What are the basic characteristics of old Hollywood movies?

The creation of old Hollywood films follows the aesthetic principle of a dramatic film, and its basic characteristics are embodied in three aspects:? That is, dramatic story structure, typed characters and natural and smooth continuous editing. ?

First, the story structure and plot development of Hollywood classic movies are obviously based on drama: the story is full of dramatic conflicts, the story structure is complete and closed, and the story develops step by step to the final climax, which is always inseparable from the happy ending. Such as Casablanca and Broken Bridge.

Secondly, after the establishment of the structural model of drama stories, the composition of characters in Hollywood classic narratives naturally tends to be typed. According to the principle of drama conflict, the characters are established as two camps, positive and negative.

For example, in western movies, there are always police chiefs and greedy and savage Indians who represent justice and law, while in gangster movies, there is a confrontation between justice and crime.

Of course, in the classic Hollywood narrative, under the premise of following the genre principle, the characters have endless choices and changes, but the dramatic conflict between the positive characters and the negative characters is the eternal magic weapon of Hollywood. ?

3. The core of Hollywood classic narrative system is the continuous editing mentioned above. Constant editing represents the characteristics of Hollywood classic narrative, which is not only the development of dramatic stories and typed characters, but also the basic premise for Hollywood to create dreams and laughter.

Because natural and smooth continuous editing provides a simple, convenient and real screen world for the audience.

Because the editing of the classic narrative system aims at realizing the requirements of realism, it is of special significance to use the sequence of scenes: first, the system lens shows the overall environment and characters.

Then the shots in the middle scene explain the actions and reactions of the characters, and then cut into the close-up shots (including close-ups) to directly present the importance of the facial expressions of the characters to the audience.

Finally, we have to go back to the panoramic lens to end the paragraph narrative or rebuild a new time-space relationship. ?

4. As an important part of the classic Hollywood narrative system, the happy ending of Hollywood plays an important role in many mainstream Hollywood movies.

Simply put, it has two meanings: one is a round or closed story structure; The second is to achieve a successful and perfect happy ending.

For example, at the beginning of orson welles's immortal masterpiece Citizen Kane, the camera slowly moves in from the gate of the newspaper tycoon's extremely luxurious "Paradise Manor" and the warning sign of "No Entry" on the gate, and finally pulls out the gate of the manor with a reverse lens to end the whole film, completing a closed cycle in the narrative structure and lens language of the film. ?

Extended data:

The 1930s and 1940s were the heyday of Hollywood in the United States. During this period, genre films dominated Hollywood film creation. Genre movies are created according to the rules of different genres (or styles). In essence, it is a standard of art product standardization.

The essence of this standard film is to use all the film expression schemes that can capture the audience's vision and psychology. It often reflects the audience's interest and moral standards better than those movies that consciously pursue the art of personal conception.

Genre film is the product of Hollywood production system, which makes movies from the perspective of business and box office, and establishes and perfects a set of film creation methods in a lot of artistic practice. ?

The main features of genre films are:?

1. Plot statement

2. Characterization of characters

3. Screen narrative standardization (genre films mostly adopt a single linear structure, with time-space transformation as the order, event development as the clue, less flashbacks and cross montages, and focus on telling stories of one-way development)

4. Graphic visual images (such as castles or towers symbolizing danger, dark forests hiding disasters, gurgling test tubes in laboratories breeding evil, etc. )?

The development of classic Hollywood genre films has experienced formation, maturity and decline. Its revival period appeared in the new Hollywood era. Classic Hollywood genre films include westerns, gangster films, musical films, horror films and so on. ?

From 1950s to 1960s, due to the development of TV industry and other social reasons such as politics and economy, the classic Hollywood genre films declined.