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Hollywood in the 1930S, Poevc Realism and Japanese Cinema In Jaakko Seppälä Hollywood in the 1930s, Poe4c Realism and Japanese Cinema in the 1930s Hollywood’s Depression Age • The stock market crash of 1929 (Black Tuesday) led to the Great Depression • The depression caught up with the film industry in 1931 (1930 had been a boom year) • People had liKle money for film 4ckets • Hollywood fought the depression with double bills (B movies) and popcorn • Wall Street’s involvement increased in the 1930s • The Naonal Industrial Recovery Act went into effect in 1933 The Producon Code • In 1930 the president of the MPPDA Will Hays authorised the draing of the produc4on code • Code enforcement was rather lax and inconsistent un4l late 1933 (pre-code films) • The Produc4on Code Administraon (PCA) led by Joseph Breen began to regulate movie content • PCA approval was required on all scripts before produc4on and then on the finished film • Hollywood’s self-censorship set the boundaries for what could be seen, heard or even implied on screen The Broadway Melody (Beaumont, 1929) Scarface (Hawks, 1932) The Studio System THE BIG FIVE Paramount Loew’s (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) Twen4es Century Fox Warner Bros. RKO THE LITTLE THREE Universal, Columbia, United Ar4sts Hollywood Cinema in the 1930s • The era of the movie palace came to an end • Methods of sound recording improved: unidirec4onal microphones, light booms, mul4ple-track recording, new camera support (dolly) • Technicolor introduced a new system in the early 1930s • The 1930s saw the beginning of the golden age of Hollywood cinema (the age of the genre film) • Major genres of the 1930s: the musical, the screwball comedy, the horror film, the social problem film, the gangster film, the war film The Black Pirate (Parker, 1926) The Wizard of Oz (Fleming, 1939) French Cinema in the 1930s • French studio system was weak but it offered filmmakers flexibility and freedom • Gaumont-Franco-Film-Aubert and Pathé-Natan • A period of well-defined film genres and industrial structures, and a 4me when the cinema was the main form of popular entertainment began in the 1930s • Spoken French increased the popularity of the naonal cinema • Hollywood films s4ll dominated the market • Emigrant filmmakers arrived from Germany French Poe4c Realism • Poe4c realism was not a unified movement but a looser tendency • Realism: films are set in working class environments and characters live on the margins of the society • Poe=c: pessimis4c narraves about love and disappointment, tone of nostalgia and biKerness, night-4me sengs, dark and contrasted visual style • Films reflect the gloomy morale of the 1930s • Major films: Le Grand Jeu, Pépé le Moko, La Béte Humaine, La Règle du jeu, Les Enfants du paradis The Rules of the Game (Renoir, 1939) Japanese Cinema in the 1930s • A benshi = a person who explained the filmic image to the audiences • Japanese cinema resisted the transformaon to synchronised sound • The biggest companies: Nikkatsu, Shochiku and Toho • Hollywood films did not overshadow domes4c producon • The director and scriptwriter had a considerable control over their projects • Directors were encouraged to specialise in certain genres and to cul4vate personal styles Kenji Mizoguchi (1898-1956) Yasujiro Ozu (1903-1963) .
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