“Compared to the United States where financiers quickly saw the profit potential of film, British capital was slow to move into the film industry.”
Hollywood films are usually what we know as feel good films and give off a sense of escapism from reality. When watching them you tend to get lost in the film itself. This could be a reason why the films are very popular and tend to dominate the film industry. Such films like “She’s all that”, “Father of the Bride”, and “Dirty dancing” are just a few examples of the type of films which end happily giving the audience a sense of escape from their reality. These films are also often showing beautiful locations, big houses, pretty gardens, and beautiful people which instantly get attention. Films which are typically British such as Trainspotting represent an extremely basic lifestyle and don’t lead the audience to escape their reality instead it’s a reminder of the ghastly things in life. British films quite often work on the principle of reality, sending a message through the film which is often a way of communication. Although some people may have not liked Trainspotting – it clearly left a lasting taste of its difference but because of Hollywood’s visually pleasing films and false images the audience clearly like to be absorbed into the escapism method which Hollywood films have.
Hollywood films tend to look better visually this is due to the amount of money spent on equipment which digitally enhances the image, British films tend to look like there was a budget and look rather dull compared to the shiny Hollywood films. The films are based upon these magical fairy tale styles of endings or endings with a very universal appeal, like Trainspotting is purely about drug abuse – audiences may find this offensive as its not particularly classed as universally appealing to all.
European films tend to be limiting due to the language barrier, in Bollywood film it’s quite obvious that it’s culturally limited due to the target audience being those who are Asian. Hollywood film is none of these, possibly because America is so broadly multicultural that it caters for all types of audiences without limiting any.
Hollywood owns a vast majority of big Cinemas, many based here in the UK, such as UCI and Warner Bros. So quite obviously American films would be screened there, UCI didn’t show small UK films but American ones only – limiting the UK to only big American films giving Hollywood a big step up in domination. The UK has no distributors for its films so it purely relies on the US distributors which can cause problems if they don’t want to show small UK films, like UCI cinemas.
Merchandising
Since the first days of elegant Hollywood film it’s been known that its films are the crème de la crème of the film industry because it was the first place to do it. There is the Chinese theatre – where film stars leave hand and foot prints in cement and Universal studios where they show you how films are made and hold shows and rides for the public. It’s known globally that t
Powerful
The majority of famous directors, actors and actresses in films today are mainly American. The actors and actresses have a big effect on the domination of Hollywood film, without them I don’t think the films would be as big. This is because the actors are usually appealing to look at, got interesting characteristics, and help to promote the film by going to interviews in television, magazines, and radio. More so today we as a society are constantly involved with celebrities private lives so if an actor has had a lot of press coverage before their film it can quite easily make the audience want to go and see that film for that reason.
English is spoken by a vast amount of the world’s popularity, even if some countries speak a different language they tend to learn English alongside. Films like the Bollywood ones (Asian) don’t become that popular due to the language barrier as not enough of the population can understand it. Although it is big it can’t grow due to this.
Big media conglomerates such as big companies like Fox News Corporation who own parts of the film industry make lots of money from box offices sales and get portions of the profits. This money often goes to the production of bigger films which they can get more of a profit from. It just keeps rising and rising.
Marxists views on big companies
Hollywood is very clever at making more money out of the public than we are let on to know. They perform a task called Windowing in which they make the money out of the film at the box office but then out of merchandising and eventually Video/DVD, Sky Box office and Video/DVD rental. They are constantly making money from different outlets. This helps them fund bigger and better projects. The public tend to like to buy the video/DVD because a film is non perishable – they can watch it over and over again, so if someone enjoys a film at the cinema they are more likely to buy the video too – gaining the company more money. Not just from this do the companies make money but from TV also, when a film is shown on television the company gets a fee for it being aired. As I mentioned before people do like to keep things for re-use so there has been a rise in Video/DVD sales – again more money has been made from this. See Appendix one for confirmation.
Even though cinema is popular television still wins the population over. Possibly due to convenience, it’s always there and with packages like Sky there will always be something on there we’d like to see or wouldn’t mind watching. With the cinema at three or four pounds a time, it’s usually a treat once a week if that.
Scale
America got there first with the film making, they built up their expertise through experience and this is why the standard is so high. Quentin Tarrintino and Steven Spielberg are two of the most famous directors
“New communication technologies and forms of entertainment have undoubtedly affected the social and cultural role of cinema; the cinema nonetheless retains a huge importance as an economic, cultural, and artistic activity.” – taken from American Cinema and Hollywood; Critical approaches.
“The US Box-Office tends to provide large revenues and high margins o theatrical release in the US is generally the first window (Gasson, 1996:89). This is followed, typically some 2-3 months later, by theatrical release in other countries, including the UK. The overseas theatrical release window may stretch over period of many months.”
