From: reiher@ficus.cs.ucla.edu (Peter Reiher)
Subject: Re: hollywood movies
Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department
Distribution: rec
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 92 19:39:52 GMT

In article <1992Dec13.1489.34594@channel1> "eric walker" <eric.walker@channel1.com> writes:
>JJS>>You took the words right from my mouth. Its quite interesting to notice
>JJS>>that about 99.999% of the films listed here are made in USA. Come on people
>JJS>        Well, a goodly percent probably are; the U.S. has been the only coun
>JJS>that really seems to pump a lot of money and effort into moviemaking.  
>
>     This situation exists because Hollywood has dominated the film markets
>     of the entire world for at least the past fifty years.  

Mr. Walker is basically correct, but it's worth adding that one reason
that American movies dominate world markets is that the U.S. film
industry is much better at gauging what sort of film will be popular in
foreign lands than any other nation's film industry.  Part of the reason
is the concentration of talent in the U.S.  You rarely hear about an
American director who has gotten so good and so popular that now he wants
to make films in Europe, but the reverse happens all the time.  Several
of the most cherished "American" film masters were displaced Europeans -
Ernst Lubitsch (Austrian), Alfred Hitchcock (British), Michael Curtiz
(Czech, I believe), John Ford (Irish, though his immigration occurred
long before he became a famous director), and many others.  The talent
drain continues.  Paul Verhoeven is now a famous director of Hollywood
films, having started out in the Netherlands.  Most of the best known
names of the Australian New Wave (which was, more accurately, the Old
Wave, since many of their films returned to the traditional virtues of
old Hollywood) now work mostly in the U.S. - Peter Weir, George Miller
the Greater, George Miller the Lesser, Bruce Beresford, and Simon Wincer.
Now, even the major figures from Hong Kong's film industry are beginning
to look to Hollywood.  If John Woo's first American film is a success,
we can look for Hollywood to heavily raid the Hong Kong film industry.

Most of these directors made excellent films in their native lands,
but only achieved international popularity when they got to Hollywood.
Some of it is mystique, some of it is distribution networks, some of
it is American cultural imperialism, but some of it is also that the
American film industry, more than any other, is set up to make enormous
hits with international popularity.  Relatively few other countries set
out to make films that have any chance of achieving that, and, when they
do, they are often unsuccessful, not just financially, but artistically.

>     The Far East has seen the rise of their own movie industries - such
>     as the Hong Kong, Japanese and Chinese film markets, but they've all
>     had problems of their own.  

Interestingly, Hong Kong and Japan are two of the nations that have the
strongest national film industries, and the least penetration by Hollywood.
If you look at Variety's weekly recaps of the top ten films in various
international markets, Hong Kong typically has 6-8 of its own films in
the top slots, and Japan 3-5.  By contrast, typically 8 or more American
films are found in the top ten in most European capitals.  In the case
of Japan, the distribution system and Japanese studio ownership of
the major theater chains permits them to freeze out many American films.
I'm not sure what the situation is in Hong Kong, but it may just be they
like their local products better than American films.

-- 
		Peter Reiher
		reiher@wells.cs.ucla.edu

Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies