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Do institutions influence genre or do they respond to audience choice and reaction?
Institutions have always influenced genre to a certain extent because of the power that they exert over the film industry. From the early silent films it is evident that studio executives chose what an audience is going to see and what would be socially acceptable at the time, however also in a producer’s mind is the economic feasibility of a film production and this is often related to audience reaction to a particular genre at a certain point in time.
The temporal analysis of generic structures can help to establish the role that both audience and institution have in genre study. In the silent era, an audience’s knowledge of genre would be limited and therefore it was totally the studio’s choice as to what genres were produced. It was not until the introduction of the Hollywood studio system in the early thirties which first began to establish generic trends. The “big five” and “little three” studios of this era had genres which were almost monopolised by an individual studio. With Universal it was the horror film, with films such as James Whale’s “Frankenstein” (1931) creating a genre which has remained popular with audiences until this day.
It was with the introduction of sound, the first major use of which occurred in the 1927 film “The Jazz Singer”, which first gave audiences the “realism” which they so desired from film. This made cinema a more profitable enterprise because of the heightened ticket sales and therefore studios began to listen to audience demands and reactions to films in order to provide an audience with a film which they would wish to see. Until this point generic trends had always been governed by the film industry and this still had little change during the studio period although audience expectation had risen. A clear example of this is the film noir genre which was instigated by Hollywood in order to cut down on the costs of set design. The low key lighting present in films such as Howard Hawk’s “The Big Sleep” (1947) and “The Maltese Falcon” (1941) meant that shadow hid the often poorly constructed sets.
The vertical integration of the studios ended in 1949 with the Paramount anti-trust case which led to the breaking up of the major studios domination of production, distribution and exhibition. This caused the main conglomerates to become more competitive and therefore increased the need to find out what the audience wanted to see. This can be seen in the number of films made in the 1950’s concerning the invasion of the planet by an extraterrestrial life, films which were subliminally connoting the ideological paranoia which existed in particularly America at the time concerning the cold war with Russia. Films such as “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (1951) and “Invasion of the body Snatchers” (1955) exemplify the reliance that studios were gaining on social and political issues.
This was further shown in the late seventies and eighties when a number of films were made concerning the conflict in Vietnam. At this time veterans of the war were returning to America and the film industry masterfully brought out films about the conflict in relation to public opinion at the time. From the patriotic flag waving of Michael Cimino’s “The Deer Hunter” (1978) to Coppola’s subversively anti-war film “Apocalypse Now” Hollywood had a film for every opinion of the conflict. In this respect it was the institutions which influenced the genre but the audience of the time which influenced the studios into making these films.
In modern Hollywood, the economic aspects of filmmaking have overrun creative and original cinema in many cases. Studios make films which mainstream audiences will appreciate where small earning prestige projects by independent directors are pushed aside as they will not attract the multiplex audiences required to make a film financially viable. In this way, the evolution of genre has been condemned by both the institutions and the audience. The main institutions have regained their hold on distribution and exhibition with companies such as Time Warner with Warner Village Multiplexes which are designed in order to bring in large audiences, and therefore the plight of original cinema is on the most part restricted to smaller cinemas. Audiences have become so adapted to generic conventions and iconographical imagery that they are quite content to watch post modern pastiche films such as “Scream” (1996) and “Scary Movie” rather than supporting films which were never designed to appeal to a wide audience but which are far more deserving of more than just critical praise such as Cameron Crowe’s semi-autobiographical “Almost Famous” (2001).
The reliance on special effects and computer generated imagery in recent years as led to the re-invention of many genres. The sword and sandals epic which was almost an icon of the late fifties and early sixties with Kubrick’s “Spartacus” (1960) being an example was revived in the year 2000 with Ridley Scott’s multi Academy Award wining “Gladiator”. This film regarded as the best film of the year by the Academy conveys the detrimental effect that collusion between institutions and audiences has on the films which are made. The overlooking of Ang Lee’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” at the Oscars shows even what is generally accepted as being the film event of the year being overshadowed by public opinion rather than the quality of film-making. Directors of films often have to suffer extensive cuts and re-shooting of scenes in order to change a scene or the whole tone of the film in order to make the film more profitable. Films are shown to test audiences before the film’s launch in order to determine what the response of an audience is likely to be.
In conclusion, genre has always been influenced by both public opinion and the institution which is financing the film, however in more recent years the balance has become severely affected by the audience’s control of the institutions money, and this leads to fewer original films being made and more generic films coming to fruition. The influence on genre has been greatly reduced by the continued production of generic films by institutions and the continued box office money that these films make.
