Classic Hollywood Model of Narration essays

Classic Hollywood Model of Narration essays Write a critique of a recent film which, in your view, conforms to the structural parameters of the classic Hollywood model of narrative construction. As Richard Maltby (1995:6) once quoted If Hollywood is not a place, it is also not a time. We are forever going on about how Hollywood is not how it was. Remember the days when everything on screen was black and white and wonderful, remember the days when going to the movies was a real treat not just an excuse to dig into a bucket of greasy popcorn. Cinema and the art of film was appreciated, it was sentimental, it was classic. Unfortunately I cant say that I remember those days. By the time I found my way into this world the classical Hollywood movie had somewhat evolved itself into something of less substantial quality. However it has been argued that aswell as changing, Hollywood has also remained the same, in respect of remaining in the same business of entertaining its audience, of producing the maximum pleasure for the maximum number for the maximum profit (Hayward, S., 1996). David Bordwell, Janet Staiger and Kristin Thompson (1985) argue that since 1917, the essential features of classical style were in place- the way that a movie organizes narrative time and space, the continuity script, the management structure and division of labour in production have remained more or less the same. This continuity enables us to make generalizations about Hollywood today. The typical Hollywood film carries a set of expectations, often apparently obvious in cinematic form and style. The idea of the classical implies the observance of rules of composition and aesthetic organization that produce unity, balance and order in resulting artwork. Hollywood films are bound by rules, they tip-toe on the strict limitations on individual innovation. Each and every one of them frames themselves around the conventions and principles of the classical cinema. ...