Hierarchy exists within the medium of film through social, economic, and stylistic distinctions. Elite interests and biases that run counter to those of the majority (or mass culture) construct models and prototypes for high art and prestigious cinematography. High art, in film and other artistic expressions, is defined as entertainment and culture aimed at upper-class, distinguished members of society, while low art caters to the interests of the average masses as popular culture. That which is considered to be high or low art is constantly evolving, reformulating, and adapting to current cultural, political, and economic movements of the particular environment and time. Distinction established between high and low art in film is drawn from aesthetics, intellectual content, societal reflection, exhibition methods, and artistic independence and license to control all aspects of production. While high art strives to be distinct and self-actualized, it is its interdependence with, and reliant relationship on, “low” art and culture that constructs its identity and objectives. The art film and the ideologies embedded within its creation are derived from the contrast with what is considered to be low or mass cultural art. Examining the rise of the art film and comparing its significance and influence on different societies internationally, we can further understand from where and how the contrast between high and low cinematography was bred. Developing and progressing in film industries since the 1920s, art film continues to challenge more mainstream forms of film. This research paper will explore the introduction and rise of art films in America and Australia, the rise and complications of the independent system, and the implications of defining high cultured forms of artistic expression against the culture of the masses and majority. I will argue that the divide between high and low art, pertaining predominantly to art film, is a fading distinction that has created a dichotomy between two concepts that are very interdependent. I will also argue that the differentiation between high and low art has stratified audiences internationally and has placed limitations on cultural and artistic expression.
The Introduction of Art Films
Art film, and what it eventually came to represent, rose out of a response to the growing moving picture industry establishing itself during the first few decades of the twentieth century. Both in America and Australia, technological advancements and growing economies where providing more space for creativity and incentives to build industry around the arts. Hollywood and other film industries were emerging excitedly and “the cinema” was becoming ingrained in social life. The 1920s marked an era of cultural stratification and hierarchy among the arts that elevated certain forms of artistic expression above others. The result of “the emergence of a growing differentiation of cultural products” was that it “brought with it a nearly simultaneous differentiation of performance, space and audience” (Hawkins 18). Industrialization and the rise of capitalism provided it to be only natural that “the cultural products consumed during leisure time [like film] would themselves emerge as important signifiers of social prestige and class standing” (Hawkins 18). Art cinema catered to a developing stratified culture and took an alternative, but assumed position, to Hollywood cinema on the ladder of artistic hierarchy.
Art film is difficult to define as it encompasses most movements that were striving to build alternatives to the Hollywood and commercialized systems of film writing, production, and distribution. David Bordwell, in his article “The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice”, acknowledges that the American studio style of feature filmmaking in Hollywood during these times rested upon “particular assumptions about narrative structure, cinematic style, and spectatorial activity” (57). Mainstream cinema used prescribed cinematographic devices to advance narratives in order to help “the viewer make sense of the classical film through criteria of verisimilitude, generic appropriateness and of compositional unity” (Bordwell 57). Art cinema approaches the objectives of film quite differently in that it “defines itself explicitly against the classical narrative mode” and is “less concerned with action than reaction” (Bordwell 57-58). Characterized as “puzzle-like”, art film is often “constructed in such a way that the audience plays the game of interpretation” throughout and after the viewing process (Moran &Vieth 30). The puzzle construction is “part of the textual strategy of the art of film” that is aimed at encouraging “explicit explication and hypothesizing as part of the total viewing situation” (Moran & Vieth 30). Described as realistic cinema, art films showcase real and raw problems, locations, and psychologies that undeniably contribute to very distinctive cinematic experiences. Bordwell constructs the art film as rebellious in nature as “the aesthetics and commerce of the art cinema often depend[ed] on an eroticism that violate[d] the production code of pre- 1950 Hollywood” (57). Created in deliberate contradiction to mainstream Hollywood films, art cinema established an alternative form of filmmaking and film-consuming that both implicitly and explicitly critiqued the growing hegemony of the commercial feature and its form, as well as the audience it was creating.
Hollywood, and its efforts to build a commercial industry out of film, established set formulas for filmmaking, which spread on an international scale. The First World War and the rise of globalization provided the United States with the power to dictate what and how films would be made. Hollywood became the master of the filmmaking blueprint, inherently molding national cinemas outside of America and creating a homogenous film climate in which rebellion was guaranteed to burgeon.
