1914 - 1929 The Modernist World Jump to:
1914 - 1929 The Modernist World Jump to:
 4 The Rise of HollywoodThe rise of Hollywood signaled the arrival of America's urban-industrial age, a period when traditional values and established notions of family and community, of the social and political order, and of individual freedom and initiative were radically transformed. Hollywood movies were among the first and were certainly the most widespread and accessible manifestations of an emergent "mass culture" which brought with it new forms of cultural expression.. Read More
The idea that the foreign was exotic was a Middle American assumption to which Hollywood happily pandered. In De Mille's films and in those of Erich von Stroheim, Europe represented a half-admired, yet half-condemned sophistication. Read More
The revolution wrought by sound had given rise to a new galaxy of stars and introduced new types of pictures. Many of the familiar figures of the movie world continued in the talkies their success in silent films; a few staged remarkable come-backs after a period of eclipse while they adapted themselves to an unfamiliar technique. Read More
"Of all the arts", said Lenin, "for us the cinema is the most important." The energy of the Russian Revolution was closely attached to the impact of rapid industrialization, and nowhere were the effects of that conjunction more firmly felt than the arts.
For a brief period in its early years, the October Revolution produced an atmosphere in which, it seemed, the nature of perception itself had changed. Revolutionary artists endorsed the polemical purposes of new art forms for the people - poster art, popular theater and poetry... Read More
From the early 1910s, going to the movies became an event in itself. As Adolph Zukor explained, middle-class audiences demanded better facilities: "The nickelodeon had to go, theaters replaced shooting galleries, temples replaced theaters, and cathedrals replaced temples". By 1925, the United States had nearly a thousand picture palaces.
The cathedrals of the movies were to be found in the business and shopping centers of large cities. Their elaborate exteriors, featuring exotic motifs from ancient, oriental or European culture, were massive outdoor advertising displays. Read More
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