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Trailers: A disconnect between academia and practiceMA Film studies
First reader: Gerwin van der Pol Second reader: Abe Geil
Sebastiaan Gorissen (student # 6286119 / 10002030)
MA Thesis 27-06-2014
Contents
Introduction [03]
Chapter 1: Theoretical framework [09]
The auteur theory Film marketing
A disconnect between academia and practice
Chapter 2: The historical development of film marketing [22]
1921 – 1960 1961 – 1970 1971 – 1980 1981 – 1990 1991 – 2000 2001 – 2010 Concluding thoughts
Chapter 3: Case studies [57]
The film franchise The career of an auteur
Bibliography [67]
Introduction
Trailers tell the story of a film in a highly condensed manner, aiming to achieve maximum appeal. Shown before the feature film screening, the film trailer has become an integral part of attending a cinema. Eventually expanding to various other media such as television and the internet, film trailers have gone on to become the third watched category of video on video websites (such as YouTube.com), surpassed only by news items and user generated content. As the film industry as a whole, film marketing underwent a significant evolution over the last few decades, with the film trailer rising to dominating prominence.
Despite its place in popular culture, the academic emphasis on the artistic values of filmmaking has deemed film marketing as an irrelevant byproduct of cinema. As trailers evolved in cinematographic scope and depth, this neglect became problematized. Ever more closely related, film trailers would become representative of the changes encountered by the film industry. However, to understand the resulting complications and the unique possibilities they offer, it is vital to historicize and define the film trailer.
The film trailer: An introduction
Exactly when the first film trailer was shown in a film theater is not documented. One of the first trailers, however, was released as early as November 1913 in the United States. Nils Granlund, the advertising manager for the Marcus Loew theater chain, had produced a short promotional film for the play The pleasure seekers. Film footage of the rehearsals and behind the scenes impressions were presented at the picture houses owned by the same company. Realizing its marketing potential in an era when film occupied a much smaller share of the entertainment market, film studios showed interest in producing official trailers for their own releases. A ‘film trailer’ would become an advertisement for a feature film soon to be released. The term ‘trailer’ originates from the advertisement being shown at the end of feature film screenings. However, as patrons tended to leave the theater after the end of the film, this practice did not last.
Early trailers were a small part of the entertainment cinemas offered, often interjected between cartoon shorts and serial adventures. The trailers themselves consisted of little more than title cards and stock footage. This largely changed in 1919, when the National Screen Service (NSS) was founded; a company specialized in the production and distribution of film trailers and other promotional materials on behalf of the studios. In time, the NSS dominated the production of film trailers, a monopoly it would have for almost four decades. The company’s influence translated to its trailers,
which generally followed the same template consisting of a brief synopsis by voice-over and a heavy emphasis on the names of the lead actors.
(Image 1: A heavy emphasis on film stars in two NSS produced film trailers)
To attract the public to the film, a series of selected shots and scenes made it into the trailer, unsurprisingly advertising its most noteworthy parts in abbreviated form. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), a trade association representing the six major film studios of the time, was founded in 1922 and generally held as a to be respected authority (Bernstein, Controlling Hollywood: Censorship and regulation in the studio era, 1999). The MPAA decided upon a maximum film trailer length of 2 minutes and 30 seconds, greatly impairing its narrative possibilities.
During the late 1950s and early 1960s, the familiar template for film trailers started to break up. Following allegations of conspiring to establish a monopoly in the distribution of motion picture advertising material in 1955 (Lawlor v. National Screen Service Corp.) the NSS dwindled in power. As directors gained more power in the film production hierarchy, they demanded greater control over their own trailers. Alfred Hitchcock, for example, would use the opportunity to personally appear in his trailers, and reinforce the persona of ‘the master of suspense’ he had established in his TV series.
(Image 2: Director Alfred Hitchcock in the trailer for Psycho)
Following the 1960, film marketing has become a vast industry. Consequently, trailers have become highly researched and tested pieces of advertising, developed to be able to present the poorest of films in a positive light. Whilst often scrutinized for either being misleading or giving away too much of the plot, trailers nonetheless have maintained
Advertising in film trailers: The problems
Most trailers have adopted a three-act structure similar to a feature-length film. The highly condensed format of the trailer has been the reason for the introduction of title cards, annotations and voice-overs, to provide exposition and explanation when necessary. Apart from matters regarding plot and characters, most trailers include a billing block; a list of the principal cast and crew. Over the years, clichés such as ‘The new film from the director of [X]’ have become a mainstay in film marketing. Interestingly, marketing campaigns have often built upon the success of previous projects by the film’s director, in an attempt to convey some of the grandeur and entice the film-going public. This attribution of authorial qualities to a director can be explained by the advent of the ‘auteur theory’ in the United States during the 1960s, an extension of the ‘star system’ that had transformed actors and actresses into marketable icons.
The continued heralding of a director as an auteur, as is evident in contemporary film marketing, is not in congruence with the auteur theory’s quick academic demise. Whereas both film marketing and the auteur theory would conventionally be viewed as irrelevant attributes of cinema in European academic traditions, the economic motivations that have created film marketing and sustain the film industry cannot be ignored. A deemed irrelevant part of cinema has animated a dismissed theory, and the auteur theory has since been able to impact the film industry in its entirety. The widespread and tangible influence of this neglected development is equally interesting and problematic, and thus deserving of study.
To reevaluate the importance of the auteur theory, it is important to first understand the theory’s place in academia. From its origins in France to its international recognition and subsequent dismissal, the emergence and demise of the theory must be charted. Subsequently, the insights into the academic position of the auteur theory will be supplemented with an introduction to film marketing literature, primarily on the basis of texts written by Finola Kerrigan (Film marketing, 2009) and Timothy Corrigan (A cinema without walls, 1991). The economic emphasis prevalent in film marketing studies (as opposed to a more cinematographic or holistic perspective) will be explored, and its crucial limitations will be explained. The first chapter will be comprised of this theoretical framework.
Following the theoretical summary of marketing literature, film marketing will be redefined as an essential and intrinsic part of cinema. This will be done by juxtaposing five decades of film history with its associated marketing practices. An emphasis will be placed on the film trailer, an accessible and wide-spread form of marketing. Revealing the parallels between cinema as a whole and the film trailer opposes the consideration of
trailers as a standalone medium, and the resulting deeper economic and cultural insight in the film industry will support the reappraisal of film marketing as a reflective and relevant attribute of cinema. The second chapter will be comprised of this film-historic exploration.
Following the second chapter, a third chapter of case studies will show the academic opportunities that arise from the continued use of an empirical research method in film studies. Furthermore, micro case studies can be found throughout the paper, in the form of aside comments regarding noteworthy trailers. These ‘fun facts’ are, as their markings suggest, not a part of the ongoing research, but more lighthearted remarks to underline the variety of trailers released and studied.
