| The History of Hollywood Cinema:
By the beginning of the 20th century, several small film studios existed predominantly in New York. Expensive rent, constant legal actions, the considerable number of overcast and rainy days, the illumination in pavilions due to poorly developed lighting facilities and the low photo-sensitivity of film directly depended on sunlight and disturbed film production.
Village Hollywood, which received its name from the huge ranch located on its place in the end of the 19th century, situated in the vicinity of remote Los Angeles, possessed an exclusive climatic and geographical features: more than 300 sunny days a year, nearby hills (including the well-known Grand Canyon), huge spaces of prairies and the Pacific Ocean’s coast. The city could have delivered building materials and working resources but in the due course of time, it became the centre for the manufacture of film equipment and film materials (what has occurred in the future).
The land for constructing was acquired literally as a grant and an unprecedented construction boom started in Hollywood.
* Film production started in Los Angeles in 1907;
* Film production started in Hollywood in 1913.
The first film with which the history of Hollywood started was a Western by Cecil B. DeMille - “The Squaw Man”.
* By 1920, thanks to the quick rise in number of big film studios and the occurrence of the film star system, around 800 films were made annually here and the name itself became a symbol of luxury, sweet life and the illusive magic of the cinema.
Within 15 years, a modest small village had turned into the film industry capital of America as about 90% of American film studios were concentrated in it.
Making:
The increase in competition led to the closing down of relatively smaller film studios.
Big associations, the so-called “Film trusts” started appearing. Those, in turn, started uniting with cinema releasing firms. For example:
* In 1912 “Paramount” (name from 1927);
* In 1919 “United Artists” (Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Charles Chaplin and D.W. Griffith);
* In 1924 “Metro - Goldwyn – Mayer”;
* In 1925 “Warner Bros”.
The orientation of the American motion picture industry strictly restricted the “authors” possibilities of directors on the mass audience.
The system demanded “entertaining” films, bringing more profit and consequently, actor-stars (the film star system was formed) and producers took the center stage rather than the directors.
Flourishing:
The main achievements of Hollywood are connected with the making of genres:
* The comedies of M. Linder, Charlie Chaplin, B. Keaton, G. Lloyd, Marx brothers;
* Melodramas by Rudolfo Valentino;
* The westerns of John Ford;
* Films - noir with H. Bogart;
* Musicals with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly;
* The thrillers of A. Hitchcock;
Etc. right up to fantasy films, horrors, action movies and the block-busters of recent times – all these genres existed and occur “according to the demand” of the mass audience, and set sufficiently narrow limits for the self-expression of the director.
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Hollywood blockbuster titles often go through some serious alterations for international audience since direct translation does not always sound smooth. Some movie titles get changed so much that they get lost in translation. Some Hollywood movie titles were translated abroad as:
