The Oxford History of World Cinema (27 page)

The motion picture industry came out of the war as both emblem and instrument of the

cultural and economic realignment that would characterize the remainder of the century.

In broad terms, the pre- 1914 domination of international production and distribution by

the French, Italians, and English gave way by 1918 to the expansionist interests of the US

studios and a very different vision of the cinema. The war not only disrupted the trade

patterns so crucial to the traditional European powers, it also exacted a heavy price in

terms of the lives, material, and ongoing experimentation so vital to film production. And,

in very different ways, it assisted in the successful transformation of the US, German, and

ultimately Russian industries.

Despite the best attempts of the Motion Picture Patents Company ( MPPC -- popularly

known as 'the Trust') to limit competition within the USA in the pre-war era by licensing

domestic producers and restricting imports, the US market proved extremely attractive to

leading European producers whose industries were predicated upon international

distribution. Pathé-Frères, for example, had penetrated the market long before its

membership in the MPPC, and by 1911 opened its own US production studios and led

fellow Trust members in profits, while UrbanEclipse, Gaumont, and later Cines product

appeared on American screens thanks to MPPC member George Kleine. Many of the

other large European producers, however, offered their films to the quickly growing

independent movement. Constant litigation and shifting organizational alliances

encouraged companies such as Denmark's Nordisk Kompagni ( Great Northern Film

Company) and Italy's Ambrosio ( Ambrosio America Co.) to open their own US offices,

and sometimes, as in the case of Éclair, even laboratories and studios. The pre-war assault

upon the American market was not unique; nations such as Germany, Austria, Hungary,

Russia, and the Netherlands found themselves the targets of the same internationally

oriented production companies, without the organized resistance offered by America's

Trust. Reflecting larger trade patterns, French, Italian, and British films also dominated

the import markets of countries in South and Central America, Asia, Africa, and Australia.

Despite the prominence of Pathé-Frères in the USA, and of French product world-wide,

the situation would soon shift dramatically. A war-induced production slump, changes in

industry practice, direct government intervention into film affairs, and disrupted

international trade, all provided American producers with a market opening. The US

industry, however, largely insulated from the ravages of war by the nation's neutrality

until April 1917, was anything but peaceful. The years 1912 to 1915 saw the demise of

the MPPC, the fatal weakening of many of its members, and the simultaneous rise of an

oligopoly engineered by entrepreneurs such as Zukor, Fox, and Laemmle. By

standardizing production practices through strict divisions of labour and elaborate

organizational hierarchies, by seizing market advantage through such tactics as the

systematic exploitation of the star system, and by controlling film distribution and

exhibition through techniques such as direct theatrical competition and block booking, the

oligopoly transformed the character of the industry and its products.

The war would contribute to the growth of the studios by weakening foreign competition

both domestically and internationally, opening the way for post-war US domination. But

in many cases, the seeds of change could already be found in the immediate pre-war

years. In the summer of 1914, as Europe's leaders shuttled diplomatic briefs and its people

prepared to mobilize, America's MPPC neared the end of its long legal battles and

prepared to abandon its protectionist barriers. The US film market would never again be

so open to imports, but meanwhile old Trust members such as Eastman Kodak and

Vitagraph had themselves already launched an increasingly effective export counter-

offensive. For example Vitagraph, the leading American film exporter prior to the war,

opened its main European offices in Paris in 1906 and by 1908 had built a complete film

laboratory there from which it sent prints to its distribution offices in Italy, England, and

Germany. French domination of the international industry in the pre-war period

notwithstanding, American films competed for space on Paris screens before 1914. As

Richard Abel ( 1984) points out, increasing competition from American and Italian

producers, together with a series of legal and financial pressures, weakened France's grip

on some of its traditional markets.

Shortly before the declaration of war, as the French economy braced for an intense but

short conflict, its film industry ground to a temporary halt. General mobilization would

empty the studios of their personnel, the idle spaces instead finding use as temporary

barracks, and Pathé's film stock factory at Vincennes would be converted to the

production of war materials. Despite these adverse conditions, within a few months of the

war's declaration production quickly resumed in France, although not at pre-war levels,

with Pathé (shooting in the USA) and Gaumont, for example, creating extremely

successful serials such as
Les Mystères de New York
('The Mysteries of New York', Pathé

1915-16) and Feuillade's
Les Vampires
('The Vampires', 1915-16). But as the war dragged

on and Charles Pathé sought to supply his far-flung empire with films, his company

increasingly took on the character of a distribution agency for other companies despite its

continued support of independent productions. In so restructuring, Pathé led the French

industry to the same fate as the British, emphasizing distribution at the expense of

regularized production.

The cultural presence of the United States in French life increased thanks in part to

Pathé's reliance on its American studios for film production. But more directly, American

products in the form of Chaplin and Lloyd comedies and William S. Hart Westerns not

only filled the gaps left by domestic producers, they generated a positive enthusiasm

among French audiences and served as signs of the erosion of pre-war cultural value

systems. The remarkable popularity of the action-adventure female protagonist in many of

the wartime French serials, and the eager acceptance of America's 'new' culture

(displacing audiences' recent infatuation with Italian classical spectacles), points to the

transformation of popular taste which would reinforce America's market advantage in the

post-war era.

