History.
Old Tucson Studios came to life in 1939 when Columbia Pictures chose a Pima County-owned site on which to build a replica of 1860's Tucson for the movie Arizona . The $2.5 million film, starring William Holden and Jean Arthur, set a new standard of realism for Hollywood westerns, initiating the move away from studio backdrop movies to outdoor epics.
Local technicians and carpenters built the town from scratch, erecting more than 50 buildings in 40 days. Descendants of the Tohono O'odham, Arizona's first inhabitants formerly known as the Papago, assisted in the set production. Without the convenience of running water, they made more than 350,000 adobe bricks from the desert dirt to create authentic structures for the film. Many of those structures still stand today.
After the filming of Arizona, Old Tucson Studios lay dormant under the desert sun. The studio was revived only briefly for the film The Bells of St. Mary's (1945), starring Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman. Hollywood then began taking notice of Old Tucson Studios, which soon became a favorite filming location. Hence, "Hollywood in the Desert." In 1947, Gene Autrey starred in The Last Roundup, followed in 1950 by Jimmy Stewart in Winchester '73, and Ronald Reagan in The Last Outpost.
During the 1950's, the Western movie era was in full swing nationwide. In the fifties alone, such western classics as Gunfight at the OK Corral (1956) with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas, The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold (1957), and Cimarron (1959) with Glenn Ford were filmed at Old Tucson Studios
Theory
Main article: Film theory
Film theory seeks to develop concise and systematic concepts that apply to the study of film as art. It was started by Ricciotto Canudo's The Birth of the Sixth Art. Formalist film theory, led by Rudolf Arnheim, Béla Balázs, and Siegfried Kracauer, emphasized how film differed from reality, and thus could be considered a valid fine art. André Bazin reacted against this theory by arguing that film's artistic essence lay in its ability to mechanically reproduce reality not in its differences from reality, and this gave rise to realist theory. More recent analysis spurred by Lacan's psychoanalysis and Ferdinand de Saussure's semiotics among other things has given rise to psychoanalytical film theory, structuralist film theory, feminist film theory and others.
Language
Film is considered to have its own language. James Monaco wrote a classic text on film theory titled "How to Read a Film". Director Ingmar Bergman famously said, "[Andrei] Tarkovsky for me is the greatest [director], the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream." Examples of the language are a sequence of back and forth images of one actor's left profile speaking, followed by another actor’s right profile speaking, then a repetition of this, which is a language understood by the audience to indicate a conversation. Another example is zooming in on the forehead of an actor with an expression of silent reflection, then changing to a scene of a younger version of the actor, indicating the actor is having a memory of their own past.
Montage
Main article: MontageParallels to musical counterpoint have been developed into a theory of montage, extended from the complex superimposition of images in early silent film[citation needed] to even more complex incorporation of musical counterpoint together with visual counterpoint through mise en scene and editing, as in a ballet or opera; e.g., as illustrated in the gang fight scene of director Francis Ford Coppola’s film, Rumblefish.
Criticism
Main article: Film criticism
Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films. In general, these works can be divided into two categories: academic criticism by film scholars and journalistic film criticism that appears regularly in newspapers and other media.
Film critics working for newspapers, magazines, and broadcast media mainly review new releases. Normally they only see any given film once and have only a day or two to formulate opinions. Despite this, critics have an important impact on films, especially those of certain genres. Mass marketed action, horror, and comedy films tend not to be greatly affected by a critic's overall judgment of a film. The plot summary and description of a film that makes up the majority of any film review can still have an important impact on whether people decide to see a film. For prestige films such as most dramas, the influence of reviews is extremely important. Poor reviews will often doom a film to obscurity and financial loss.
The impact of a reviewer on a given film's box office performance is a matter of debate. Some claim that movie marketing is now so intense and well financed that reviewers cannot make an impact against it. However, the cataclysmic failure of some heavily-promoted movies which were harshly reviewed, as well as the unexpected success of critically praised independent movies indicates that extreme critical reactions can have considerable influence. Others note that positive film reviews have been shown to spark interest in little-known films. Conversely, there have been several films in which film companies have so little confidence that they refuse to give reviewers an advanced viewing to avoid widespread panning of the film. However, this usually backfires as reviewers are wise to the tactic and warn the public that the film may not be worth seeing and the films often do poorly as a result.
It is argued that journalist film critics should only be known as film reviewers, and true film critics are those who take a more academic approach to films. This line of work is more often known as film theory or film studies. These film critics attempt to come to understand how film and filming techniques work, and what effect they have on people. Rather than having their works published in newspapers or appear on television, their articles are published in scholarly journals, or sometimes in up-market magazines. They also tend to be affiliated with colleges or universities.
