week 8: Globalisation of film industries

 Film is one of the important forms in art field; it forces the progress of popular entertainment industry. Meanwhile film shapes the further movement of media from 1888 with the first film ‘Roundhay Garden Scene’ in the world even it lasts for only 2 seconds. Nowadays, film reflects the media cultures regard to different country background and in turn, is affected by them. When the directors from different countries to shoot the films, they will embed the native culture and reveals the life style of local citizens and the current social situation. And the use of filmic techniques is also diverse in the ways of representing the plots, themes and mise en scene. In respect of the globalization of film industry in nowadays, some directors use the culture collision of East and West countries to enhance the influence of the film to content the worldwide audiences’ taste with different culture background.

Hollywood is famous for its commercial and entertainment industry based in Los Angeles. The film industry reaches a mature stage during the First World War when Hollywood obtained its domination of the global market’ (Frederick, 1995). As know, Hollywood is the vanguard of the global film industry, it brings the significant impact in the development of films, and it shapes the filmic culture in the world. In recent years, when people talk “Hollywood”, they may automatically recognise American famous superstar and commercial movies. Hollywood is described as the dream land to attract lots of people to join in, and people implement their fantastic films there. Amount of great movies have been made in Hollywood, such as ‘The Dark Knight’, ‘The Fast And The  Furious’, and ‘Superman’ etc., most of these movies achieve prominent results in international platform, even be fascinated by the audiences in Asian countries.

‘A number of factors are driving the Hollywood’s embrace of martial arts genre films, and a growing popular interest in many forms of Asian culture’ (Klein, 2004). Because of the media culture becomes globally, and the various forms of arts include films, literature, music etc., are widely spread in the world. The globalization of mass media is turned into the main trend; meanwhile the exchange of culture in different countries is an important force in the modern society. Particularly, the collision of Eastern and Western culture brings a powerful impact in the wide range of audiences and cinematography. Hence, through the globalisation of media, it strengthens the relationship Hollywood and Asian film industries already have. ‘The American film industry no longer addresses a national audience. Hollywood’s domination of international trade has altered its relationship with the domestic market’ (Frederick, 1995). In that case, when Hollywood produces a film, Asian market is one of the factors that they may consider in terms of expanding the local marketplace, and practice the Asian tradition and culture as a part of the framework in structuring films.

It is through this expansion into the Asian market that Hollywood has gained a new market. The pressures to impress a multi-national audience have been vital in pursuing success.  A sense of multinationalism has emerged within Hollywood as it grows to a world-wide scale. As Klein (2004) states, "The result is a denationalization of film industries on both sides of the Pacific, as Hollywood produces foreign language films for foreign markets, and as Asian industries become increasingly integrated into a corporate system headquartered in the USA". But, who better to know the Asian marketplace than someone who is from Asia? Jackie Chan is a great example of Hollywood being subject to Asianisation. Jackie Chan, after 20 years of attempts, broke into Hollywood s radar in the hit film Rush Hour.  It was through his martial arts and quick wit that Hollywood fell for Jackie Chan, "making him the first Asian to majorly break into the film industry" (Klein, 2004). 

But the introduction of Asian actors into Hollywood is not the only way which Hollywood has become 'Asianized'. It can be seen that directors, producers, writers and other film related workplace opportunities are opening up for Asian workers, "In still other cases, the use of Asian labor has no visible effect on style at all, but affects the financial organization and strength of both Hollywood and Asian film industries"(Klein, 2004). Hollywood largely depends on not only the influence of Asian film, but the opinions of the multinational culture which has been created through the popularity of Hollywood films in Asia. 

In 2012, the American film ‘Resident: Evil’ invited a famous Chinese actress Bing Bing Li to join their film shooting, and her performance achieves success finally.  ‘Resident: Evil’ is a media franchise owned by a Japanese video game company Capcon and it is a survival horror game series initiated in 1996. Then this game series has been expanded to amount of products includes comic books, novels, dramas and films, especially gain the success in the film series. Bing Bing Li played a role of a spy and she wore a red Chinese cheongsam that highlights her identity in terms of she has the Asian face in the film. There are some scenes that taken place in Tokyo, the set background combines with American and Japan also reveals the globalization of media in art field. Hollywood no longer focus on the domestic market, the internationalization of Hollywood films is the current developing trend.

