivers who drive entirely by looking in the rear-view mirror tend to have extremely short journeys’ (Granville, 2016). A further challenge in this sense is posed by what could be described as an expression of ‘digital manifest destiny’, a sort of inescapable force expressed by digital technologies that make older technology, like film, obsolete in the eyes of younger audiences. The premise is perfectly exemplified in this statement from a recent article in Wired magazine: ‘If you wanted to pinpoint the moment this year when it became clear that movie-going had devolved from Culture-Conquering Pastime

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to merely Something to Do When the Wi-Fi’s Down, consider the weekend of April 22 to April 24’ (Raftery, 2016). This kind of approach to understanding the present situation shows a very human tendency to assume that whatever is present/current has greater currency and relevance than what came before it, and that it will inevitably kill it off and replace it. This attitude to the ‘new’ buys into several fallacies at once, particularly around technological innovations (often the result of industrial imperative rather than cultural demand), cultural relevance (the new must be more relevant/groundbreaking, etc. than the old, by default) and that we, as people, are fundamentally different from (and, usually, better than) the generation that has just preceded us. Meghan Daum in her latest book – The Problem with Everything – My Journey Through the New Culture Wars – writes very pointedly on this issue from a different perspective: Until 1960, the idea that women could compete with men in the job market, that men should do housework, that women had any purpose in life higher than having babies and men had any purpose higher than financially supporting those babies or going to war to protect them, was something close to unthinkable. That we have come so far in so little time is a marvel. That we should expect all the kinks to have been worked out by now is insane. In the scheme of things, the 59 years that have elapsed between 1960 and today is a nanosecond, a flash of time so imperceptible that it has passed in increments of billions by the time you have read this sentence. (Daum, 2019: 27)

Clearly, the idea that advancements in technology are inevitably followed by a similarly fast change in human behaviour is factually incorrect and intellectually untenable. Ultimately, the issue of cultural relevance – and its implications for film’s enduring popularity across all platforms – cannot be reduced to an either/or scenario, a kind of zero-sum game thinking that equates to more time spent on mobile and other forms of content to less interest in films. As recent examples like Black Panther and Crazy Rich Asians have demonstrated, the fact that TV and streaming may generate greater social media ‘sharing’, critical acclaim and public conversation than most films does not mean that the latter have suddenly become an also-ran, having exhausted all their popular appeal or ability to generate heated arguments and inform public debate.

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The physical, real world, inconvenient form of socio-cultural engagement that is cinema-going is undoubtedly a very different proposition than the digital, convenient, easy-to-access – and often free – entertainment content available in the home and on mobile devices. However true this may be though, it also remains true that humans have craved aesthetic pleasure and physical interaction from the very beginning of their existence and – briefly put – there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that it is about to change anytime soon. At the very least then, the notion that seeing/watching a movie is something to do only ‘when the Wi-Fi is down’ betrays a rather shaky viewpoint on which to build a wide-lens perspective of an art form and business that keeps attendance steady in the face of significant price increases and new competition, while nearly doubling its yearly box office, as cinema has done.

Measuring cultural relevance: is film really in crisis? Complacency and a sense of entitlement to audience interest and participation breed poor thinking and badly calibrated responses to any crisis. For this reason above all, it is relevant to ask questions about the cultural relevance of film in the present burgeoning field of entertainment options for the audience. The question for film is deceptively simple: how do we measure its cultural relevance? In 2014, a conference organized by the National Endowment for the Arts in the United States and the Academy of Humanities Research Council in the United Kingdom published a report looking at the difficult task of measuring cultural engagement (the latter seen here as a means to drive towards a better understanding of cultural and social relevance of the arts amongst contemporary audiences). One key conclusion was that: Understanding why people participate is a major challenge. Some custom surveys have been conducted and several performing arts motivation studies have been published (. . .) Studies have found no clear consensus about the factors that motivate individuals to participate in the arts. Common findings of motivation studies include: entertaining and enjoyable experience, learning, socializing, stimulating, emotionally rewarding experiences, high-quality experiences, and becoming more creative. (Rife et al., 2014: 32)

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Further, the report pointed out that the issue of why people attend in the first place is very difficult to measure: Motivation research in arts participation presents several challenges. Custom studies are usually smaller scale and are often not generalizable to larger populations. Many methodological variables may affect results: survey goals, location of respondents, arts disciplines, survey questionnaires, and response options. The questions asked may be different, leading to different responses. Additionally, motivations for individual respondents may vary from day to day. And self-reported motivation may be different from true motivation. (Rife et al., 2014: 32)

In other words, there is not sufficient funding to produce the kind of extensive, longitudinal studies (again, far more common in areas like medicine) that are needed to begin addressing the issue of how we measure social and cultural relevance and motivation behind audience choice. The industry appears collectively to be in significant deficit of the tools, resources and logistical infrastructure to do so. Anybody generalizing from small samples does so at their own risk and – as many scholars have pointed out – the role that context plays in choice and motivation is sufficient reason alone to caution against wide generalizations. The above is no reason for avoiding asking difficult questions, of course, but it should alert us to the need for better research, a greater ability to look at big data (wider trends, often global in nature, affecting all industries, not just entertainment) and a better understanding of issues such as locality and how specific contexts impact on engagement and motivation for it. At a time where individual users are increasingly directed (by both hardware and software, particularly UIs) towards greater personal choice, film represents one of the few stable products that can be easily ‘sold’ (find an audience), not just on conventional TV, but also and especially on mobile/online platforms. Film on TV and OTT/streaming, etc. continues to represent a safe offer that will likely find an audience because (a) it remains in many ways a rather unique offer (quality, length, etc.) and (b) it is a known quantity (i.e. low risk for consumers looking for something to access). Film brings with it an element of audience commitment to the product that other ‘genres’ need to either seek or build. Some streamers may have brand recognition, but their products need to find an audience (again, see the emphasis on licensing hugely successful TV series that come with a high degree

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of user commitment). One recent noticeable example is Netflix’s purchase of the licensing rights to Seinfeld – reportedly at a cost to the streaming giant of nearly half a billion US dollars – in response to the loss of their two best performers, The Office and Friends, now back with their parent companies to entice subscribers to their own new streaming services. The value of film has morphed just as the landscape has shifted. To some extent this makes comparisons with past configurations obsolete and somewhat misleading obsolete because the landscape has changed so dramatically that in effect the past is precisely just that now, past, gone for good. We are not going to return to a situation where audiences could access movies only at the movie theatre or on network television/satellite/cable. Studios are fully aware of how the terrain has shifted and to suggest that they have been caught unprepared somehow or that they are backwards-looking, wishfully thinking things were as they always were, is unhelpful as much as it is incorrect. If nothing else, studios have been particularly quick at identifying the new revenue streams that movies could unlock. This is not to suggest all is good and the transition is complete, and one only has to witness the way in which movies are still primarily assessed in terms of their theatrical box office (as opposed to a film’s complete lifespan across different platforms and means of engagement with different audiences) to see how some legacy bad habits of the past are dying so very slowly. Movies and their relationship with audiences have hardly remained the same as in the past, and talking about them as if they had not is also misleading. Having moved with the times, any attempt at connecting films back to a nowgone past limits our perspective in terms of understanding both its present and future value. Most significantly for the themes in this book, it is evident that for film to survive present and future crises, it is necessary to develop better ways to address the questions that can inform decisions about its future. This is where the importance of the other side of this particular coin – the quality and scope of research – takes centre stage. As this chapter highlights, there is evidence that we have neither the data nor the capacity to ask the questions that are most pressing right now, let alone those that are perhaps more speculative but could unlock as yet unforeseen scenarios. An example of this is the crucial question of the unknown audience and whether it is a Lost Audience or merely one that has been forgotten. There is

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work done on negative results research in other fields that should encourage us to push towards doing work of this kind. However, difficulties here include the lack of funding in academia for work of this kind, and the similarly significant lack of private/industry funding for scholars to carry out their work along these lines. Finally, and arguably most significantly, it should be by now evident to most that, far from being a victim or – a kind of sacrificial lamb to the present changing landscape – film is a beneficiary of it. As it has been in the past with the advent of TV, home video and the internet, the very thing that was supposed to kill film has in fact provided it with the proverbial shot in the arm. Simply put, wider access to films, in an increasingly accessible manner, at a price point that is accessible to most, means wider distribution of film culture, not less. In some respects, one could seriously pose that film has survived this particular crisis, one where its legacy and value have come under sustained pressure from a combination of fast technological change, huge expansion of content available to audiences and the latter’s increasingly varied means of accessing that content, by remaining true to itself and its relationship with its audience. Resisting the calls for a wholesale rethink of its role in the media landscape has proven an ultimately wise approach. For as counterintuitive as it may sound and feel, theatrical exhibition is healthy and remains the most significant platform for audiences to engage with film, especially in the age of streaming. This is not to the detriment of the latter; quite the reverse in fact. Streaming platforms benefit hugely from being able to provide their customers with films that have been exhibited theatrically in view of the role these play in ‘anchoring’ the thinner, longer, but also lighter (in terms of perceived value) end of the filmed entertainment tail.

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The Thieves in the Night – Spanish Flu and Covid-19 The Unexpected Crisis

It is common to see a crisis as just an accident, an unusual combination of events that could not happen again. Conversely, the fact that crises occur at an increasing and alarming frequency allows scholars to observe similarities, patterns and relationships across many occurrences. (Sellnow & Seeger, 2013: 2–3). Crises are not one-off, exceptional occurrences. They happen and behave more as recurring events that can be observed, studied and, to a varying extent, understood. While an immediate, instinctive reaction to a perceived new threat is the first, very human, reaction, this must be followed by placing the crisis into historical context so that a well-informed, rational analysis can take place and a response can be crafted. This is not another way of stating the adage that ‘history repeats itself ’. History doesn’t necessarily repeat itself, but it leaves a distinctive trail behind, one that can be mined for helpful information, residues of past traumas, DNA codes tantalizingly awaiting discovery and investigation. The more poetic version of this comes from Mark Twain, who (allegedly) once stated that ‘History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes’. And while there is no firm evidence that Twain actually ever said this – though a statement to this effect has been attributed to him – it is relevant regardless of whether he actually uttered the words or not. Searching the trail that past crises have left behind is essential, particularly in our present times. Just as we were busy writing about past crises, a new one emerged, seemingly more complex and lethal than all those that preceded it. A larger-than-life deadly thief in the night sneaked in unannounced.

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At the time of writing, in the year 2020, the virus known as SARS-Cov-2 (short for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) has been causing a fast-spreading disease the world has come to know as Covid-19 or Coronavirus (after the shape of the actual virus resembling that of a crown – corona in Latin means crown). To be precise, the World Health Organisation indicates (as of 13 July 2020) that there have been 12,768,307 cases in 216 countries; 566,654 people have died as a direct consequence of the disease caused by the virus.1 The present virus is by no means an isolated occurrence without precedent in recent history: the previous 100 years have seen several world pandemics, infectious diseases that have spread to a significant proportion of the entire population (and the spread of which cannot be halted without direct intervention). All of these events brought with them widespread death and socio-economic crisis on a global scale. In the years immediately following the end of the First World War (from 1918 to 1920 more precisely), a pandemic known as ‘Spanish Flu’ (despite not having originated in Spain at all) – triggered by a virus called H1N1 – unfolded around the world as soldiers moved to and from war fronts. Around 500 million people (roughly one-third of the world’s population at the time) became infected and over 50 million people died. To get a sense of the scope and reach of the Spanish Flu pandemic, it is worth noting that the world population in 1920 was estimated to be around the 1.9 billion mark. Exactly a century later, in 2020, that number is thought to have reached 7.8 billion. In other words, the population today is roughly 310 per cent larger than in 1920. If we apply that differential to the present day, to provide a very rough comparative figure, a virus as virulent as the Spanish Flu would today infect around 2.6 billion people and go on to kill 155 million people. Spanish Flu was no ordinary disease. It was an unforgiving, ruthless one. Spanish Flu killed vastly, indiscriminately (covering virtually all age groups, though focusing in particular on the youngest and oldest sections of the population) and globally. It had a spread factor, virulence and lethality that put the numbers in the present Covid-19 crisis in some perspective by an order of magnitude. It is the kind of history that leaves a very visible, traceable and destructive trail. Source available online: (accessed on 13 July 2020).

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Spanish Flu is not the only pandemic the world has encountered over the past 100 years. Two came in rapid succession in the space of little more than ten years. In 1957 and in 1968, two highly deadly pandemics hit globally. The first to hit was the successor to H1N1: H2N2 – also known as Asian flu. It originated in China and killed over 1 million people in the space of twelve months. This was followed in 1968 by a further avian flu virus, known as H3N2, that killed a further 1 million people worldwide. In other words, far from being an isolated, unprecedented occurrence, there is a long history of pandemics in the lifespan of the movies that we can trace back to consider their impact on film and the responses it generated. Some of this history is very recent, and some goes back a whole century, but the trail is there to be mined for information and clues.2 One thing that the 1957 and 1968 pandemics have in common is that life continued pretty much as normal. There was no mass restriction of movement, nor were shops closed. People were not required to wear masks and other protection, nor was social distancing required. Cinemas remained open throughout their duration. Curiously, neither of these two deadly and highly infectious pandemics left a mark on the way in which that period is written about and remembered. Countless documentaries and historical accounts of the 1960s focus on political assassinations, youth movements, civil rights, the Vietnam War and other similarly popular events. Virtually none mentions the impact of the two pandemics that respectively ushered in and escorted out the decade. It is worth remembering that this is in spite of the fact that both the 1957 and 1968 influenza pandemics killed more than twice as many Americans in one year than the entire Vietnam War had in several years of bloody conflict.3 There is one other crucial difference though. The 100,000 Americans who died in the 1968 H3N2 virus pandemic did so away from TV cameras. While the Vietnam War (as well as most political assassinations of that decade) was caught on camera and broadcast daily into the homes of most Americans, comparatively little was shown with regard to either the 1957 or the 1968 pandemics. Public T h e pandemics listed above are in nature like the current one. We are not counting here other kinds of viruses that have had pandemic-size reach and impact, like the HIV virus. T h ere are several possible reasons for this odd omission in the history books. As The Washington Post newspaper recently commented, the population of the United States in the late 1960s (roughly 200 million people) provided a much wider pool of potential victims than the relatively limited number of American soldiers that went into that war (3.4 million people). Also, while the war was seen as somewhat avoidable, a pandemic is often seen as ‘an act of God’, that is to say, unavoidable. For more see Blake, 2020.

