Douglas Gomery, The Hollywood Blockbuster: Industrial Analysis and Practice

(In Movie Blockbusters)

Well, industry practice, anyway. Gomery doesn't do much analysis in this short chapter, but provides a concise and effective account of how the blockbuster functions and has functioned in the industry since Jaws in 1975. No small part of the article is dedicated to further debunking the great myth of competition between television and Hollywood (which is discussed in more detail in Contemporary Hollywood Cinema), when in fact Hollywood has been taking advantage of television as a marketing and distribution system essentially since its inception.

One interesting point made here is that virtually all of the top grossing films in Hollywood are action-adventure films of one variety or another - with the obvious exception of Titanic, which continues to hold the crown as the most profitable film of all time (having raked in almost two billion dollars to date). That said, family-oriented animated fairy tale/comedies also hold quite a few of the top spots.

Gomery comes right out and, without qualification, refers to the vertical integration of the "Big Six" media conglomerates, and more power to him. Synergy, horizontal integration and so on are really just euphamisms for exactly the same kind of top-to-bottom ownership that characterized the classical studio system.

One thing the chapter made me think about is that I really can't refer to Hollywood or the film industry most of the time - but what term should I use instead? The media industry? The entertainment industry? I'll need to figure that out before I start writing, becuase nothing I deal with is exclusive to film anymore.

Gomery ends on a strange note by defering to Thompson's (and by proxy, Bordwell's) argument that the textual conventions of Classical Hollywood Cinema remain strong, and are without a doubt the backbone of blockbuster success... without really actually making the argument or providing any justification. I don't know precisely where I stand on the whole classical-versus-post-classical debate, but I do know that it seems pretty silly to suggest that nothing at all has changed or will ever change about the narrative and formal construction of Hollywood films. Instead, I would argue that the only thing that never changes about Hollywood cinema is its capacity for change, adaptation and incorporation of new elements.