Films have a market value of their own, based on various aspects such as the ‘star power’ of the lead actors or the involvement of a certain director. The varying film historical popularity of these aspects has often been described, yet it is not known whether or not the film trailer kept the same pace. As a medium pre-eminently capable of underlining characteristics of interest it is intriguing to study how a trailer markets a film, and find out whether or not a forgotten theory such as the auteur theory has been able to find a second life in film marketing.
The method
Film studies are not known for having a tradition of empirical research, often opting for a more philosophical interpretation. Without factuality sciences are prone to prejudice and subjectivity. The lack of existing data regarding the advertisement of specific individuals in film marketing will thus call for extensive empirical research. The required data was gathered by watching many trailers released over a substantial period of time, subsequently creating a workable cross-section of a significant part of the history of film marketing.
To evaluate the history of film and film marketing since the rise of the auteur theory, guidelines and restrictions must be set. The film industry as a whole cannot realistically be historicized over the course of one study. Focusing instead on the marketing practices of the film industry of the United States (generally referred to as Hollywood) between 1961 and 2010 shines a specific light on the influence of Sarris’s translation of the Cahiers du Cinéma-writings. To get an idea of the trends in film marketing, the corpus for this research consists of all trailers for films nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture or Best Director, or a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Picture or Worst Director, released between 1961 and 2010.
The Academy Awards, first awarded in 1929, is an annual American awards ceremony honoring achievements in the film industry. Despite enduring its share of criticism regarding policies on nominations and voting, it has become the most prominent of all awards ceremonies with more than one billion annual viewers in over 200 countries. In the 50 years between 1961 and 2010, 315 individual films have been nominated in the chosen categories. The Golden Raspberry Awards can be seen as the counterpart to the Academy Awards, as the ceremony condemns the worst in film. First awarded in 1980 on a whim, the playful ceremony quickly gained international coverage. In the 30 years between 1981 and 2010, 178 individual films have been nominated in the chosen categories.
The categories Best Film, Best Director, Worst Film and Worst Director have been chosen to reflect both the best and worst in cinema, as determined by a third party. Furthermore, the predetermined number of films creates a sizeable yet workable sample of cinema’s yearly output. The 493 film trailers have been analyzed, and the Unique Selling Propositions (USPs) they advertise have been charted.
Act or Di re cto r Pr od u ce r Scr ee n wr ite r Ad ap tat io n Fr an chi se E ve n t Aw ar d R evie w Te chn olo g y Co mp o se r 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
(Image 3: The eleven categories of USPs)
In the resulting charts there is differentiation between the mention of an individual, marked as [x], and the mention of an individual as an auteur, marked as [x]. Thus, it is noted when the director and producer of Lawrence of Arabia (Lean, 1962) are referred to as ‘the creators of “The bridge over the river Kwai”’ (Lean, 1957). This empirical research provides the basis for what may result in the exposition of the premature academic disregard of the auteur theory, as well as factual backbone of the argument made for or against the role of the auteur theory in modern film studies.
Year Academy Award 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
1962 Lawrence of Arabia x x x x x
(Image 4: The trailer for Lawrence of Arabia analyzed and charted)
The graphs found in this study concerning the advertised USPs in trailers are derived from original research. The percentages stated are calculated on the basis of individual films. For instance; between 2001 and 2010, 58 individual films were nominated for an Academy Award in the chosen categories. Out of these 58 films, 38 films were advertised with the names of their directors. This translates to (38/58x100) 65,517%. Out of these 38 named directors, 12 of them were referred to as auteurs; (12/38x100) 31,579%. The empirical research can be found in its entirety in the appendix.
Chapter 1: Theoretical framework
During the 1960s, the uprising of independent producers and production companies, as well as the rise in power of actors bombarded as stars, contributed to the decline of the traditional Hollywood studio system. Apart from an increase in films shot on location or in studio facilities abroad, a growing interest in foreign language cinema could be detected in the United States during this period. Following the writers of the French magazine Cahiers du cinema, French New Wave directors such as François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard would be influential both cinematographically and academically, by breaking with conventional structures of narrative and the reading of the filmic text.
Cahiers du Cinéma and Andrew Sarris
In 1951, André Bazin cofounded the film critical magazine Cahiers du Cinéma, a reboot of Revue du Cinéma. After a lengthy ban on foreign films during the Second World War, French critics were again able to write about American cinema. Bazin’s profound appreciation for the vision and visual style of artists like Charlie Chaplin and Jean Renoir brought attention to remarkable directors from Europe as well as the glory days of the Hollywood studio system. Over the course of his career he created an order of directors worthy of praise, published as What is cinema? in 1968. Many of the younger critics working for Cahiers du Cinéma have since elaborated upon this idea.
François Truffaut, one of the more controversial critics of the Cahiers du Cinéma stable, was brought to the attention of André Bazin at the age of 15 through their mutual love of cinema. After running away from home Truffaut was supported financially for several years by Bazin, who offered him a position at Cahiers du Cinéma as a critic and essayist in 1953. In his article ‘A certain tendency in the French cinema’ (Cahiers du Cinéma, 1954), he lashed out at those directors who work without any personal vision and introduced the term ‘politique des auteurs’. This concept was an amalgamation of the theories of André Bazin and Alexandre Astruc, the theoretician associated with an early incarnation of Revue du Cinéma. In the text ‘The birth of the new avant-garde: La caméra-stylo’ (1948), Astruc describes a turning point in cinema:
‘The cinema is quite simply becoming a means of expression. […] a form in which and by which an artist can express his thoughts, however abstract they may be, or translate his obsessions exactly as he does in the contemporary essay or novel. That is why I would like to call this new age of cinema the age of camera-stylo. Direction is no longer a means of illustrating or presenting a scene, but a true act of writing. The film-maker writes with his camera as a writer writes with his pen.’ (Astruc, 1948)
Astruc’s views, which emphasize the filmmaker as an artist, can be seen as a predecessor of the auteur theory. Inspired by Astruc, Truffaut wrote his influential text in response to the contemporary film industry fascinated with literary adaptations. With his ‘politique des auteurs’ he intended to open the eyes of the public and academics alike, diverting the attention from the mundane ‘psychological realism’ to the avant-garde. Truffaut describes a true auteur as ‘someone who brings something genuinely personal to his subject instead of just producing a tasteful, accurate but lifeless rendering of the original material’ (Truffaut, 1954). Truffaut thus holds the discernible personality of the filmmaker as the characteristic of an auteur.