The British film industry, in contrast to the French, experienced a steady production

decline well before the war, but, as Kristin Thompson points out in her analysis of trade

patterns ( 1985), England enjoyed a strong distribution and re-export business. With its

large domestic exhibition market, the world's most developed shipping and sales network,

a system of dependent colonial and commonwealth trading partners, and until 1915

tarifffree imports, Britain served as the heart of pre-war international export. On the eve

of the war, however, although England had traditionally provided the USA's largest export

market (with Germany a distant second), elaborate French and Italian productions

successfully competed for an increased share of the business. This momentary deviation

would more than be rectified as the USA went on to command the allegiance of wartime

British viewers as never before.

The events of the summer of 1914 and growth of the US studio system would profoundly

alter the character of the British industry. The disruption of Continental markets (the loss

of Germany to British trade, for example), difficulties in shipping generated by insurance

requirements and reallocation of cargo space to war-essential materials, and an import

duty on films, all proved disastrous to an industry predicated upon distribution and re-

export. Film seemed a particularly troublesome commodity since the raw material of film

stock, cellulose nitrate, was both highly flammable (a potential threat to war-essential

shipping) and capable of being used in the manufacture of explosives (and, given

Germany's total reliance on imported nitrates, of natural interest to Britain's enemy). But

the rise of the USA's aggressively entrepreneurial studio system compounded Britain's

problems. Prior to the war, with the exception of Vitagraph, American Trust members had

been content to carry on the vast majority of their trade with England, which in turn re-

exported US films to Continental and world-wide markets. hompson credits the examples

set by the international marketing of The Birth of a Nation( 1915) and Civilization

( 1916), both of which required country-by-country negotiations, with a wider change in

US industry practice. By 1916, companies such as Fox, Universal, and Famous Players-

Lasky opened their own offices or negotiated through their own agents in locations

around the world. Fortunately for the studios, the boom in the US shipping industry

triggered in part by the Panama Canal (evident in increased shipbuilding and the

development of a world-wide network of US banks) greatly facilitated their expansionist

policies.

Italy, the site of Europe's other major film industry, eventually suffered much the same

fate as its French and British allies. The Italian government entered the conflict some nine

months after the principals and was initially spared the disruption facing its neighbours.

In the years leading up to the war, the Italian industry experienced growing momentum

thanks in part to its spectacle films. With casts numbering in the thousands and lavish,

often authentic, sets, films such as Quo vadis? ( 1913), The Last Days of Pompeii ( 1913),

and Cabiria ( 1914) captured the attention of viewers around the world, often at the

expense of American competition. The depressed economic conditions which permitted

such labour-intensive productions, however, also required the Italian studios to generate

export sales in order to survive. In the context of France's dropping production levels and

Britain's growing neglect of many former markets, Italy's delay in entering the war both

stimulated its already prominent market position and at least through 1916 provided the

exports it so badly needed. From that point on, however, Italy faced the same array of

obstacles as most of the belligerent nations: inadequate supplies of film stock, military

priorities in shipping, and redeployment of the work-force, to which Italy could add a

slowly collapsing economy.

Not surprisingly, the war stifled the emerging film industries of German-occupied nations

such as Belgium and belligerent powers such as Austria-Hungary. Their screens reflected

the proximity of military action and the consequent disruption of distribution patterns,

both of which resulted in a growing percentage of German films. By contrast, nations

which sought to remain above the fray, such as the Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden,

used their neutrality to take advantage of the war-created reconfiguration of distribution,

and, through 1916 at least, to increase production levels. Despite the modest levels of

success they achieved, all three industries felt the constraints of shrinking markets,

reduced availability of stock, and shipping difficulties. In the Netherlands, opportunistic

distribution practices stimulated the film industry generally and production in companies

such as Hollandia-Film reached new levels. In Sweden's case, Charles Magnusson

carefully developed a production infrastructure which would be sustained in the post-war

period, while encouraging the work of directors such as Victor Sjöström and Mauritz

Stiller. Denmark, a self-sufficient film market and home to the internationally active

Nordisk Kompagni, enjoyed initial success, but fell victim to a series of pre-war industrial

difficulties (from everexpanding budgets to stylistic rigidity). More dramatically,

however, a 1917 German buy-out of Nordisk's substantial holdings in Germany, and with

them rights to Nordisk's films in much of Europe, effectively neutralized Denmark as an

international producer.

In sharp contrast to the film industries of Europe's Allied and neutral nations, Germany's

industry consolidated its domestic market and expanded its influence rapidly in both

occupied and neutral lands. As Germany had shown with its deployment of gas and

submarines, where sensitivity to the potentials of modern warfare joined with a vigorous

plan of action, a fresh vision together with centralized authority could lead to tremendous

advances. Thanks to the efforts of several leading industrialists and General Erich

Ludendorff, the nation was able to move from a pre-war reliance on imported French,

Danish, and American films, to control of its own screens by the war's end.

The rapid changes in the German market resulted from two major factors. First, the

declaration of war interrupted the flow of imports from England, France, and eventually

Italy, forcing Germany to rely increasingly upon trade with neutrals such as Denmark and

the USA. This experience underscored the problems of trade dependencies. Secondly, as