Institutions have always influenced genre to a certain extent because of the power that they exert over the film industry. From the early silent films it is evident that studio executives chose what an audience is going to see and what would be socially acceptable at the time, however also in a producer’s mind is the economic feasibility of a film production and this is often related to audience reaction to a particular genre at a certain point in time.
The temporal analysis of generic structures can help to establish the role that both audience and institution have in genre study. In the silent era, an audience’s knowledge of genre would be limited and therefore it was totally the studio’s choice as to what genres were produced. It was not until the introduction of the Hollywood studio system in the early thirties which first began to establish generic trends. The “big five” and “little three” studios of this era had genres which were almost monopolised by an individual studio. With Universal it was the horror film, with films such as James Whale’s “Frankenstein” (1931) creating a genre which has remained popular with audiences until this day.
It was with the introduction of sound, the first major use of which occurred in the 1927 film “The Jazz Singer”, which first gave audiences the “realism” which they so desired from film. This made cinema a more profitable enterprise because of the heightened ticket sales and therefore studios began to listen to audience demands and reactions to films in order to provide an audience with a film which they would wish to see. Until this point generic trends had always been governed by the film industry and this still had little change during the studio period although audience expectation had risen. A clear example of this is the film noir genre which was instigated by Hollywood in order to cut down on the costs of set design. The low key lighting present in films such as Howard Hawk’s “The Big Sleep” (1947) and “The Maltese Falcon” (1941) meant that shadow hid the often poorly constructed sets.
The vertical integration of the studios ended in 1949 with the Paramount anti-trust case which led to the breaking up of the major studios domination of production, distribution and exhibition. This caused the main conglomerates to become more competitive and therefore increased the need to find out what the audience wanted to see. This can be seen in the number of films made in the 1950’s concerning the invasion of the planet by an extraterrestrial life, films which were subliminally connoting the ideological paranoia which existed in particularly America at the time concerning the cold war with Russia. Films such as “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (1951) and “Invasion of the body Snatchers” (1955) exemplify the reliance that studios were gaining on social and political issues.
This was further shown in the late seventies and eighties when a number of films were made concerning the conflict in Vietnam. At this time veterans of the war were returning to America and the film industry masterfully brought out films about the conflict in relation to public opinion at the time. From the patriotic flag waving of Michael Cimino’s “The Deer Hunter” (1978) to Coppola’s subversively anti-war film “Apocalypse Now” Hollywood had a film for every opinion of the conflict. In this respect it was the institutions which influenced the genre but the audience of the time which influenced the studios into making these films.
In modern Hollywood, the economic aspects of filmmaking have overrun creative and original cinema in many cases. Studios make films which mainstream audiences will appreciate where small earning prestige projects by independent directors are pushed aside as they will not attract the multiplex audiences required to make a film financially viable. In this way, the evolution of genre has been condemned by both the institutions and the audience. The main institutions have regained their hold on distribution and exhibition with companies such as Time Warner with Warner Village Multiplexes which are designed in order to bring in large audiences, and therefore the plight of original cinema is on the most part restricted to smaller cinemas. Audiences have become so adapted to generic conventions and iconographical imagery that they are quite content to watch post modern pastiche films such as “Scream” (1996) and “Scary Movie” rather than supporting films which were never designed to appeal to a wide audience but which are far more deserving of more than just critical praise such as Cameron Crowe’s semi-autobiographical “Almost Famous” (2001).
The reliance on special effects and computer generated imagery in recent years as led to the re-invention of many genres. The sword and sandals epic which was almost an icon of the late fifties and early sixties with Kubrick’s “Spartacus” (1960) being an example was revived in the year 2000 with Ridley Scott’s multi Academy Award wining “Gladiator”. This film regarded as the best film of the year by the Academy conveys the detrimental effect that collusion between institutions and audiences has on the films which are made. The overlooking of Ang Lee’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” at the Oscars shows even what is generally accepted as being the film event of the year being overshadowed by public opinion rather than the quality of film-making. Directors of films often have to suffer extensive cuts and re-shooting of scenes in order to change a scene or the whole tone of the film in order to make the film more profitable. Films are shown to test audiences before the film’s launch in order to determine what the response of an audience is likely to be.
In conclusion, genre has always been influenced by both public opinion and the institution which is financing the film, however in more recent years the balance has become severely affected by the audience’s control of the institutions money, and this leads to fewer original films being made and more generic films coming to fruition. The influence on genre has been greatly reduced by the continued production of generic films by institutions and the continued box office money that these films make.
Do institutions influence genre or do they respond to audience choice and reaction?
