Madeleines Blog

Studio System  During which decades was the Hollywood studio system at its most powerful? the studio system was most popular between the 1920s and the 1960s, (this was also known as the "golden age" of Hollywood) when studios made hundreds of movies a year, not all them were successful, but many of them were (for example Casablanca).   What were the major "big five" studios? The ‘Big Five’ were the main studios that were making movies in Hollywood. They were MGM, 20th Century Fox, RKO, Paramount and Warner Bros. There were other film studios at the time, but none of them were as successful or as well known as the "Big Five" What areas and roles in film production did the studio system have direct control over? the studio system meant that the studio had control over basically every part of the film, hence why in Casablanca the director (Curtiz) is referred to as a "director for hire" as he wasn't really involved in the film as...

Casablanca Scenes The opening bar scene The performance in the opening scene in Ricks bar creates a sense of isolation in the bar, everyone has their backs turned, and they all sit in groups of two or three, the biggest grouping being around six people This shows the danger and untrusting nature of those who are stuck in Casablanca. While Ricks is one of the happier places in Casablanca, it still has a melancholy tone to it, for example, the two men having a conversation (albeit a one-sided conversation), about he is never going to get out of Casablanca, the other man is uninterested, shown through uneven eye-lines and body language, suggesting this is a common occurrence in Casablanca. The camera during the opening shots uses a lot of movement in the bar scene, panning around the bar from right to left. It also uses establishing shots at the start of the scene. This is the typical style of classical Hollywood. The camera is also never really still, moving from conversation to ...