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service broadcasts were issued, but they retained the feeling of one-off events, exceptional in nature, as indeed the pandemics must have felt. By contrast, the war in Vietnam and various protest movements became the indigestible staple diet of evening TV news, as well as newspaper reporting. While it would be unthinkable to produce a documentary series on the year 2020 without having the current pandemic centre stage, recent longform television documentary series, like CNN’s 1968, and its bigger sister The Sixties, manage to get through multiple episodes without so much as a passing mention of the pandemic that killed 1 million people worldwide that same year. The Sixties’ companion website also curated a gallery of the sixty most iconic moments of that decade. While it covers anything from the birth control pill to political assassination – including novelties like push-button telephones, the debut of the Batman tv series and the first use of instant replay in sports broadcasting – there is no space for a single mention of the pandemic.4 One of the reasons may simply be in the very title of that same gallery: the most ‘iconic’ moments from the 1960s. A pandemic rarely offers iconic moments. By and large, cameras were kept away (mercifully) from hospital beds and related visions of illness. The current pandemic, however, has managed the issue of iconography more effectively (images of doctors and nurses exhausted, sitting with their heads bowed in utter despair, have become a sad reminder of the toll on all medical personnel involved in the fight against Covid-19). Why is all this relevant here? The SARS-CoV-2 virus and its associated disease known as Covid-19 have dominated the news, in all its formats, globally for several months now, with little sign of abating at the time of writing. In the age of twenty-four-hour news, this has translated into as pervasive a narrative of crisis – the ‘end of the old normal’ – as the virus itself in its spread. This is, of course, true also for film. Commentators rushed to declare, you guessed it, that cinema was kaput and ready to be dispatched to the celluloid heap of history once again. In an article telling titled ‘Coronavirus Will Wipe Out These Three Industries For Good’, the author hyperbolically states that ‘The coronavirus has come through and absolutely annihilated some of today’s biggest industries’ (McBride, 2020), and proceeds to list movie theatres as the You can see the full gallery online: https://edition​.cnn​.com​/2014​/05​/16​/us​/gallery​/60​-iconic​ -moments​-from​-the​-1960s​/index​.html (accessed 18 August 2021).

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number one of these three casualties (the other two being department stores and office space operators). The Wall Street Journal chimed in by suggesting that the movie industry was in trouble and that it was in fact ‘Gone With the Wind’, enshrining that pronouncement in the title of the article to drive the point home (Watson, 2020). This type of end of days narrative, as in the crises described before in this book, impacts on our understanding of, and response to, the crisis at hand. Once again, we return to a core issue in the book, namely that crises are a narrative construct: Cultural assumptions, beliefs, prejudices, and myths are reflected in the development and propagation of crisis narratives. Crisis narratives are often used as vehicles to reify existing beliefs and in this way may mask a more accurate account of what happened, when, and why. (Seeger & Sellnow, 2016: 256)

Tracing back our steps to those earlier pandemics, how they were perceived and narrated, the responses that were given and their impact on cinema, may thus yield interesting ideas, perhaps even some answers to the crisis cinema is facing today. At first sight, looking for clues from the 1957/1968 pandemics may seem logical. While the internet, streaming and even home video were mostly dreams to be realized decades later, television had installed itself as arguably the prime source of entertainment for most. While the percentage of the US population going to the movies every week had declined markedly in the 1950s, it had mostly stabilized by the time the 1960s arrived. Significantly, the 1968 pandemic produced no visible change in the curve; that is to say, there was no steep drop-off in attendance. In fact, there was no drop-off at all. This is easily accountable for the simple fact that cinemas basically remained open throughout the time of the pandemic, in the United States as in other countries. This makes the comparison with the present crisis an entirely misaligned proposition. The same goes for the earlier 1957 pandemic: cinemas remained open. The most logical comparison to make here is with the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. While it may seem far-fetched to suggest the two periods are somewhat comparable – let alone that we can learn lessons from something that happened a century ago – a closer look reveals some of Twain’s ‘historical rhyming’.

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Lessons for the movies from the 1918 pandemic and the 2020 Covid-19 crisis: a comparison As we have discussed in Chapter 2, the war for control that Edison and the MPPC waged against other producers, distributors and exhibitors in the early years of film’s life highlights quite how uncertain this period in the life of cinemas and filmmaking in general really was. The dawn of the twentieth century had seen many new players join the film ranks, but the shape and future of film looked difficult to predict, at best. The years immediately preceding the First World War saw the emergence of an answer to that question with the demise of the MPPC, and the rise to prominence of key players like William Fox, Adolph Zukor and Jesse Lasky. Filmmakers had also begun the move West, towards California; what would become shortly thereafter simply known as Hollywood. Most importantly, cinemas had developed from the early days of nickelodeons to something resembling the film theatres we still patronize today. The growth of film as an industry had in turn emboldened filmmakers to create longer, bigger and more expensive films, and the idea of the feature film – the 90 minute-plus movie – had become firmly established as the way to go to attract ever larger audiences. What was still unsure, amongst other things, was what country and type of ‘player’ would emerge as the dominant force worldwide. European markets still counted for most film receipts and had vibrant film cultures, across financing, production and attendance. In short, Hollywood had many competitors to its ambition to become the centre of the film world, an ambition not yet fully articulated for sure, let alone realized. The war and the pandemic that followed it crashed down on all that uncertainty and swept it all away. Giants of European cinema production like Gaumont and Pathe, themselves involved in those early attempts at monopolizing cinema through the MPPC, saw their mighty command and control of the industry virtually vanish. Established cinema infrastructure across the continent suffered the double devastation of a world war and a global killer pandemic. From Italy to Denmark, the nations and stars that had contributed to the global growth of cinema as an emerging mass medium lost their power and influence. Two countries in particular benefitted from this, though for opposing reasons: Germany, the great loser of the war, whose position on the world’s stage had been reduced to ashes with the Treaty of Versailles that signalled

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the end of hostilities on the battlefield, began building what would eventually become arguably the most technologically advanced and innovative film centre of its time. Created at the end of 1917 originally for propaganda purposes, Universum-Film AG – known globally for its acronym UFA – would soon become a powerhouse of production. A new state-of-the-art production studio was built outside Berlin (today known as Studio Babelsberg, in honour of the suburb where it still resides) that would become the blueprint for what a modern studio should look like. Just a few years into its existence, UFA would see the birth of modern feature films like Metropolis, Sunrise and many more that would go on to influence filmmakers the world over for decades to come. Once Hitler came to power in the 1930s, UFA quickly became a relentlessly effective propaganda machine, second to none. However, the real winner out of this period of great uncertainty was the US, and Hollywood in particular. With most of its competitors out of action, the still young US film industry suddenly presented opportunities for entrepreneurs and creatives to expand their horizons both in terms of production and, even more significantly, distribution. Foreign markets that had been dominated by local film production before and during the war – often through protectionist measures – were suddenly vacated. France, with its tentacular network of distribution controlled by Pathe and Gaumount, suddenly resembled more the scattered, unorganized and fragmented picture of film distribution that the United States had been in the years leading up to the birth of the MPPC in 1908. New cinemas – larger, more comfortable – were built. The move West, initiated before the war, was significantly accelerated by the conflict and even more by the pandemic, as soldiers returning from the front, mostly to the Eastern seaboard of the United States, contributed to the spiralling growth of the number of infections and deaths in those cities, making the move West even more appealing. Hollywood – until this point in a fight with New York as the centre of film production – benefitted the most. Population density in Los Angeles was far lower than in other cities. Indeed, LA was rather small in terms of population when compared to its East Coast counterparts, as about 600,000 lived in Los Angeles at the time. Various boroughs of New York, Philadelphia and several other cities were considerably larger than that. Crucially, Los Angeles acted relatively quickly in shutting down most public activities – movie houses closed on the evening of 11 October 1918 – thus controlling the pandemic better than other cities:

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L.A.’s rate was 494 excess deaths per 100,000 residents, lower than that of many other American cities. (Rainey & Rong-Gong Lin II, 2020)

Larger studios, while hit by the losses that months of theatre closure and delayed production generated, fared far better than smaller, independent operators, particularly so in the exhibition sector, where smaller players were literally decimated. Entrepreneurs like William Fox and Adolph Zukor, who had built their position in the industry by investing heavily in exhibition and real estate in major cities across the US, seized their chance to assimilate many of the independents and become much bigger, newer entities in the process – the studios as we have come to know them: vertically integrated, powerful and with few to no real competitors of significant scale and might. In short, the feat of power grabbing that not even the mighty MPPC and Thomas Edison could perform, was achieved with deadly precision and effectiveness by the 1918 pandemic. By the time the virus abated, Hollywood had achieved a position of dominance it would not relinquish for a century. Thomas Harper Ince’s novel method of organizing productions strictly down a hierarchical system (with ‘heads’ of department working to a previously green-lit shooting script and ultimately okayed directly by Ince himself) ushered in the kind of organized, specialized and tightly financially controlled film production strategy that would shortly thereafter be referred to as ‘the studio system’. Ince, a man of many talents, had a career spanning virtually all aspects of film production – from acting to writing, directing and producing – that placed him in an ideal position to identify and address areas of film production that could benefit from a more ‘industrial’, organized structure. In so doing, he was successful in demonstrating to Wall Street and other investors that Hollywood and film production were entering a period of much stricter financial control and accountability, something that contributed to a steady stream of investment into movie-making that fuelled the exponential growth of Hollywood as the dominant centre of production. Despite originally hailing from the East Coast, Ince chose to build his own studio – not-too-subtly named ‘Inceville’ – near Hollywood, close to Santa Monica, where a location bearing that same name remains today. The domestic market also grew exponentially, overtaking the ‘international market’ (an industry term – sometimes defined as ‘foreign market’ – used to describe all territories other than the United States and Canada) as the main

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source of income for Hollywood movies. The arrival of sound in the late 1920s cemented that position, as we have seen in Chapter 3, and strengthened the hand of the studios with respect to foreign competitors and domestic independents. The Hollywood studio era had well and truly arrived.

Lessons from the past What lessons, if any, can be learned from this intense period of upheaval and crisis that may be relevant to our present time? If those who went through that turbulent time wrote us a letter (no email in 1918!) what would they choose to tell us? 1. Evolution, not revolution, is the key denominator of the events of 1918. When seismic events and corresponding crises occur, it is customary to assume a revolution will follow and that ‘things will never be the same’. However, the 1918 pandemic – and to an even greater extent the ones that followed it in 1957 and 1968 – did not result in a revolution. In many ways, the 1918 pandemic did not really create anything new but rather accelerated dramatically events that were already in motion. There was no innovation in areas like length (feature film had arrived in 1914), production techniques (studio productions had become commonplace several years prior) and location of the industry (the move West had also started before the war). However, while it is indeed easy to argue that these developments would have come to mature at some stage notwithstanding, the war and the pandemic combined to create the perfect fertile soil for Hollywood to blossom in the moment and at the speed at which it did. 2. As pandemics depress an industry unevenly, some players prosper while others suffer, usually in equally disproportionate measure to their original industry standing. This creates a window of opportunity for the ‘winners’ to consolidate their newly found position of dominance beyond the reach of the ‘losers’. The cushion of dominance the 1918 pandemic afforded major Hollywood players meant the latter could (a) retain the necessary financial strength to join in the new era of filmmaking and film exhibition that the coming of sound ushered in and (b) be insulated, to some extent, from the worst of the 1928–29 Wall Street crash and depression that followed it. This was particularly the case for studios whose main income came from production and distribution and who were not

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overly exposed to the unpredictable winds of theatrical exhibition, as in the case of the three so-called minors: Columbia, Universal and United Artists. Some significant questions emerge out of this consideration: would Warner and other studios have been able to invest so significantly in something as innovative and expensive as sound-on-film without the position of dominance the pandemic had assisted in creating? Could the majors have convinced Wall Street that it was safe to invest in the future of cinema as the depression floods receded had their position been weaker? These questions are helpful not so much in the answers they generate, but in the way they can ensure we do not take for granted the way cinema history has developed – and may develop moving forward from the present Covid-19 crisis. 3. Times of profound crisis tend to focus the mind of industry leaders on what they perceive as their ‘core business’. This shoring up of resources and relationships serves companies well not just in the immediate moment but also to steel themselves for possible further problems. The 1918 pandemic focused the minds of studio owners on what they perceived as their core business – filmmaking and distribution – and away from earlier experiments like on-demand television and event cinema (television shown in the cinema) that they had toyed with when the ‘place’ of film in the entertainment ecosystem of the early 1900s was far from settled. The need for clarity and focus that the pandemic called for benefitted studios. Any hesitation on their part, any dilution of energies and resources towards risky innovations at this stage in their existence would have weakened them at a crucial juncture. This was undoubtedly as much a direct consequence of studio ownership at the time as it was of any particularly brilliant insight studios executives might have had. Studios were owned by families, not shareholders. Being private companies exposed them to the often capricious, at times dictatorial behaviour of their larger-than-life owners for sure, but it also insulated them from unwarranted external influence. It provided stability. This approach favouring stability over innovation – the latter was a concept that was still seen as the harbinger of instability rather than prosperity – enabled studios to exploit the meteoric rise in ticket sales of the 1920s. More importantly, it positioned them to deal a fatal blow to many independents and international competitors by being able to afford the introduction sound and survive the Great Depression:

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When the stock market crash of October 1929 coupled with the new financial demands on the studios of the coming of sound drove a number of production companies to the wall, the way was open for a few ‘majors’ – companies that for various reasons managed to weather the economic vicissitudes of the time – to establish their joint control of the industry. (Cook, 2007: 19)

In what ways, if any, are these postcards from 1918 helpful as we try to make sense of the present crisis, the way in which it is narrated and its possible outcomes? The present situation in Hollywood could be best described as one of significant change and investment. This is impacting two key relationships, namely those (a) between studios and exhibitors and (b) between studios, their films and audiences. As discussed in Chapter 1, historically, cinema (studios, filmmaking, etc.) has often been described as a ‘service industry’, that is to say, it provides its key output – movies – to the exhibition industry. Crudely put, studios and filmmakers agree on employment terms to make movies to feed the needs of cinema exhibitors for regular, novel products to service their customers: film audiences. Faced with increasing competition from several sources – ranging from piracy to online streaming services like Netflix – studios have pivoted somewhat away from the service model outlined above and onto a more ‘diverse’ operational/ business model. To illustrate both this shift and why it is central to our comparison, we need to take the scenic route, as it were. Innovation, in any field, has many paradoxes. One of the most significant of these is when innovation becomes an obstacle to stability. For the longest time, the domestic and international markets have operated on what could be described as a very stable ecosystem, making movies for cinema release. If anything, the advent of digital technologies in the 1990s and the reaction to the piracy threat that followed enabled greater convergence around issues such as release dates (most major films now opening day and date around the world) and maximizing marketing spend by generating buzz both in traditional ways (e.g. word of mouth) and via ‘new’ means like social media. However, the growth of subscription services directly owned by film studios – like Disney+ (Disney), HBO Max (AT&T/Warner) and Peacock (Comcast/ Universal) – has unwittingly created fertile ground for this ecosystem’s own climate crisis.