Truffaut and many of his colleagues were aware of the limitations of the Hollywood studio system, such as the genre and the script of the film often being determined before a director even was hired. Nonetheless, the Cahiers du Cinéma critics believed that artists of a certain nature were able to add a personal touch to the ways in which a film was shot, for instance through mise-en-scène and the emphasis on recurring themes. Directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford and Charlie Chaplin were heralded extravagantly as the most prominent artists in cinema.
By emphasizing the ‘auteur’ concept the French critics justified their love for Hollywood cinema, whilst simultaneously rattling the cage of the popular French film industry they viewed as having come to a standstill.
The ‘auteur’ concept was met with disdain in the 1950s and 1960s, as various employees of Hollywood studios felt that their work was being trivialized in favor of the director. American scholar Andrew Sarris went against the current, as he thought that outside of France the importance of the auteur and the emphasis on oeuvre had been lost in translation; views he published in 1962 as ‘Notes on the auteur theory in 1962’. Inspired by the works of Bazin and Truffaut he reformulated the ‘auteur’ concept as an auteur theory, a theory that quickly would gain a foothold in the United States.
Sarris starts his article discussing a falsity within the theoretical texts on the auteur by his French predecessors; the belief that ‘the weakest Ford [is] superior to the strongest King’ (Sarris, pg. 651). According to the auteur theory, the worst film made by John Ford would by default surpass the greatest film by Henry King, as the personal style of Ford was recognized as authorial. There thus are no good or bad films, just good or bad directors. Sarris believes that sticking to these ideas is illogical, as it ignores the cooperative nature of filmmaking. 'Presumably, we can all go home as soon as the directorial signature is flashed on the screen’ (Sarris, pg. 651). Despite this misconception, Sarris praises the auteur theory as essential in categorizing cinema within American history.
The shifted attention to the entire oeuvre of a filmmaker, as opposed to only focusing on triumphs, reopens the back catalogue of an artist for the analysis of lesser known works;
‘The auteur theory is the only help for extending the appreciation of personal qualities in the cinema. By grouping and evaluating films according to directors, the critic can rescue individual achievements from an unjustifiable anonymity.’ (Sarris, pg. 660)
Sarris embraces his auteur theory, as it allows for directors working within the restraints of the Hollywood studio system to be considered auteurs.
The auteur theory by Sarris is based on three premises. ‘The first premise of the auteur theory is the technical competence of a director as a criterion of value’ (Sarris, pg 662). Sarris views technical competence as a proviso for authorship. By this he means that a filmmaker must be able to tell a clear and well-structured story. ‘If a director has no technical competence, no elementary flair for the cinema, he is automatically cast out from the pantheon of directors’ (Sarris, pg. 662).
‘The second premise of the auteur theory is the distinguishable personality of the director as a criterion of value’ (Sarris, pg. 662). A director needs to show recurring stylistic characteristics over the course of a career, as if it were an autograph. The recurrence of similar concepts and techniques would enable a critic to review films over a longer period of time, chart the growth of a filmmaker’s technical competence, and explain changes in the artist’s perception of the world.
Sarris’s third premise of the auteur theory is more abstract, and thus more difficult to define. As Sarris states: ‘The third and ultimate premise of the auteur theory is concerned with interior meaning, the ultimate glory of the cinema as an art. Interior meaning is extrapolated from the tension between a director’s personality and his material’ (Sarris, pg. 663). This premise saw Sarris as the most important criterion for an auteur. The interior meaning of each of the auteur’s films is the amalgamation of the auteur’s perception of the world, the subject matter of the film and all influencing factors in a films production.
Sarris has made the auteur theory an attribute of modern film analysis despite the varying definition of an auteur and the variable criteria for authorship. The theory, however, is not uncontested.
Auteur theory criticism: Alternative approaches and the place of the auteur within contemporary film marketing and analysis
Andrew Sarris’s biggest adversary is Pauline Kael, the film critic most noted for her work at The New Yorker magazine between 1968 and 1991. In her essay ‘Circles and squares’ (I lost it at the movies, 1965) Kael describes critics reviewing from an auteurist viewpoint as slavish followers of said auteurs. Kael stresses that the auteur theory encourages the reverence of directors characterized by uninteresting and shallow motives, whose personal touch consists of little more than the rehashing of often poor techniques from previous films.
‘In every art form, critics traditionally notice and point out the way the artists borrow from themselves (as well as from others) and how the same device, techniques, and themes reappear in their work. […] we take it for granted that this is how we perceive the development or the decline of an artist.’ (Kael, pg. 667-668)
Kael recognizes the reuse of motives as ageless, yet doubts whether or not this is a viable criterion for reviewing and analyzing films. She holds as the ultimate goal of a critic ‘perceiving what is original and important in new work and helping others to see’ (Kael, pg. 669). The auteur theory is aimed solely at the conventions of a film to link it to an oeuvre, and inadequately highlights those innovations that made the film an original. Kael structured her argument against the auteur theory around the three premises given by Sarris; technical competence, stylistic characteristics and interior meaning.
She views the first premise, the technical competence displayed by a director, as an essentially important attribute of a filmmaker. However, she does not hold it as a sound argument for the analyzing and reviewing of art.
‘Sometimes the greatest artists in a medium bypass or violate the simple technical competence that is so necessary for hacks. […] If [a director] can make great films without knowing the standard methods, without the usual craftsmanship of the “good director”, then that is the way [the director] works’. (Kael, pg. 669-670)
Kael holds the second premise, the stylistic characteristics of a director, as the actual foundation of the auteur theory. She calls it ‘the director’s distinguishable personality’:
‘Traditionally, in any art, the personalities of all those involved in a production have been a factor in judgment, but that the distinguishability of personality should in itself be a criterion of value completely confuses normal judgment. The smell of a skunk is more distinguishable than the perfume of a rose; does that make it better?’ (Kael, pg. 671)
Kael is of opinion that considering the stylistic characteristics of a director is an illogical criterion of art. The hand of an inexperienced director could in ignorance be as much, if not more so, recognizable than the hand of a cinematographic master in all its finesse. When the personality of the director shines through in the completed film, it fails to be a part of ‘the texture of the film’ (Kael, pg. 672) and thus is a distraction more than an addition. Kael holds Sarris’s second premise, and the entire auteur theory for that matter, as an insult. ‘It is an insult to an artist to praise his bad work along with his good; it indicates you are incapable of judging either’ (Kael, pg. 673). Exalting a director as an auteur nullifies further analyses of his or her oeuvre, and places film critics on the same level as fashionistas who reason ‘this is Dior, so it’s good’ (Kael, pg. 673).