Institutions have always influenced genre to a certain extent because of the power that they exert over the film industry. From the early silent films it is evident that studio executives chose what an audience is going to see and what would be socially acceptable at the time, however also in a producer’s mind is the economic feasibility of a film production and this is often related to audience reaction to a particular genre at a certain point in time.
The temporal analysis of generic structures can help to establish the role that both audience and institution have in genre study. In the silent era, an audience’s knowledge of genre would be limited and therefore it was totally the studio’s choice as to what genres were produced. It was not until the introduction of the Hollywood studio system in the early thirties which first began to establish generic trends. The “big five” and “little three” studios of this era had genres which were almost monopolised by an individual studio. With Universal it was the horror film, with films such as James Whale’s “Frankenstein” (1931) creating a genre which has remained popular with audiences until this day.
It was with the introduction of sound, the first major use of which occurred in the 1927 film “The Jazz Singer”, which first gave audiences the “realism” which they so desired from film. This made cinema a more profitable enterprise because of the heightened ticket sales and therefore studios began to listen to audience demands and reactions to films in order to provide an audience with a film which they would wish to see. Until this point generic trends had always been governed by the film industry and this still had little change during the studio period although audience expectation had risen. A clear example of this is the film noir genre which was instigated by Hollywood in order to cut down on the costs of set design. The low key lighting present in films such as Howard Hawk’s “The Big Sleep” (1947) and “The Maltese Falcon” (1941) meant that shadow hid the often poorly constructed sets.
The vertical integration of the studios ended in 1949 with the Paramount anti-trust case which led to the breaking up of the major studios domination of production, distribution and exhibition. This caused the main conglomerates to become more competitive and therefore increased the need to find out what the audience wanted to see. This can be seen in the number of films made in the 1950’s concerning the invasion of the planet by an extraterrestrial life, films which were subliminally connoting the ideological paranoia which existed in particularly America at the time concerning the cold war with Russia. Films such as “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (1951) and “Invasion of the body Snatchers” (1955) exemplify the reliance that studios were gaining on social and political issues.
This was further shown in the late seventies and eighties when a number of films were made concerning the conflict in Vietnam. At this time veterans of the war were returning to America and the film industry masterfully brought out films about the conflict in relation to public opinion at the time. From the patriotic flag waving of Michael Cimino’s “The Deer Hunter” (1978) to Coppola’s subversively anti-war film “Apocalypse Now” Hollywood had a film for every opinion of the conflict. In this respect it was the institutions which influenced the genre but the audience of the time which influenced the studios into making these films.
In modern Hollywood, the economic aspects of filmmaking have overrun creative and original cinema in many cases. Studios make films which mainstream audiences will appreciate where small earning prestige projects by independent directors are pushed aside as they will not attract the multiplex audiences required to make a film financially viable. In this way, the evolution of genre has been condemned by both the institutions and the audience. The main institutions have regained their hold on distribution and exhibition with companies such as Time Warner with Warner Village Multiplexes which are designed in order to bring in large audiences, and therefore the plight of original cinema is on the most part restricted to smaller cinemas. Audiences have become so adapted to generic conventions and iconographical imagery that they are quite content to watch post modern pastiche films such as “Scream” (1996) and “Scary Movie” rather than supporting films which were never designed to appeal to a wide audience but which are far more deserving of more than just critical praise such as Cameron Crowe’s semi-autobiographical “Almost Famous” (2001).
The reliance on special effects and computer generated imagery in recent years as led to the re-invention of many genres. The sword and sandals epic which was almost an icon of the late fifties and early sixties with Kubrick’s “Spartacus” (1960) being an example was revived in the year 2000 with Ridley Scott’s multi Academy Award wining “Gladiator”. This film regarded as the best film of the year by the Academy conveys the detrimental effect that collusion between institutions and audiences has on the films which are made. The overlooking of Ang Lee’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” at the Oscars shows even what is generally accepted as being the film event of the year being overshadowed by public opinion rather than the quality of film-making. Directors of films often have to suffer extensive cuts and re-shooting of scenes in order to change a scene or the whole tone of the film in order to make the film more profitable. Films are shown to test audiences before the film’s launch in order to determine what the response of an audience is likely to be.
In conclusion, genre has always been influenced by both public opinion and the institution which is financing the film, however in more recent years the balance has become severely affected by the audience’s control of the institutions money, and this leads to fewer original films being made and more generic films coming to fruition. The influence on genre has been greatly reduced by the continued production of generic films by institutions and the continued box office money that these films make.
