When speaking of Hollywood cinema, people rarely equate it to the national cinema of the United States due to its omnipresence in global popular culture and universal appeal that lends itself to cultural assimilation wherever it arrives (Maltby and Vasey in Fowler, 2002: 11). This characteristic of Hollywood provides part of the answer to the question why it is that Hollywood still dominates global cinema markets, along with other ones this essay will examine in the attempt to supply a more comprehensive answer to the essay question. I have divided my argument into three sections: firstly, what are the factors that have contributed to Hollywood s dominance; secondly, why it is that other national cinemas are having a hard time keeping up with Hollywood, and finally, what other national cinemas (primarily European) are doing in order to compete with Hollywood more successfully. By analysing the three main areas of activity pertaining to the established film industry cycle (production, distribution and exhibition), I will hopefully establish a compelling argument that explains why it is that Hollywood still dominates the world s cinema markets in the 21 st century and how are other national cinemas attempting to fight back. A report by the Motion Picture Association of America from February 2015 titled The Economic Contribution of the Motion Picture & Television Industry to the United States indicates that in 2013 the US motion picture and television industry exported six times what it imported, contributing $130 billion to the overall economy (a 5 per cent rise prom 2012). It is one of the few industries that consistently operate with a significant trade surplus. There is a complex set of interconnected reasons for this success: however, due to the word count of this assignment I have decided to focus on three key points. My first point is that Hollywood owes its current prosperity to a series of favorable circumstances in its very beginnings. Cheap, nonunionised labour in California at the turn of the twentieth century, ideal weather, adjoining diverse landscapes and inexpensive land for studio construction formed the optimal conditions for the emergence of the Hollywood apparatus (Izod, 1988: 32; Gomery, 1986: 10). Furthermore,
American studio owners had the benefit of testing the local market with European imports: the practice was pioneered by Adolph Zukor, founder of Paramount Pictures, who in 1912 purchased the rights to screen a French feature Queen Elizabeth in the US (Izod, 1988: 33). Imports allowed the independents (opponents of Edison s Motion Pictures Patent Trust; most notably C. Laemmle, A. Zukor and W. Fox) to gauge the audiences reactions and consequently produce films that would attract more viewers leading to the birth of the feature film. Finally, the two World Wars secured Hollywood s preeminence over war-torn Europe and its national cinemas (Wasko, 1994: 225; Williams, 2010: 75; Gomery, 1986: 5). In the post-war period, Hollywood s established business practice allowed it to differentiate its product from the new medium of television, which was detrimental to the recovering European cinemas (Balio, 2013: 67). The second reason I found to have played a significant role in Hollywood s dominance is the fact that Hollywood was and still is primarily a business venture (contrasted to more culturally orientated European cinemas; explained in further detail later in this text). From its beginnings Hollywood applied the basic economic principles of risk minimisation and profit maximisation, specialisation and division of labour, and more recently, with big multiplexes across Europe, employing economies of scale to further its profits (Gomery, 1986: 4-24). Hollywood standardised film production and consumption, establishing its institutionalised mode of representation as early as 1927 (Higson, 2002: 136), which utilised Hollywood s commercial aesthetic (Maltby, 2003: 10-14) to appeal to mass audiences. Ultimately, the key to Hollywood s dominance is often cited to be its control over the mundane (but profitable) market activities: distribution and exhibition. Thanks to its vast domestic market, it was comparatively easy for Hollywood to base its profitable business model around distribution (Balio, 2013: 66; Gomery, 1986: 2-24). Through systematic product placement, advertising, sponsorships, tie-ins and merchandising, Hollywood executes the commodification of culture to an unmatched extent (Wasko, 1994: 187-217; Balio, 2013: 79-81).