Australia emulated this influenced process and has been struggling with the consequences of American hegemony in the film industry ever since. Attributed to its physical remoteness, a natural and unadulterated cinema was developing in Australia during the silent era (Rayner 9). This infrastructure soon withered in the wake of the First World War and in the rise of Hollywood to international economic dominance. Australian film companies were soon monopolized and owned by “American and British chains that soon began to favor cheap American and British imports over indigenous films” from Australia (Rayner 9). In an essay co-written by Australians Ruth Balint and Greg Dolgopolov, American hold over Australian cinema is explained as shocking as by 1927, 90 per cent of all films screened in Australia came from America, resulting in the near extinction of independent film production in the 1930s (35). The circumstances of the faltering Australian film industry are as follows:
“[o]nce Hollywood was established as the main film producer and exporter, Australia was reduced to a consumer status. The few locally made films looked to America for style and subject: To recap their costs in the home market, they had to appeal to an Australian audience that [had become] acquainted with and that preferred to watch American products” (Rayner 10).
Drenched in American influence almost a century later, Australian audiences and filmmakers on large are still consuming and creating classical Hollywood methods of filmmaking. While this influence has suppressed the evolution of a strong Australian film identity, it has provided much opportunity and space to rebel against the system and make films, genres, and styles in response to such homogenous and hegemonic forces.
While Australia took longer to establish insurgents in the film realm, there was no shortage of non-conformists in America. Art cinema was born out of organized opposition to the commercial film industry, establishing alternative forms of artistry as well as alternative means of distribution and advertisement. In the United States, the Little Theatre Movement of the 1920s worked to “rejec[t] Hollywood’s formula of a disposable, mass produced and impersonal cinema” and instead, sought to favour a personal cinema that would explore the boundaries of film art established within the respected and highly regarded sphere of fine arts (Guzman 261). The movement would create an alternative exhibition system that would cater to smaller audiences of the intellectually elite and oppose any commercial influence. Art films were those that would engage an active audience and breed discussion and analytical criticism. American films artistic and alternative enough to showcase for educated and wealthy audiences were difficult to find, forcing the Film Theatre Movement to turn to Europe for superior work (Guzman 262). Foreign films popularized these art film house exhibitions and sustained their national growth until the mid 1920s. The Releasing cinema from commercial constraints, the Little Theatre group was able to create “a site for serious discussion of film aesthetics” as well as nurture the growing experiments in film form (Guzman 283). The Little Theatre Movement, a simple example of alternative mobilization, sparked the beginning of organized resistance to mainstream cinematic culture, ultimately contributing to future successes of experimental and independent films, festivals and organizations both in the United States and abroad.
Transitioning Times
Art cinema was introduced and materialized throughout the 1920s with successes drawn from those who believed alternative cinema to be important enough (ideologically, aesthetically and economically) to deserve distribution. Art cinema and its alternative elements depended on the growing propagation of popular and mass culture in order to construct its own identity and techniques. Hollywood with its strict corporate systems, prescribed production methods, and economic power, established a strong and secure platform upon which the alternative filmmakers could contradict, oppose, and criticize in the name of high art. Movements of resistance were gaining speed with advancements in technology (like the introduction of 16mm film in 1924), resulting in thousands of amateur filmmakers, film clubs, national Little Theatre expansion, and the debut of the avant-garde movement (MacDonald 3). Despite some dry periods during sore economic, political, and war environments throughout the 1930s and 1940s, movements of counter-culture were growing in number and in recognition. After the Second World War, there was opportunity and economy finally available to rebuild alternative film industries and societies that would ultimately communicate and create an increasingly global non-mainstream movement.
At this point, both in America and abroad, advancements within the art cinema movement were propelled by the desire for independent and complete artistic control. The stratification of culture and art was reaffirmed when art cinema began prospering again, re-establishing a strong distinction between the mainstream and the alternative. Hollywood and commercial cinema made for the masses was publicized on a large scale with massive budgets, stars, directors, and low culture advertising schemes, while art film, on the other had, was gaining reputation and spectatorship through word of mouth, film festivals and high culture exposure at museums and reputable exhibitions (MacDonald 4).
In Australia, film councils and societies began to grow, while film festivals became integral to Australian metropolitan institution. Arthouse venues began popping up, taking cues from other international alternative movements. Underground and experimental filmmaking emerged in both Australia and the United States through European avant-garde influences during throughout the 1950s and 1960s, providing even more opportunities for alternative filmmaking as well as the resources and support to do so successfully (Balint & Dolgopolov 37). Filmmaker cooperatives were established and promoted as embodying concepts of self-sufficiency and autonomous creation, promotion, and distribution amidst the commercial industry that was controlled entirely by studios, banks and corporations. This distinction and necessity of the alternate has always defined the art film industry and culture. Art cinema and its methods and objectives has given rise to a genre that is distinguishable merely through its deliberate attempt to counter anything that could be representational of Hollywood form or style. While many forms of cinematic expression fall under the umbrella term of film art and Hollywood rebellion, the progression of time has blurred the line of strict distinction between what is considered mainstream and what is created as alternative to this.
