Hollywood in the 1930s, Poetic Realism, Japanese Cinema in the 1930s

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Hollywood in the 1930s, Poetic Realism,Japanese
Cinema in the 1930s
Jaakko Seppälä
http//www.helsinki.fi/taitu/tet/Jaakko/WorldFilmH
istory1.html
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Hollywoods 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 little money for film tickets
• Hollywood fought the depression with double bills
  and B movies
• Wall Streets involvement increased in the 1930s
• The National Industrial Recovery Act went into
  effect in 1933

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The Production Code

• In 1930 the president of the MPPDA Will Hays
  authorised the drafting of the production code
• Code enforcement was rather lax and inconsistent
  until late 1933 (pre-code films)
• The Production Code Administration led by Joseph
  Breen began to regulate movie content
• PCA approval was required on all scripts before
  production and then on the finished film
• Hollywoods self-censorship set the boundaries
  for what could be seen, heard or even implied on
  screen

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The Broadway Melody (Beaumont, 1929)
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Scarface (Hawks, 1932)
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The Studio System

• THE BIG FIVE
• Paramount
• Loews (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)
• Twenties Century Fox
• Warner Bros.
• RKO
• THE LITTLE THREE
• Universal, Columbia, United Artists

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Hollywood Cinema in the 1930s

• The era of the movie palace came to an end
• Methods of sound recording improved
  unidirectional microphones, light booms,
  multiple-track recording, new camera support
  (dolly)
• Technicolor introduced a new system in the early
  1930s
• The 1930s saw the began 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

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The Black Pirate (Parker, 1926)
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The Wizard of Oz (Fleming, 1939)
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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 time when the cinema
  was the main form of popular entertainment began
  in the 1930s
• Spoken French increased the popularity of the
  national cinema
• Hollywood films still dominated the market
• Emigrant filmmakers arrived from Germany

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French Poetic Realism

• Poetic 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
• Poetic pessimistic narratives about love and
  disappointment, tone of nostalgia and bitterness,
  night-time settings, 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

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The Rules of the Game (Renoir, 1939)
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Japanese Cinema in the 1930s

• A benshi a person who explained the filmic
  image to the audiences
• Japanese cinema resisted the transformation to
  synchronised sound
• The biggest companies Nikkatsu, Shochiku and
  Toho
• Hollywood films did not overshadow domestic
  production
• The director and scriptwriter had a considerable
  control over their projects
• Directors were encouraged to specialise in
  certain genres and to cultivate personal styles

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Kenji Mizoguchi (1898-1956)
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Yasujiro Ozu (1903-1963)