The third premise, internal meaning, would arise out of the collision between the worldview of the auteur and the subject of the film. Sarris holds this as the most important criterion of an auteur, but Kael beliefs that this results in inferior cinema. A director should be able to unify his or her style with the contents of the script. Further analyzing the third premise, Kael touches upon the matter whether ‘writer-directors’ are excluded from authorship (Kael, pg. 676). She sees the focus of auteur critics and theoreticians upon the struggles on a director working within the constraints of a studio system as concerned only with inferior, endlessly repetitive commercial films.
‘These [auteur] critics work embarrassingly hard trying to give some semblance of intellectual respectability to a preoccupation with mindless, repetitious commercial products. They’re not critics: they’re inside dopesters.’ (Kael, pg. 679)
The interest of Kael in directors of self-written films touches upon the outdated ideas of the auteur theory.
The argument between Andrew Sarris and Pauline Kael about the pros and cons of the auteur theory has been continued beyond the pages of their works.
An aside
There are five different ‘auteurs’ mentioned in the trailer for Close encounters of the third kind (1977), more than in any other trailer studied.
The auteur theory after Kael
In the early 1970s, the auteur theory evolved away from solely seeking traces of personal characteristics in films, opting instead for the systematic analysis of films in their entirety. Taking the tools of structuralism, the study of film and authorship concentrated on patterning and the recurring of themes, seeing them as structural oppositions, logical constancies and unconscious structures that generate meaning. Important insights into the nuances of the theory can be contributed to Peter Wollen, whose book Signs and the meaning in cinema (1972) is regarded as seminal in the further development of the auteur theory within film studies. He traces the problems with the misunderstanding of the auteur theory back to its beginning. ‘The auteur theory grew up rather haphazardly; it was never elaborated in programmatic terms, in a manifesto or collective statement’ (Wollen, pg. 519). This indeterminacy resulted in unrestricted interpretations and applications by critics, all of whom developed ‘somewhat different methods within a loose framework of common attitudes’ (Wollen, pg. 519). The reason the auteur theory prevailed despite ‘all the hallucinating critical extravaganzas which it has fathered’, is because it is ‘indispensable’ (Wollen, pg. 521). This indispensability does not arise from the theory’s championing of the director as the author of a film, but from its use as a tool for the decipherment of the previously unseen uniformity in the oeuvre of a director. As he states: ‘What the auteur theory does is to take a group of films – the work of one director – and analyze their structure’ (Wollen, pg. 530). Wollen’s attempts to ‘detach the auteur theory from any suspicion that it simply represents a “cult of personality” or apotheosis of the director’ (Wollen, pg. 531) have been influential to such an extent that the academic use of the idea of an ‘auteur’ has become metaphorical. Critics and researchers recognized the production of a film as a collective effort, changing the role of directors such as John Ford from a complex artist with a rich world view to the signifier for certain consistencies in a film’s textual organization.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s the notion of a unified and creative subject was called into question, as well as the idea of a completely controlling authorial presence. The critics and researchers of the movement named post-structuralism insisted upon the position of the author as subject to unconscious forces such as discourse and ideology, and called for a referring of attention from the auteur theory to semiotics, ideological criticism and psychoanalysis. The devaluation of the author in favor of the many voices at work in a filmic text seeks to discover the discursive and semiotic organization which drives said text. Film studies moved away from regarding the artist as an expressive individual with a unique vision to focusing upon the subject position within film texts. The impressionistic humanism of the auteur theory is thus replaced with a more scientific approach, favoring the notion of an impersonal,
non-individual subject. If auteurism privileged the author, post-structuralism celebrated the text.
Ever since the 1990s, the author has remained in academic limbo. Rightful theoretical objections have made the idea of an ‘auteur’ questionable at the very least, yet the concrete impact an individual can have on the production of a film is recognized as substantial. Expanding beyond the role of the director, individual artists such as producers, actors and writers can be attributed with auteurist qualities. The result has been that in mass culture the auteur has become a logo used for product recognition based advertisement, allowing certain films to stand out in a market filled with international competition. ‘Quentin Tarantino’ is this sense has become equivalent to ‘Nike’ or ‘Coca-Cola’.
An aside
The shortest trailer studied advertises Bill Cosby vehicle Leonard part 6 (1987).
The 31-second long TV commercial was the only trailer released after the film’s star disowned the film.
Film marketing
From a logical point of view, it’s impossible to defend the auteur theory. It is the input of a plethora of professionals that turns an idea into a film. The emphasis on the persona of the director in favor of underscoring the collaborative nature of cinema in film marketing has, however, proven the relevance of the ‘auteur debate’ within contemporary film studies.
From an economical perspective it is quite understandable why films are advertised as ‘a film by’, or any variation of this. Playing into an audience’s frame of reference, it is less difficult to sell the new film from already established director than selling the film of an unknown debutant. Many contemporary marketing campaigns are based on the premise that ‘if you enjoyed [X]’s previous work, you’ll also enjoy this film’, emphasizing that it is the director that determines the individual style of a film.
This form of marketing becomes problematic when an acknowledged auteur is connected only in name to a film, such as Quentin Tarantino during the marketing of The man with the iron fists (Diggs, 2012). As neither director, nor producer or writer was Tarantino involved in the creation of this film, yet it is his name that graces the film posters in the boldest font. This (arguable) misuse of the auteur theory is in line with the idea of the director as a sellable brand, suggested by Pauline Kael.
For a director, being admitted into the hierarchy of auteurs can mean the difference between wage labor for a studio and the creative freedom to pursue personal projects. The auteur theory also has found its way into legislation, as according to European copyright laws the director is held as the auteur of a film (Kamina, Film copyright in the European Union, 2002). For film scholars, the auteur theory has created a new level of film analysis, steering away from genre or star studies. Commercial filmmakers, thus far considered to be an artisan more than an artist, have found their films in the curricula of universities all across the world. As observed by Joseph Gelmis as early as 1970; the director has become a star (Gelmis, The film director as superstar). In her consolidating study of previous academic and popular works on film marketing, Finola Kerrigan (Film marketing, 2010) defines the concept as ‘[…] how filmmakers and marketers position the film within the minds of consumers in order to encourage consumption of their film’ (pg. 1). Marketing is widely regarded to be an integral part of a film’s financial success, yet the inner workings of the marketing process are often overlooked or misunderstood. Kerrigan attributes this misunderstanding to the academic tendency of studying film marketing from a film-based angle as opposed to from a holistic perspective (pg. 20).
She characterizes European film scholars as historically interested primarily in the artistic values of filmmaking; values which cannot be understood by the appliance of industrial models. The failure to recognize this duality between culture and economics has resulted ‘[…] in the concentration of studies upon the artistic aspects of film, to the detriment of an examination of the underlying industrial mechanisms which produce such art’ (Kerrigan, pg. 21). This set European film scholars apart from American film scholars, many of whom are seen as approaching filmmaking from an industrial angle. This was in congruence with the way in which films were made in Hollywood, as vertically integrated film companies controlled all aspects of the production, distribution and exhibition of their films. From the 1910s until the late 1940s these newly formed major studios enjoyed a dominant reign over the international film industry. Kerrigan recognizes The birth of a nation (Griffith, 1915) as ‘a new era for the consumption of film’ (pg. 33), due to its unprecedentedly high budget and screenings tied-in with special events. The arranged reserved seating, orchestral accompaniment and live intermissions were communicated well-ahead before the film was released in theaters, and the resulting interest in the film cemented the importance of the marketing and presentation of a film for reaching financial success.
Kerrigan posits the distribution sector during the reign of the major studios as ‘undoubtedly the most instrumental element in a film reaching its audience’ (pg. 37), since a film could only realistically recoup its production budget through a distribution deal with a respected distributor and a subsequent wide release. Marketing campaigns were used to lure in distributors, who would release films based on their marketability and the chances of strong box office receipts. The marketability depends largely upon what Kerrigan calls unique selling propositions; elements of the film such as ‘the story, the caliber of the cast, director or other key personnel or the genre’ (pg. 41).
Marketing campaigns were for the first time accompanied by market research, which would prove to play an important part in developing and positioning new films, as well as a way for studios to enter new markets and analyze their competition. In the 1930s, marketing research was approached more scientifically, with longer studies regarding consumer preferences and audience composition. Following the Great Depression and the consequences of the self-imposed restrictions of the censorship known as the Code, the Hollywood film industry was struggling to disprove its negative moral impact on society and retain its worldwide leading position. These early forms of market research have evolved to consider the impact of cinema on society and the motivations behind the cinema attendance of certain demographic or psychographic groups - practices which continue to date.
A forerunner of market research was Adolph Zukor, the founder of Paramount Studio, who by studying audience reaction, box-office figures and fan mail attempted to determine which actors the audience wanted to see more of in future films. The identification of box office success factors thus became essential to the production strategies and marketing campaign of film studios. The role of the lead actor has become a popular topic in marketing literature1, with the actor generally considered as a key
variable in the performance of a film at the box office. The vertically integrated film companies were forced to restructure when the Paramount Anti-Trust Decree was passed in 1948, deeming the vertical structured major studios as unfair competition to independents in the post-war film industry. Adolph Zukor’s embracing of the star system was a rare occurrence, as it were mainly independent film studios that saw its attraction. As Kerrigan notes, the major studios ‘felt that such a move would merely cost them more in actors’ fees without creating the revenue necessary to stabilize profits’ (pg. 27). Barry King recognized the rise of the star system as a way in which actors can obtain a ‘personal monopoly’ (King, Articulating stardom, 1985), a term he appropriated from Robert Brady2 who used it to characterize ‘an emphasis on what is unique to the actor,
displacing emphasis from what an actor can do qua actor onto what the actor qua person or biographical entity is’ (pg. 46, italics in original). This obtained image subsequently can be linked to certain types of characters, and act as a quality mark of sorts for the films in which the actor appears. Kerrigan notes the star system of Hollywood studios as ‘one of the key elements of the competitive advantage which the Hollywood majors have over other film industries’ (pg. 85), observing that few industries in the world have produced such a significant number of international film stars.
The actors are not always the main unique selling proposition of a film, as many cinemagoers are drawn in by the involvement of a certain director, cinematographer, screenwriter or another member of the creative team; individual credentials that would be used by film marketers to bring the film under the attention of the projected audience. This, however, brings with it a risk of disappointment. It is difficult to determine the influence of actors on the box office performance of films, as this is dependent on the image of the actor in question and how his or her presence in the film was perceived by the audience. Filmmakers also have to deal with this problem, as expectations set by a certain directorial style in former films or a strong association with a particular genre often remain with consumers, much in the way that certain actors are associated with certain genres or styles of film. Deviating from an established directorial style brings with it the possibility and risk of alienating previously loyal audiences. As Kerrigan puts it;
‘Deviating from a long established style can be dangerous for a filmmaker, similarly to the danger of typecasting which faces the successful actor’ (pg. 89).
Timothy Corrigan identifies the historical adaptability of auteurism as ‘the desire and demand of an industry to generate an artistic (and especially Romantic) aura during a period when the industry as such needed to distinguish itself from other, less-elevated, forms of mass-media (most notably, television)’ (A cinema without walls, 1991, pg. 101). On an academic level, auteurism would become an important way of reading a film. This would eventually translate into film marketing, as the filmmaker’s name would prominently be featured on promotional materials to entice enthusiasm through the authorial agency of the auteur that would precede the film and created connotations and expectations.
Critiques of auteurism can subjugate most of the myths surrounding the topic and the mythical properties attributed to the auteur in favor of more formalist or structuralist film readings. However, these critiques do not fully attend to the continued and increasing importance of the auteur as a commercial strategy of film marketers. Corrigan therefore calls for ‘[a] step toward recontextualizing [the romantic roots of auteurism] within industrial and commercial trajectories’ (pg. 103), despite modernist corrections, discussions or deconstructions. The concept of the author has found thus a formal function in film journalism, academic study and film marketing it did not possess in the Hollywood studio system.
The attention to, what Corrigan calls, ‘a commerce of auteurism’ (pg. 104) is essential for the understanding of the auteur as a practical and interpretative category in the 1980s and 1990s, the period ‘when the play of commerce has increasingly assimilated the action of enunciation and expression’ (pg. 104). If the filmmaker had been reduced to what Roland Barthes would have called a phantom presence (‘The death of the author’, 1967) in the films studied by followers of the auteur theory, ‘he or she has rematerialized in the eighties and nineties as a commercial performance of the business of being an auteur’ (Corrigan, pg. 104, italics in original). The auteur has become a star, and his or her commercial status as such has gained significance since the film industry of the 1970s became infatuated with what Max Weber (1864 –1920) called the cult of personality (Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, 1922). The auteur is posited primarily ‘as a promotion or recovery of a movie or group of movies, frequently regardless of the filmic text itself’ (Corrigan, pg. 105).
Corrigan distinguishes two tracks in the commercialization of the auteur as a star; the commercial auteur and the auteur of commerce. The first category consists of celebrity filmmakers, such as Kevin Costner or Clint Eastwood. ‘[The] celebrity or their agency produces and promotes texts that invariably exceed the movie itself, both before and after its release’ (Corrigan, pg. 107).