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Examples of this are provided by two recent deals (Summer, 2020) between AMC’s theatre chain and Universal in one case, and Disney’s internal decision to redirect film products to its streaming platform in another. Following a very public spat between theatre chain giant AMC and Universal Studios around the latter’s decision to release Trolls World Tour on PVOD (premium video on-demand) it seemed as though a war of attrition between studios and exhibitors was on the cards. How this unfolded is worthy of a blow-by-blow account as it resembles the plot of a classic drama. In April 2020, Universal decided to remove one of its most anticipated family movies of the year, the aforementioned Trolls World Tour, from its theatrical release schedule and move it to PVOD. Adam Aron – CEO of AMC – lost no time in retaliating by announcing that AMC would not show any Universal movies anymore, effective immediately, period. In an unusually stark letter dated 28 April addressed to Universal Studios’ chairperson, Donna Langley, Aron stated that: It is disappointing to us, but (. . .) comments as to Universal’s unilateral actions and intentions have left us with no choice (. . .) Therefore, effectively immediately AMC will no longer play any Universal movies in any of our theatres in the United States, Europe or the Middle East. (D’Alessandro, 2020)

Just as it seemed as though the Cold War between cinemas and streaming was moving into a new and ‘hot’ phase, something completely unexpected happened. In a sudden plot twist that Alfred Hitchcock would have been proud of, AMC and Universal announced to a stunned film world that they had reached a new agreement. The pact would shorten the theatrical window to, in selected cases, just seventeen days (from the current ninety days period). After that seventeenday period, movies from Universal would become available on several VOD platforms, including AMC’s own ‘AMC on Demand’. This rather stunning agreement between AMC and Universal – who went from mortal enemies to brotherly friends in the space of a Hollywood lunch – has been seen by some as the kiss of death for the theatrical window (i.e. the time lag between a film becoming available in the theatres and the same film becoming available in some form in the home). Other theatre chains swiftly decried the deal: Mooky Greidinger – the CEO of the world’s second-largest cinema chain, Cineworld – for example, stated unequivocally: ‘We do not see any business sense in this model’ (D’Alessandro & Tartaglione, 2020).

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Historically, the theatrical business of movies has been predicated on the exclusivity of the film presentation: if you wish to see John Travolta dancing his socks off on the dance floor, you have to come to one of our cinemas. Given this dynamic, it is very easy to see why exhibitors may feel that any significant threat to that exclusivity – known as the theatrical window – could spell doom for their business model, and possibly film itself.5 However legitimate, this concern fails to acknowledge the fact that the US theatrical context has been diverging from the global context of cinema for some time, something the pandemic has seemingly accelerated. As foreign markets and box office grow and cinemas reopen after the pandemic – faster than in the United States at the time of writing due to the way the virus is behaving – the relationship between studios and exhibitors is likely to be damaged (and with it, the profitability of Hollywood movies in foreign markets – now accounting for the vast majority of box-office income for Hollywood movies) as most foreign cinema circuits remain without a direct-toconsumer streaming option to boost income losses from a possible shortened window. It is worth throwing a few revealing figures in the mix. In 2019, the international box office accounted for a whopping 63.8 per cent of the entire receipts of the top ten grossing movies of the year, including nearly 70 per cent for the biggest boxoffice film of all time, Avengers: Endgame. That is to say that while Marvel’s $858 million (with an ‘m’) domestic box office in the United States and Canada was hugely impressive, its colossal $1.9 billion (with a ‘b’) international performance was nothing short of historic. In case those figures are not convincing enough, the following ten best-grossing movies of the year had an even greater share of international receipts, a staggering 80 per cent to be exact. It is hardly surprising then that international exhibitors feel that undermining in any way this very lucrative and functional relationship would be an extremely concerning development. This position is outlined explicitly in the following statement by a representative for Germany’s HDF Kino association of exhibitors – an organization covering 80 per cent of Germany’s cinemas: ‘Cinema is a place for storytelling. This is not possible without appropriate film content. If the partners of the German cinemas rely on short-term motivated postponement and evasion tactics, they Tom Brueggemann's short article illustrates well the various theatrical window arrangements by studio: Brueggemann, 2021.

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are not only playing with the future of theaters, but also with the diversity and independence of our entire industry’ (Grater, 2020a). That sentiment was echoed by Phil Clapp, the Head of the UK Cinema Association, who emphasizes the growing gulf between the US/domestic situation and the rest of the world: ‘While there may be continued issues in parts of the U.S. with the reopening of cinemas, in other markets around the world, including the UK, cinemas are open and ready both for new films and the audiences that want to watch them.’ Or, if you prefer the more succinct version as expressed by an unnamed cinema operator in the UK: ‘It’s a f*uck you to exhibitors’ (Grater, 2020b). The latter, colourful statement was expressed about Disney’s decision to move Mulan to PVOD, the other main event of summer 2020. Mulan was one of Disney’s key movies releases for 2020. The studio’s decision to take it to its Disney+ streaming platform (as premium PVOD, costing anyone – including existing Disney+ subscribers – $29 to watch the movie) seemed like another proverbial ‘kick in the teeth’ for exhibitors. To shorten the window in favour of streaming may not be intended as a ‘power grab’ by studios wishing to bypass cinemas to keep all income from their product and gather precious data on their customers. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that its adoption may torpedo relationships and business models that have been crucial to the success of Hollywood movies in the past (and that are still healthy, at least internationally). At the most fundamental philosophical and industrial levels, the foray into the streaming world is beginning to undermine the business of cinema, and with it cinema culture at large. This is a crucial aspect of the current crisis but also of crises in all industry sectors. The question as to whether to focus on what works or experiment (innovate, disrupt, your choice) with the new is butter to the bread of crisis management and resolution: The many proponents of innovation have done an effective job of making the case for innovation and also of defining associated issues and bringing to light practices and methods. This focus is laudable, but ironically it has also produced, through its very success, a kind of cult around innovation, its methods, and its most successful practitioners. As a result, innovation has become the default mode for people in almost any situation where some change or improvement might be desirable. Innovation is now so fervently favored that it almost cannot be questioned. (Khan & Joseph, 2013)

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The combination of public companies and a cult-like approach to innovation have paradoxically narrowed the playpen for film studios. The studios’ pivot to streaming as central to their activities has requested huge injections of cash, technology and time/people-power that have left little or no room for manoeuvre for some time to come. The understandable desire to engage in streaming activities to monetize their fan base via a mix of library materials and original new programming (films, shows, etc.) is in fact burning the candle at both ends in ways not entirely healthy or, crucially, predictable. While this may provide the holy grail of a constant, predictable revenue stream on which to build future success and meet the demands of shareholders – it also commits human and financial resources to a particular business model and strategy that severely constrains flexibility when opportunity (or disaster) may strike again. And, as history’s favourite kind of Twain-rhyming shows, they both will, unpredictably so. To imagine that Disney, Universal or Warner Bros. could return to the flexibility that the older model afforded them is, of course, naive. Ownership of some of the largest studios by telecommunication companies and/or electronic companies (e.g. Universal, Warner and Sony) has pointed in the direction of the convergence of company interests towards online, streaming and subscription services, where the greatest riches are promised. The success of Netflix and the move into this same space by Disney, by far the largest studios at this time, have proven too powerful a gravitational pull to escape. Perhaps most importantly, the narrowing options for studios in a postpandemic, post-move to the streaming world is going to be in an institutional and ‘philosophical’ sense. As both industry professionals and academic scholars have pointed out, players like Netflix, Amazon and Apple+ ‘follow a different institutional logic and consequently use a different set of organizing practices and decision criteria when developing film projects and making distribution decisions’ (Hadida et al., 2021: 214). The precise implications of what these ‘different set of practices and decisionmaking criteria’ will mean for filmmakers and audiences alike is going to be a central question for the art and business of film moving forward. Once again, the comparison with the 1918–20 Spanish Flu comes in handy, this time in highlighting the shifting terrain for studios and exhibitors alike. The US economy in the 1920s was dominated by manufacturing. Henry Ford’s moving assembly line for his motor company, inaugurated in 1913, had quite literally paved the way for other industries to adopt a similar approach,

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and that included the movie industry. Although movies were not as easily standardized as automobile production, Ford’s reliance on a clear division of labour and a continuous flow of well-organized ‘parts’ that could be arranged interchangeably according to production needs, became guiding principles for the reorganization of the film industry. Film departments were created along the same principles: specialized labour could be applied to various projects interchangeably as all employees were hired by and under the direct control of studios. A steady stream of film production ensured continuity and optimization of resources. Manufacturing dominated an industry world where companies, small and large, were owned and run by families. Ford, like Edison before him (the two were good friends and Ford often mentioned Edison as one of his inspirational figures), kept a firm control over the company that bore his family name. Similarly, virtually all studios, large and small, were born out of and controlled by families. The Big Five in the 1920s were the apex of family-run Hollywood: Adolph Zukor and Jesse Lasky ran the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation (which would eventually become Paramount). Marcus Loew, Samuel Goldwyn and Louis B. Meyer gave their family names to MGM. William Fox was the initiator of the Fox Film Corporation, which would eventually become Fox Studios. The name of Warner Bros. Pictures literally mirrored that of its owners, brothers Albert, Harry, Jack and Sam Warner, and while the main power behind RKO was the Radio Corporation of America, it only became a fully-fledged movie studio with the acquisition of a family-owned vaudeville circuit, the Keith–Albee–Orpheum circuit. These were private companies, family-run (or with very strong central control by a handful of powerful individuals, as in the case of United Artists, Columbia, Universal and, of course, Disney). This made them ideally placed to take advantage of new opportunities by adopting a long-term view of investment, based on financial support from Wall Street, modern division of labour, assembly-line style of production and, most significantly, growing demand for their products. Fast forward 100 years. All studios are public companies and/or part of larger such companies. Quarterly calls with shareholders dictate choice and direction more than any other primary concern. It is not a matter of taste or inclination; it is simply a necessity they cannot escape as public companies. Indeed, the much-publicized and fretted-over decision of Disney’s release of Mulan as PVOD functions more as a ‘nod and a wink’ to the stock market than as a love

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poem to home viewers and streaming. It was a way – not entirely unwise – to soothe jittery feelings amongst shareholders as they witnessed billions of dollars of their Disney stock evaporate as another suddenly weak flank in this crisis opened for the studio as Disney’s theme park operations haemorrhaged visitors and income. Despite these differences and the severity of the ongoing Covid-19 crisis, the outcome is likely to be just as it was for the 1918 pandemic, namely an acceleration of existing trends that emerged pre-pandemic rather than the ‘sudden death’ of theatrical exhibition or the emergence of something new and revolutionary. The seeds of change are already here, visible and evident. Greater pressure on the size of the theatrical window (e.g. a different approach able to respond to each film according to its theatrical appeal), the diversification of the theatrical offer (e.g. esports, live events, etc.) and a move to greater luxury cinemas for audiences, though at premium prices (e.g. affordable by a smaller share of the population) are significant developments with regards to the future of theatrical exhibition. In this sense, Mulan and Trolls World Tour are examples of the pressures on the theatrical window; the growth of larger entertainment complexes (see, for instance, the emergence of the ‘cultureplex’ in Korea) harks back to the very birth of film when it was part of larger fairground attractions; the appeal of luxury cinema chains like Alamo – featuring increasingly sophisticated seating, audio and visual technologies as well as speciality food and drink – are evidence of what some cinema chains will offer to audiences, so long as the latter are prepared to pay premium ticket prices. Arguably though, the most significant of the changes that have gathered momentum thanks to the strong winds created by the pandemic is the growth in importance and size of the international theatrical box office. The 1918 pandemic created the perfect storm for Hollywood to become the centre of the film world. A century later, the 2020 pandemic looks set to end the Hollywood century and usher in a time where the international market is the dominant force. These changes inevitably bring challenges that are already relatively clear to identify. The reduction of seating in cinemas, not to mention the closure of so many of them during the lockdown of the pandemic, translates into fewer cinemas and screens moving forwards. This is something that analysts had seen coming for some time, and another one of the factors the pandemic has seemingly accelerated:

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To many industry watchers, the U.S. theatrical industry was poised for a correction before the pandemic as the market became oversaturated in the 1990s when cheap credit fueled a construction boom and the advent of megaplexes, theaters that had sometimes more than 20 screens in one location. The number of theaters has fallen to about 5,500 last year from 7,200 in 1996, according to the National Association of Theatre Owners. And the pandemic will close more, MoffettNathanson predicts. The research firm said that while box-office attendance has fallen from its peak levels in the early 2000s, ‘the number of U.S. [movie] screens has held steady for more than a decade’. (Watson, 2020)

The gulf that exists in the United States between the viability of major chains and that of smaller independents is likely to grow accordingly. The former will still be able to make money from theatrical ticket sales (and possibly their own streaming services like AMC in the deal with Universal), the latter will rely increasingly on concessions. While independent cinema owners feel the pressure – ‘I am really a concessionaire – I make my money on popcorn, not on the movie’ (Kornelis, 2019) is a recurring lament – larger chains believe they can remain viable even at 25 per cent capacity: Currently, AMC Theatres has resumed operations at more than 130 of its overseas sites. The circuit is expecting to have all its international theaters and approximately two-thirds of U.S. locations open by the end of August. As to whether a domestic reopening effort is economically viable under current conditions in the domestic market, AMC believes it is better to reopen as long as locations can operate at 25 percent of pre-Covid attendance volumes. At that rate, the domestic circuit could become cash positive and contribute to overhead and fixed costs such as rent payments. ‘We are very close to theaters reopening soon in the United States’ (CEO Aron in a recent statement to investors). (Loria, 2020)

This situation is in effect creating a two-tier ecosystem for theatrical exhibition, one domestic, the other international. 1. Tier 1, Domestic (United States and Canada): this ecosystem revolves around streaming over theatrical, while the latter remain financially viable and relevant, particularly for larger chains able to capitalize on their own distribution/streaming services. New agreements between cinemas and studios are beginning to redraw the map in terms of shorter windows and greater access to ‘direct-to-consumer’ distribution. Smaller, independent operators are going to be increasingly reliant on concessions

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and ancillary income to remain afloat. Cinema ticket prices will continue to rise to match the ameliorations to cinemas in terms of seating and audio-visual experiences to separate them from home offerings (harking back to cinema’s reaction to the rise of TV in the 1950s). As prices rise, this premium offer is increasingly becoming the domain of wealthier audiences, further narrowing the demand for innovation on the creative side. In this environment, ‘event movies’ will be the norm. Crucially, studio investment will continue to move towards medium-term popular bets (streaming requires a considerable upfront investment, and significant profits are not expected for several years, even for the best performers), away from the short-term hit-and-miss approach of the past. As their investment in streaming services increases, the ability of major studios to differentiate and experiment – both creatively and commercially – will shrink, not expand, as financial and human resources are increasingly tied to their streaming strategies rather than the more traditional theatrical model. In short, filmmaking in Hollywood is firmly moving towards completing its shift from a service model (studios servicing exhibitors) to a manufacturing model (studios servicing their customers directly). This is vertical integration by means of internet wires rather than bricks-and-mortar cinemas. 2. Tier 2, International (rest of the world): this ecosystem will function differently from Tier 1 and continue its growth based on the theatrical model, albeit with a presence of streaming in the mix. Strong theatrical sales, both in terms of Hollywood movies but also, increasingly, local films will continue to fuel the growth of the international market for theatrical exhibition. Already, even as the pandemic continues to limit capacity and hinder cinema-going, foreign markets are growing significantly. Studios can now build their distribution and release models based on the knowledge that box office in lucrative markets such as China and Europe (and the opening up of other potentially lucrative markets in areas like Saudi Arabia and Nigeria) can provide a much-needed bloodline to theatrical exhibition and considerable income for their movies. This is particularly important for their big, costly ‘event movies’ that still need cinema’s box office as a source of direct income and as a means to make those films more valuable for their streaming offer. However, growth in the international domain does not necessarily favour Hollywood movies forever. It is becoming increasingly evident that foreign

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production is eroding some of Hollywood’s past dominance. Korea and China have produced two remarkably successful box-office hits (Peninsula and The Eight Hundreds, respectively) despite the pandemic and at a time when Hollywood evidently cannot do so as yet.6 Crucially, unlike the situation in the US, foreign operators are not going to be tied down to large long-term commitments to and investment in streaming platforms. It remains to be seen whether the flexibility and agility to respond to changes and new challenges that this will afford them has greater currency value than the flow (stream!) of monthly subscription fees that successful streaming operations can offer. Ultimately then, the future of theatrical exhibition looks to be already here. It is increasingly rhyming with the past, with a time just prior to the 1918 pandemic when several international film cultures and players vied for attention, and Hollywood was but one of those players, just not the dominant one.

It’s a studio, Jim, but not as we know it Like all major crises, the 2020 pandemic and its effects leave us with tantalizing cliffhangers, some to be addressed in future episodes, others to be left hanging indefinitely, like a suddenly cancelled TV series. One above all is worth mentioning as it concerns the undisputed masters of the film universe over the past 100 years: Hollywood studios. During this time of dominance, studios have evolved into several different entities, often following different patterns and business models. Disney relies very heavily on income from theme parks and advertising on network TV but remains ‘independent’ of further business concerns outside the entertainment sphere. Universal is similar in many ways, but it is owned by Comcast; that is to say, it is servicing a telecommunications company. Sony is a studio that has struggled with its ‘identity’ for some time now – in no small part because it belongs to an electronic giant. Paramount has been the subject of countless takeovers and restructuring, and Fox is now part of the Disney universe. As we have seen in the book, crises and change have been a constant, and the ability to roll with the punches can be arguably defined as the true genius of the Hollywood studio system. But are we correct in still referring to these entities as ‘studios’? Just as we were completing the book in late 2021, Sony/Marvel’s Spiderman: No Way Home finally provided the kind of jolt to the domestic box office that most films had failed to deliver.

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This is not an issue of terminology alone. The identification that comes with names is a powerful way to broadcast to the world, from the general public to investors, literally and metaphorically, the nature of the business these companies are involved in and the decision-making processes informing them. The difficulty in placing a definitive term on key players like Netflix and Amazon (are they streamers/studios/internet utilities?) refers to their culture and business model and how these impact on their creative and commercial choices. Using the word ‘studio’ to describe all these very diverse companies seems somehow to oversimplify the reality of the present moment. Perhaps it was not film but studios that really died in the post-Second World War period, and we are still hearing the echo of that ‘Big Bang’. With perfect historical timing, the very decision that led to the so-called ‘end of the studio era’, the anti-trust Paramount Decree of 1948 (decrees is more correct as it is the culmination of a series of such rulings) was revisited by the US Department of Justice and reversed, right in the middle of the pandemic. History, it would seem, has a great sense of irony in its rhyming.

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Movie people hate endings. We usually have the film ripped from our hands, at the very last minute, and very much against our will. When a picture cut is finished, it is supposed to be ‘locked’, but editors and directors prefer the open-ended term ‘latched’. Directors such as Stanley Kubrick were notorious for making picture cuts in projection booths. Reflecting on his experience as editor and sound designer on Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002), Ben Burtt said ‘films are not released, they escape’ (Bresolin, 2002). More and more, movies are re-cut, re-mastered, re-imagined and re-made. Given Hollywood’s pathological avoidance of endings, how can this Hollywood story end? During the writing of this book, Hollywood’s crises didn’t just continue, they piled up. Traditional movie theatres are threatened. Movies are streamed more than shared. Technologies and viruses are making movie-going a one-on-one experience, as it was in the old nickelodeon days before movies became ‘The Movies’. Looking back on cinema’s earlier crises, the hero of nearly every crisis was the audience. Without an audience, strangers in a theatre, does cinema exist? The tastes and expectations of audiences, which are constantly changing, drive Hollywood. Repeatedly, audiences have pointed the way, dragging Hollywood – kicking and screaming – out of the darkness. No one can blame Hollywood for sometimes taking the easy way out. In a 1969 New Yorker article, Pauline Kael wrote that the film business is trying hard to find ‘the secret of someone else’s success’ (Kael, 1969). Kael was catty but insightful. Filmmaking, and storytelling, is hard. It must be. Struggle is needed in stories, and struggle is needed to create stories. Luckily, Hollywood has a long history of struggles to pull inspiration from. Life will get easier for Hollywood only when Development Hell freezes over. Filmmakers are always looking for the secret to success. Like ‘New Coke’, Hollywood has tinkered with formulas, even calling itself ‘New Hollywood’. But just as the Coca-Cola Company discovered, the best formula is the original one. And Hollywood’s was never a secret. It is simply: make good movies.

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Just over a century old, cinema is still young enough to suffer an identity crisis. Is it an art? Is it an industry? How could it possibly be both? As my co-author once pointed out, if Michelangelo could handle the tension between art and money, why can’t we? Like many others, I was drawn to a career in film because of its collaborative nature. Making a movie truly takes a village. It is the most collaborative of art forms (or industries, who can decide?). Movie-making depends on connections: writer and camera, studio and director, director and actors, sound and picture, art and industry, movie and audience. To William Goldman’s summation, ‘Nobody knows anything’, we could add the corollary ‘Everybody knows something’. Stories of all types, and especially filmed ones, are about seeing other perspectives. Cinema, indeed art, is about empathy. At the beginning of this book, we suggested considering Hollywood as a character, to better understand how it has survived and ‘who’ it has turned out to be. We implied it was a grand, impressive character, someone like James Bond, T. E. Lawrence or Odysseus. To be honest, Hollywood might be more like Mr Magoo. A well-meaning soul blindly navigating a treacherous world, surviving on luck and goodwill. And love. Everyone loves Mr Magoo. And he never dies. Both things can be said of Hollywood. There will be no end to Hollywood if people are passionate about joining the business, and audiences are passionate about seeing what they create. As someone who works in the business, I am constitutionally unable to arrive at an ending. So, I leave that task to the more academic author, better trained to reach conclusions.

A more academic conclusion Hollywood’s like Egypt (. . .) Full of crumbled pyramids. It’ll never come back. It’ll just keep on crumbling until finally the wind blows the last studio prop across the sands... There might have been good movies if there had been no movie industry. Hollywood might have become the center of a new human expression if it hadn’t been grabbed by a little group of book-keepers and turned into a junk industry. (David O. Selznick, speaking in 1951; qtd Cunningham, 2000: 187)

Famed producer Selznick’s view of Hollywood cinema as inexorably moving towards oblivion is both dramatic and evocative – as one would expect from a

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storyteller of his stature. It is also scientifically apt in that it pretty much adheres to the notion of entropy as the dominant force in our lives, shaping them with unrelenting resolve: The second law of thermodynamics means hot things always cool unless you do something to stop them. It expresses a fundamental and simple truth about the universe: that disorder, characterised as a quantity known as entropy, always increases. (Webb, 2020)

The key part of the quote above lies in the caveat ‘unless you do something to stop them’. In other words, while the constant move towards ‘the end’ cannot be reversed, it can be slowed down. Hollywood and cinema at large will eventually die – by evolving into something altogether different or simply disappearing – but they have both been putting on an impressive show of force in resisting entropy. To use the analogy in the quote above, despite natural decline the film industry remains ‘hot’. The most impressive feature of this entropy-resisting effort lies in cinema’s Darwinian ability – or is a Mr Magoo’s impression? – to morph into something else, adapting to the environment and its inherent dangers. It developed this shape-shifting ability early on in its life and perfected it across the decades.

Film is very capable of resisting entropy . . . (yes, there is a ‘but’ eventually in this chapter) Most of the crises we looked at, and the list is in no way exhaustive, can be categorized roughly into four major groupings: 1. societal, 2. legal (mostly comprising of crises that originated outside the film industry), 3. technological and 4. analytical (the latter two crises mainly started within the film and/or entertainment). All of them resonated throughout the industry and its financial stability, creative output and exhibition strategies. The resulting responses impacted on the most crucial relationship between films and their audiences. Put differently, there is no real crisis when it comes to movies as an art form and business that does not end up influencing the love affair between audiences and film, however we wish to define the latter. The ability to change and adapt is obviously necessary in any industry, not just film. One of the key strategies that has made change not simply a necessary evil but also an effective tool to inform present and future strategies specifically in the film industry is that the latter has often chosen to change to remain the same.

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As the efforts of the Edison-led MPPC to impose an oligopolistic stronghold on film production and distribution at the beginning of the 1900s floundered, a different version of the same concept emerged that ultimately led to the creation of film studios and Hollywood. As sound appeared to end silent cinema’s visual vocabulary, technology and filmmaking practices evolved remarkably quickly to meet the challenge of ensuring continuity and avoiding unnecessary and lengthy disruption in the ranks. As the 1960s brought on a wave of societal disquiet and change, Hollywood responded by handing over the keys temporarily to a bunch of young talented filmmakers, all the while reading itself to regain control as soon as the choppy waters calmed down. As television first and video recorders later seemingly threatened the core requirement of interacting with film – namely to go to the cinema and purchase a ticket to see one – by bringing movies into the homes at users’ convenience, the industry reacted by making friends with both and extracting every ounce of financial sap it could (once the customary attempts at litigation had been exhausted, naturally), all the while retaining cinema-going as the true north of the relationship. The current situation with regards to streaming is but a continuation of that process: studios, filmmakers and exhibitors are all locked into a complicated web of financial, creative and cultural tug of war. Yet, even the most ardent supporter of streaming acknowledges the central importance of the theatrical experience in elevating a movie from just another two hours entertainment product to a culturally relevant event capable of generating both audience following and significant financially returns, thus returning to the film and audience love affair consummated in the darkness of the movie theatre as, essentially, irreplaceable. As well as this remarkable ability to implement effective change, the film industry has also shown considerable resilience in navigating countless legal battles, often getting in front of potentially lethal deliberations. When it seemingly lost – particularly when bowing to Supreme Court decisions – it quickly managed to reconfigure itself and make friends of enemies and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat (Jaws pun intended, by the way). Three times in its history film fought and lost Supreme Court battles that could have easily spelt the end. When the US Congress passed theSherman Anti-Trust Act in 1890 – named after Ohio Congressman John Sherman – it could never have imagined it would become a lethal threat to what Eadweard

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Muybridge’s Horse in Motion had promised in 1887 and that Edison and the Lumiere Brothers would deliver shortly thereafter.1 Most famously perhaps, in 1948 the Supreme Court delivered what remains the best known of its blows to the film industry under the rather unwieldy heading: UNITED STATES v. PARAMOUNT PICTURES, Inc., et al. LOEW’S Inc., et al. v. UNITED STATES. PARAMOUNT PICTURES, Inc., et al. v. SAME. COLUMBIA PICTURES CORPORATION et al. v. SAME. UNITED ARTISTS CORPORATION v. SAME. UNIVERSAL PICTURES COMPANY, Inc., et al. v. SAME. AMERICAN THEATRES ASS’N, Inc., et al. v. UNITED STATES et al. ALLRED et al. v. SAME.2

What quickly became more simply known as the Paramount Decree had been ten years in the making: the US Department of Justice first filed it in 1938. It shook the industry to its core, in what constitutional historians marked as a move that ‘helped to end the Hollywood studio system and fuel a young television industry in the late 1940s’ (Bomboy, 2022). Only, of course, it did not. Once more, Hollywood re-centred and organized, eventually turning television into a rich vein of financial and creative assets, later returning to a different version of vertical integration. For good measure, the Paramount Decree is now legal history too, as the Supreme Court terminated it in 2021.3 The Supreme Justices were at it again in what could be argued may be the least celebrated but potentially the most significant and consequential legal threat the Court posed to film when in 1984 it deliberated on a case known as Sony Corp. of Am. v. Universal City Studios, Inc., Universal Studios (together with The Way Disney Studios) filed a suit in which they claimed the Sony Corporation was in effect infringing the copyright of their films and television shows by ‘manufacturing and selling Betamax home videotape recorders to home viewers’ (Sony Corp vs Universal Studios, 1984). The Supreme Court decided in favour of Sony and while Universal and Disney – as well as the other major studios – might have initially seen this as T h e Sherman Act was the first significant anti-trust law passed by the US Congress. It came to define the way industrial ownership, particularly around concentration of power into too few hands, was regulated and excessive power curbed. For more on the original Sherman Act document, see https:// www​.archives​.gov​/milestone​-documents​/sherman​-anti​-trust​-act (accessed 24 January 2022). 2 You can read the full document online: https://www​.law​.cornell​.edu​/supremecourt​/text​/334​/131 (accessed 25 May 2021). 3 You can read the full document online: https://www​.justice​.gov​/atr​/paramount​-decree​-review (accessed 5 June 2020). 1

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a serious setback, they eventually realized that it was a blessing in disguise as it opened up the floodgate to the emergence of the home video market that would sustain the industry through the ensuing three decades – until the emergence of streaming – through profits arising from the sales of home video tapes, DVDs and a plethora of other ancillary materials. In other words, whether rolling with the punches like Rocky Balboa or shapeshifting like a character worthy of Harry Potter, film has demonstrated time and again that it can adapt and transform so that it does not really need to change too drastically. It is film’s way – to return to thermodynamics – to stave off the cooling-off effect and remain hot.

