America's Industrial Age gave rise to many inventions -
The railroad ...
Phonograph ...
Electric light ...
Telephone ...
And of course, the motion picture camera,
as well as flexible film stock.
With the fortuitous transfer of movie talent from New York
to Los Angeles early in the 20th Century,
Hollywood was born.
(Narrator) Hollywood ...
Warner Brothers ...
Universal ...
Paramount ...
Disney ...
And Columbia/Sony.
Today, Hollywood and world cinema go together like hand
in glove.
Indeed, it was the genius of the American entrepreneurial
system, a system that in the early 20th century was
becoming the greatest industrial and technological
power in the world that gave rise what is now known as
American Cinema.
(Kuntz) you might say the genius of the system or what's
amazing of the American cinema occurs,
or at least begins, in the nineteen teens when you have a
couple of things happen simultaneously that work so
beautifully, synergistically together.
On the one hand, you have people like D.W.
Griffith really establishing the grammar of cinema and
showing the power of cinema, how cinema can be something
more than just a little light throwaway entertainment;
how the cinema can get us involved in stories and
characters, can make us laugh, can make us cry,
and can make grand statements for better or for worse;
and at the same time we see in Hollywood the development of
the studio system a whole industrial apparatus that
arises in the nineteen teens to mass-produce feature films.