Introduction and Filmmaker Presentation
This essay examines the relation between the industrial mode of production and the notion of classical cinema. André Bazin’s reflections on the evolution of film language and Román Gubern’s accounts of early Hollywood provide the main scholarly frame. The selected filmmakers are Edwin S. Porter and King Vidor, both active within the emerging American studio system. Porter’s short works, such as Asalto y robo a un tren (1903), illustrate the shift toward narrative clarity that later became industrial convention. King Vidor’s La Multitud (1928) demonstrates the consolidation of continuity editing and character-driven storytelling under studio constraints. Their careers unfolded during the transition from artisanal production to vertically integrated studios, shaping themes of individual ambition within mass entertainment.
Hypothesis
The idea of classical cinema was constructed because the vertically integrated Hollywood studios imposed standardised narrative and stylistic norms from the late 1910s onward. This occurred through the following characteristics: continuity editing, goal-oriented protagonists, and invisible technique, all enforced by centralised production schedules and profit-driven distribution.
Advance Development of the Hypothesis
The studio system that matured after 1915 organised production into assembly-line stages, with specialised departments for scripting, shooting and editing. This division of labour rewarded predictable narrative structures that could be completed within tight schedules. Bazin observes that the classical découpage, based on analytical editing, served both economic efficiency and spectator comprehension, allowing films to be produced rapidly and understood universally. Porter’s 1903 film already experiments with shot-by-shot progression to tell a linear story, yet the absence of reverse angles and matched cuts reveals the still artisanal conditions of the period.
By the late 1920s the same principles had become institutionalised. Vidor’s La Multitud, produced within MGM’s resources, employs consistent eye-line matching and motivated lighting to maintain spatial clarity across numerous locations. These techniques reduced the risk of audience confusion, ensuring repeat attendance and therefore steady revenue. Gubern notes that such formal regularity was reinforced by the star system and the central-producer method, both of which demanded scripts written in advance with clearly marked climaxes. Consequently, stylistic invisibility ceased to be an artistic choice and became a managerial requirement.
The same industrial logic shaped later classical works. Billy Wilder’s El Ocaso de una Vida (1950) preserves continuity rules even while depicting the decline of the studio era itself. The flashback structure remains subordinate to chronological cause-and-effect, illustrating how the classical model retained its grip long after its economic peak. Although independent or artisanal practices occasionally challenged these norms, as seen in Maya Deren’s experimental shorts, the dominant definition of “classical” continued to rest on the studio-derived criteria of legibility and closure. Thus the very concept of classical cinema emerged less as an aesthetic consensus than as the durable outcome of concentrated ownership, standardised workflows and the profit imperative that governed American production from the 1920s onward.
References
- Bazin, A. (1967) What is Cinema? Volume 1. Translated by H. Gray. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Gubern, R. (2016) Historia del cine. 4th edn. Barcelona: Anagrama. Extracts 1, 2 and 6 in course bibliography folder.
