The Way Hollywood Tells It: Story and Style in Modern Movies

309 Pages·2006·1.68 MB·english

by  David Bordwell

The Way Hollywood Tells It
The publisher gratefully acknowledges the generous contribution
to this book provided by the Humanities Endowment Fund of the
University of California Press Foundation.
The Way Hollywood Tells It
Story and Style in Modern Movies
david bordwell
University of California Press
berkeley los angeles london
University of California Press,one of the most distinguished university
presses in the United States,enriches lives around the world by
advancing scholarship in the humanities,social sciences,and natural
sciences.Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and
by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions.For
more information,visit www.ucpress.edu.
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles,California
University of California Press,Ltd.
London,England
© 2006 by The Regents of the University of California
A previous version of “A Stylish Style,” entitled “Intensified
Continuity:Visual Style in Contemporary American Film,”
appeared in Film Quarterly55,no.3 (2002).
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bordwell,David.
The way Hollywood tells it :story and style in modern movies /
David Bordwell.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn0-520-23227-5 (cloth :alk.paper)
isbn0-520-24622-5 (pbk.:alk.paper)
1. Motion pictures—United States—History. 2. Motion picture
industry—United States—History. 3. Motion pictures—
Aesthetics. I.Title.
pn1993.5.u6b656 2006
791.430973—dc22 2005025774
Manufactured in the United States of America
15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements
of ansi/niso z39.48–1992 (r1997) (Permanence of Paper).
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction:Beyond the Blockbuster 1
part i: a real story
19
1. Continuing Tradition,by Any Means Necessary 27
2. Pushing the Premises 51
3. Subjective Stories and Network Narratives 72
4. A Certain Amount of Plot:
Tentpoles,Locomotives,Blockbusters,
Megapictures,and the Action Movie 104
part ii: a stylish style
115
1. Intensified Continuity:Four Dimensions 121
2. Some Likely Sources 139
3. Style,Plain and Fancy 158
4. What’s Missing? 180
Appendix:A Hollywood Timeline,1960–2004
Bradley Schauer and David Bordwell 191
Notes 243
Index 273
Acknowledgments
The two archival linchpins of my research,the Wisconsin Center for Film
and Theater Research and the Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique,were as
usual magnificently cooperative over the ten years during which I gathered
material for this book.So thanks to Maxine Fleckner Ducey of Madison,to
Gabrielle Claes of Brussels, and to their staffs. I’d also like to thank Ted
Turner and Warren Lieberfarb,two far-sighted moguls who have increased
our access to the majestic range of American cinema.
Many colleagues encouraged this project, written during my last se-
mester before retiring from the Film Studies area of our department.Joe
Beres,Ben Brewster,Kelley Conway,Kevin French,Erik Gunneson,Deb-
bie Hanson,Michele Hilmes,Lea Jacobs,the late Nietzchka Keene,Vance
Kepley,Paddy Rourke,Ben Singer,and Andrew Yonda aided me in many
ways.J.J.Murphy,who was writing a book on contemporary American film
at the same time that I was,proved a constant source of hard questions and
fruitful suggestions.Tino Balio let me draw on his vast expertise in the
American film industry.He further displayed his wisdom by deciding to
retire along with me.
I’ve also benefited from watching American movies with Noël Carroll.
Our long comradeship has been a high point of my life.Paul Arthur,Doug
Gomery,Jason Mittell,and Jeff Smith offered detailed and very useful crit-
icisms of various versions of these essays.Consultant and filmmaker Tim
Onosko,film editor Danny Goldberg,and screenwriter Larry Gross shared
information and ideas.In Los Angeles,Cameron Crowe,Andy Fischer,and
Susan Antani kindly helped in several ways.Roger Ebert and Nate Kohn
expanded my access to contemporary work through their annual Overlooked
and Forgotten Film Festival.Special thanks go to John Caldwell of UCLA,
ix
x / Acknowledgments
Murray Smith of the University of Canterbury,and to my editor,Mary Fran-
cis;their astute criticisms have strengthened the book.
The second essay,“A Stylish Style,” is based on an article originally pub-
lished in Film Quarterly.Thanks to the editor,Ann Martin,and to the Uni-
versity of California Press for permission to reprint.
My students have helped too.Jake Black provided expert assistance in
preparing my frame enlargements.Brad Schauer left me shrewd comments
on an early draft,while helping me check facts and compile the chronol-
ogy in the appendix. Jinhee Choi, Ethan de Seife, Jonathan Frome, Jane
Greene,Patrick Keating,Michael Newman,and Paul Ramaeker offered sev-
eral productive leads.For sharing some thoughts on puzzle films,I must
thank Vincent Bohlinger,Jessica Love,Mark Minnett,and especially Bar-
bara Klinger,who kindly gave me access to portions of her book Beyond
the Multiplex:Cinema,New Technologies,and the Home.My last (official)
seminar in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of
Wisconsin at Madison was just the way you want to go out.My gratitude,
then,to Masha Belodubrovskaya,Jen Chung,Eric Crosby,Stew Fyfe,Derek
Johnson,Jonathan Lang,Maureen Larkin,Pearl Latteier,Charlie Michael,
Jakob Nilssen,Eija Niskannen,Dave Resha,Brad Schauer,Becca Swender,
and Tom Yoshikami for responding so vigorously to ideas that I floated in
class,some of which drifted into these pages.Our final session,party and
all,remains with me always.
The University of Wisconsin at Madison has generously supported my
research for over three decades,and I thank all those faculty members who
sat on committees appraising my work.Mary Anne Fitzpatrick,department
colleague and dean,has been of inestimable aid as well.I particularly want
to thank my former dean,Phillip Certain,who has had faith in my projects
and our film program.He too has just retired (must be something in the
water),but he remains a model of the thoughtful,solicitous administrator.
Then there’s Kristin Thompson,for thirty years my loving companion
at the movies and elsewhere.The book is dedicated to her.
introduction
Beyond the Blockbuster
q: Do you write with specific actors in mind?
a: Always...but they’re usually dead.
charles shyer
(Private Benjamin,Irreconcilable Differences)
This book is about the art and craft of Hollywood cinema since 1960.In two
essays I trace some major ways that filmmakers have used moving images
to tell stories.The narrative techniques I’ll be examining are astonishingly
robust.They have engaged millions of viewers for over eighty years,and
they have formed a lingua franca for worldwide filmmaking.
Naturally,during the years I’m considering,American films have changed
enormously.They have become sexier,more profane,and more violent;fart
jokes and kung fu are everywhere.The industry has metamorphosed into
a corporate behemoth,while new technologies have transformed produc-
tion and exhibition. And, to come to my central concern, over the same
decades some novel strategies of plot and style have risen to prominence.
Behind these strategies,however,stand principles that are firmly rooted in
the history of studio moviemaking.In the two essays that follow I consider
how artistic change and continuity coexist in modern American film.
To track the dynamic of continuity and change since 1960,it’s conventional
to start by looking at the film industry.As usually recounted,the indus-
try’s fortunes over the period display a darkness-to-dawn arc that might
satisfy a scriptwriter of epic inclinations.We now have several nuanced ver-
sions of this story,so I’ll merely point out some major turning points.1The
appendix provides a year-by-year chronology.
Although court decisions of 1948–1949 forced the major companies to
divest themselves of their theater chains,during the 1950s Warner Bros.,
Disney,Paramount,Columbia,20th Century Fox,United Artists,MGM,and
Universal controlled distribution,the most lucrative area of the industry.
While the studios were producing a few big-budget films themselves,they
also relied on the “package-unit” system of production.2In some cases,in-
1
2 / Introduction
house producers oversaw a unit that turned out a stream of releases.Alter-
natively,a producer,star,or agent bought a script,assembled a package of
talent,and approached a studio for financing and distribution.At the start
of the 1960s,the studios were providing lucrative prime-time television pro-
gramming,but theatrical moviemaking was not a great business to be in.
Attendance was falling sharply.Road show pictures like The Sound of Mu-
sic(1965),playing a single screen for months on end,were for a while bright
spots on the ledger,but the cycle of epic road show productions,already over-
stretched with the failure of Cleopatra(1963) and Mutiny on the Bounty
(1965),crashed at the end of the decade.Soon studios faced huge losses and
were taken over by conglomerates bearing mysterious names like Gulf +
Western (which bought Paramount in 1966) and Transamerica Corp.(which
bought United Artists the following year).Feature filmmaking continued
to hemorrhage money—by some estimates,as much as half a billion dol-
lars between 1969 and 1972.
Yet by 1980 the industry was earning stupendous profits.What changed?
For one thing,a tax scheme sponsored by the Nixon administration allowed
the producers to write off hundreds of millions of dollars in past and future
investments.The studios also found ways to integrate their business more
firmly with broadcast television,cable,the record industry,and home video.3
Just as important,a new generation of filmmakers emerged.Some,model-
ing their work on the more personal European cinema they admired,pro-
duced Americanized art films like Five Easy Pieces(1970) and Mean Streets
(1973).The young directors who found the biggest success,however,were
willing to work in established genres for a broad audience.They were re-
sponsible for a burst of record-breaking hits:The French Connection(1971),
The Godfather(1972),The Exorcist(1973),American Graffiti(1973),Jaws
(1975),Saturday Night Fever(1977),Star Wars(1977),and Close Encoun-
ters of the Third Kind (1977).There were less innovative top-grossers as
well,such as Fiddler on the Roof (1971) and The Sting (1973).In all,the
1970s lifted the ceiling on what a film could earn,and it remains the decade
with the most top-grossers in adjusted dollars. On its U.S. release, Jaws
reaped about $260 million—the equivalent of $940 million today.Star Wars
took in over $307 million on its initial domestic release (a staggering $990
million in 2005 dollars),and after rereleases it became by far the top-earning
film of the modern era.4
No films had ever made so much money so quickly.The studios’ decision
makers realized that the market for a movie was much bigger than anyone
had suspected, and they settled on a business strategy to exploit the
“megapicture,” or blockbuster.This was a must-see movie very different