Last night I watched a classic movie from the 1940s, with Bette Davis and Gary Merrill. It was as you might expect: a beautiful film in which every bit part was magnificently acted. Every scene was put together with utmost care. It was pure art, and even the message and plot rose above its essentials to make provide an affecting look at the human condition. Scenes stick in your mind. Oh, and the music was great too.
It doesn’t matter which movie in particular. There are hundreds and thousands of movies that came out of “old Hollywood” that could be so described.
I was reminded of one of the great puzzles in art history. How is it that so many amazing films could be made from the 1920s through the 1940s and then, as if out of nowhere, the talent for making movies seemed to evaporate from American culture for another 20 to 30 years, until the 70s and 80s when they started coming back again.
For more on this, see Mark Thornton’s article.
As with so many other mysteries, you need to look to the state to understand the source. You need to look to U.S. vs. Paramount Pictures in 1948, the Supreme Court decision that smashed the old Hollywood by forbidding the parallel ownership of production companies and theaters. It was called the “studio system,” and the court made it illegal on antitrust grounds. The state undermined what made the old economics of Hollywood work so well.
I think of this case when I hear people tell me that Obama wouldn’t be so stupid as to destroy something as essential to life as Google or to smash the great fortunes that make up the core of the American philanthropic sector or unionize the workforce in a way that would undercut the great American job machine.
Oh yeah? Think of how important Hollywood was to the American culture. American movies were the one great contribution–apart from jazz–to world culture and art. American movies were the world standard, the defining mark of the culture, the thing that united everyone. It define how we thought of ourselves and our past and our future as well. Movies were life.
The state thought nothing of putting the boot on the neck of Hollywood and choking out its life. The corpse was on display for all. There might have been a public outcry but there was always confusion over cause and effect. People loved the movies, but had little sympathy for the moguls and high-living stars. There is always a sort of entertainment value in seeing those at the top of the heap take a tumble. And there were too many other distractions. The war, the hope for ending the economic depression, and the desperate need to put life together following the upheaval of both. Who cares about a bunch of privileged babies in the movies.
And yet we look back and see the incredible cost. We lost at least 20 years of film, all because of a pointless intervention by the Supreme Court. And yet even today, this intervention is virtually unknown, as much as it continues to affect us.
Can the state get away with egregious things such as this? Yes. And the state learns nothing from its previous disasters except that it can get away with them if its victims are rich enough to inspire public envy.
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Rock and Roll was at least as important an American contribution to culture as movies and far more important than jazz.
Another thing to remember is the 1934 Breen Code, which meant the Chief Censor had to approve the message of the film, before it could be released. As a result, all the great discussions of morality were banned and the happy ending and everyone-always-gets-what-they-deserve message was enforced.
The pre-code films were by no means perfect, and often shied away from the ending that would seem to fit best with the rest of the film (perhaps partly because there was still a censorship code, but it was not really enforceable). But, still, pre-code films generally dealt with moral issues much better than the films that came after.
Let me see: after first regulating the thing with intellectual monopoly laws, the state comes with more regulation to “fix” some aspects of what it caused, bringing more bad things with it. Good ol’ Mises’ claim of “regulation breeds more regulation”.
Ok, looking at it this way even defending Microsoft against state intervention makes some perverse sense. But still it feels strange, defending those who thoroughly exploited the twisted state of things enabled by the first intervention.
Also remember the genetic decimation caused by the war, a lot of talent was blown to pieces…
Modern big government acts like a gigantic black hole, randomly sucking in and destroying all culture and activity that falls within the bureaucratic event horizon. Obama and the new socialist state are merely accelerating the trend by expanding the size of the black hole.
On July 30, 1947 Copyright law was “codified into positive law as title 17 of the U.S. Code. “. I wonder if that had anything to do with it too. It seems to me that copyright law makes it so that the content that gets the most attention earns more revenue than the content that has substance. In a normal market the “hype” would be “copped forward” rather than monetized. So in a normal market, content production resources would tend to focus elsewhere. But in a copyright market, content production would chase after hype in a race to the bottom.
Some great movies still slipped through the cracks, including the greatest movie ever made, Stanley Kubrick’s “Paths of Glory” (1957). It’s not just the best anti-war movie of all time. It’s simply the best movie of all time.
I like hyperbole.
David
“Let me see: after first regulating the thing with intellectual monopoly laws, the state comes with more regulation to “fix” some aspects of what it caused, bringing more bad things with it. Good ol’ Mises’ claim of “regulation breeds more regulation”.”
So true!
I have no pity for corporations which cooperate with the state, get advantages out of that cooperation and are later on some sort of “victim” of some laws of that same state!
These “content producing” corporations (and their oligopoly) could and can only exist because of their cooperation with the state (eg in form of state guaranteed intellectual privilege/monopoly!).
“. . . until the 70s and 80s when they started coming back again”.
Huh? One obvious reason movies in the ’30s were noteworthy was due to fact that such movies were being done for the first time. It’s hard to watch a remake without thinking “meh, it’s been done”.
