European Film Studies - How useful is the concept of the auteur in the Essay

European Film Studies - How useful is the concept of the auteur in the context of post-war European cinema - Essay Example This system emerged due to the increase in demand for films from Hollywood. The system evolved gradually in the years following the World War 1, which ended in 1918. To meet the demand for more movies, it focused more on quantity than on quality. It was Thomas Ince, himself a film director (Civilization, [1916] was his best known film) who conceived film production as a factory system, thus paving the way for the emergence of Hollywood studio system. Adolph Zukor, the long time head of Paramount Pictures, was another key personality who played a major role in the development of the studio system in Hollywood. He is the one who conceived the idea of the star system, which converted actors into stars and made them commercially salable icons. The studio system consisted of companies that owned the studios where films were produced. These companies decided the material to be filmed; they owned and controlled regularly paid stars who were treated like workers, (â€Å"More stars than there are in the heaven† was the motto of Metro –Goldwyn Mayer, one of the five major film producing companies in Hollywood, during it’s hey day), dictated which directors would make which films. Their motto was to produce more movies at lower cost. It was this powerful studio system that ran Hollywood from the late 20s through the 60s. Thus production process was broken down to and organized into various compartments. The producer with a budget was the central figure. Under him there were directors, Script writers, actors, technicians, mechanics, costumers, makeup men and people who took care of the publicity materials. It was an entertainment factory with clear division of labor. The production plan for every year is prep ared well in advance; budget decided and the assembly line is kept flowing. EMERGENCE OF ATEURISM: The problems with the trends in Hollywood stem from the fact that they are