Hollywood’s Ascension to the Pinnacle of the Competitiveness In Light of D. Prokop’s Sociological Discourse

Abstract

Drawn upon the proceedings of research on the social-economic history of American cinema (1896–1970), conducted by the classic of the sociology of film D. Prokop, this analysis is of the historical process by which Hollywood formed as an industrial system and ascended to the pinnacle of its competitiveness. Learning of cinema history in this regard affords a better understanding of and a better consideration for, in an actual film policy, the furthemost external roots of deficient competitiveness on the part of nearly any national cinema, and the finding of auspicious asymmetrical approaches to its reversal. Researched are market forms and factors for the emergence in the American film industry of the orientation toward rationalized supercostly investment competition, beyond the capabilities of other members of both the domestic and the foreign market. Within the initial market framework – that of free competition among small filmmakers – there gradually took place a certain concentration of production resources and capital in the hands of the most successful entrepreneurs. As a result, a number of firms got established which assumed the domination of the market. Free cinema competition gave way to an oligopoly. In 1922 its members incorporated themselves into a trade organization in order to facilitate the combination, among themselves, of competition and of cooperation in areas of shared interests. It was on this basis that the members gained the status of the national monopolist (1930–1946). The decline of cinema attendances taking place in the US before and after the Second World War, and the related exacerbation of the cost-effectiveness issue for film production, objectively necessitated the increase of Hollywood’s activeness on the foreign market. In 1945 a special export organization was created for supplying Hollywood films with a better access to national markets. Since 1947 Hollywood has been advancing as the international monopolist. In that capacity, in the 1990s, it gained a practically unlimited access to Russia’s theatrical market. A multitude of acute and complex issues became the agenda for Russian film policy.