Hollywood Cosmopolitanisms and the Occult Resonance of Cinema

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 121-149
Author(s):  
Alireza Doostdar
Keyword(s):  
Film Industry ◽  
The U.S

This article examines various circulations of Hollywood productions in Iran and the ways in which audiences, critics, cultural administrators, and activists relate to them. I am particularly concerned with what I call “Hollywood cosmopolitanisms,” forms of receptivity to religious and cultural others as mediated by the U.S. film industry. Rather than dividing attitudes toward Hollywood in terms of openness and refusal, or cosmopolitanism and counter-cosmopolitanism, I suggest that we attend to different modes of openness: those that are overtly acknowledged, those that are concealed, and those that pass altogether unrecognized but make their mark in the form of “occult resonance.”

Blind Trust: Market Control, Legal Environments, and the Dynamics of Competitive Intensity in the Early American Film Industry, 1893–1920

2005 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen J. Mezias ◽  
Elizabeth Boyle
Keyword(s):  
Film Industry ◽  
American Film ◽  
Market Control ◽  
Early American ◽  
Short Films ◽  
Media Reports ◽  
Trust Law ◽  
American Film Industry ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Mortality Analysis

This study of the emergence of the film industry in the U.S. between 1893 and 1920 contributes to the growing literature linking legal environments and population dynamics. This was an era characterized by a shift to active anti-trust policy, which manifested itself in legal action to disband a trust that had dominated the industry, the Motion Pictures Patents Corporation (MPPC). We use archival data to show that mortality was reduced by trust membership and increased with the market share of the trust members. The effects of litigation are varied, with litigation filed by trust members enhancing mortality and litigation filed against trust members decreasing mortality. Analysis of coded headlines from media reports on the emerging industry shows that a shift in the view of the trust in the normative environment toward a more negative view was also associated with decreased mortality. Results also show that learning and the compensatory fitness enjoyed before anti-trust law was enforced prevented the MPPC members from recognizing changes in the marketplace; as a result, they were less likely to move from making short films to making increasingly popular feature-length films.

scholarly journals Transformation of the Global Film Industry: Prospects for Asian Countries

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-132
Author(s):  
Georgii D. Paksiutov
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
Film Festivals ◽  
Asian Countries ◽  
Global Institutions ◽  
Strategic Narratives ◽  
Political Relations ◽  
Streaming Services ◽  
The U.S

The current rapid development of some Asian economies and the projected economic dominance of Asia in the 21st century are reasons enough to call it “the Asian century.” But will Asia’s economic growth entail an increase in political power and cultural influence? In this article the author looks at the topic through the lens of the film industry, a field of activity with a plethora of intertwined economic, political, and cultural factors. Cinema is studied here as an industry that produces “meanings” and is coupled with the concept of “strategic narratives.” According to some statistics, Asian cinema is becoming increasingly important in terms of the size of national film markets, but for a variety of reasons the U.S. remains the world’s most important exporter of motion pictures. The position of Asian countries in world cinematography is undermined by such global institutions as award ceremonies and film festivals that are held in the U.S. and Europe and tend to favor Western filmmakers. This article emphasizes the dramatic influence of digital transformation on modern cinematography and the opportunities it opens up for Asian film producers in creating a new, global streaming services market. Finally, the paper discusses development prospects for the film industries in four Asian leaders in this field—China, Japan, South Korea, and India. Japan and South Korea are likely to increase their cooperation with the U.S. in cinematography. There are great opportunities for cooperation between the film industries of India and China, but they are heavily dependent on political relations between the two nations. China’s film industry is expected to continue to develop rapidly.