Corrigan sees the second theory as the more intriguing, as these auteurs actively work to monitor and manipulate the institutions of auteurism within the commerce of the film industry. ‘If normally the auteurist text promotes and recuperates a movie, these filmmakers now run the commerce of the auteurist and autonomous self-up against its textual expression in a way that shatters the coherence of both authorial expression and stardom’ (pg. 107).
The performance of a film is traditionally judged in its first weeks in theaters, which leads Kerrigan to propose that the paid for marketing campaign impacts greatly on a film’s initial performance at the box office (pg. 113). The seeming impossibility to control word of mouth can be countered by the identification of the most likely audience as early as possible during the production of a film, and accordingly plan the marketing campaign. She views a successful marketing campaign as one that resulted in positive word of mouth due to the correctly positioning of a film in a market with a clear targeted audience (pg. 115). In some cases, word of mouth can turn into what Kerrigan calls must see, ‘the feeling that one is missing out on an important cultural reference by not seeing a particular film’ (pg. 97), an occurrence brought forth by either rave reviews or controversy that can greatly improve a film’s performance at the box office. In a 2007 report, the MPAA published the results from a survey of its trade group members (such as Walt Disney Co.) regarding average production budgets. From an average $106.6 million, $35.9 million is spent on advertisements, which underlines the importance of marketing, and thus the trailer, to the film industry.
Modern technologies have brought word of mouth to a new level, as online reviewing has globalized the discussion about film. Dubbed electronic word of mouth3,
the relevance of inherently anonymous reviews and their impact on consumer buying and communication behavior were tested in a large-scale empirical study, which results ‘illustrate that consumers read on-line articulations mainly to save decision-making time and make better buying decisions’ (Hennig-Thurau and Walsh, pg. 1).
A disconnect between academia and practice
In the 1970s, film scholars collectively appeared determined to steer away from the unrestricted interpretations and applications of the auteur theory by critics in previous years. Wollen’s attempts to reformulate the application of the auteur theory within film studies have been influential to such an extent that the academic use of the idea of an ‘auteur’ has become metaphorical. Referring the attention from the auteur theory to semiotics, ideological criticism and psychoanalysis, as well as a slew of differing readings of the filmic text in following decades, film studies moved away from regarding the artist as an expressive individual with a unique vision. Favoring the notion of an impersonal, non-individual subject, the impressionistic humanism of the auteur theory was replaced with a more scientific approach.
In his 2001 article for Screening the past, Dana Polan observes a revival of the auteurist reading of the filmic text. ‘[There is a] desire for the director - the obsession of the cinephile or the film scholar to understand films as having an originary instance in the person who signs them.’ (Polan, ‘Auteur desire’, italics in original) However, this revival did not change the scholarly stance on the metaphorical approach to the ‘auteur’, nor bring the auteur theory back into academic prominence.
Despite the academic dismissal of the auteur theory, the ‘auteur’ has remained an important part of film marketing. The economic value of a director as an auteur in the diversified and competitive global film industry has maintained its importance due to ever increasing budgets, seemingly unchanging the main practical application of the auteur theory since its conception.
The divide between film studies and film as an industry, originated from their differing applications of the auteur theory, has received little scholarly attention despite its decades-long history. Following the early critique of Pauline Kael, academically the auteur theory has been reduced to a dismissible metaphor. However, it is not the role of the scholar to dictate what should be – the scholar must study what is. The historical development of film marketing needs to be studied to understand as to what extent its practical application has argued for the auteur theory’s place in modern film studies.
Chapter 2: The historical development of film marketing
Film marketing has often been seen as a peculiar part of the film industry; one very separate from its cinematographic side. To redefine marketing as an inextricable part of cinema, it is vital to rewrite history from a marketing point of view. In the following chapter the film industry of the United States between 1961 and 2010 will be historicized on the basis of the decades’ economic status. The cinematographic changes that could be signaled in the film industry are juxtaposed with the economic developments of the time and their resulting marketing practices, in an effort to demonstrate the parallels between the two. As representative of marketing practices, the film trailer was chosen. The shown graphs, charting the changes in the usage of USPs over time, are derived from original research. The economic, cinematographic and marketing-technical changes of each decade will further be illustrated by selected individual film trailers, chosen for their pronounced portrayal of a decade’s characteristics.
In the final paragraph of each subchapter the use of the auteur theory in film marketing is discussed for that particular decade, followed by an assessment of its use in academia. This historical juxtaposition is founded foremost on original findings and statistics, and provides the factual basis for the argument made for the inclusion of the auteur theory in contemporary film studies.
To be able to discern any remarkable changes in the film industry between 1961 and 2010, it is important to first chronicle the major milestones the industry passed in previous decades.
1921 - 1960
Between 1921 and 1930 the 25 most financially successful American films cumulatively grossed 88 million. By 1940, these earnings would have risen to $627.5 million dollar, signaling the exponential expansion of the industry.
This is especially impressive considering the fact that during the 1930s the United States experienced the ‘Great Depression’ and an all-time high unemployment rate of over 25%. Despite the economic hardship faced by the greatest part of the population, up to 70 million Americans visited film theaters every week. Turning away from the happy endings and excess associated with the ‘Roaring Twenties’, films released during the Depression adapted to the difficult times of the day by often being situated in cities stricken by poverty. As Hamilton Cravens notes in his book Great Depression: People and perspectives (2009) stars such as Judy Garland, Shirley Temple and Fred Astaire became
models of vulnerability, strength and triumph as they sang and danced their way into the discouraged hearts of the American public, giving people more realistic visions of aspiration and attainment. This spin upon the harsh reality reflected America’s desire for escapism; films boosted morale and lightened the burden of their audiences. As president Franklin Roosevelt said in 1935 (referring to child actor Shirley Temple’s performances in films such as Bright eyes (Butler, 1934), in which she played a brave orphan); ‘when the spirit of the people is lower than at any other time during this Depression, it is a splendid thing that for just 15 cents an American can go to a movie and look at the smiling face of a baby and forget his troubles’ (Cravens, pg. 216).
Hollywood recognized that the belief of the audience in the heartaches and successes displayed on the film screen was instrumental in maintaining its dominant position in the entertainment industry, as competition and variety emerged in the form of television. The film industry acknowledged the power of the consumer and carefully evaluated the types of films people responded to, leading to great steps towards improved and more scientific film marketing.
During the 1940s, the domestic grosses of Hollywood-produced films would significantly decrease. In 1948 the United States Supreme Court came to a decision in the ‘Hollywood Antitrust Case’ (United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc.), the federal government’s case that was started in 1938 yet interrupted by the Second World War. The verdict outlawed the ownership and simultaneous operation of theater chains by the major film studios, as these practices were seen as monopolistic in nature. The practice of ‘block booking’, the system of selling multiple films as a single unit to a film theater, was illegalized as well, resulting in the toppling of one of the pillars upon which the studio system rested. Together, these two limitations delivered a major blow to the major film studios and the studio system as a whole. The court decision was intended to inspire a rise in the quality, consistency and availability of films, yet the opposite would prove to be true. By 1955, the number of produced films had dropped by over 25%. More than 4200 film theaters (23% of the total) had been forced to close, with more than half of the remaining theaters struggling to earn a profit.