. . . but (and here it is, as promised) disorder eventually always wins off The second half of the definition of entropy refers to a truth even something as apt at survival as film must obey, namely that disorder is the natural state of things and that it always increases. Put differently, if it feels as though crises are becoming increasingly more complex and difficult to untangle, it is simply because this is indeed the case. It could be easily argued that disorder in the business and art of making movies is now arguably at a level never experienced before. From a relatively straightforward one-dimensional art form with film at its centre – creatives making movies for audiences to see and experience in a movie theatre – we have now moved to an environment where the very notion of what the film universe is seems to change every few years. From a universe of stars at MGM in the 1930s and 1940s, we are now in the presence of a Marvel Superhero Universe, Lucasfilm’s Star Wars Universe and other studios’ own versions, like Universal’s now defunct Monsters Universe. I am not being clever with words here – a magic trick that still eludes me in spite of countless attempts – anything from financing to contracts, from production practices to the actual tools filmmakers use, before we even get to the myriad of means (platforms, in common parlance) to access movies away from traditional cinemas have become increasingly large and complex, thus contributing to disorder increasing. When things reach this level of complexity, it becomes extremely difficult to determine what kind of crisis one faces. Indeed, perhaps the most important lessons that we have learned from looking at past crises in this book is that the

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key to safeguarding film is to develop the ability to query data and evidence effectively to identify clearly the crisis at hand (and, indeed, if there is one or merely the perception of one). Both narratives of the crisis in the 1960s (Chapter 5) and the one surrounding the collapse of theatrical audience numbers after the introduction of the internet/ streaming in the early 2000s (Chapters 6 and 7) show the industry adopted an altogether unreliable narrator worthy of a Henry James’ novel. This translated into both crises being understood and told using shaky and often misleading data. Since the stories we tell ourselves are crucial to our ability to address and survive any kind of crisis, the problem with that approach is fully exposed for everyone to see. For film, one significant factor resides in searching for and analysing data in a frame of reference that is too narrow. That is to say, whenever a problem arises or a crisis hits, the tendency is to look for a (quick) answer from within the film and TV industry/entertainment industry frame. While this may seem a perfectly logical approach, it overlooks the fact that most of the major crises to have hit film had nothing to do directly with it when they started, as they emerged out of societal (financial, legal and/or cultural) challenges. The growth of TV in the 1950s had everything to do with the rise of suburban living as the preferred location for the middle classes. Cinemas relied heavily on downtown areas and were caught fundamentally unprepared for the massive change in people’s habits. Greater intelligence on the purchasing power of families of soldiers returning from the war that fuelled the rise in demand for homes outside downtown areas would have alerted studios and exhibitors alike to the need to provide cinemas in those neighbourhoods. Instead, the delay in doing so provided television with the head start it needed to establish itself firmly as the new popular means to access entertainment, triggering the crisis we looked at in Chapter 4. Another example concerns the various crises triggered by legal challenges, particularly those that made it all the way through the legal system and reached the Supreme Court. As we discussed in Chapter 2, these challenges emerged out of anti-trust legislation that was developed originally in response to an increasing tendency to concentrate power into very few, if not a single pair of hands in any industry sector. The first time the US government deployed the Sherman Act – in 1892 – it was to kerb the power of the American Sugar Company that held something approaching a total monopoly of the sugar market (98 per cent of the market, to be precise). In other words, so long as those working in film mostly concern themselves with film and its most closely related fields, they will likely: (a) see the big wave

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approaching too late and (b) find it hard to develop a comprehensive response to escape its reach and devastation. It is perfectly understandable that the true north in the film industry’s own compass is that crucial film–audience relationship. However, as challenging it may be in terms of both time and resources, film professionals need to monitor that compass around all its cardinal points, not just its true north. Most crises and the way they are narrated are far more readily understood when placed into a wider framework of reference. Data analysis in particular is prone to being abused and manipulated into supporting whatever seductive new ‘trend’ appears on the horizon. The famed British economist Robert Coase used to remind his students that: ‘if you torture data long enough, it will confess’ – a lesson that anyone trying to make sense of new crises should tattoo to their forehead (well, that’s a bit extreme, a bumper sticker will do). There is plenty of evidence to suggest that this happens way too often, and increasingly so as things become more complex. The present situation with regards to streaming and the role of film proves once again that while short, sharp headlines make good copy and attract viewers (‘film is dead!’, ‘there is a new sheriff in town’, etc.) the truth is a lot more complicated and difficult to read than most suggest. William Goldman’s famous edict that in Hollywood, ‘Nobody knows anything’ has provided a convenient escape route when things do not go to plan. But I could not agree more with my esteemed co-author who, speaking out of decades of experience of the industry and its quirks, suggests that the real motto ought to be ‘Everybody must know something’. Putting all those ‘somethings’ together and cross-referencing them with wider trends that look at the wider societal, economic and creative world beyond film and its immediate vicinities remains the best tool to deploy as crises appear or, better still, to detect them as they grow out of the much-dreaded entropy.

Concluding the inconclusion Studios have been better at facing off crises than most people give them credit for. Executives may be guilty of giving countless bad ‘notes’ to filmmakers, instigating reckless business dealings and making atrocious creative decisions, but they are also responsible for many smart, forward-looking, constructive

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and successful decisions that have often provided crucially timed responses to crises. The romantic notion of the artist struggling against the system – fighting ‘the man’ – is a well-rehearsed narrative of crisis. The artist is usually portrayed as the champion of the arts, with the business/executive counterpart playing the antagonist role. As we saw in Chapter 5, the whole industry laid the ground for the emergence of the New Hollywood filmmakers. Without that effort, it is highly likely that those filmmakers would have found the task of breaking through with their movies (or even getting them made in the first place) impossible. Clearly, the rather uncomfortable truth is that neither the artist nor ‘the man’ can escape the perennial struggle between creative drive and financial imperatives. Another way to put it is that they are fighting the same battle, one that does not have sides, and that you can only win truly as a team. While it is true that artists create art, executives make sure that the very large village in which film thrives is protected and maintained and that the people in that village are fed, watered and their ideas nurtured as necessary. The fact that both groups rarely get it right is not always a symptom of dysfunction but often simply a reminder of how difficult it is to produce a successful movie, both artistically and financially. There is much to be said about that village too. It has become bigger than anyone could predict even fifty years ago. Audiences come to visit it from every part of the world, facilitated by increasingly sophisticated means of production, delivery and exhibition. Like all tourists, they bring wealth to the village economy: fifty years ago, 75 per cent of the box office came from the domestic market (United States and Canada). Today that figure is reversed: three-quarters of all box office comes from the ‘international’ markets, with domestic accounting for around 25 per cent. Yet in some ways that huge shift has not yet manifested itself fully as Hollywood retains overall financial control. This should not be seen as unavoidable: one of the crises that we did not have time to look at comprehensively – the catastrophic Spanish flu pandemic of 1918–20 – did not merely kill millions and hinder economies worldwide, it also upended the international hierarchy of production: this is the time Hollywood took full advantage of the disruption and established itself as the dominant centre of film development and production, as its biggest competitors in Europe were still trying to rebuild facilities and source talent after both war and pandemic decimated them.

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It may easily happen again, and we are not completely clear as to what the ultimate long-term outcome of the Covid-19 pandemic will be. Already there are signs that China may be looking inward at its own huge domestic market more than it was expected only a few years ago, with the resulting collapse in Hollywood movies’ profits in that increasingly crucial market. The advance of alternative forms of exhibition – from streaming on TV to mobile apps and more – also continues to develop in ways that are difficult to predict. Crucially, streaming has not yet experienced a major crisis in the way film and television have, and we simply do not know if the very basis on which this new financial and creative ecosystem is founded will survive under duress. This may all sound like a downbeat way to conclude a book on crises: ‘Run for the hills people, because for sure there’ll be another big wave coming!’ Counterintuitively though, the remarkable resilience that the film industry has built – both creatively and financially – through all its crises is one of two key factors that makes us want to close the book on an optimistic, and realistic, note. Creatives have adapted to new means of production and seeing/hearing for well over a century and will continue to do so. Executives have found ways to ensure that the village has running water and electricity by using all the tools at their disposal: mergers, acquisitions and sales – the very thing so many filmmakers, critics and scholars have often indicated as a symptom of an art form in decline – have been the bread and butter of this industry since its inception and the very thing that has ensured it could move with the times. Both groups will stumble and fall, but they will luckily be able to rely on the second key factor to help them up time and again: people across the globe love movies. Theatrical is but the tip of the iceberg and as such will always remain an important bellwether for the state of the industry, but the iceberg has grown bigger over the decades, not smaller, thanks to the seemingly insatiable appetite for movies around the world. Streamers demand content in quantities never witnessed before and this creates opportunities for new voices to break through as well as crucial revenue streams to be accessed. International markets continue to grow – and have considerable headroom – even when perhaps more traditional markets slow down. Being able to nurture and sustain growth in those markets, both creatively and financially, will be key to overcoming future crises. Similarly, investigating new and creative pricing structures – and the corresponding relationship between studios, exhibitors and theatrical windows and how box office is divided amongst them – may be the difference between

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ensuring all audiences can afford to access films in the cinema or the latter becoming the domain of the more affluent strata of society. As you can tell, ultimately the pompous academic of the duo is brought back full circle to the same point that the successful filmmaker made. Cinema has been brought back from the brink time and time again by the seemingly endless love that ties stories told with images and sound, and audiences sitting in the dark looking up at something larger than them and life itself. The latter point is crucial. It is indeed a banal observation to suggest that human beings of all ages, credos and status crave stories. What takes it out of the realm of simple observation and into the world of cinema is that we love those stories to transcend our everyday somehow. That’s where the big screen and the big sound and the darkness and the proximity to strangers – doors to other realities and stories themselves – come into play. We can all access storytelling of the highest quality in other formats, from books to music, from opera to television and beyond. Cinema is part of that continuum of forms of expression that have captivated audiences worldwide and still does so to this day. Long may it continue. And . . . it’s a wrap!

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References Introduction Goldman, W. (2012), Adventures in the Screen Trade, New York: Grand Central Publishing. Seeger, M. and T. Sellnow (2016), Narratives of Crisis, Stanford: Stanford Business Books. Soderbergh, S. (2013), Speech to the San Francisco International Film Festival. Spielberg, S. and G. Lucas (2013), Panel at University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. Sullivan’s Travels (1941), [Film] Dir. Preston Sturges, USA: Paramount Pictures Studios. Weick, K. E. (1988), ‘Enacted Sensemaking in Crisis Situations’, Journal of Management Studies, 25 (4): 305–17.

Chapter 1 Part 1 Avengers: Endgame (2019), [Film] Dir. A. Russo and J. Russo, USA: Marvel/The Walt Disney Studios. Cleopatra (1963), [Film] Dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz, USA: 20th Century Fox. Davidson, A. (2012), ‘How Does the Film Industry Actually Make Money?’, The New York Times, June, Available online: https://www​.nytimes​.com​/2012​/07​/01​/magazine​ /how​-does​-the​-film​-industry​-actually​-make​-money​.html (accessed 7 November 2019). De Vany, A. (2004), Hollywood Economics – How Extreme Uncertainty Shapes the Film Industry, London and New York: Routledge. De Vany, A. and W. D. Walls (1997), ‘The Market for Motion Pictures: Rank, Revenue, and Survival’, Economic Inquiry, 35 (4): 783–97. Early Motion Picture Productions (n.d.), Available online: https://www​.loc​.gov​/ collections​/edison​-company​-motion​-pictures​-and​-sound​-recordings​/articles​-and​ -essays​/history​-of​-edison​-motion​-pictures​/early​-motion​-picture​-productions/ (accessed 19 January 2021). Eliashberg, J. and A. Elberse (2006), ‘The Motion Picture Industry: Critical Issues in Practice, Current Research, and New Research Directions’, Marketing Science, 25 (6): 638–61.

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Heaven’s Gate (1980), [Film] Dir. Michael Cimino, USA: United Artists. Ishtar (1987), [Film] Dir. Elaine May, USA: Columbia Pictures. John Carter (2012), [Film] Dir. Andrew Stanton, USA: The Walt Disney Studios. Katsarova, I. (2014), An Overview of Europe’s Film Industry, Available online: https://www​.europarl​.europa​.eu​/RegData​/etudes​/BRIE​/2014​/545705​/EPRS​ _BRI(2014)545705​_REV1​_EN​​.pdf (accessed 19 August 2020). MPA (n.d.), Available online: https://www​.motionpictures​.org​/research​-policy/ (accessed 20 April 2021). ‘North American Industry Classification System’, (n.d.) Available online: https://www​ .census​.gov​/naics (accessed 1 August 2021). ‘North American Industry Classification System – NAICS Definition’, Available online: https://www​.census​.gov​/naics/​?input​=5121​&year​=2017​&details​=5121 (accessed 2 August 2021). Star Wars (1977), [Film] Dir. George Lucas, USA: 20th Century Fox.

Part 2 Goldman, W. (2012), Adventures in the Screen Trade, New York: Grand Central Publishing. Jones, C. (1999), Chuck Amuck, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Malkin, M. (2019), ‘Steven Spielberg Takes Veiled Shot at Streamers, Urges Filmmakers to Make Movies for Theaters’, Variety, February. Murphy, A. D. (1984), Variety. Sullivan’s Travels (1941), [Film] Dir. Preston Sturges, USA: Paramount Pictures Studios.

Chapter 2 Allen, D. W. (1991), ‘Homesteading and Property Rights; Or, “How the West Was Really Won”’, The Journal of Law & Economics, 34 (1): 1–23. Boyer, P. S., C. E. Clark, K. Halttunen, J. F. Kett and N. Salisbury, eds. (2015), The Enduring Vision: A History of the American People, Boston: Wadsworth Publishing. Butsch, R. (2000), The Making of American Audiences: From Stage to Television, 1750–1990, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Early Motion Picture Productions (n.d.), Available online: https://www​.loc​.gov​/ collections​/edison​-company​-motion​-pictures​-and​-sound​-recordings​/articles​-and​ -essays​/history​-of​-edison​-motion​-pictures​/early​-motion​-picture​-productions/ (accessed 20 February 2022). Erish, A. A., (2013), Col. William N. Selig, the Man Who Invented Hollywood, University of Texas Press.