                  (Image from http://image.baidu.com/) 

Another film could be a good example to illustrate the Western film turns into Asianized is ‘Lost in Translation’. This is an American film but the director Sofia Coppola sets the background in Tokyo and shoots the whole film in Japan as well. ‘Lost in Translation’ is a story about exotic encounter happens to two Americans who are Charlotte and Bob, they first meet with each other in a foreign country in Japan. It is interesting to see the cultural collision between Eastern and Western countries. Sofia uses this film to communicate with Japan’s culture and represents the view of Japan’s society from the angle of Americans. This film achieves success in the international stage.

(Image from http://image.baidu.com/)

Moreover, ‘China market will serve as a foundation for emerging media conglomerates that could shake the very foundation of Hollywood’s century-long’ (Curtin, 2007, p29). China has the biggest audiences in the world, and it conducts the  majority of Asian market in recent years. Nowadays, Hollywood film industry is willing to cooperate with China, Japan and Korea because these Asian countries force the development of local film industries in a fast pace in the decades. The transnational cooperation also enhances the reputation of local films and draw more attention from wide audiences across the world. Additionally, Asian audiences are fascinating in the Hollywood films because of the use of advanced film technique and fantastic frames especially in those action and science fiction films.

Moreover, there are lots of film festival launch every year for interchanging the diverse from different countries with different cultures. It shows the ‘relevance well beyond the study of the circulation and production of cinema and cinephile communities’ (Iordanova & Rhyne, 2009, p10). Some famous film festivals include the Berlin International Film Festival, Cannes International Film Festival and Venice International Film Festival. The set of Film festival is to reward those excellent films and popularize the local films to a broader space in the future development.

 (Image from http://www.shooting-star.eu)

Now the world turns into a global village, the globalization shapes the movement of mass media in various ways. Film as the important form of media, it is influenced by the globalization in a certain way. The worldwide film industries with its extremely large cultural and economic effect are mainly conducted by the regional development and exports of products. The community of the film business is taken by a significant transformation through the trend of globalization. Hollywood no long monopolizes the film industry in the market, while the new competition from many other countries has grown in the decades, this results in an increasing number of Asian and European films to be exported in the worldwide. The film transformation turns globally provides lots of new opportunities for those productions of films. Besides American movies and Asian movies, the progress of film industries in European is becoming increasingly international as well.

From early years to the 21^st century, the America takes a majority part in commercial producing motion pictures and with the Hollywood film industry being responsible for close to 60% of the total America film production. American media companies disseminate the products and the unique culture of Hollywood entertainment cross the globe, this promotes the cultural exchange in art field. In the concern of pluralism of mass media in recent times, this is also forcing the diverse forms of media in a wide space. Thus, the globalization of film industry will continue growth in a fast pace in prospect.  

 

          

Reference list

百度图片—全球最大中文图片库. 2013. 百度图片—全球最大中文图片库. [ONLINE] Available at: http://image.baidu.com/. [Accessed 11 October 2013].

 

Iordanova, D and Rhyne, R 2009, “Film Festival, The Festival Circuit”, St Andrews Film Studies, U.K.

Klein, C 2004, ‘Martial arts and globalization of US and Asian film industries’, Comparative America Studies, vol.2, no.3, pp.360-384.

Martin, C 2007, ‘Playing to the world’s biggest audience: the globalization of Chinese film and TV’, University of California Press, London.

Mike Kedmenec. 2013. Mike Kedmenec. [ONLINE] Available at: http://shooting-star.eu. [Accessed 11 October 2013].

Wasser, Frederick 1995, ‘Is Hollywood America? The Trans-nationalization of the American Film industry’ Critical Studies in Mass Communication. Vol 12. Pp423-437.