Briefly the history of Hollywood interests many modern people, as it is one of the most popular entertainment industries today. Even though it’s been around for such a long time, Hollywood studios can help you revisit the film industry and understand the important moments in the making of a career in Hollywood.
The beginnings of Hollywood
The story of the beginnings of Hollywood begins in the late 19th century, where two businessmen came up with the name of a rapidly developing area in the western United States, the state of California. One of them was Mr Whitney, who found himself honeymooning with his wife in the Los Angeles hills. They were enjoying the beautiful mountain views and scrutinising a Chinese farmer hauling timber. The woman asked what he did, to which came the consonant reply: ‘I’m hauling wood’.
Of course Hollywood is more associated with the film industry, as in its day there was a lot of film-making going on. The first film studio opened in 1911 was Nestor films. The area was known for its beautiful views, hospitable climatic conditions and varied locations, with the ocean, forests and even deserts nearby. Following the end of the First World War, the United States experienced a true economic and cultural boom which allowed the film industry to flourish.
The golden era
In the 20’s several dozen films were released each year and new talent was born both in the form of directors and actors. Hollywood began to evolve from a common area in the western United States in the cultivated and acquired the status of a kind of oasis of leisure and comfort. The period from 1920 to 1930 was considered the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema, as it was a time when not only did iconic masterpieces like Gone with the Wind, Gone with the Wind, Gold Rush, Metropolis, and others appeared, but the movie business made it to the top five biggest industries in the United States, standing alongside the financial industry and heavy industry.
The Hayes Code
The late ’20s in Hollywood was a real forge of entertainment for Americans, with films not only being stamped one after the other, but also covering topics ranging from mobsters to violence. Such scenes in movies were not to everyone’s liking. Several major scandals caused heavy losses for the film industry, so the Presbyterian Elder William Hayes was brought in to clean up Hollywood’s image. To clean up the image, a set of rules was introduced to regulate the content of films. They began to exclude harsh scenes of violence, sexuality, drugs, white slavery, childbirth scenes and child pornography. Scenes of prolonged kissing, especially with negative film characters, became undesirable.
Application of the Hayes Code led to the exclusion of many boxbusters. By 1934 the movie world was based on morals and remained so for 30 years. The famous film “Scarface” describing the biography of Al Capone was released. And in 1940, Thou Shall Not, which violated practically all points of the Hayes Code, was published. The filmmakers started to fight, as it was practically impossible to follow all the rules.
New Wave
The American New Wave was a movement that emerged between 1960 and 1970 that defined the spiritual and aesthetic value of cinema. The filmmakers were inspired by the French film industry and were heavily influenced by European intellectual cinema. Influenced by the theory of auteur theory, filmmakers began to create with the full freedom of vision. The new Hollywood was born amidst an artistic crisis. Young people preferred European traditional films and huge sums of money were spent to create commercial love stories. It was also at this time that bold films appeared, such as Bonnie and Clyde, Riderless and The Way of the Free Man, which brought in solid box office receipts at the box office.
Features of Hollywood these days
Since the 1990s Hollywood’s film industry has been more of a commercial enterprise and with the advent of the Internet, the way people watch films has changed. The development of computer special effects helped launch iconic action and sci-fi films to the masses. Viewers were introduced to the universe of Star Wars, the Indiana Jones and Lara Croft franchises.
Ticket sales declined in the 1990s, but Hollywood continued to grow with VCR rentals and then DVDs and Blue-Rays. In recent years, the number of Disney cartoons and high-budget blockbusters has increased. The technology that moved the film world to digital has elevated Hollywood’s popularity like never before. Even now, in an era of economic inequality, many viewers are still fascinated by Hollywood’s movie stars and their glamorous lifestyle.