A second reason for the ’30s being a classic age was to the hardships of the Great Depression – people having a hard time in life wanted to see lighthearted enjoyable movies where the viewers could escape their lives for two hours in pleasant fantasy.
A third reason would the fact that ’40s saw the movie industry being taken over by the government to churn out propaganda movies. The ’50s saw the Communist purge of people in the entertainment industry.
A big fourth (see Michael Medved’s writings for more) is the way movie makers in the ’60s delighted in going against family-friendly/mild fantasy and delighted in going out of their way to make harsh, gritty, social realist movies. Gone were the days of pleasant escapism and now movie makers were trying to outdo each other in offensiveness.
It hasn’t around until the mid-’90s there been a resurge into family-friendly movies as movie-makers are now see who can outdo the other with CGI animation.
hollywood of the twenties and thirties was so successful in australia, it spawned headlines in the popular press like these:
‘American Films—Evil Effect on Young People’
‘Bad English in “Talkiesâ€â€”Rigid Censorship Advised’
‘American “Englishâ€â€”Impure Accent Feared’
‘”American Twangâ€â€”Talking Pictures Criticised’
‘Menace to Children’
‘The Film Till Now—A Story of Americanization’
this hysteria culminated in a royal commission of 1927 which considered whether it would be useful to increase tariffs on us films, whilst lowering tariffs on british film to stop this cultural menace. lucky for us, this didn’t happen.
the anti-hollywood sentiment continues to this very day.
gil says:
“The ’50s saw the Communist purge of people in the entertainment industry.”
and this is a bad thing that would have lowered quality?
I knew that there was a Communist infiltration of Hollywood during the sixties but I had no idea about this Supreme Court case. Not to sound ignorant but can someone explain a little more how and why this forced separation of ownership affected movies so greatly.
“until the 70s and 80s when they started coming back again”
OK but what happened to in the last 5-10 years? Right now Hollywood is totally out of original ideas. Warming up old superhero cartoons (Batman, Spiderman, Daredevil and others), warming up old historical stories (Alexander, Troy, Gladiator, Sparta) etc. etc.
Really, their budget vs. original ideas ratio is miserable lately – what happened to them?
I am going to have to disagree on this one. Sure it can be argued wether or not the Hollywood companies should have been broken up, but I don’t think you can use that as an excuse for a lack of quality films being produced in the 50s and 60s – which is subjective anyways.
Before Hollywood was broken up, the production company produced the film, distributed it, owned the theatre, and basically even owned the talent since they were on contract with them. That sounds like a monopoly to me. If they were never broken up would we have gotten those classic, independent, social commentary films of the 60s and 70s?
Yes, the 40s was one of the greatest times of film making, but that is not because the state did not break up the companies yet. Hell, they had a huge part in the censorship of cinema. If anything I would say the state has greatly backed off of Hollywood and other film makers.
With a change in times, comes a change in art. The 50s and 60s were influenced by the Cold War. We got horror and sci-films that were a reflection of that time period. To say the films of that time were worse is a subjective opinion, and if you think they were, I don’t believe you can blame the decline of quality films on the government for breaking up Hollywood – there are other variables at hand.
It was a market-generated model that worked. It was not a monopoly because there were no barriers to entry. The government smashed the entire model. It would be the same as if the government told Google that it can both provide a search engine and web content.
I understand where you are coming from Jeffrey with the monopolies. The main point I was trying to make though was that it was not the governments fault for your opinion that the quality of cinema declined following the break up of the studios. I feel that is just a causal fallacy since there are more variables than just that at play.
Looking back with hindsight I do feel that it was a good thing for film making that the government did break it up. That is just an opinion of mine though.
I just don’t see the harm caused to film making because of it. In fact I feel it opened the doors for film makers. Plus, I think it was better for us as film goers. If you lived by a Fox owned theatre you’d be limited by your viewing choices. I can go to any theatre and expect to find some of the ‘best’ any of the production companies have to offer an audience at a given time. Sure they are definitely not always their best though :p !
Once again I realize these statements I am making don’t state wither the government had the authority to, or not to break up Hollywood, but with hindsight I think it was beneficial that it happened.
well, clearly the old model was on its way out and wouldn’t be around today. But we must let the market work in its own time, in its own way. We can’t just select whatever kind of world we want and let the government try to create it for us.
I have nothing to add on the economics, but I don’t see how you can say the talent of filmmaking was gone in the 1950s and 1960s. I could name several directors who made amazing films (and I shall) in the 50s alone. Anthony Mann (The Naked Spur (1953), Man of the West (1958)), Alferd Hitchcock (Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958)), Nicholas Ray (In a Lonely Place (1950), Johnny Guitar (1954), Bigger Than Life (1956)), Billy Wilder (Sunset Blvd. (1950), Ace in the Hole (1951)), Samuel Fuller (The Steel Helmet (1951), Pickup on South Street (1953)), Fritz Lang (The Big Heat (1953), While the City Sleeps (1956)), I could go on and on and on all day… but I think you get the picture. Oh and Paths of Glory is one of the best films made as well.
