Golden Age of Hollywood: Difference between revisions

Directors were also contractually bound to their studios. As a result, the way that movies were made came to be standardized, almost like a production line. Standardization was so powerful that each studio developed its own "style," distinct from the rest, with regards to how their movies looked. [[Executive Meddling]] was the norm, and headstrong directors like [[Alfred Hitchcock]], [[Orson Welles]] and [[John Ford]] often fought against the restrictions put on them by the studio. The concept of the "auteur"—a director who controls most aspects of the production—did not exist in Hollywood until [[New Hollywood|well after the Golden Age]]. This was also the era of the [[Hays Code]], enacted in response to both [[You Can Panic Now|moral panic]] over indecency in early film and a perceived number of immoral people within the industry itself ([[Fatty Arbuckle]] being the most infamousnotable - and he was not guilty of the charges brought against him), as well as the [[Moral Guardians|National Legion of Decency]], a largely Catholic censor group that could effectively destroy a film's profitability by declaring it "morally objectionable" (basically, imagine the Parents Television Council, but Catholic, movie-focused and far more powerful). This placed extremely strong censorship on films in addition to the demands of the executives. The combination of these two factors meant that [[Strictly Formula]], more often than not, ruled the day when it came to filmmaking.