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Izod, J. (1988), Hollywood and the Box Office: 1895–1986, Basingstoke: Macmillan Press. Musser, C. and C. Nelson (1991), High-Class Moving Pictures: Lyman H. Howe and the Forgotten Era of Traveling Exhibition, 1880–1920, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Sopocy, M. and T. A. Edison (1989), ‘The Edison-Biograph Patent Litigation of 1901– 1907’, Film History, 3 (1): 11–27. Staiger, J. (1984), ‘Combination and Litigation: Structures of U.S. Film Distribution, 1896–1917’, Cinema Journal, 23 (2): 41–72. Surdham, D. G. (2015), Century of the Leisured Masses: Entertainment and the Transformation of Twentieth-Century America, New York: Oxford University Press. The Great Train Robbery (1903), [Film] Dir. Edwin S. Porter, USA: Edison Manufacturing Company. The Motion Picture Story Magazine, August 1912–January 1913: 158, Available online: https://ia802905​.us​.archive​.org​/16​/items​/mot​ionp​ictu​rest​o04moti​/mot​ionp​ictu​rest​ o04moti​.pdf (accessed 27 April 2020). Thomas, J. (1971), ‘The Decay of the Motion Picture Patents Company’, Cinema Journal, 10 (2): 34–40.

Chapter 3 Abel, R. and R. R. Altman (2001), The Sounds of Early Cinema, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Altman, R. (2004), Silent Film Sound, New York: Columbia University Press. Altman, R. (2012), ‘Four and a Half Film Fallacies’, In The Sound Studies Reader, edited by J. Sterne, 36, New York: Routledge. Balio, T. (1985), The American Film Industry, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Blue, C. (2014), ‘Catastrophic Listening’, Sounding Out, Soundstudiesblog​.com​. Bresson, R. (2016), Notes on the Cinematograph, New York: Review of Books. Brownlow, K. (1970), The Parade’s Gone By, Berkeley: University of California Press. Brownlow, K. (2004), Napoleon, London: British Film Institute. Bryson, B. (2013), One Summer, New York: Anchor. Clair, R. (1985), ‘The Art of Sound’, In Film Sound, edited by E. Weis and J. Belton, 92–5, New York: Columbia University Press. Crafton, D. (1999), The Talkies, Berkeley: University of California Press. Eisenstein, S. M., V. I. Pudovkin and G. V. Alexandrov (2006), ‘Statement on Sound’, In V. Pudovkin, Selected Essays, 139–42, London: Seagull Books. Eliot, M. (1994), Walt Disney, New York: HarperCollins. Flatley, G. (1977), ‘The Sound That Shook Hollywood’, New York Times, 25 September. Gabler, N. (2007), Walt Disney, New York: Vintage.

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Chapter 4 All That Heaven Allows (1955), [Film] Dir. Douglas Sirk, Universal-International Pictures. Anderson, C. (2013), Hollywood TV, Austin: University of Texas Press.

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Chapter 6 Atkinson, C. (2016), ‘Millennials are Killing the Movie Business’, The New York Post, April, Available online: https://nypost​.com​/2016​/04​/15​/millennials​-are​-killing​-the​ -movie​-business/ (accessed 19 May 2019). Busch, A. and A. D’Alessandro (2017), ‘Disney Distrib Boss Dave Hollis On Social Media’s Impact On Moviegoing’, Deadline, March, Available online: http://www​ .deadline​.com​/2017​/03​/dave​-hollis​-disney​-cinemacon​-industry​-trends​-social​-media​ -1202053837/ (accessed 1 April 2021). Coupland, D. (2010), ‘A Dictionary of the Near Future’, The New York Times, 13 September: A31. Digital Cinema Media (2015), We’re the Millennials – Introducing 16–34 Cinemagoers, Available online: www​.dcm​.co​.uk​/uploads​/documents​/DCM​-one​_pager​-Were​_the​ _millennials​.pdf (accessed 20 October 2021). Dimock, M. (2019), Defining Generations: Where Millennials End and Generation Z Begins, Available online: https://www​.pewresearch​.org​/fact​-tank​/2019​/01​/17​/where​ -millennials​-end​-and​-generation​-z​-begins/ (accessed 5 June 2022). Eliashberg, J., A. Elberse and M. A. A. M. Leenders (2006). ‘The Motion Picture Industry: Critical Issues in Practice, Current Research, and New Research Directions’, Marketing Science, 25 (6): 638–61. Fithian, J. (2017), ‘Comments’, Available online: https://www​.natoonline​.org​/wp​ -content​/uploads​/2017​/03​/Fithian​-CinemaCon​-Speech​-2017​.pdf (accessed 1 February 2021). Lang, B. and J. Rainey (2016), ‘Box Office Meltdown: Hollywood Races to Win Back Summer Crowds’, Variety, July, Available online: https://variety​.com​/2016​/film​/ features​/box​-office​-decline​-summer​-blockbusters​-the​-bfg​-1201822322/ (accessed 5 June 2019). McGahan, A. M. (2004), ‘How Industries Change’, Harvard Business Review, October, Available online: https://hbr​.org​/2004​/10​/how​-industries​-change (accessed 15 June 2021). Media and Entertainment Spotlight – The Media and Entertainment Industry in the United States (2017), Available online: www​.selectusa​.gov​/media​-entertainment​ -industry​-united​-states (accessed 1 July 2019). Miller, J. (2016), ‘2016 Is on Track to Be Hollywood’s Worst Year for Ticket Sales in a Century’, Vanity Fair, June, Available online: https://www​.vanityfair​.com​/hollywood​

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Chapter 7 Anderson, C. (2008), The Long Thing Tail – Why the Future of Business is Selling More of Less, New York: Hyperion Books. Anderson, C. (2014), ‘The Long Tail’, Wired, October, Available online: https://www​ .wired​.com​/2004​/10​/tail/ (accessed 5 June 2020). Banerjee, A. V. and E. Duflo (2012). Poor Economics – A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty, London: Penguin Books. Black Panther (2018), [Film] Dir. Ryan Coogler: USA, Marvel/Walt Disney Studios.

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Buchanan, K. (2019), ‘How Will the Movies (As We Know Them) Survive the Next 10 Years?’, The NYT Interactive, June, Available online https://www​.nytimes​.com​/ interactive​/2019​/06​/20​/movies​/movie​-industry​-future​.html (accessed 14 March 2020). Crazy Rich Asians (2018), [Film] Dir. Jon M. Chu. USA: Warner Bros. Daum, M. (2019), The Problem with Everything – My Journey Through the New Culture Wars, New York: Gallery Books. Epstein, G. (2017), ‘Mass Entertainment in the Digital Age is Still About Blockbusters, Not Endless Choice’, The Economist, February, Available online: https://www​.economist​.com​/special​-report​/2017​/02​/09​/mass​-entertainment​ -in​-the​-digital​-age​-is​-still​-about​-blockbusters​-not​-endless​-choice (accessed 6 January 2020). Flint, J. and A. Sharma (2019), ‘Netflix Fights to Keep Its Most Watched Shows: Friends and The Office’, The Wall Street Journal, April, Available online: https://www​.wsj​.com​ /articles​/netflix​-battles​-rivals​-for​-its​-most​-watched​-shows​-friends​-and​-the​-office​ -11556120136 (accessed 22 December 2019). Granville, V. (2016), Data Isn’t Everything, Available online: https://www​ .datasciencecentral​.com​/data​-isn​-t​-everything/ (accessed 1 September 2019). Huffer, I. (2017), ‘Social Inclusivity, Cultural Diversity and Online Film Consumption’, Cultural Trends, 26 (2): 138–54. Jarvey, N. (2019), ‘Netflix Recovers From Rocky Second Quarter, Adds 6.8 Million Subscribers’, The Hollywood Reporter, October, Available online: https://www​ .hollywoodreporter​.com​/tv​/tv​-news​/netflix​-recovers​-rocky​-second​-quarter​-adds​-68​ -million​-subscribers​-1248268/ (accessed 2 January 2022). Joe Russo as quoted in Buchanan, K. (2019), ‘How Will the Movies (As We Know Them) Survive the Next 10 Years?’, The New York Times Interactive, June, Available online https://www​.nytimes​.com​/interactive​/2019​/06​/20​/movies​/movie​-industry​ -future​.html (accessed 14 March 2020). Lee, G. (2017), Why 90 Percent of Sales Still Happen in Brick and Mortar Stores, Available online: https://www​.ret​ailt​echn​olog​yreview​.com​/articles​/2017​/10​/17​/why​-90​-percent​ -of​-sales​-still​-happen​-in​-brick​-and​-mortar​-stores/ (accessed 28 August 2021). Netflix Q3 Earning Call Transcript (2019), Available online: https://www​.fool​.com​ /earnings​/call​-transcripts​/2019​/10​/16​/netflix​-inc​-nflx​-q3​-2019​-earnings​-call​ -transcript​.aspx (accessed 12 December 2021). Piasecki, M. and S. Hanna (2011), ‘A Redefinition of the Paradox of Choice’, In Design Computing and Cognition’ 10, edited by John S. Gero, Dordrecht: Springer, 347–66. Raftery, B. (2016), ‘Could This Be the Year Movies Stopped Mattering?’, Wired, October, Available online: https://www​.wired​.com​/2016​/08​/do​-movies​-still​-matter​-2016/ (accessed 20 November 2021). Rife M. L., D. King, S. Thomas and R. Li (2014), Measuring Cultural Engagement: A Quest for New Terms, Tools, and Techniques, Available online: https://www​.arts​.gov​/ sites​/default​/files​/measuring​-cultural​-engagement​.pdf (accessed 3 May 2020).

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Inconclusion Biskind, P. (1998), Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex ‘n’ Drugs ‘n’ Rock ‘n’ Roll Generation Saved Hollywood, London: Bloomsbury. Bomboy, S. (2022), ‘The Day the Supreme Court Killed Hollywood’s Studio System’, Available online: https://constitutioncenter​.org​/blog​/the​-day​-the​-supreme​-court​ -killed​-hollywoods​-studio​-system (accessed 8 May 2022).

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Index 3D technology  83, 119 20th Century Fox  23, 84, 85, 116 1968 (TV series)  156 ABC  85, 87 Academy of Humanities Research Council  149 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences  76 Adventures of Robin Hood, The (1938)  82 advertising  89, 90 Alamo  169 Alexandrov, G. V.  69 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV show)  87, 94 Allefex  54 Allied State Association of Motion Picture Exhibitors (ASAMPE)  109–10 All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)  64, 65 All That Heaven Allows (1955)  90 alternating current (AC)  42 Altman, Rick  5, 53, 54 Altman, Robert  94 Amazon  27, 121, 167, 173 AMC  170 ‘AMC on Demand’  164 American Federation of Musicians (AFM)  81, 85 American Film Industry, The (Balio)  75 American Multi-Cinema (AMC)  111, 164 American Sugar Company  181 American West  35 amplification problem  57 ancillary markets  10, 16 ancillary products  23 Anderson, Chris  89, 138, 139 Anderson, Christopher  77 Animal House (1978)  4 animated films  59 animation  58

Animatophone  57 Annie Get Your Gun (Berlin)  22 anti-noise movement  66 anti-Semitism  90, 91 anti-trust legislation  46, 49, 181 Applause (1929)  66 Apple  27 Apple+  167 apps  184 Aristotle  132 ArnoldScope  83 Aron, Adam  164 Around the World in 80 Days (1956)  100 art form  2, 6, 8–10, 27, 28, 68, 72, 135 art houses  28, 98 Arthur, Jean  59 ‘The Art of Sound’ (Clair)  68 artsy theories  69 Asian flu  155 audience(s)  3, 5, 7, 19, 24, 25, 31, 37, 48–51, 53, 56, 65, 66, 69, 72, 92, 99, 100, 108–10, 113, 114, 119, 122, 130, 139, 146, 163, 167, 175, 185 behaviour  127, 137, 139, 142, 143, 148 choice  137–8, 141–4, 146, 150, 151 consumption  19, 136, 139, 140, 142–4 content available to  136, 137, 139–41, 145, 146, 149, 152 engagement with film  136, 138, 141, 142, 145, 147, 177, 182 in leisure activities  143 role of  30 unknown  146 audion tube  57 Australia  45 auteur theory  104, 105 Avengers: Endgame (2019)  23, 165 avian flu  155

200

Index

backstage musicals  64, 65 Balio, Tino  75, 85, 91 Ball, Lucille  88 Banerjee, Abhijit V.  146 Bank of America  102 Barton Fink (1991)  4 Batman (TV series)  156 Bazin, Andre  104 Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953)  80 Becker, Christine  88 Bell Laboratories  57 Ben Hur (1959)  84, 114 Berlin, Irving  22 Better Call Saul (TV show)  94 Better Theaters (Richardson)  79 Big Parade, The (1925)  52 Biograph  41, 43, 44 Biophon  57 Bird of Paradise (1932)  68 Black Panther (2018)  148 blockbusters  7, 131 Blockbuster Strategy  83 B-movies  85 Boorman, John  88 Booth, Margaret  68 Boston  34 box office  10, 16, 17, 21–4, 26, 70, 80, 90, 99–100, 110, 114, 124, 131, 133, 151, 165, 169, 171 Brando, Marlon  30 Breaking Away (1979)  103 Bresson, Robert  64 bricks-and-mortar experience  126–9, 143 Bridge Over the River Kwai, The (1957)  85 Brinton, William Franklin  54 British Phototone  57 Broadway Melody (1929)  62, 64, 68, 69 Broken Blossoms (1919)  53 Bronfman, Edgar M.  102 Brown, Garrett  7 Brown, Tregoweth  69 Browning, Tod  65 Brownlow, Kevin  72, 73 Bryson, Bill  55, 70 Burstyn v. Wilson (1952)  91 Burtt, Ben  175 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)  114

Bwana Devil (1952)  83 Cagney, James  66 Cahiers du Cinema (Cinema Notebooks)  104 California  106, 107, 158 Canada  12, 21, 25, 111, 124, 161, 165, 170, 183 Cannon, Johnny  58 capitalism  46 Capra, Frank  60 Cartoonist Guild  87 Case, Theodore  57 Castle, William  83 CBS  86 censorship  28, 65, 70, 109 Chaplin, Charlie  30, 51, 52 Chicago World Fair (1893)  43 China  25, 171, 172, 184 China Blue  51 Chretien, Henri  83, 84 Chuck Amuck: The Life and Times of an Animated Cartoonist (Jones)  28 Cinderella (1950)  100 Cinema Audio Society  30 CinemaCon  126, 131 cinéma de papa (daddy’s cinema)  97 cinema-going  6, 17, 18, 30, 53, 58, 60, 94, 105, 119, 122–6, 128–30, 132, 136, 144, 149, 171, 175, 178 cinema(s). See also individual entries European  49, 158 French  104 German  165 international  69 luxury  169 multi-screen  111 pre-sound  54, 63, 67 Russian  69 CinemaScope  83–4, 85 Cinematic Revolution  72 cinematography  65, 67 Cinemiracle  83 Cinerama  83, 84 Cinerama Holiday (1953)  83 Cineworld  164 Circarama 83

