Thomas Edison started the Motion pictures patent company, which also called the Edison trust. It was basically a combination of group of film companies which were Lubin, Vitagraph, Edison, etc. Edison trust also included the largest distribution company of that time which was owned by George Kleine and the top film stock supplier, Eastman Kodak. This company was created to monopolise the film industry. To break this monopoly, some filmmakers in 1908 started an independent film movement. These filmmakers believed that the Edison trust were trying to control the art form of filmmaking and wanted to preserve artistic side of filmmaking. It can be said that Edison through his company started the ...view middle of the document...
The success of the film scene in California, drove big corporate executives to move their company to the west. The Warner Brothers was the first major studio of the second Oligopoly wave.
The independent film movement was different in Europe. In 1924, a group of men in England started the London Film Society. The society first got together at New Gallery Kinema on Regent Street in London. The main objective of this society was to showcase achievement and innovation in Filmmaking. This was the first organisation to sustain the artistic nature of filmmaking in Europe. Short films like The Waxworks by Paul Leni and Champion Charlie by Charlie Chaplin were screened in the first meeting at New Gallery Kinema. The London Film Society had people like H.G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw who were passionate about the art of filmmaking. They sat around big tables and discussed movies which were pushing the boundaries of filmmaking. They also did not want big corporates to dominate the film industry. They appreciated Charlie Chaplin’s movies and also admired foreign filmmakers like Sergei Eisenstein from Russia who made films like Battleship Potemkin. Sergei was a ground-breaking filmmaker as he created new film editing techniques and inspired new ideas such as using montages to link related scenes for emotional effect.
In the 1920s, independent filmmakers in Germany introduced new genres in films such as suspense and horror. They also introduced darker subjects in their movies and their films also had themes like alternate realities. These films were the first independent films in the world and were a complete contrast to the one theme hero based movies which were being produced in Hollywood during that time. Films societies began to form all over Europe in the 1920’s and 1930’s.This idea of film society spread to Hollywood where they were going against the big film studio concept. In spite of the presence of big studios, film societies in Hollywood thrived. These societies preferred films made by Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel who made Un chien Andalu, a sixteen minute film. Art house theatres screened...