Industry
Main article: Film industry
The making and showing of motion pictures became a source of profit almost as soon as the process was invented. Upon seeing how successful their new invention, and its product, was in their native France, the Lumières quickly set about touring the Continent to exhibit the first films privately to royalty and publicly to the masses. In each country, they would normally add new, local scenes to their catalogue and, quickly enough, found local entrepreneurs in the various countries of Europe to buy their equipment and photograph, export, import and screen additional product commercially. The Oberammergau Passion Play of 1898[citation needed] was the first commercial motion picture ever produced. Other pictures soon followed, and motion pictures became a separate industry that overshadowed the vaudeville world. Dedicated theaters and companies formed specifically to produce and distribute films, while motion picture actors became major celebrities and commanded huge fees for their performances. Already by 1917, Charlie Chaplin had a contract that called for an annual salary of one million dollars.
In the United States today, much of the film industry is centered around Hollywood. Other regional centers exist in many parts of the world, such as Mumbai-centered Bollywood, the Indian film industry's Hindi cinema which produces the largest number of films in the world.[1] Whether the ten thousand-plus feature length films a year produced by the Valley pornographic film industry should qualify for this title is the source of some debate.[citation needed] Though the expense involved in making movies has led cinema production to concentrate under the auspices of movie studios, recent advances in affordable film making equipment have allowed independent film productions to flourish.
Profit is a key force in the industry, due to the costly and risky nature of filmmaking; many films have large cost overruns, a notorious example being Kevin Costner's Waterworld. Yet many filmmakers strive to create works of lasting social significance. The Academy Awards (also known as "the Oscars") are the most prominent film awards in the United States, providing recognition each year to films, ostensibly based on their artistic merits.
There is also a large industry for educational and instructional films made in lieu of or in addition to lectures and texts.
Associated fields
Further information: Film history, Film criticism, Film theory, Product placement, and Propaganda
Derivative academic Fields of study may both interact with and develop independently of filmmaking, as in film theory and analysis. Fields of academic study have been created that are derivative or dependent on the existence of film, such as film criticism, film history, divisions of film propaganda in authoritarian governments, or psychological on subliminal effects of a flashing soda can during a screening. These fields may further create derivative fields, such as a movie review section in a newspaper or a television guide. Sub-industries can spin off from film, such as popcorn makers, and toys. Sub- industries of pre-existing industries may deal specifically with film, such as product placement in advertising.
Terminology used regarding film
Most people use “film” and “movie” interchangeably. “Film” is more often used when considering artistic, theoretical, or technical aspects, as studies in a university class. “Movies” more often refers to entertainment or commercial aspects, as where to go for fun on a date. For example, a book titled “How to Read a Film” would be about the aesthetics or theory of film, while “Lets Go to the Movies” would be about the history of entertaining movies. “Motion pictures” or “Moving pictures” are films and movies. A “DVD”, “videotape”, “video”, or “vid” is a digital reproduction of an analogue film, or a product with all of the elements of an analogue film but made in an electromagnetic storage medium. “Film” and “video” may be used interchangeably when the video is of sufficient quality, or is the original medium of recording. “Silent films” need not be silent, but are films and movies without an audible dialogue, though they may have a musical soundtrack. “Talkies” refers to early movies or films having audible dialogue or analogue sound, not just a musical accompaniment. “Cinema” either broadly encompasses both films and movies, or is roughly synonymous with “Film”, both capitalized when referring to a category of art. The “silver screen” refers to classic black and white films before color, not to contemporary films without color.
The expression “Sight and Sound”, as in the film journal of the same name, means “film”. The following icons mean film - a “candle and bell”, as in the films Tarkovsky, of a segment of film stock, or a two faced Janus image, and an image of a movie camera in profile.
“Widescreen” and “Cinemascope” refers to a larger width to height in the frame, compared to an earlier historic aspect ratios. A “feature length film”, or “feature film”, is of a conventional full length, usually 60 minutes or more, and can commercially stand by itself without other films in a ticketed screening. A “short” is a film that is not as long as a feature length film, usually screened with other shorts, or preceding a feature length film. A “trailer” is a very short “short”, or advertisement, preceding a film. An “independent” is a film made outside of the conventional film industry.
A “screening” or “projection” is the projection of a film or video on a screen at a public or private theater, usually but not always of a film, but of a video or DVD when of sufficient projection quality. A “double feature” is a screening of two independent, stand-alone, feature films. A “viewing” is a watching of a film. A “showing” is a screening or viewing on an electronic monitor. “Sales” refers to tickets sold at a theater, or more currently, rights sold for individual showings. A “release” is the distribution and often simultaneous screening of a film A “preview is a screening in advance of the main release.
“Hollywood” may be used either as a pejorative adjective, shorthand for asserting an overly commercial rather than artistic intent or outcome, as in “too Hollywood”, or as a descriptive adjective to refer to a film originating with people who ordinarily work near Los Angeles.
Expressions for Genres of film are sometimes used interchangeably for “film” in a specific context, such as a “porn” for a film with explicit sexual content, or “cheese” for films that are light, entertaining, and not highbrow.
