The
1920s saw a vast expansion of Hollywood film making and worldwide
film going. Throughout the decade, film production increasingly
focused on the feature film rather than the "short". This
is a change that had begun with the long D.W. Griffith epics of the
mid-1910s. In Hollywood, numerous small studios were taken over and
made a part of larger studios, creating the Studio System that would
run American film making until the 1960s. MGM (founded in the middle
of the decade) and Paramount were the highest-grossing studios during
the period, with Fox, Universal, United Artists, and Warner Brothers
making up a large part of the remaining market.
The
1920s was also the decade of the "Picture Palaces": large
urban theaters that could seat 1-2,000 guests at a time, with full
orchestral accompaniment and very “popping” design. These picture
palaces were often owned by the studios and used to premier and
first-run their major films.
Key
genres such as the “swashbuckler”, horror, and modern romantic
comedy flourished during the decade. Stars such as Douglas Fairbanks,
Ramon Novarro, Pola Negri, Nazimova, Greta Garbo, Mary Pickford,
Lilian Gish, Francis X. Bushman, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton,
Harold Lloyd, Lon Chaney, Rudolph Valentino, John Gilbert, Clara Bow,
Gloria Swanson, Joan Crawford, George O'Brien, and John Barrymore
were the leading stars of that film era.
The
influence of German Expressionism, Soviet Montage Editing, and
Realism made profound changes to film over the course of the decade.
A more artistic approach to composition on the screen shifted
filmmaking away from its earlier obsession with showing the world "as
it is." By the mid-to-late-1920s, the silent "art film"
was on the rise with some of the greatest silent film achievements,
such as Von Sternberg's Underworld and The Last Command, Vidor's The
Crowd, and Murnau's Sunrise. Erich Von Stroheim's ultra-realist films
such as Greed also had a big influence.
The
transition to sound-on-film
technology
occurred mid-decade with the talkies
being
developed
in 1926-1927,
following experimental techniques, that
had
begun in the late1910s.
Fox Studios and the Warner Brothers were crucial in the development
and acceptance of the technology of sound in motion pictures.
Also,
in 1927, the International
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was
formed. Later, "International" was removed from the name.
Today, The
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is
most famous for its annual presentation of The
Academy Awards,
also known as the Oscars.
