Hollywood

Gomery, Douglas. ‘The Hollywood Studio System: 1930-1949.’ in The Hollywood Studio System. British Film Institute Cinema Series. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1986. p1-25

Before the coming of television to the US in the 1950s, no industry received more publicity than the great Hollywood.
American film industry has always been like other industries as they all have a common goal – making the highest possible profits
Hollywood has come to symbolise this particular industrial arena, with its cavernous sound stages, multi-acre lots and secret special effects. The distributor wholesales films from a producer to an exhibitor. Exhibitors, in turn, present the films to paying customers. They trade entertainment for money. $$$$$$
To produce films as effectively as possibile and still create a stream of ‘new-and-different’ products, Hollywood utilizes a factory system of production based on extreme specialization of labour.

Pirolini, Alessandro. ‘Sturges’s Metamovie’ in The Cinema of Preston Sturges A Critical Study. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, Publishers, 2010. p62-73

Sullivan’s travel: a film within a film
“According to the producers: only intellectuals would be interested in a social analysis of society, while women – the largest group of spectators – would certainly go for another romance, musical or drama – with a little sex in it”
Postmodernism is a practice that does not really have previous structural models, but only previous sources to be used in its own practice
Sullivan’s Travels is a reflexive exploration of the conditions of production of Hollywood and its relation to it’s audience” – reflects on the condition of it’s own medium – this film doesn’t conceal production of a film , it opens it up

Bordwell, David. ‘Classical Hollywood Cinema: Narrational Principles and Procedures’ in Philip Rosen (ed.) Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology: A Film Theory Reader. Columbia Uni Press. N.Y. 1986. pp. 17-34

The classical Hollywood film presents psychologically defined individuals who struggle to solve a clear-cut problem or to attain specific goals. In the course of this struggle, the characters enter into a conflict with others or with external circumstances. The story ends with a decisive victory or defeat
Protagonist = the most specified character
Usually the classical syuzhet presents a double casual structure, two plot lines; one involving heterosexual romance, and the other another sphere – work, war, a mission, etc.
Hollywood film: between 9 and 18 sequences
Hollywood cinema has crucially influenced most other national cinemas. After 1917, the dominant forms of filmmaking abroad were deeply affected by the models of storytelling presented by American studios
No matter how routine and “transparent” classical film viewing has become, it remains an activity.

Eco, Umberto. “”Casablanca”: Cult Movies and Intertextual Collage.” SubStance Vol14, No.2, 1985. p3-12

Casablanca is not a work of art – it represents a very modest aesthetic achievement. It is a hodegepodge of sensational scenes strung together implausibly; its characters are psychologically incredible, its actors act in a manneristic way, nevertheless, it is a great example of cinematic discourse, a palimpsest for the future students of twentieth-centry religiosity, a paramount laboratory for semiotic research in textual strategies. It has become a cult movie.
In order to transform a work into a cult object one must be able to unhinge it, to break it upon take it apart so that one then may remember only parts of it, regardless of their original relationship to the whole
Works of art not created by authors – texts are texts and works are works
Casablanca uses all archetypes
The structure of Casablanca helps us to understand what happens in those movies that are born in order to become cult objects. What Casablanca does unconsciously, other movies will do with extreme intertextual awareness – and with the expectation that the spectator be equally aware of heir purposes. These are postmodern movies.

Butler, Jeremy G. ‘The Star System and Hollywood’ in John Hill & Pamela Church Gibson (eds.) The Oxford Guide to Film Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. p342-353

Actors performance provides pleasure
The star’s image dominates the movie posters and appears on dozens of magazine covers
Why has the star system been ignored for so long in film history? The origins of this lie in very beginnings of film theory – filmmakers now manipulate reality more and more
Most genres, with the exception of musical, are defined by the stories they tell, not the characters – therefore this leaves little room for the consideration of performance
Star production: economic and discursive structures
Star reception: social structures and the theory subject
Star semiotics: intersexuality and structured polysemy
Using a stars image to promote a film would have been unheard of in 1910

Harris, Thomas. ‘The Building of Popular Images: Grace Kelly and Marilyn Monroe’ in Christine Gledhill (ed.) Stardom: Industry of Desire. London & New York: Routledge, 1991. p40-44

Audiences choice of public heroes and heroines is, to a large degree, determined by perpetual exposure to the media. The shift of interest from heroes of production – the captians of industry, for example – to heroes of consumption has been pointed out
The totality of this publicity build-up is calculated to make the personality better known to a public which will repond by attending the screen hero’s starring films
The star system is based on the premise that a star is accepted by the public in terms of a certain set of personality traits which permeate all of his or her film roles. The successful stars are those whose appeal can be catalogued into a series of such traits, associations and mannerisms
Hollywood publicists work with studio policy makers to assure their efforts will be consistent with the screen image

Thompson, Kristin. ’The Concept of Cinematic Excess’ in Leo Braudy & Marshall Cohen (eds.) Film Theory and Criticism (6th ed.) New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. p513-533

Nobody watches only the non-diegetic parts of a film
The whole film – not just the narrative – works to influence our perception. A close analysis of film elements can prove this.
Recognize the narrative as arbitrary rather than logical – the audience can then ask why individual structures in events are why they are
An awareness of excess may help change the status of the narrative to the viewer