The film industry between 1961 and 1970
The effects of the ‘Hollywood Antitrust case’ were carried over into the 1960s. The uprising of independent producers and production companies, able to produce their film products free of major studio interference, as well as the increase in power of actors bombarded as stars, contributed to the decline of the traditional Hollywood studio system.
This, however, did not mean that the American film industry as a whole would suffer. Between 1961 and 1970, the top 25 of Hollywood-produced films grossed $1953.6 million dollars in the United States alone. Compared with the revenue of the same category of films released in the previous decade ($1015.9 million dollars) this was an increase of over 92%; a continuation of the growth detected since the absolute low-point of revenue at the end of the 1940s.
(Graph 1: The domestic gross of the top 25 highest grossing films adjusted for inflation in millions of dollars)
The apparent unsustainability of the Hollywood studio system after the sea change of the 1940s forced the film industry to reconsider their methods of production, as the original business model utilized by the studios depended greatly upon controlled distribution and predictable economic returns. The security of owning both the production and the distribution of films was lost, due to the limitations of the U.S. Supreme Court’s verdict, and combined with the increasing competition of television resulted in the necessity of understanding the film market and its audience.
0,00 2.000,00 4.000,00 6.000,00 8.000,00 10.000,00 12.000,00 14.000,00 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970
Film marketing
The illegalization of vertically integrated film studios and the practice of ‘block booking’ leveled cinema’s economic playing field. The cumulative competition of rival film studios, independent production companies and television forced even the mightiest major film studios to fight for the public’s interest in their films. Ever growing budgets increased the risk studios were taking, making studies into consumer preferences and audience composition a vital and permanent part of film marketing.
As a product of marketing research, certain film stars were recognized as major factors in the performance of a film at the box office. The resulting star system would soon expand beyond actors and actresses, as members of the production crew (such as the director and the producer) for the first time would be exalted above their status as craftsmen and championed as artists. A director’s reputation, based on previous successes, could be seen as one of the marketable unique selling propositions (USPs) of a film, and consequently featured prominently in the marketing campaign for an upcoming film.
Between 1961 and 1970 the number of USPs per film would reach an unsurpassed high, as Academy Award nominated films would on average advertise 3,275 USPs per trailer. In an attempt to rise above the competition, every credible straw was drawn to establish a connection with the public. With over 82%, a vast majority of films would be advertised with one or several of its stars. Furthermore, the producer or producers of a film were frequently advertised, echoing the film industry’s years of vertical integration when this position was regarded as one of the more (if not the most) important jobs in the filmmaking process.
(Graph 2: USPs advertised by Academy Award nominated films between 1961 and 1970 in percentages) 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 1961 - 1970 % USP
The 1960s film trailer
An interesting example of 1960s film advertisement is the trailer for Mary Poppins (Stevenson, 1964). The film, which combines live-action performances and drawn animation, stars Julie Andrews in her film acting debut as the titular role of a magical nanny who visits a dysfunctional family in London and employs her unique personality and wisdom to improve the family's dynamic.
Mary Poppins would be one of the final films with direct involvement of producer Walt Disney. By the early 1960s, the Disney Empire had become a major success, and Walt Disney Productions had established itself as one of the world's leading producers of family entertainment. The film was an adaptation of P.L. Travers’ successful series of books, the rights to which Disney had spent decades trying to acquire. The involvement of Andrews, a Broadway star, provided the film with the credentials to be taken seriously as a musical.
(Image 5: Prominent USPs in the trailer for Mary Poppins)
Despite the critical and economic success of Mary Poppins, the film stood in stark contrast with the frivolity of popular British films. Motion pictures such as the James Bond series (beginning with Dr. No in 1962) helped reduce prohibitions regarding nudity, sexual content and graphic violence in film and combined with the Cold War apocalyptic nuclear paranoia of the times resulted in a darker and more mature cinema in the United States. This contrast is both a sign of Hollywood’s self-imposed moral Code and its reluctance to move away from the subject material that has proven to be dependably successful in the past. Instead, innovation was sought in technical advancements, creating a feud between several companies and their respective technologies for sound and color in film. The film industry, however, would drastically change in the 1970s.
The auteur theory in film marketing
Between 1961 and 1970, the film’s director was only surpassed by the film’s principal actors as most advertised USP in trailers for Academy Award nominated films, an accord that would last for decades to come. Out of all films that were advertised with the involvement of a certain director, 12% referred to previous works of said director, thus attributing him or her with authorial qualities. The heralding of filmmakers as auteurs was in line with the written work of Andrew Sarris, who’s repurposing of Cahiers du Cinéma-views proved to be of great academic influence. Expanding upon the Hollywood star system to include more individuals than just actors as recognizable façades, the film industry was eager to capitalize upon the scholarly idea of a filmmaker as an individual voice. Advertised as a film’s distinguishing feature, a filmmaker’s reputation based on previous successes was used to persuade and lure in audiences. Born from financial necessity, the auteur theory had found a practical application.
(Graph 3: Percentage of directors advertised as auteurs) 12%
88% 1960s Auteur Director
An aside
An interestingly large part of films nominated for a Raspberry Award are celebrity vehicles, such as Madonna’s Who’s that girl? (1987)
The film industry between 1971 and 1980
Due to the technological improvements of the 1960s, such as wider framing and improved sound, average ticket prices in the United States could justifiably be increased from $0.69 in 1961 to $1.55 in 1970, a growth unprecedented in previous decades. These drastic measures were necessary, as several costly box office flops such as Hello, Dolly! (the 1969 film directed by Gene Kelly that lost $16 million dollars) and constantly decreasing cinema attendance put a great strain on the film studios. The changed audience demographics resulting the coming of age of the 76 million American children born between 1945 and 1964 (the so-called ‘baby boomer’ generation) left studios unsure how to react. As John Belton notes in his 2008 book American cinema / American culture, film theaters during the 1960s were frequented by a primarily middle-aged audience with a high school education. By the mid-1970s, 76% of all cinema attendants were under 30 and 64% had gone to college (Belton, pg. 230).