Index Citizen Kane (1941)  5, 86, 93 civil rights  112, 113 Clair, Rene  68, 69 Clapp, Phil  166 Cleopatra (1963)  24, 85, 101, 116 CNN  156 Coase, Robert  182 Cold War  80–1, 107, 164 Columbia Pictures  162, 168 Comcast  172 Comden, Betty  63 Comic-Con  126 commercialization  39 commodification  92 Communist Party  91 content plenty  136–41 Continental, The (TV show)  92 Cooper, Gary  62 Coppola, Francis Ford  98, 104 copyright  11, 13, 179 ‘Coronavirus Will Wipe Out These Three Industries For Good’ (McBride)  156 Coupland, Douglas  120 Covid-19 (Coronavirus)  6, 10, 11, 135, 154, 156, 158–73, 184 Crafton, Donald  72 Crazy Rich Asians (2018)  148 creative economy  17 creative industries  10, 17 creativity  9, 19, 28 crisis  2–3, 5–7, 9, 18, 19, 22, 44, 46, 50, 51, 60, 75, 94, 101, 115, 116, 120, 149–53, 157–73, 161, 175, 180–2, 184. See also narratives of crisis identity  52, 62, 64, 73, 176 of legacy  135, 136, 151, 152 sound  72, 73 Crossfire (1947)  90 Crowd, The (1928)  66 ‘The Crucial Year for Pictures’ (Disney)  82, 95 culture(al) dominance  81–2 exchange  87–9 relevance  149–52 wars  89–91

201

cultureplex  169 D23 events  126 Dargis, Manhola  116 Dark Knight (2008)  4 Datig, Fred  59 Daum, Meghan  148 Davis, Bette  62 Davy Crockett (TV show)  87 death  1–4, 29, 33, 52, 56, 80, 136, 154, 159, 160, 164, 169 de Forest, Lee  57 Deliverance (1972)  88 Delon, Alain  105, 117 DeMille, Cecil B.  7, 77, 113 denarration  120 Denmark  45, 49 De Palma, Brian  98, 104 Department of Commerce  130 Department of Justice (DOJ)  77, 84, 173, 179 Desmond, Norma  61, 75 Dialogue Directors  59 digital democratization  141 digital economy  141 ‘digital manifest destiny’  147 digital technologies  143, 147, 163 digital transition  131 direct current (DC)  42 ‘direct-to-consumer’ distribution  170 Disney+  163, 166 Disney, Walt  9, 58, 59, 82, 87, 88, 90, 95, 99, 100, 119 Disneyland  87 Disneyland (TV show)  87, 89 Disney Studios  87, 164, 179 Disney universe  172 Dmytryk, Edward  90 Doctor Zhivago (1965)  100 domestic market  21, 25, 113, 160, 170, 183, 184 Donen, Stanley  63 Don Juan (1926)  54, 57 Downey, Robert, Jr.  23 Dracula (1931)  65 Duflo, Esther  146 ‘dummies’  63 DuMont  77

202

Index

DVDs  25, 26, 180 Early Motion Picture Productions  37 earning per share (EPS)  20–1 East Coast  56 Eastmancolor  82 Eastman Kodak  44 Easy Rider (1969)  103 Easy Riders, Raging Bulls (Biskind)  183 economic development  46 Edison, Thomas Alva  5, 35, 37–9, 41–5, 47–9, 56, 71, 76, 158, 160, 168, 177, 178 Edison Illuminating Company  35 Eight Hundred, The (2020)  172 Eisenhower, Dwight D.  107 Eisenstein, S. M.  69 electricity  42 Ellis Island  34 Emel Panoscope  83 Enacted Sensemaking in Crisis Situations (Weick)  2 entertainment  6, 8, 10, 21, 25, 37, 38, 54, 119, 123, 127, 133, 136, 149, 157, 169 entertainment patents  41–2 Eraserhead (1977)  69 Essanay  44 EU Commission  15 Europe  45, 49, 56, 171, 184 European Union (EU)  15, 28, 29 experimentation  16, 45, 56, 72, 79, 108, 162 Face in the Crowd, A (1957)  90 Federal Communications Commission (FCC)  76–9, 81, 84, 110 Federal Trade Commission (FTC)  55, 77 Fields, W. C.  30, 62 filmed content  86, 89, 136, 139, 142 filmed entertainment  16, 17, 76 filmed TV shows  87, 88, 90 film industry  1, 2, 4–6, 9–31, 49, 51, 55, 58, 60, 70–1, 76, 80, 82, 87, 91, 97, 99, 102, 106, 107, 120, 121, 122, 126, 130–2, 157, 159, 177, 179, 182, 184 vs. auto industry  16–17

competitive forces within  46 data  16 definition  12–16 financial performance  17, 18 jobs in  23 platform for  132, 133 as prototype industry  15, 16, 21, 25, 28, 30 US  29 filmmakers  4, 6, 7, 9, 12, 16, 20, 27, 28, 30, 45, 51, 58, 60, 64, 66, 67, 69, 72, 73, 86, 87, 93, 103, 104, 110, 112, 136, 158, 167, 175, 185 filmmaking  20, 30, 31, 53, 63, 64, 71, 72, 98, 100, 104, 158, 161, 162, 171, 175, 176 film(s). See also individual entries academia  4, 5, 7 academics  7, 60 affiliated  109 birth  36–40 business  6, 7, 26, 27, 28, 40, 49, 82, 165 contemporary  6 crisis of legacy  6, 135, 136, 151, 152 cultures  158, 166 departments  168 distribution  14–16, 27, 30, 45, 159, 161, 162 early sound  61, 67, 70 economy  25 editing for TV broadcast  86 employment  16–17 exhibition  14–16, 40, 54, 55, 58, 109, 110, 161, 177, 184 exhibitors  9, 12, 14, 16, 24, 41, 44, 79, 81, 109, 114, 119, 131, 132, 163, 164, 165, 185 feature  158, 159 genre pictures  100 history  9, 22, 24, 53, 61, 120, 162 independents  44–8, 109 international  144, 172 literate graduates  98 live-action  59 ‘Made for TV’  91, 92 market  43 ownership  129

Index post-production  14, 67 presentations  54, 165 production  4, 11, 14–16, 20, 23, 27, 30, 44, 45, 49, 55, 100–1, 159, 160, 168 production companies  15, 16, 44 projections  39 rating system  110 self-centred  4 styles  30, 45, 70, 103 success  10, 16, 21, 24, 39, 71 tickets  5, 15, 39, 75, 84, 94, 113–15, 119, 123–4, 131, 133, 140, 171 traditional  136 value of  141–2, 151 film studios  3, 5–7, 9, 15, 16, 20–2, 24, 27, 28, 51, 52, 55, 57, 69, 73, 75–81, 84, 85, 87–90, 93, 98, 105, 108–10, 116, 131, 132, 151, 167, 168, 173, 177, 185 business models  99–103, 121, 163, 166 logos  10 Film: The Creative Process (Howard)  70 financial support  11, 168 Finston, Nathaniel  68 First World War  49, 154, 158 Fithian, John  131 Flatley, Guy  60 Flowers and Trees (1932)  82 Fly, James L.  77 Forbes  85 Ford  34, 35 Ford, Harrison  23 Ford, Henry  143, 167, 168 foreign films  28, 94 foreign markets  17, 107, 133, 159, 160, 163, 165, 169, 171 Forman, Murray  81 ‘Four and a Half Film Fallacies’ (Altman)  53 Fox, William  41, 46, 48–9, 62, 82, 158, 160, 168 Fox Film Corporation  168 Fox Studios  41, 168, 172 frame-by-frame production  58 France  43, 45, 49, 97, 103 Frankenstein (1931)  65

French New Wave  97, 98 Friedman, Milton  106 Friends (TV show)  151 funding  11, 15, 152 Gable, Clark  62, 88 Gallopin’ Gaucho (1928)  58 Gance, Abel  55, 72, 73, 82 gangster films  64–6 Garbo, Greta  30 Gaumont  158, 159 Gaumont Chronophone  57 General, The (1926)  52 General Electric Theater  81 Gentleman’s Agreement (1947)  90 Germany  158, 165 Ghostbusters (1984)  4 Gilda (1946)  79 The Gilded Age  36 Gillis, Joe  61 Gish, Lillian  53 Gitlin, Todd  90 global economy  14 ‘goat glands’  61 Godard, Jean-Luc  104 ‘Golden Age’  68, 71, 80, 81, 94 Goldman, William  2, 20, 21, 30, 133, 176, 182 Gold Rush (1925)  52 Goldwyn, Samuel  168 Gone With the Wind (1939)  86, 93 Gould, Jack  78, 88, 89 government support  11, 28 Grandeur  83 Great Crisis  143 Great Depression  70, 162 Great Train Robbery, The (1903)  45 Green, Adolph  63 Greidinger, Mooky  164 Griffith, D. W.  53 Gulf and Western  102 Gus Visser and His Singing Duck (1925)  57 H1N1:H2N2 155 H1N1 virus  154 H3N2 virus  155 Haines, Tommy  54

203

204

Index

Hampton, Benjamin  55 Hanlon, Dennis  66 Hanna, Sean  138 Harper’s Magazine  61 Harvard University  122 Hays code  109, 110 Hayworth, Rita  79 HBO Max  163 HDF Kino  165 Heaven’s Gate (1980)  24 Henley, Jack  63 Hepworth Vivaphone  57 Hershey, Burnet  63 Hill, George Roy  94 Hitchcock, Alfred  30, 69, 87, 88, 164 Hitler, Adolf  159 Holland Brothers  37 Hollis, Dave  119 Hollywood  1–8, 20, 26–31, 47, 49, 51–3, 55–8, 60–8, 72, 73, 75–9, 81–6, 94, 95, 99, 104, 107, 112, 116, 119–21, 131, 133, 158–60, 162, 175–9, 182 archives  85–7 classic  86, 93 depiction of television  90 filmmakers and filmmaking  91, 108 films  61, 69–71, 80, 81, 92, 93, 104, 107, 108, 161, 166, 171 foreign production  171–2 high-minded conscientiousness  90 identity crisis  64 industry  119–23, 125, 126, 130–3 politics  108 production values  88 studios  21, 63, 80, 89, 108, 161, 172 Hollywood in the Age of Television (Balio)  85 Hollywood Reporter, The  141 Hollywood TV  90 Hollywood TV: The Studio System in the Fifties (Anderson)  77, 89 Hollywood v Hardcore (Lewis)  87 home entertainment  17, 38 Home of the Brave (1949)  90 home projection device  76 Homestead Act (1862)  35–6 home video  119, 120, 129, 152, 157, 180 Honegger, Arthur  59 horror movies  64, 65

Horse in Motion (1887)  178 House of Wax (1953)  83 House Un-American Committee (HUAC)  90, 91, 107 Hughes, Howard  85, 86 Hulu  27 Humanova  54 human voices sound  62 synchronized  61 Hunchback of Notre Dame, The (1923)  52 Hutchison, M. R.  56 Imax  119 immigration  34, 36 Ince, Thomas Harper  160 Inceville  160 Inconvenient Truth, An (2006)  4 India  25 industrialization  5 influenza pandemics  155 information sector  13–15, 26, 30 innovations  15, 17, 19, 22, 24, 34, 37, 45, 48, 49, 148, 163 Inside Out (2015)  19 in-store shopping  128, 129 intangible assets  14, 18, 19, 30 intellectual property (IP)  17, 18, 27 internet  120, 127, 128, 133, 140, 143, 152, 157, 181 iPhones/iPads  123 Ishtar (1987)  24 Italy  34, 45, 49 It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)  60, 87 It’s the Pictures That Got Small (Becker)  88 Jackson, Wilfred  58 Jaws (1975)  18, 178 Jazz Singer, The (1927)  51, 54, 55, 57, 58, 62, 63 John Carter (2012)  24 Johnston, Eric  107 Jolson, Al  1, 51, 57–9, 62, 66 Jones, Chuck  28, 69 Jurassic Park (1993)  68 Kael, Pauline  88, 92, 94, 175

Index Kahan, Seth  147 Kalem  44 Keaton, Buster  52 Keith-Albee-Orpheum circuit  168 Kelly, Gene  63 kinetophone  56, 64, 71 kinetoscope  36, 37, 39, 56 King Kong (1933)  68 Kinney National Services  102 Kinopanorama  83 Kinoplastikon  57 Kleine, George  44, 48 Korea  172 Kovacs, Ernie  78 Kraft Television Theater (TV show)  94 Krefft, Vanda  62 Kubrick, Stanley  175 Kurtz, Gary  23 Ladd, Alan, Jr.  23 Laemmle, Carl  41, 48–9 Lamar, Hedy  113 Langley, Donna  164 Lasky, Jesse  158, 168 Lasseter, John  86 Lawson, John Howard  70, 90 Lean, David  69, 100, 103 legal battles  41–3 legal costs  41, 42 leisure activities  34, 35, 143 Leopard, The (1963)  105, 109, 117 Library of Congress  37 licensing  44, 56, 91, 142 Lionsgate  21 Lippincoat, Jess  38 Little Caesar (1931)  66 live dramas  86, 94 live entertainment  35–7, 39, 48 live events  125–6 live music  53–4, 81 live performance  71, 81 live programmes  82 Loew, Marcus  168 long films  45, 46, 48, 49 long-format content  140, 141 Long Thing Tail - Why the Future of Business is Selling More of Less, The (Anderson)  138 Los Angeles  159–60

205

Los Angeles Times  81 ‘Lost Audience’  90, 91, 146, 151 Loy, Myrna  60 Lubin Cinephone  57 Lucas, George  7, 23, 60, 98, 104 Lucasfilm  180 Lugosi, Bela  65, 80 Lumet, Sidney  94 Lumiere Brothers  178 Lux Radio Theater (1936)  77 Lynch, David  69 McCarthy, Joseph   108 McCrae, Joel  28 Making Music in Selznick’s Hollywood (Platte)  67 Mamoulian, Rouben  66 Mandalorian, The (TV show)  94 Man Who Made the Movies: The Meteoric Rise and Tragic Fall of William Fox, The (Krefft)  62 market depressions  21 market forces  47 Marty (TV series)  81 Marvel  165, 180 Marx Brothers  62 Mature, Victor  113 Mayer, L. B.  61 MCA  102 mechanization  34 media content  136 media platforms  141 megaplexes  170 Méliès  43 mergers and acquisitions  102 Metropolis (1927)  159 Mexico  12 Meyer, Louis B.  168 MGM  10, 64, 102, 108, 109, 168, 180 MGM Parade, The (TV show)  89 Mickey Mouse  19, 59, 66 Milestone, Lewis  64 millennials  119–22 and cinema-going  122–5 cinemas and  129–30 as consumers  125, 126 purchasing habits  126–9 value experience over ownership  125–6