Preview
A preview performance refers to a showing of a movie to a select audience, usually for the purposes of corporate promotions, before the public film premiere itself. Previews are sometimes used to judge audience reaction, which if unexpectedly negative, may result in recutting or even refilming certain sections (Audience response).
Trailer
Main article: Trailer (film)Trailers or previews are film advertisements for films that will be exhibited in the future at a cinema, on whose screen they are shown. The term "trailer" comes from their having originally been shown at the end of a film programme. That practice did not last long, because patrons tended to leave the theater after the films ended, but the name has stuck. Trailers are now shown before the film (or the A movie in a double feature program) begins.
Film, or other art form?
Film may be combined with performance art and still be considered or referred to as a “film”. For example, when there is a live musical accompaniment to a silent film. Another example is audience participation films, as at a midnight movies screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show , where the audience dresses up in costume from the film and loudly does a karaoke-like reenactment along with the film. Performance art where film is incorporated as a component is usually not called film, but a film, which could stand-alone but is accompanied by a performance may still be referred to as a film.
The act of making a film can, in and of itself, be considered a work of art, on a different level from the film itself, as in the films of Werner Herzog.
Similarly, the playing of a film can be considered to fall within the realm of political protest art, as in the subtleties within the films of Tarkovsky. A “road movie” can refer to a film put together from footage from a long road trip or vacation.
Movie on HBO this week
MONDAY, 17 NOVEMBER 2008
01:15AM Thir13en Ghosts
03:00AM The Kingdom
05:00AM Just One Of The Guys
07:00AM Goodfellas
09:30AM Loser
11:00AM Spies Like Us
01:00PM The Kingdom
03:00PM The Holiday
05:30PM Fatal Contact: Bird Flu In America
07:00PM My Fellow Americans
09:00PM The Covenant
11:00PM Big Love 19: Good Guys And Bad Guys
11:50PM Big Love 20: Kingdom Come
TUESDAY, 18 NOVEMBER 2008
01:00AM The Kingdom
03:00AM Little Nikita
04:30AM Big Love 19: Good Guys And Bad Guys
05:30AM Big Love 20: Kingdom Come
07:00AM Cousins
09:00AM The Kingdom
11:00AM Nacho Libre
01:00PM I Dreamed Of Africa: A True Story
03:00PM Spies Like Us
05:00PM Just One Of The Guys
07:00PM Nacho Libre
09:00PM Not Like Everyone Else
11:00PM 8mm
WEDNESDAY, 19 NOVEMBER 2008
01:00AM The Covenant
02:45AM Goodfellas
05:30AM Loser
07:00AM Just One Of The Guys
09:00AM Spies Like Us
11:00AM Thir13en Ghosts
01:00PM Not Like Everyone Else
03:00PM My Fellow Americans
05:00PM I Dreamed Of Africa: A True Story
06:45PM The Holiday
09:00PM Blue Streak
10:30PM Flight Of The Conchords 12: The Third Conchord
11:00PM Not Like Everyone Else
THURSDAY, 20 NOVEMBER 2008
01:00AM 8mm
03:00AM "Hustle"
05:00AM Cousins
07:00AM The Holiday
09:15AM Goodfellas
11:30AM The Covenant
01:00PM Nacho Libre
03:00PM Fatal Contact: Bird Flu In America
05:00PM Loser
07:00PM The Kingdom
09:00PM Ready To Rumble
11:00PM Nacho Libre
FRIDAY, 21 NOVEMBER 2008
01:00AM My Fellow Americans
03:00AM 8mm
05:00AM The Kingdom
07:00AM Not Like Everyone Else
09:00AM I Dreamed Of Africa: A True Story
11:00AM Loser
01:00PM Blue Streak
03:00PM Ready To Rumble
05:00PM Not Like Everyone Else
07:00PM The Covenant
09:00PM The Number 23
11:00PM Blue Streak
SATURDAY, 22 NOVEMBER 2008
01:00AM Big Love 19: Good Guys And Bad Guys
02:00AM Big Love 20: Kingdom Come
03:00AM The Covenant
04:30AM Big Love 19: Good Guys And Bad Guys
05:30AM Big Love 20: Kingdom Come
07:00AM The Kingdom
09:00AM Ready To Rumble
11:00AM The Number 23
01:00PM The Covenant
03:00PM Not Like Everyone Else
04:30PM The Holiday
07:00PM Mission: Impossible II
09:00PM Mission: Impossible III
11:00PM The Kingdom
SUNDAY, 23 NOVEMBER 2008
01:00AM The Number 23
03:00AM Not Like Everyone Else
05:00AM Thir13en Ghosts
07:00AM The Prince Of Tides
09:00AM Not Like Everyone Else
11:00AM The Kingdom
01:00PM Wind Chill
02:30PM Flight Of The Conchords 12: The Third Conchord
03:00PM Mission: Impossible II
05:00PM Mission: Impossible III
07:00PM The Ant Bully
08:30PM HBO Central
09:00PM Daddy Day Camp
10:30PM Saving Private Ryan
