Universal language, local accent: Music and song in the early talking film

2019 ◽  
pp. 111-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoff Brown
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
Early American ◽  
Technical Developments ◽  
Universal Language ◽  
World Power ◽  
German Producer ◽  
Musical Styles

With dialogue in early talkies complicating international product exchange, the film industry cherished the notion of music as a ‘universal language’. But this music required degrees of translation, both in the literal textual sense and in the matter of adapting ‘foreign’ customs, cultural and social, and musical styles. This chapter explores the issues principally through case studies of five key singing stars of early American and European sound films: Al Jolson, Maurice Chevalier, Carlos Gardel, Marlene Dietrich, and Richard Tauber. German producer Erich Pommer’s goal of combining universal appeal and nationalistic attractions, most evident in the multilingual Congress Dances, is also explored. After the mid-1930s, film music’s universal language significantly changed in response to technical developments, Hollywood’s solidified world power, and its development of a pervasive orchestral soundtrack style partly shaped by exiled European composers. European elements and local accents remained, but were now subsumed in a global American product.

Studying Hammer Horror

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Walden
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
Auteur Theory ◽  
Film Market ◽  
The Impact

When Hammer Productions was formed in the 1920s, no one foresaw the impact this small, independent studio would have on the international film market. Christopher Lee's mesmerizing, animalistic, yet gentlemanly performance as Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, and the Mummy were celebrated worldwide, and the Byronic qualities of Peter Cushing's Dr. Frankenstein, among his many other Hammer characters, proved impossible to forget. Hammer maintained consistent period settings, creating a timeless and enchanting aesthetic. This book treats Hammer as a quintessentially British product and through a study of its work investigates larger conceptions of national horror cinemas. The book examines genre, auteur theory, stardom, and representation within case studies of Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Twins of Evil (1971), and Hammer's latest film, Beyond the Rave (2008). The book weighs Hammer's impact on the British film industry, past and present. Intended for students, fans, and general readers, this book transcends superficial preconceptions of Hammer horror in order to reach the essence of Hammer.

scholarly journals ‘Pungent Sex’ and ‘Room at the Bottom’: Reframing British Exploitation Films of the 1960s

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Film Industry ◽  
Early American ◽  
Cultural Currency ◽  
Production Distribution ◽  
British Cinema ◽  
Exploitation Films ◽  
Exploitation Film ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Exhibition Strategies ◽  
Mode Of Production

Eric Schaefer, in his exploration of the American exploitation industry, has argued that exploitation cinema developed in opposition to mainstream Hollywood products. Furthermore, the topics and subject matter presented in early American exploitation films dealt with subjects Hollywood were unwilling to produce. As a result, the production, distribution and exhibition strategies developed by exploitation filmmakers differed markedly from the American mainstream film industry. However, in Britain (amongst critics and scholars) the exploitation film has no similar defining characteristics and is a term that has been applied to a wide variety of British films without regard to their industrial mode of production, distribution or exhibition. As a result, the cultural currency of the British exploitation film, as it is now understood, has no connection to the films they now describe, and often fails to take into account how these films were originally produced, marketed, distributed and exhibited. In the British film industry during the 1960s, the term ‘exploitation’ was used by the industry to refer to a wide variety of films which are now viewed differently by contemporary critics and academics. In other words, the currency of the term exploitation has changed from its original meaning. Therefore, this article is an attempt to reframe the debate around the meaning of the British exploitation film from the 1960s onwards, and to re-evaluate our understanding of the development of British cinema during this period.

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.

‘They wanted a bigger, more ambitious film’: Film Finances and the American ‘Runaways’ That Ran Away

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 176-197
Author(s):  
Llewella Chapman
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
Financial Resources ◽  
Film Production ◽  
New Wave ◽  
Tom Jones ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Karel Reisz

From the early 1960s, the British film industry was increasingly reliant on American studio financed ‘runaway’ productions. Alexander Walker identifies United Artists and Universal Pictures as two of the major players in the trend he dubbed ‘Hollywood England’. This article offers a close examination of the role of two studios in the financing of British film production by making extensive use of the Film Finances Archive. It focuses on two case studies: Tom Jones (1963) and Isadora (1968), both of which had completion guarantees from Film Finances, and will argue that Tony Richardson and Karel Reisz, two of the key British New Wave directors, lost their previous ability to direct films to budget and within schedule when they had the financial resources of American studios behind them. It will analyse how, due to a combination of ‘artistic’ intent and Hollywood money, Richardson and Reisz separately created two of the most notorious ‘runaways’ that ran away during the 1960s.

scholarly journals An alternative approach for socio-hydrology: case study research

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 317-329 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Mostert
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Case Study Research ◽  
Coupled Model ◽  
Interdisciplinary Cooperation ◽  
Limited Attention ◽  
Coupled Models ◽  
Study Research ◽  
Technical Developments ◽  
Alternative Approach

Abstract. Currently the most popular approach in socio hydrology is to develop coupled human–water models. This article proposes an alternative approach, qualitative case study research, involving a systematic review of (1) the human activities affecting the hydrology in the case, (2) the main human actors, and (3) the main factors influencing the actors and their activities. Moreover, this article presents a case study of the Dommel Basin in Belgium and the Netherlands, and compares this with a coupled model of the Kissimmee Basin in Florida. In both basins a pendulum swing from water resources development and control to protection and restoration can be observed. The Dommel case study moreover points to the importance of institutional and financial arrangements, community values, and broader social, economic, and technical developments. These factors are missing from the Kissimmee model. Generally, case studies can result in a more complete understanding of individual cases than coupled models, and if the cases are selected carefully and compared with previous studies, it is possible to generalize on the basis of them. Case studies also offer more levers for management and facilitate interdisciplinary cooperation. Coupled models, on the other hand, can be used to generate possible explanations of past developments and quantitative scenarios for future developments. The article concludes that, given the limited attention they currently get and their potential benefits, case studies deserve more attention in socio-hydrology.

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