Following the demise of the Golden Age of Hollywood, the era of post-classical cinema broke with many of the rules hitherto seemingly set in stone. The desperation felt by film studios following costly box office flops and the decrease of cinema’s importance in the entertainment industry would lead to innovation, as young directors and producers were given greater control over their own films. This time between the late 1960s and the early 1980s would become known as ‘New Hollywood’. As characterized by Thomas Schatz in his essay ‘The New Hollywood’ (1993); ‘In one sense the mid-1970s ascend of the New Hollywood marks the studios’ eventual coming-to-terms with an increasingly fragmented entertainment industry’ (Schatz, pg. 9). The employment of young talents was the major studios’ attempt at drawing the crowd interested in the ‘art films’ of Europe, as the sexual and violent frivolity of popular British films (such as the James Bond series) continuously captured youths’ attention. As Schatz notes; ‘an “American film renaissance” of sorts was induced by a succession of big-budget flops and successful imports’ (Schatz, pg. 14).
These young filmmakers were not operating independently, and the films they made were a part of the studio system, but their preferred subject matters and stylistic choices set them apart from the established studio traditions. In his book Hollywood incoherent: Narration in seventies cinema (2010), Todd Berliner described New Hollywood films as ‘[resisting] the clarity, formal harmony, and narrative linearity that had distinguished studio filmmaking for more than fifty years’ (Berliner, pg. 51-52). Strongly emphasizing realism, New Hollywood filmmakers used political and sexual themes to reflect upon and critique modern society in films such as Easy rider (Hopper, 1969) and Taxi driver (Scorsese, 1976). This was, in part, possible due to the abandonment of the self-imposed ‘Production Code’ in favor of the ‘MPAA film rating
system’ in 1968. The addition of the ‘NC-17’ rating (‘no children under 17 admitted’) made it possible for a film with more adult content to be released to the general public, and thus recoup its costs.
Enthused by their initial critical and commercial success, film studios increasingly handed over creative and budgetary control to these young filmmakers. Again following European example, young American film directors such as Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese were heralded as ‘auteurs’. The New Hollywood bubble would eventually burst, as the auteurs’ films would become increasingly extravagant both in budgets and idiosyncrasies, effectively making it impossible to recoup its costs. The unprecedented success of films such as Jaws (Spielberg, 1975) and Star Wars (Lucas, 1977) can retrospectively been seen as the beginning of the end for the New Hollywood era. As well as establishing Steven Spielberg and George Lucas as artists to be reckoned with, the box office success of these films stirred a paradigm shift in the way studios positioned their films in the changing commercial landscape. The ‘blockbuster’ era of Hollywood had begun, and a greater concentration on high-concept, mass-audience, wide-release films with accompanying merchandise, trans-media endeavors and the production of sequels created opportunities for studios to further monetize their most financially successful properties. The economically precarious strategy of surrendering control to the director ended, as did the New Hollywood era.
Increasing competition and strenuous budgets had a serious effect upon the American film industry. Between 1971 and 1980, the top 25 of Hollywood-produced films grossed $3825.3 million dollar in the United States. Compared with the revenue of the same category of films released in the previous decade (adjusted for inflation) this accumulated to a decrease of almost 8%; the growth detected since the absolute low-point of revenue at the end of the 1940s had come to a standstill.
(Graph 4: The domestic gross of the top 25 highest grossing films adjusted for inflation in millions of dollars) 0,00 2.000,00 4.000,00 6.000,00 8.000,00 10.000,00 12.000,00 14.000,00 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980
The initially relatively small budgets granted to young filmmakers provided a lower threshold of breaking even. Whilst this may have kept the film industry healthy, it was difficult to reach the levels of revue associated with the biggest successes of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Furthermore, those select few films that did become box office sensations were offset by the biggest flops of the latter part of the decade.
Film marketing
Breaking with the many traditions associated with the antiquated Golden Age of Hollywood, ‘New Hollywood’ cinema differed not only in themes and techniques; film marketing changed significantly in the decade between 1971 and 1980. The average number of advertised USPs decreased, as Academy Award nominated films would on average advertise 2,274 USPs per trailer, whilst the percentages of USPs advertised would drop in almost every category. Interesting exceptions to this trend are the increase of ‘event’ inspired films and ‘franchise’ films, which can be explained by the preference of realism over dramatization and the emergence of the ‘blockbuster’ film.
(Graph 5: USPs advertised by Academy Award nominated films between 1971 and 1980 in percentages) 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 1971 - 1980 % USP
The 1970s film trailer
As the Golden Age of Hollywood came to an end, the New Hollywood generation of filmmakers broke with many of the narrative and stylistic traditions set as a norm. This different approach to cinema would also find its way into film marketing, as a younger audience would not feel addressed by the same marketing techniques used to lure their parents. New Hollywood’s emphasis on realism resulted in a clearer divide between the promotional aspects of the trailer and its task of familiarizing the audience with the film, whilst the modern use of narrative was less linear; giving an atmospheric impression more than spelling out the plot.
An exemplary film would be Annie Hall (1977), Woody Allen’s influential take on the genre of romantic comedy. Allen directed, co-wrote and starred in the film as the persona he developed during his years as a stand-up comedian, which garnered him widespread recognition and critical acclaim. His dialogue-heavy and idiosyncratic films quickly established his reputation as an auteur, as well as a prominent member of the New Hollywood generation of filmmakers.
(Image 7: A clear divide between promotion and preview in the trailer for Annie Hall)
The rise of the blockbuster and the resulting demise of New Hollywood influenced film marketing in the sense that the cinematic spectacle was emphasized as greatly as the creative team behind it. In the first trailer for Star wars (1977), director George Lucas is advertised, based on the merits of his previous film American graffiti (1973). The remainder of the trailer, however, is reserved for a montage of action sequences. Favoring atmospheric impressions over clear exposition, the film marketing of the latter half of the 1970s set forth New Hollywood traditions.
The auteur theory in film marketing
Interestingly, between 1961 and 1970 fewer films were advertised with the name of their director, whilst a slightly greater percentage presented the director as an auteur through the mention of previous successes. This can be interpreted as the signs of the blossoming focus upon the authorial influence in Hollywood cinema, combined with the emergence of a relatively unknown wave of filmmakers. As the New Hollywood directors would rise in notoriety, the auteur theory gained in practical application.
However, in the 1970s the auteur theory lost much of its academic prominence, both through the ridicule of Pauline Kael and the repurposing of Peter Wollen. Whilst Wollen in particular recognized the indispensability of the theory, he reduced it to a tool for the decipherment of the oeuvre of a director. The metaphorical meaning that had been attributed to the academic use of the idea of an ‘auteur’ thus signals a possible delay between academia and practice.
(Graph 6: Percentage of directors advertised as auteurs) 12%
88% 1970s Auteur Director
An aside
Not only directors adopt personas in the advertisement of their films; Michael Caine stays in character and introduces the public to
