As Richard Maltby (1995:6) once quoted "If Hollywood is not a place, it is also not a time." We are forever going on about how Hollywood is not how it was. Remember the days when everything on screen was black and white and wonderful, remember the days when going 'to the movies' was a real treat not just an excuse to dig into a bucket of greasy popcorn. Cinema and the art of film was appreciated, it was sentimental, it was classic. Unfortunately I can't say that I remember those days. By the time I found my way into this world the classical Hollywood movie had somewhat evolved itself into something of less substantial quality. However it has been argued that aswell as changing, Hollywood has also remained the same, in respect of remaining in the same business of entertaining its audience, of producing the maximum pleasure for the maximum number for the maximum profit (Hayward, S., 1996).

David Bordwell, Janet Staiger and Kristin Thompson (1985) argue that since 1917, the essential features of classical style were in place- the way that a movie organizes narrative time and spac

For David Bordwell 'Hollywood is an excessively obvious cinema'. He states that a set of formal conventions of spectacle, verisimilitude and continuity constitute Hollywood's very definition of a movie itself. The authors of 'The Classical Hollywood Cinema' found that 60% of the movies they analyzed ended with a display of the united romantic couple- the cliche happy ending (Hollows et al, 2000:167). As we all know the hero always gets the girl and they all live happily ever after. Almost sickeningly predictably but I guess that's Hollywood for you! The narrative of this cinema reposes upon the triad 'order/disorder/order-restored'. The beginning of the film puts in place an event that disrupts an apparently harmonious order which in turn sets in motion a chain of events that are causally linked. Cause and effect allow the story to move smoothly along. At the end the order is resolved and order once again in place (Hayward, S., 1996).

Okay, so there was no true hero, but there was the happy ending, the heterosexual romance, the ideology and the lack of political or historical explanation for issues such as the war. There also was the motivation, the continuous 'invisible' storytelling, the verisimilitude and more or less the absence of anything remotely out of the ordinary. This is all because the classic Hollywood model of narrative construction is all about simplicity. You are swept along from scene to scene and you are taken in by the characters that somehow continuously sustain your interest. Nothing is complicated enough to demand you to stop and think, everything is simplistic. When I asked my father what he thought of the film 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin' his exact words after an exasperated sigh were "pretty obvious stuff", which for me describes Hollywood in a nutshell.

In Captain Corelli's Mandolin ideology can be seen throughout the entire film. Take for example the ideological very conservative way in which the war is brought into the storyline. There is no explanation of how or why this war came about, it is just there as background to the romantic love story. War is bad but only because of the effects it has on the characters. The theme of war is offset by this love story and somehow no questions are asked, the audience just simply accept it all. We do not learn about the causes of the war nor do they get examined. The whole affair between Germany and Italy during WWII is strictly a cut and paste job with barely a hint of insight into the real subject matter. Because this narrative is wrapped up at the end and there is nothing left unsaid or done by the characters then there is no desire to critically reflect on the film and ask questions about the reality of it all.

Perhaps if Captain Corelli's Mandolin had been made in Hollywood's more glamorous, more genuine days, it would have been great, classic even. However like most films today that aspire to the conventions of the old Hollywood narrative it lacks the real 'classical' touch.

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Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page double spaced)