Hollywood’s Rogue Neighbor: The Argentine Film Industry during the Good Neighbor Policy, 1939–1945

2006 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamara L. Falicov
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Cultural Policy ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
The United States ◽  
Good Neighbor Policy ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Good Neighbor ◽  
The U.S

‘During World War II, the United States created a political, economic, I land cultural policy aimed at improving hemispheric relations between the U.S. and Latin America. Dubbed the “Good Neighbor Policy,” its objectives were twofold: 1) to insure that nations in Latin America were joined in the Allied war effort and were not associated with the Axis or Communist sympathizers, and 2) to allow the U.S. access to Latin America as a source of raw materials and a market for goods, including films. Because Argentina did not side with the Allies, instead preferring neutrality, it was castigated by an economic boycott. Beginning in 1941, the U.S. sold small rations of raw film stock to Argentina, and over time, refused to sell it all together. The film industry in Argentina, at the time considered the most profitable and advanced in Latin America, began to lose its hold on the Spanish-language market.

scholarly journals Female Revolution behind the Camera

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 193-214
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Tambor
Keyword(s):  
Gender Discrimination ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Public Disclosure ◽  
The Public ◽  
European Cinema ◽  
The World ◽  
To Receive ◽  
Kathryn Bigelow ◽  
The U.S

The paper addresses the issue of discrimination against women in the world of cinema. The author examines the successive stages of the struggle pursued by women of cinema for equality and fair treatment in an industry dominated and ruled by men. The discussion covers the most important campaigns and movements challenging gender discrimination, such as #MeToo in the U.S. or the European #nobodysdoll, as well as watershed events from the author’s point of view, including the Oscar for Kathryn Bigelow – the first woman in history to receive the award for best director, Harvey Weinstein’s conviction for sexual assault, and the leak of Sony’s confidential financial documents. The public disclosure of these facts triggered a process that should be referred to as gender equalisation in the film industry. The author also takes a look at the latest events in the industry, such as Agnieszka Holland’s election as president of the European Film Academy. In addition, the paper also comments on the aspect of feminine nouns in Polish and the attitude towards them on the part of the women they are supposed to describe. Information is provided on the U.S. and European cinema markets, as well as some diagnoses of problems appearing so far and suggested solutions.

“From Sagebrush to Symphony”

2020 ◽  
Vol 89 (4) ◽  
pp. 557-599
Author(s):  
Andrea Thabet
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
Urban Identity ◽  
High Culture ◽  
Negative Images ◽  
Cultural Negotiations ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Ordinary Citizens

This article explores the founding of the Hollywood Bowl and the multiple visions of its founding generation, tracing the cultural negotiations they engaged in between 1918 and 1926. These aims included disseminating high culture to ordinary citizens, democratizing access to music, providing spiritual uplift, unifying Hollywood’s diverse populace, and offering legitimacy to Hollywood as an emerging symbol of the U.S. film industry. By 1926, the Hollywood Bowl that emerged from a contentious planning process reflected aspects of all of the founders’ goals, but did not entirely fulfill those of any one of them. I argue that, despite their disagreements, the Bowl’s founders believed that their collective cultural enterprise had the potential to encourage a sense of cohesion and community among Hollywood’s—and more generally Los Angeles’s—inhabitants. The Hollywood Bowl was the first of many large-scale efforts to give culture permanence in Los Angeles, and its success helped redefine its urban identity by replacing negative images of the region with a growing reputation as a noteworthy cultural metropolis.

On the Origin of White Hollywood: The Racialized Space of the U.S. Film Industry

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (14) ◽  
pp. 2016-2027
Author(s):  
Bhoomi K. Thakore
Keyword(s):  
Film Industry ◽  
Social Institution ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Hollywood Film ◽  
Racialized Space ◽  
White Spaces ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Ideological Work

The scholarship on White spaces has highlighted the ways in which institutions have devoted themselves to reproducing Whiteness through intentional ideological work, and how the prevalence of such ideologies impact the individuals within these spaces. It is well recognized that experiences are racialized within U.S. social institution, but there needs to be more work on highlighting the origins of such ideologies within each context. In this article, I focus on the Hollywood film industry to emphasize how its history and contemporary practices do just that. Furthermore, the effects of such practices on the content created by Hollywood reinforce mediated representations that not only reproduce stereotypes at the interactional level but also reinforce the ideological status quo of White Hollywood. I conclude with a reflection on how any changes to the structure must be strategic, lest we repeat the same mistakes of other so-called “integrated” institutions.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document