But Robert, how many of these are independent films? Thornton covers this point in his article.
I’ll start off by saying taste in films is completely subjective, but to me it seems pretty evident judging by amount of great films I’ve seen that the 1950s was a far better decade in producing films in Hollywood than the 2000s. All of the films I previously mentioned were produced by the big studios with mostly big name actors (with the exception of Samuel Fuller’s The Steel Helmet which I just realized was done before he got his “big break” with Pickup on South Street) and like I said I could name lots more. John Ford and Sidney Lumet each made their masterpieces (The Searchers and 12 Angry Men respectively) in the 1950s Hollywood in my opinion as well.
I will grant you the fact that Bette Davis was the best actor of all time, easily, hands down; it’s almost de facto in any discussion about film making.
The antitrust law of 1948 saw it that no good movie would ever come out of a major production company again. Although, maybe a bit of an overstatement.
What needs to be talked about however is how internet piracy is effecting film and particularly music. The fact of the matter is, those savvy enough to bypass the copywright and the dvd ripoff aisle, are experiencing the real golden age of filmmaking. The best movies are coming out right now. Along with this we are experiencing a very good era for music as well. What’s notable is the international flavor, the blending of styles, and the intellectual and moral plateaus being reached even as the world completely is going to hell.
Oh I could name examples, however, I like the fact that everything I list could be well hated by the panel here and ten new examples could be listed to counter. Which is great, something for everyone in my opinion.
I just wanted to point out that the downloading of music and movies is allowing quite a nice little niche of extremely intelligent films to prop up, and from all over the world which is completely fascinating for anyone interested in culture. Japan used to make awesome movies, and I only know from the fact that Mario Brothers 2 for the NES was made by a totally different production company that they were in the absence of copywright protection. Alright I lied, one example, I saw pornostar recently and loved it. Now China is doing its thing I assume without copywrights, maybe wrongly. All I know is use linux guys if you don’t like it, and uhh keep it real.
To snargles:
“The fact of the matter is, those savvy enough to bypass the copywright and the dvd ripoff aisle, are experiencing the real golden age of filmmaking. The best movies are coming out right now.”
I agree that the internet is opening up the ability to see many great films, but in terms of being inventive both in terms of new music and film I don’t really see it yet. Where I saw an expolsion of it though was during the late 50s to the early 70s. Great economic policies can allow artists to flourish, but it does not always mean it will happen. I think we are missing the social and cultural aspects. People were trying everything between during the 60s with respect to art. It didn’t matter if there were restrictive economic policies. Even Luis Bunuel was probably shocked by some of the avant-garde films of the 1960s.
I agree, Paths of Glory is a great movie.
Re: Robert
It’s subjective I guess. The hyperbole is just a reflection of my feeling even though the films in general I am referencing are less polished in terms of acting and production. Despite this, a lot of the movies I see that have been made recently are finding their way on my “greatest of all time” shortlist. In regards to the avant garde films of that sixties period above mentioned I have nothing but respect and admiration for those directors who were pushing the form. But, I have to ask you whether or not you put these films on a pedastol because at that time you were probably living it up as sort of a personal ‘golden age’ and these films still have the power to trasport you back there. The films today are original I feel like, albeit less so because of the films were so much so in the late sixties, if you want to look at it that way. It only takes a little bit of red dye 40 and corn syrup to make a movie more pulpy but making a movie impressionistic and deeply impactful is more difficult. Namely today I like the high specialization in the films, I feel that the specific audiences are more clearly defined, the simplicity in the storytelling, and I hate to say this because of what it implies, but the sincerity.
I love less polished films like the father of independent cinema John Cassavetes, but it seems most films nowadays especially in the US (of course there are exceptions) aren’t inventive in trying new things. That’s what I was getting at. I personally really don’t like most of the avant-garde films of the 60s. My point was that it was completely different from anything that was done before or in many cases since (probably shocking even the one of the most ambitious filmmaker of the late 20s/early 30s, Luis Bunuel). I don’t see that now. There is no “Godard” now, if you will, in either terms of popularity or willingness to do different things. All in my opinion of course.
“Namely today I like the high specialization in the films, I feel that the specific audiences are more clearly defined, the simplicity in the storytelling, and I hate to say this because of what it implies, but the sincerity.”
I do agree with this. Except for the sincere part of course… haha. I don’t know how a filmmaker could possibly be more sincere than John Cassavetes.
The McCarthy witch-hunts reduced the quality of Hollywood movies by hounding members of the movie industry, blacklisting some, forcing some to find work on Broadway and elsewhere, and ruining others – maybe most notably John Garfield.
Communism is evil. But ruining people’s lives because they may have attended a meeting out of curiosity or friendship was more evil.
It is a black stain on Washington politics. There’s a reason “McCarthyism” is an epithet.
Really good article, thank you for sharing, I will always look at the future, too talented.
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