American culture

Changing realities and television's rise

Though television broke the movie industry's hegemony in American entertainment, the rise of television would prove advantageous, in its way, to the movies. This is because public opinion about the quality of television content soon declined, and by contrast, cinema's status began to be regarded more and more as a serious art form as worthy of respect and study as the fine arts.

This was complimented with the Miracle Decision in which the Supreme Court of the United States reversed its earlier position and stated that motion pictures were an artform entitled to the protection of the First amendment.

Rise of the blockbuster

The drive to produce spectacle on the movie screen has largely shaped American cinema ever since. Spectacular epics which took advantage of new widescreen processes were increasingly popular from the 1950s onwards.

Since then, American films have become increasingly divided into two categories: blockbusters and independent films. Studios have focused on relying on a handful of extremely expensive releases every year in order to remain profitable. Such blockbusters emphasize spectacle, star power, and high production value, all of which entail an enormous budget.

Blockbusters typically rely upon star power and massive advertising to attract a huge audience. A successful blockbuster will attract an audience large enough to offset production costs and reap considerable profits. Such productions carry a subtantial risk of failure, and most studios release blockbusters that both over- and underperform in a year.

A major change to American filmmaking occurred during the 1970s when a new breed of young directors who had degrees from film schools and who had absorbed the techniques developed in Europe in the 1960s emerged. Directors like Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, Brian de Palma, Martin Scorsese, and Steven Spielberg came to produce fare that paid homage to the history of film, and developed upon existing genres and techniques.

Their movies were often both critically acclaimed and successful at the box office. Coppola, Spielberg, and Lucas in particular are credited with shaping the blockbuster model in its current form, with the colossal successes of The Godfather, Jaws, and Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, respectively. These movies, which each set the all-time box office record during their releases, induced studios to focus even more heavily than before on trying to produce humongous hits.