Motion Pictures in 1920s
Before World War I, films were being made mostly European countries and in Japan. When the war interrupted European filmmaking, however, the American film industry began to dominate the world market. In the years between 1917 and 1927 the silent film reached the peak of its development. United States had the largest film industry and American films dominated the international market. Germany and Japan still had some movie industries but mostly left to domestic. Many nations found film production as a matter of importance to national culture, sometimes by limiting on film imports. D. W. Griffith transformed early day of domestic production to an era of Hollywood's worldwide dominance. Major companies that dominated Hollywood were Fox, Paramount, Warner Brothers, MGM, Columbia, and United Artists. One of the famous MGM movies was a silent version of Ben Her. Hollywood films became increasingly expensive to make as productions became more spectacular, and the stars demanded enormous salaries. As Hollywood and film industries elsewhere produced hundreds of films each year, certain standardized forms took precedence over individual creative inspiration. Movies adopted categories, known as genres, from earlier arts and popular ent
ertainment. These included comedy, the Western, mystery, horror, romance, melodrama, and the war story. More and more large cinemas were built, and the major producers expanded their distributing systems and bought entire chains of theaters. Major studios attempted to produce a picture a week. A typical film show consisted of a feature starring big-name players, a short comedy, and a newsreel. The 1922 film Nanook of the North, directed by the American Robert Flaherty, is often credited as the first great achievement of documentary film. Most of the films made during this period reflected the fast pace and materialistic concerns of the nation's prosperous "flapper" era. While settings and costumes were often elaborate, film stories were often shallow. Most people went to the "movies" to see film stars, and it was often the star who saved a poor film from being a total failure. Some stars, seeking freedom from the mass-production methods of large studios, banded together to form distributing companies to market films they made in their own studios. United Artists, formed in 1919 by Griffith, Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and Mary Pickford, became known for its high standards. The production of films gained momentum once more in most European countries near the end 1920s, the most innovative and influential new filmmakers where in Germany, Scandinavia, and the Soviet Union. Germany's films were based on history, literature, and mytho
Some common words found in the essay are:
Warner Brothers, Ben Hollywood, Nikolai Lenin, Robert Flaherty, World War, Germany Japan, Germans Soviet, William Fox, De Forest's, Union Germany's, sound films, warner brothers, film industry, sound film, european countries, united artists, screen provided,
Approximate Word count = 970
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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