Contemporary US cinema is a huge film industry in Hollywood, located near Los Angeles, California, where the offices and filming pavilions of the largest US film companies are located.
The U.S. film industry has a well-developed system of multi-genre independent films: these are both cult films and creative experiments by directors. As a rule, these are low-budget films made by little-known directors. “Independent films” are mostly non-commercial films that bring their creators maximum profit, such as blockbusters, and therefore you can often see certain creative experiments in them. Most often, it is from “independent” cinema that world stars emerge: for example, the debut film of the famous Quentin Tarantino was the movie “Mad Dogs,” which is now called a classic of independent cinema.
The formation of American cinema, one of the most popular in our time, began in 1892 and was associated with the American scientist and inventor T. Edison, who designed the kinescope. The first public movie screening took place in New York City at the Bayel and Koster Music Hall. It consisted of small humorous and dance performances.
The first film studio in Hollywood was founded in 1911. Later, four major film companies were created – Paramount Pictures (1912), WarnerBrothers (1918), Columbia Pictures (1919), Metro Goldwyn Mayer (1924), with studios in Hollywood, as well as several smaller companies. The first film that started the history of Hollywood was the western directed by Cecil B. DeMille, The Indian Man.
On October 6, 1927, the first movie in which the audience could hear the actors premiered – it was The Jazz Singer. The era of sound cinema and the Golden Age of Hollywood began. The concept of a movie star appeared. In 1929, The Jazz Singer was awarded a special Oscar for creating the first sound film. Over the next thirty years, thousands of films were released. The main genres of American cinema were clearly defined: westerns, comedies, melodramas, musicals, thrillers, etc.
Young filmmakers who demonstrated their abilities were J. Lucas, S. Spielberg, M. Scorsese, F. Ford Coppola, and B. de Palma. It was this group of directors who shaped modern cinema as it entered the 21st century. Their films were a huge success, and they became the founders of the blockbuster genre. The heads of large studios trusted young directors and invited them to shoot, because they, coming from film schools and small studios, knew how to keep within very “modest” budgets. A new era began in Hollywood filmmaking.
The main genres of American feature films were finally formed in the 20s and 40s of the 20th century. The demand of film consumers played a major role in this process, as cinema depended on how profitable films were.
The concept of film genre began to take shape with the establishment of the Hollywood studio system. It helped to systematize the production of films and facilitated their promotion to the market. Each studio specialized in making films of a certain genre: Paramount Pictures made comedies, Universal Studios made horror films, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer made musicals, etc. At the same time, some directors and actors began to be associated with specific film genres: Alfred Hitchcock with thrillers, Jeffrey Ford with westerns, Douglas Sirk with melodramas, Wes Craven and Lamberto Vava with horror films, John By with action films, and Roland Emmerich with disaster films.
Actors also suffered this fate: John Wayne and Ridley Scott were associated with westerns, Edward Robinson with gangster films, John Crawford and Barbara Stanwyck with melodramas, Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi with horror films, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone with action films, Jim Carrey and Leslie Nielson with comedies.
The most popular cinematic genre is the detective story: the depiction of crimes, their investigation and identification of the perpetrators. Varieties of this genre include action movies, westerns, gangster movies, martial arts movies, and some thrillers.
Cinematic art plays a very important role in the culture of the United States. Every year, film companies in the United States release hundreds of movies that attract millions of viewers to theaters and bring in billions of dollars. Today, Hollywood cinema is an ideological tool – a symbol of modern America and a means of shaping the country’s image on the world stage.