Adrian Haley Hollywood is actually just a neighborhood in the sprawling city of Los Angeles. However, the name has become a global myth and a trademark of film culture. In the “dream factory” of Hollywood, glamour and poverty, illusion and insignificance are closely intertwined.
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Hollywood’s Beginnings
The history of Hollywood actually starts on the East Coast of the USA, in New York. There, in 1908, the two film companies “Biograph” and “Edison,” under the leadership of Thomas Edison, founded the “Motion Picture Patent Company.” They united almost all the significant companies of the then-film industry and, thus, all patents for film materials, cameras, and projectors under one roof. This created a company that could control the entire film market in the USA.
To evade these restrictions, a handful of independent producers moved to the West Coast of the USA in 1910, to a small suburb of Los Angeles called Hollywood. Here, they began shooting films, primarily westerns and comedies. When U.S. courts limited the monopoly of the “Motion Picture Patent Company” in 1912 and finally declared it illegal in 1915, nothing stood in the way of the success of Hollywood’s independent producers. They then built large film studios such as “Famous Players Lasky” (later “Paramount”), “Loew’s” (“Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer”), “Warner Brothers,” “RKO,” and “Fox” (later “20th Century Fox”).
The Golden Age of the Studio System
Hollywood provided ideal conditions for film production: pleasant temperatures allowed for year-round outdoor shooting, there was a sufficient labor force, and land was inexpensive. Each week, every studio released a film, and business boomed. The film industry survived the great stock market crash of 1929 relatively well, as it was able to capture a larger market with the newly invented sound film, avoiding revenue declines. The major studios also began relying on their distribution companies and their own cinema chains, rather than collaborating with independent companies. Genre productions like gangster films, westerns, musicals, and melodramas became mass products. By 1939, the film industry in Hollywood reached its peak, employing about 177,000 people and releasing 338 films.
The End of the Studio Era
The decline of the studio system in the 1950s was primarily due to the U.S. government. In 1938, the Department of Justice filed charges against the studios on behalf of independent theater operators for monopolistic practices. The outbreak of World War II delayed the so-called Paramount Case, which didn’t come before the Supreme Court until 1948. The court ruled the practices of the film companies illegal, leading to the separation of the studios from their cinema chains. This resulted in the emergence of many new production companies, whose films were shown in independent theaters.
In addition to the verdict in the Paramount Case, a technical innovation contributed to the dissolution of the existing studio system: television. While 78.2 million Americans attended the cinema weekly in 1946, that number had plummeted to just 15.8 million by 1971. This led to lean years for the film industry.
The Film Industry Recovers
In the mid-1970s, a generational shift occurred in Hollywood. Young directors like Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg were allowed to make films and celebrated great successes both domestically and abroad. Films like “Star Wars,” “Indiana Jones,” and “The Godfather” became crowd-pleasers. However, the films of these young directors were not always successful; movies like “The Last Movie” or “Apocalypse Now” were critically acclaimed but failed to recoup their costs, which proved too risky for investors.
In the early 1980s, studios and production companies increasingly relied on successful blockbusters. This was the era of producers like Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson. They pushed writers and directors to produce films almost in assembly-line fashion, following a simple storyline: a person from poor or difficult circumstances fights for a dream and wins. This formula worked for films like “Flashdance,” “Top Gun,” and “Footloose.”
The Film Business – Money, Greed, and Power
In the 1990s, Hollywood studios were taken over by large, globally operating media corporations. Now, better marketing structures aimed to bring in higher profits abroad as well. Today, regional peculiarities are already considered during film planning, allowing movies to be better tailored to the interests of the audience. A film today is like a giant department store, offering everything: streaming rights, soundtracks, toys, and even bedding. Consequently, it is often more lucrative for investors to produce a $200 million film that can be marketed better than a romantic comedy for $20 million.
The Stars of Hollywood
About 300,000 actors live in Los Angeles, but only five percent of them have jobs in the film industry. Many work as waiters, artists, or photographers to earn extra income. Only the superstars can truly make a living from acting. An actor’s salary is dependent on the success of their films. Hollywood makes stars, but it can also quickly discard them. Ultimately, in the dream factory, money is what matters. Successful producer Don Simpson (“Top Gun,” “Beverly Hills Cop”) once said, “There is no obligation to go down in history or to make art. Our only obligation is to make money, and to make money, it may be important to go down in history or to deal with art or to win a few Oscars, because that’s another ten million dollars at the box office.”