The result of these standardised business practices is that audiences around the world have become accustomed to the Hollywood product. The beginnings of this phenomenon can be traced back to the era of silent film, when it was required of the viewer to engage more intensely with a film, stepping into a role of an active interpreter (Maltby et. al. in Fowler, 2002: 185). This immersion into the spectacle that is the Hollywood product, coupled with the movie-going habit acquired during the dreary years of the two World Wars, has trained the tastes of European audiences to gauge films in comparison to the glamorous and sensationalist production values of Hollywood (Wasko, 1994: 226). The utopian world of Hollywood pictures, freed from class distinctions that weighed heavily upon the citizens of Europe (as well as European films) at that time provided a welcome escape from the troubles of everyday life for the European working class and established a model for consumption of entertainment that still stands to this day. In contrast to the spectaculars of Hollywood, European films have generally been less about the universal appeal and more concerned with adding cultural value to their national heritage. European auteurs are less fiscally responsible, creating works of art that are less likely to amass profitable viewership and more geared towards niche audiences. Williams (2010: 75) notes that sometimes Hollywood productions came nearer the actual attitudes of the British audiences than most British films. While it is unsurprising for Hollywood productions to command the US market, they are also dominating other national markets around the world. That is partially because of the reasons listed above, but there are additional justifications for this occurrence on the part of these other countries and their audiences as well. According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics fact sheet on feature film diversity from 2013, patterns of film consumption based on the films origin is largely homogenous, with US production capturing 60 or more per cent of the audiences on average. Notable exceptions include Morocco,
Georgia and the Republic of Korea, which is the only country where the audience share of national movies accounts for the majority (54 per cent). In France and the United Kingdom, the audience for national films approaches similar levels as for US films. This can partially be explained by quota systems these countries introduced as a means of limiting the number of (primarily) US imports. In the past, these systems of restricting imports and imposing quotas for the production of national films have proven to be fairly unsuccessful, and even counter-effective, when not accompanied by policies for quality control (Maltby and Vasey in Fowler, 2002: 186; Wasko, 1994: 227; Williams, 2010: 75). A common characteristic of the European film industry are national and supranational systems of financial and other forms of support. EU-level programmes such as MEDIA, followed by MEDIA II, MEDIA Plus, Eurimages and more narrowly focused ones as IBERMEDIA and The Nordic Fund have attempted to encourage production and incentivise wider distribution via monetary loans, workshops and training programmes for industry professionals. Although not without flaws (criticisms of such programmes include transparency issues, lack of cohesion, not enough support in the area of production, poor record in recouping loans), these support systems continue to play a valuable role in upholding European cinema and its fragmented home market (Jäckel, 2003: 68-88). Another substantial factor in the European film industry are co-productions (Finney in Fowler, 2002: 216). These can be between two or more different countries, and/or between film studios and public service broadcasters i.e. national television services, which in many countries have a legal obligation to promote national productions. An additional aid in the distribution and exhibition phases are (reciprocal) deals with US distributors. North American companies have invested heavily in the multiplexing of Europe, and have succeeded in establishing the multiplex experience as a standard of popular cinemagoing in Europe (Jäckel, 2003: 118).
To conclude, Hollywood cinema and European and other national cinemas have fundamental differences as a result of many historical factors that were at play during the birth of film as a medium. A great advantage of the Hollywood studios has always been the vast and affluent North American market; and while the European market is now more unified than ever, a large percentage of European productions never leave their national market (Wasko, 1994: 226; Finney in Fowler, 2002: 216; Jäckel, 2003: 119). In order to fight back more successfully, the European film industry must restore the link between production and [box office] performance and put more emphasis on the role of the producer (Finney in Fowler, 2002: 213). Profitability is, now more than ever, a major concern for national cinemas in battle with the Hollywood majors (Jäckel, 2003: 145). That being said, the cultivation of artistic value and upholding of a national identity through the medium of film is still an important factor in European and other national productions and that is, in my opinion, their strongest weapon against Hollywood s commercialization of culture through tentpole productions and pandemic franchises (Higson in Fowler, 2002: 136-137). This is evident in the modest but promising resurgence of small, independent cinemas and artplexes across Europe that offer a different experience (as well as exhibit more of national productions) for an increasing number of (niche) audiences than the omnipresent, blockbuster feature multiplexes (Jäckel, 2003: 138). Albeit still struggling to reconcile state-specific legislation aiming to support national (and only national) production with the demand to co-produce and co-finance projects on a transnational (EU) level (Finney in Fowler, 2002: 216), co-productions are increasingly proving to be the way to go about consolidating the European film industry.
Bibliography Ashby, Justine, Andrew Higson (2000) Eds. British Cinema, Past and Present, London, Routledge. Balio, Tino (2013) Hollywood in the New Millennium, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan. Fowler, Catherine (2002) Ed. The European Cinema Reader, London: Routledge. Gomery, Douglas (1986) The Hollywood Studio System, Basingstoke, Macmillan. Izod, John (1988) Hollywood and the Box Office, New York, Columbia University Press. Jäckel, Anne (2003) European Film Industries, London, BFI Publishing. Maltby, Richard (2003) Hollywood Cinema, Oxford, Blackwell Publishing. Wasko, Janet (1994) Hollywood in the Information Age, Cambridge, Polity Press. Williams, Kevin (2010) Get Me a Murder a Day!: A History of Media and Communication in Britain, London, Bloomsbury Academic.
Internet sites consulted BFI Research and Statistics Unit (2015) BFI Statistical yearbook 2015 http://www.bfi.org.uk/sites/bfi.org.uk/files/downloads/bfi-statistical-yearbookbox-office-2014-2015-03-27.pdf, accessed 03/04/15. Motion Picture Association of America (2015) The American Motion Picture and Television Industry: Creating Jobs, Trading Around the World http://www.mpaa.org/wpcontent/uploads/2015/02/mpaa-industry-economic-contribution-factsheet.pdf, accessed 03/04/15. UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2013) UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) Feature Film Diversity Fact Sheet http://www.uis.unesco.org/culture/documents/fs24-feature-film-diversity-en.pdf, accessed 03/04/15.