2. The Cathedral of the Motion Picture
• Movies enjoyed the unique status as the
premier entertainment activity for the
majority of Americans; akin to national
pastime.
• Enjoyment came not just films themselves but
also from the surroundings in which they were
presented.
– Movie palaces built between 1910 and 1930
resembled gigantic cathedrals.
3. The Cathedral of the Motion Picture
• The cult status of films also extended to those
who appeared in them
– Movie fans transformed actors and actresses into
stars, making them objects of intense fascination
• Between 1929 and 1949, roughly 80-90 million
Americans went to the movies every week
– Going to the movies became a way in which people
passed their leisure time
– The cinema had become an institution—and integral
feature of the experience of being a twentieth-century
American
4. Developing Systems: Society and
Technology
• Cinema as an institution:
economic, societal, technologi
cal, and psychological
– As an economic
institution, cinema is designed
to make money; it is a complex
organization of
producers, distributors, and
exhibitors
– Developed basic technology
and established various
systems designed to ensure
that films return a profit to the
industry
5. Developing Systems: Society and
Technology
• Cinema as an institution:
economic, societal, technological, and
psychological
• As a social institution, it provided an appropriate
form of social contact for the American populace
– Became a modern forum of leisure-time communal
activity
6. Developing Systems: Society and
Technology
• Cinema as an institution:
economic, societal,
technological, and
psychological
• As a technological
institution, it became
dependent on the
success of products such
as cameras, celluloid,
electricity, microphones,
projectors, speakers,
screens, etc.
7. Developing Systems: Society and
Technology
• Cinema as an institution:
economic, societal,
technological, and
psychological
• As a psychological
institution, its purpose is
to encourage the
moviegoing habit by
providing the kind of
entertainment that
working- and middle-
class Americans want
8. The Kinetoscope
• The origins of cinema lie in
the development of mass
communication technology
– Culmination of an age that
saw invention of: the
telegraph, photography, the
typewriter, the telephone, the
phonograph, roll film, etc.
• The Kinetoscope
transformed the face of late
nineteenth-century culture
9. The Kinetoscope
• Photography and the motion picture introduced
and institutionalized a new, modern conception
of time that would be marketed in the forms of
photos, records, or movies and could be infinitely
re-experienced.
• The cinema emerged as a product that audiences
could consume and which functioned as a
window for other mass-produced goods.
• Edison kinetoscope films 1894-1896
10. Mass Production, Mass Consumption
• Upon advent of projection, motion pictures
became the ultimate form of mass
consumption
• Audiences came to see the technological
marvel of movies and the magic made
possible by photography and cameras
• The viewer’s relationship with the image was
no longer private but suddenly became public
11. Mass Production, Mass Consumption
• Although film audiences consisted of all
socioeconomic classes, the cost of admission
tended to exclude the lower classes because
they could only afford to attend occasionally
• Motion pictures appealed to audiences as
attractions, a series of acts within the large act
of motion pictures
• Pre-1906 cinema stressed showing rather than
telling but by 1908, 96% of films told stories
12. Mass Production, Mass Consumption
• The kinds of films shown were:
– Actualities (documentaries, views of famous or
distant places)
– Recorded vaudeville acts
– Excerpts from popular plays
– Phantom rides (films shot from the front of
moving vehicles)
– Trick films (used multiple film techniques to
perform tricks or acts of “magic”)
13. Nickelodeon: A Collective Experience
• Beginning in 1905, theatres devoted
exclusively to showing films began springing
up in cities across the country
– They were known as “nickelodeons” because the
price of admission was initially only a nickel
– These small, 200-seat theatres were quickly
installed in or near shopping districts
– The low cost of admission and the brief show
times attracted the working classes
15. Spectacle and Storytelling
• The Camera as Recorder vs Narrator
– While early American cinema had been exhibitionist in
nature and satisfied with showing
attractions, subsequent (post-1908) cinema became
more intent on the perfection of narrative skills.
– Edwin S. Porter’s The Life of an American Fireman
(1903)
• Later cinema actively narrated events, shaping
the audience’s perception of them
– The editing was used to contribute to the
psychological development of characters and to
explain their own motivation
16. Spectacle and Storytelling
• With the emergence of a cinema of narration,
classical Hollywood cinema took one step
further toward the institutionalization of the
cinema as an American pastime
• Multiple-reel “feature” foreign films were
showcased in large theatres that prompted
American producers to release their own films
– D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915)
17. Spectacle and Storytelling
• D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a
Nation (1915)
– An intricate 3-hour-long
narrative held audiences
spellbound
– Its success transformed the
nature of American film
production and exhibition
– Also notorious for its racist
agenda, illustrating the
enormous power of the
motion picture medium to
communicate ideological
arguments
18. The Movie Palace
• Feature-length films were
accompanied by a dramatic
change in motion picture
presentation as nickelodeons
gave way to luxurious movie
palaces
• The era of movie palaces began
in 1913 with the 2460-seat
Regent, managed by showman
S.L. “Roxy” Rothapfel
– Featured an organ, an
orchestra, a chorus and/or
opera singers, ushers, and a
lavishly decorated gilt interior
19. An Evolving Institution
• Today’s filmmakers draw on essentially the same
set of stylistic practices and narrative techniques
as those forged by Griffith and other during the
period in which the fundamental elements of the
feature film were established
• The cinematic institution of Hollywood past has
disappeared, however, slowly transforming itself
after the 1950s into a new, institution designed to
serve the different needs to contemporary
audiences and an ever-changing modern motion
picture marketplace
