page_title: Classical Hollywood cinema
section_title: Maturation of the silents (1913–late 1920s)
hierarchical_section_title: Classical Hollywood cinema / Development of the classical style / Maturation of the silents (1913–late 1920s)
caption_attribution_description: English: Ben-Hur (1925) film poster.
context_page_description: Classical Hollywood cinema is a term used in film criticism to describe both a narrative and visual style of film-making which became characteristic of American cinema between the 1910s and the 1960s. It eventually became the most powerful and pervasive style of film-making worldwide. Similar or associated terms include classical Hollywood narrative, the Golden Age of Hollywood, Old Hollywood, and classical continuity.
context_section_description: Though lacking the reality inherent to the stage, film (unlike stage) offers the freedom to manipulate apparent time and space, and thus to create the illusion of realism – that is temporal linearity and spatial continuity. By the early 1910s, film-making was beginning to fulfill its artistic potential. In Sweden and Denmark, this period would later be known as a "Golden Age" of film; in America, this artistic change is attributed to film-makers like David W. Griffith finally breaking the grip of the Edison Trust to make films independent of the manufacturing monopoly. Films worldwide began to noticeably adopt visual and narrative elements which would be found in classical Hollywood cinema. 1913 was a particularly fruitful year for the medium, as pioneering directors from several countries produced masterpieces such as The Mothering Heart (D. W. Griffith), Ingeborg Holm (Victor Sjöström), and L'enfant de Paris (Léonce Perret) that set new standards for film as a form of storytelling. It was also the year when Yevgeni Bauer (the first true film artist, according to Georges Sadoul) started his short, but prolific, career.
  In the world generally and America specifically, the influence of Griffith on film-making was unmatched. Equally influential were his actors in adapting their performances to the new medium. Lillian Gish, the star of The Mothering Heart, is particularly noted for her influence on screen performance techniques. Griffith's 1915 epic The Birth of a Nation was ground-breaking for film as a means of storytelling – a masterpiece of literary narrative with numerous innovative visual techniques. The film initiated so many advances in American cinema that it was rendered obsolete within a few years. Though 1913 was a global landmark for filmmaking, 1917 was primarily an American one; the era of "classical Hollywood cinema" is distinguished by a narrative and visual style which began to dominate the film medium in America by 1917.
caption: Theatrical release poster for Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)
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