The
relationship between the Hollywood "dream machine" and Europe
is ambiguous: overtly one of rivalry fought out at the box office, and
covertly one of love, pursued in the darkness of the auditorium. What is
the fascination of Hollywood? How does it create the stuff of legend? And
why in the course of this century has its product overwhelmed Europe's
industry like a succession of tidal waves?
From the 1930's to the early post-war years, to the blockbusters of the
1980's: the alternating, almost cyclical pattern of colonization of Europe
by American cinema is patently obvious. It is no easy task even to attempt
to provide an explanation for the complex ramifications of the phenomenon.
We
might restrict ourselves to the observation that the American cinema was
best able to speak a universal language and create a reservoir of self-projection
and identification for people everywhere. But could we go further and state
that Hollywood had a natural ability to capture the desires and the subconscious
of an era, offering the modern myths that suited the zeitgeist?
The vehicles of this stock of images were the stars, the individual catalysts
of collective gossip, human beings elected to the rank of "demigods",
the objects of boundless cult worship, expressed by their fans through
explicit ceremonies (E. Morin, Les Stars).
The
screen gods were a staple in the culture industry, both because they fuelled
it - through the snooping and gossip, photos and interviews that appeared
all over the various media, but above all in the press, and because they
promoted behaviour and consumer items, fashions and lifestyles with great
impact on the general public.
Thus, immediately after the Second World War, the expansion of American
cinema (which, moreover, allowed Hollywood to sell off the surplus stock
that had piled up during the war years) reinforced in filmgoers' minds
the faces, gestures and actions of their favourite characters, causing
the stereotypes of the American way of life to spread throughout the mass
audiences on the other side of the Atlantic. Perhaps it was the films seen,
seen again and then again until nearly memorized that familiarized European
audiences with the consumer society, subverting a more traditionalist culture
that practised thrift and abhorred waste. Hollywood exported not only films
but the myth of the refrigerator, the fitted kitchen, electronic household
appliances, catalysing
the dream of owning a car and home with every modern convenience.
Within a decade, however, the innate sense of timing of the U.S. culture
industry had captured different social
moods and reflected them in star legends that were more disturbing and
problematic, ready to stand as victims of the absurdity of a system that
ignored the widespread angst in society. James Dean, Marylin Monroe and
Marlon Brando were the three icons of a society discovering the limits
and contradictions of the way it had portrayed itself; they were the symbols
of a society on the brink of collapse. They were the last screen gods,
afforded their definitive consecration - except for Brando - by their premature
deaths. And after their loss, in Morin's view, the cinema never again recovered
the ability to produce universal cult figures, because it had lost its
central place in the media system to television. What the cinema did retain,
however, we may safely say, was the ability to tell stories and to do so
- in the forms that most involve our feelings and our passions - with the
lightness of a dream.
Elena Mosconi