206 watching films on mobile devices  131–2 Million Dollar Movie (TV series)  86 Miracle, The (1948)  91 Mix, Tom  67 MLB.TV  123 mobile devices  25, 127, 128, 132, 136, 140, 144, 149 mobile/online platforms  142, 150 mobile technologies  126–9 monophonic hiss  58 Moonlight (2016)  4 Motion Picture and Sound Recording Industries Group  14, 15 Motion Picture Export Association of America. See Motion Pictures Association (MPA) Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC)  5, 33, 40–9, 158–60, 177 Motion Picture Producer and Distributors Association (MPPDA)  76 Motion Pictures Association (MPA)  11, 107, 108, 144 Motion Picture Trust  1, 56 motorized projection  56 Movie Album Featurettes  63 movie-radio productions  77 ‘The Movies Commit Suicide’  61 ‘Movies on Television’ (Kael)  92 movie theatre(s)  6, 7, 28, 53, 60, 78, 80, 92, 99, 110–13, 156, 158, 180 chains  164 segregation  110–13 Movietone  57 Moviola  76 MPAA  124 Mulan (1998)  166, 168, 169 multiplex  110–13 multi-reelers  45, 47, 49 Muni, Paul  66 Murder by Television (1939)  80 Murnau, F. W.  53 Murphy, A. D.  26 Murrow, Edward R.  78 music(al)  7, 58, 59, 61, 64, 65, 67, 68 background  67 industry  81

Index performances  64, 67 synchronized  57 Musser, Charles  38 Mutoscope  43 Muybridge, Eadweard  178 Napoleon (1927)  55, 72, 82 narrative formats  45, 47–9 narratives of crisis  120–2, 126, 132, 181 Narratives of Crisis: Telling Stories of Ruin and Renewal (Seeger and Sellnow)  3 National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO)  99, 109–10, 113, 114, 131, 170 National Committee on Segregation in the Nation’s Capital  112 National Endowment for the Arts  149 National Theater  112 NBC  85 Netflix  27, 120, 121, 123, 137, 139–42, 151, 163, 167, 173 Netter, Douglas  109 New Hollywood  6, 93, 97–101, 104, 106, 108, 116, 175, 183 New Jersey  56 Newman, Paul  114 New Right  106, 107 New York Board of Regents  91 New York City (NYC)  34, 35, 56, 57, 59, 159 New Yorker  92, 175 New York Times  60, 66, 78, 88, 116 New York University (NYU)  103 New York World’s Fair  83 nickelodeons  39, 41, 48, 158, 175 Nigeria  171 Nixon, Richard  105–9 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS)  12–15, 26, 27, 30 North American Phonograph Company  38 Notes on the Cinematograph (Bresson)  64 Nouvelle Vague (New Wave) filmmakers  97

Index Office, The (TV show)  151 Okay For Sound! (1946)  55 Old Hollywood  6, 27–31, 52, 60, 93, 97–102 oligopoly  43, 44 Olivier, Lawrence  1 One Night on TV Is Worth Weeks at the Paramount: Popular Music on Early Television (Forman)  81 one-reelers  45, 47, 48 One Summer: America, 1927 (Bryson)  55 online shopping  127–9, 143 on-set performances  64, 65 OTT/streaming  6, 17, 25, 94, 95, 119, 120, 133, 135, 136, 140, 142, 144, 148, 150–2, 157, 163, 164, 166, 167, 169–72, 178, 180, 181, 184 Overview of Europe’s Film Industry, An (Katsarova)  15 pandemics  6, 154–73, 183 Parade’s Gone By..., The (Brownlow)  72 ‘paradox of choice’  136–8 Paramount Decree (1948)  77, 109, 173, 179 Paramount Studios  21, 54, 59, 68, 77, 78, 102, 105, 172 Pascal, Amy  135 patent(s)  43 law  42 litigation  37 Pathe  43, 158, 159 Pauline  1 Peacock  163 Peninsula (2020)  172 Penn, Arthur  94 Phonofilm  57, 62 phonographs  37–9, 41, 56 Piasecki, Michal  138 Pickford, Mary  30, 52 piracy  11, 119, 140, 163 Plane Crazy (1928)  58 Platte, Nathan  67 Players-Lasky Corporation  168 Playhouse 90 (TV series)  81, 94

207

political lobbying/advocating  99, 105–9, 113 political power  46, 48 ‘politique des auteurs’  104, 105 Poor Economics (Banerjee and Duflo)  146 popular culture  25 porn industry  123 Porter, Edwin  45, 47 Porter, Paul A.  78 Poseidon Adventure, The (1972)  3 Prall, Mortimer  76 premium video on-demand (PVOD)  164, 166, 168 Problem with Everything - My Journey Through the New Culture Wars, The (Daum)  148 process innovation  37, 38, 49 product innovation  38 Production Code  64, 65, 70, 91, 94 profitability  10, 20, 56, 120, 139, 165 projection technology  39 public companies  20, 167, 168 Public Enemy (1931)  66 public policy  11 Publishing Industries  14 Pudovkin, V. I.  69 racism  90, 91 radio  77, 78 Radio Corporation of America  168 Rashomon (1950)  4 RCA  67, 78 RCA Photofilm  67 Reagan, Ronald  90, 105–9 Rear Window (1954)  69 Redford, Robert  94, 114 Red Skelton Show (TV show)  92 Republican Party  106 Republic Pictures  81 Requiem for a Heavyweight (TV series)  81 retention rate  21 Reynolds, Burt  88 Richardson, F. H.  79 right to free speech  91 RKO  67, 68, 85, 168

208 ‘The Roar of the Crowd: Urban Noise and Anti-Noise in Silent Cinema’ (Hanlon)  66 Robe, The (1953)  84 Robinson, Edward G.  66 Rohmer, Eric  104 Rooney, Mickey  88 Roosevelt, Franklin D.   143 Rossellini, Roberto  91 Russo, Joe  135 Samson and Delilah (1949)  113, 114 San Francisco  35 San Francisco International Film Festival  1 Sarandos, Ted  141, 142 Sarnoff, David  78, 83 Sarris, Andrew  84, 86 Saturday Night at the Movies (TV series)  85 Saudi Arabia  171 Saving Brinton (2017)  54 Scarface (1932)  66 Scorsese, Martin  7, 86, 93, 98, 104 Screen Actors Guild (SAG)  85, 106, 107 Seagram  102 Second World War  5, 77, 80, 83, 90, 107, 109 Seeger, Matthew W.  3 Seinfeld (TV show)  151 Seldes, Gilbert  61, 63, 71 Selig  44 Selig, William  43 Selig Polyscope  57 Sellnow, Timothy L.  3 Selznick, David O.  68, 93, 176 Semon, Larry  53 sequels  23 Serling, Rod  78 Serrurier, Iwan  76 service industry  15, 18, 27, 30, 49, 163 severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARSCov-2)  154, 156 Sherburne, Andrew  54 Sherman, John  178 Sherman Act (1890)  44, 46, 178, 181 short films  37, 47, 56

Index short format content  140 Silent Cinema (Altman)  5 silent film(s)  52–4, 58, 61–3, 70, 71, 178 editing  68 exhibition  68, 71 theatres  65, 66 Silly Symphonies  59 Singin’ in the Rain (1952)  63 Sirk, Douglas  90 Sixties, The (TV series)  156 Skouras, Spyros  84, 85 smartphones  123 Smith, Jacob  92 social issues  90 social media  126–9 Soderbergh, Steven  1 Sony Corp. of Am. v. Universal City Studios, Inc. (1984)  179 Sony Corporation  21, 167, 172, 179 Sony Corp vs Universal Studios (1984)  179 Sopranos, The (TV show)  94 sound cinema  51, 53, 56, 59, 61, 64, 66, 67, 71, 72, 86 ‘Sound Has No Terror For Stars’  59 Sound of Music, The (1965)  100, 116 sound-on-film technology  66, 67, 72 sound(s)  51, 53, 62–5, 69, 71, 72 abstract  69 animating  58–9 editing and mixing  67, 69 effects  54, 57, 58, 64–8 filmmaking  60 off-screen  68 recordings  14 revolution  58, 69, 72 stages  59–61, 67 stereo  84 systems  65 technologies  37, 55, 57, 63 urban  66 S&P 500  18 Spadoni, Robert  65 Spanish Flu  6, 49, 154, 155, 157, 167, 183 ‘speakies’  61 Spielberg, Steven  7, 30, 86, 104 Spigel, Lynn  92 spin-off characters  19

Index Spivack, Murray  7, 67, 68 Sponge Bob Square Pants (1999)  4 stability/instability  20, 21 Staiger, J.  33 Star Wars (1977)  23 Star Wars Celebrations  126 Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)  175 Steamboat Willie (1928)  58, 59, 62, 87 Steiner, Max  30, 67, 68 Stewart, James  30 stock exchange  20 stock market  21 Strand Theater  68 Street Girl (1929)  66 Studio Babelsberg  159 studio block booking  55 studio system  160, 172, 179 Sturges, Preston  28 subscription  79, 163, 167 Sullivan’s Travels (1941)  4, 28 Sunrise (1927)  52, 53, 159 Sunset Boulevard (1950)  4, 61 Superscope  83 Supreme Court  46, 47, 49, 55, 77, 78, 91, 178, 179, 181 Symphony of Six Million (1932)  68 synchronization  56 synchronized sound  51–4, 56, 57, 61, 66, 68, 71, 73, 83 cartoon  58, 59 cinema  57 Talbot, Frederick A.  54 Talkaphone  57 ‘talkers’  61 Talkies - American Cinema’s Transition to Sound, 1926-1931, The (Crafton)  72 tangible assets  19 tax credits  108 tax revenue  11, 16 Taylor, Liz  116 tech industry  22 Technicolor process  82 Technirama  83 technological revolution  60, 72 technology  5, 7, 35–41, 52, 148, 152

209

television  5, 6, 25, 63, 75, 78, 82–4, 116, 120, 142, 148, 150, 152, 157, 178 broadcasts  79, 86, 91, 156 vs. cinema  76, 82–4, 94–6 cinema’s engagement with  87 industry  11, 22, 77, 78, 81, 91, 92, 181 laugh tracks  91 live  86, 89, 90 movie actors to  88 networks  82, 85, 86, 89, 91 pay  109, 110, 117 shows and its production  14, 89, 94, 138 stations  77, 78 Ten Commandments, The (1956)  84 Termite Terrace  28 Tesla, Nikola  42, 43 Theater Television  79 Theatre Owners of America  110 theatrical exhibition/exhibitors  40, 41, 81, 130, 133, 135, 152, 162, 169–72 theatrical experience  136, 178 theatrical window  164, 165, 169, 185 theme parks  19, 23, 87, 169, 172 This is Cinerama (1952)  83 Thompson, Emily  66 Thrillarama  83 Thrills of Yesterday (1931)  63 ticket purchasing power (TPP)  114, 115 Tingler, The (1959)  83 Toland, Gregg  30 Tonight Show, The (TV show)  88 Toth, Andre  83 Towering Inferno, The (1974)  3 Transamerica Corporation  102, 103 transcontinental railroad  35 transportation  34, 35 Treaty of Versailles  158 Tri-Ergon  57 Trolls World Tour (2020)  164, 169 Truffaut, Francois  104 The Trust. See Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC) TV Dinner Date (TV show)  92 Twain, Mark  36, 153, 157

210 Twentieth Century Fox Theater, The (TV show)  89 two-tier ecosystem  170–1 UK Cinema Association  166 Uncanny Bodies (Spadoni)  65 United Artists  102, 103, 162, 168 United Nations (UN)  17, 146 United States (US)  12, 14, 15, 18, 21, 22, 25, 33, 34, 36, 40, 43, 44, 49, 75, 77, 106, 111, 113, 116, 124, 126, 142–3, 157, 159, 161, 165, 170, 183 census  12, 112, 143, 145–6 economy  12, 13, 17, 167 government  26, 29, 49, 77, 84, 107, 108, 130, 181 law  42, 44 United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. et al. (1938)  77–8 United States v. Twentieth Century Fox et al. (1952)  84 Universal Pictures  21, 41, 102, 162, 164, 167, 168, 170, 172, 179, 180 University of Amsterdam  122 University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA)  103 University of Chicago  106 University of Pennsylvania  122 University of Southern California (USC)  103 Universum-Film AG (UFA)  159 USC School of Cinematic Arts  7 US National Weather Service  22 USSR  107 Valenti, Jack  107 Variety  26, 79, 82, 95, 119 Varioscope  83 vaudeville acts  37, 40, 57 Victrola  76 videogame platforms  123 video games  119 video on-demand (VOD)  140, 164 videotaping  81, 86 Vidor, King  60, 66 Vietnam War  98, 116, 155–6

Index virtual reality  1 virtual window shopping  143 Visconti, Luchino  105, 109 Vitagraph Company  44 Vitaphone system  55, 57, 62 Vitarama  83 Vocafilm  57 voice tests  59, 60 Waller, Fred  83 Waller Gunnery Trainer  83 Wall Street  160, 162, 168 Wall Street crash (1928)  143, 161, 162 Wall Street Journal, The  157 Walsh, Raoul  52, 60, 61 Walt Disney Studios  10, 19, 59, 166–9, 172 Walturdaw Cinematophone  57 Warner, Albert  168 Warner, Harry  57, 62, 77, 168 Warner, Jack  51, 80, 89, 168 Warner, Sam  57, 168 Warner Bros.  21, 28, 55, 57, 59, 62, 69, 77, 80, 83, 102, 162, 167, 168 Warner Brothers Presents (TV show)  89 Washington  107, 109, 112 Wasko, Janet  78 Wayne, John  30 Weber, Lois  52, 72 ‘Wedding of the Painted Doll’  64–5 Weick, Karl E.  2 Weitman, Robert M.  102 Welles, Orson  69, 86 West, Mae  62 Westinghouse, George  43 Westinghouse Electric Corporation  43 Whale, James  65 What Price Hollywood (1932)  4 Whitman, Walt  36 Wi-Fi  149 Wilder, Billy  61 Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter (1957)  90 windowing  89 Wired  147 Wizard of Oz, The (1939)  65, 82 Wonderama  83 World Bank  146

Index World Health Organisation  154 WOR-TV  86, 93 young filmmakers  97, 99, 103, 104, 116, 178

YouTube  123, 140, 141 Zanuck, Darryl  82, 85 Zorro (TV show)  87 Zukor, Adolph  54, 83, 158, 160, 168

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