Institutions have always influenced genre to a certain extent because of the power that they exert over the film industry. From the early silent films it is evident that studio executives chose what an audience is going to see and what would be socially acceptable at the time, however also in a producer’s mind is the economic feasibility of a film production and this is often related to audience reaction to a particular genre at a certain point in time.
The temporal analysis of generic structures can help to establish the role that both audience and institution have in genre study. In the silent era, an audience’s knowledge of genre would be limited and therefore it was totally the studio’s choice as to what genres were produced. It was not until the introduction of the Hollywood studio system in the early thirties which first began to establish generic trends. The “big five” and “little three” studios of this era had genres which were almost monopolised by an individual studio. With Universal it was the horror film, with films such as James Whale’s “Frankenstein” (1931) creating a genre which has remained popular with audiences until this day.
It was with the introduction of sound, the first major use of which occurred in the 1927 film “The Jazz Singer”, which first gave audiences the “realism” which they so desired from film. This made cinema a more profitable enterprise because of the heightened ticket sales and therefore studios began to listen to audience demands and reactions to films in order to provide an audience with a film which they would wish to see. Until this point generic trends had always been governed by the film industry and this still had little change during the studio period although audience expectation had risen. A clear example of this is the film noir genre which was instigated by Hollywood in order to cut down on the costs of set design. The low key lighting present in films such as Howard Hawk’s “The Big Sleep” (1947) and “The Maltese Falcon” (1941) meant that shadow hid the often poorly constructed sets.
The vertical integration of the studios ended in 1949 with the Paramount anti-trust case which led to the breaking up of the major studios domination of production, distribution and exhibition. This caused the main conglomerates to become more competitive and therefore increased the need to find out what the audience wanted to see. This can be seen in the number of films made in the 1950’s concerning the invasion of the planet by an extraterrestrial life, films which were subliminally connoting the ideological paranoia which existed in particularly America at the time concerning the cold war with Russia. Films such as “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (1951) and “Invasion of the body Snatchers” (1955) exemplify the reliance that studios were gaining on social and political issues.
This was further shown in the late seventies and eighties when a number of films were made concerning the conflict in Vietnam. At this time veterans of the war were returning to America and the film industry masterfully brought out films about the conflict in relation to public opinion at the time. From the patriotic flag waving of Michael Cimino’s “The Deer Hunter” (1978) to Coppola’s subversively anti-war film “Apocalypse Now” Hollywood had a film for every opinion of the conflict. In this respect it was the institutions which influenced the genre but the audience of the time which influenced the studios into making these films.
In modern Hollywood, the economic aspects of filmmaking have overrun creative and original cinema in many cases. Studios make films which mainstream audiences will appreciate where small earning prestige projects by independent directors are pushed aside as they will not attract the multiplex audiences required to make a film financially viable. In this way, the evolution of genre has been condemned by both the institutions and the audience. The main institutions have regained their hold on distribution and exhibition with companies such as Time Warner with Warner Village Multiplexes which are designed in order to bring in large audiences, and therefore the plight of original cinema is on the most part restricted to smaller cinemas. Audiences have become so adapted to generic conventions and iconographical imagery that they are quite content to watch post modern pastiche films such as “Scream” (1996) and “Scary Movie” rather than supporting films which were never designed to appeal to a wide audience but which are far more deserving of more than just critical praise such as Cameron Crowe’s semi-autobiographical “Almost Famous” (2001).
The reliance on special effects and computer generated imagery in recent years as led to the re-invention of many genres. The sword and sandals epic which was almost an icon of the late fifties and early sixties with Kubrick’s “Spartacus” (1960) being an example was revived in the year 2000 with Ridley Scott’s multi Academy Award wining “Gladiator”. This film regarded as the best film of the year by the Academy conveys the detrimental effect that collusion between institutions and audiences has on the films which are made. The overlooking of Ang Lee’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” at the Oscars shows even what is generally accepted as being the film event of the year being overshadowed by public opinion rather than the quality of film-making. Directors of films often have to suffer extensive cuts and re-shooting of scenes in order to change a scene or the whole tone of the film in order to make the film more profitable. Films are shown to test audiences before the film’s launch in order to determine what the response of an audience is likely to be.
In conclusion, genre has always been influenced by both public opinion and the institution which is financing the film, however in more recent years the balance has become severely affected by the audience’s control of the institutions money, and this leads to fewer original films being made and more generic films coming to fruition. The influence on genre has been greatly reduced by the continued production of generic films by institutions and the continued box office money that these films make.
WE deserve films that are original, yet good enough to watch again. Instead we get films that most of the time make no sense and are rubbish.