The Contemporary State of Art Film
There are countless changes and challenges that have shaped the independent and mainstream cinema industries over the past century. Within the past fifty years alone, issues such as competition from foreign film industries, changes in public taste, severe government regulations, labour relations and the advent of television and other visual technologies have complicated and blurred the lines between what holds artistic agency and superiority and what doesn’t (Holm 53). A rejection of Hollywood studio power after the Second World War resulted in a newfound autonomy for many producers, directors, and writers as well as a deliberate move away from many traditional Hollywood methods (Holm 20). The rise of art film under the title of independent film also mirrored “advances in light weight and inexpensive filmmaking technology”, making the medium of artistic expression more accessible to people wanting to create for the sake of art and not necessarily for the same of commerce (Holm 22; Berra 9). These changes in the American film scene set the stage for many debates regarding alternative film’s legitimacy, especially in very economically driven societies.
The contemporary state of alternative cinema is one of little independence. Many films marketed as independent of off the mainstream are, in reality, created under independent branches of the largest film corporations and studios (Holm 115). Since there is no economic classification of an independent film, it has evolved into a genre that has cultivated expectations of what a non-mainstream film production might entail. Major film distributors can cater to these expectations and promote them as “independent films” even though they have dipped into large cash reserves to produce, distribute, and exhibit them. Contemporary distribution methods have also drastically affected the art film culture, blurring it’s superior stats as high art. The internet has created an arena of access to alternative material that does not require specific social membership, education, or insight to engage with it. Advancements like this one are very important to the perpetuation of interest in the art film and genres that it promotes. Accessibility provides the creative work with legitimacy, providing more people with incentive to participate and engage in discussion and exploration of the art form.
The reality of the success of the art film is incumbent upon a national movement to embrace art and culture beyond what is considered mainstream or created for the masses. This can be especially difficult in countries like Australia that have always been shadowed by the United States and the perpetual prosperity and hegemony of Hollywood. Australian and other relatively developed and economically stable countries are continuously trying to maintain their position in the film industry while experimenting with film production formulations that will both boast national identity and bring revenue. Australian art films of the 1970s and early 1980s jump-started the Australian film revival, creating a film fusion between Hollywood cinema and European auteurism (Rayner 9). Government and funding agencies were, for a time, more liberal and more willing to support projects that were not necessarily mainstream or Hollywood driven. Some of Australia’s most iconic, discussed, and analyzed films came out of this period like Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), eventually leading to the absorption of art film elements into the contemporary Australian cinema identity. Since the 1990s, “the perversity of government film funding and the closure of independent arthouse venues” has resulted in a contraction in the production and consumption of alternative feature films in Australia (Balint & Dolgopolv 37). While there will always been booms and busts in artistic creation, motivations, and resources, success, especially of alternative art forms, is reliant on a public willing to seek out projects, filmmakers willing to make sacrifices for the sake of art, and government institutions ready to support these avenues.
Under the present-day economic conditions of our societies and industries, it is relatively impossible to work entirely outside of the field of economic power that ultimately controls studios, distributors, exhibitors, and promotional media. Film art has, under the circumstances of economic integration and dependency, become difficult to create and promote outside of the dominant mainstream industry of filmmaking. There has been a very obvious shift in art film from experimental, autonomous, self-made filmmaking to a genre that is now very closely linked to corporations and the very essence of Hollywood (Holm 33). Where might this leave the distinctive high and low culture and art divide?
Art film and the forms of expression it encompasses have been historically defined by strict contrast to mainstream media and culture generators. While this direct opposition and contradistinction is what has previously characterized and identified the art forms, it is also what has hindered its successes and popularity. The essence of the art film is one of independence, restriction and engagement, while mainstream media is perceived to be controlled corporately, available to the masses, and easily consumed and forgotten. Under more contemporary economic circumstances, these distinctions have become blurred, and art film has become very integrated into mainstream, mass-culture systems of filmmaking. By distinguishing art and culture into high and low categories, American and Australian societies have stratified audiences, dividing them into a hierarchy of classification with high and superior spectatorship at the top, and low and common commercial consumerism at the bottom. Understanding that high art is completely dependent upon low art as a system to be defined against, the contemporary blurring of the two spheres is not as detrimental as many critics believe. A recognized co-dependence provides art films with the economic means to create and inspire while providing more people with the opportunity to engage with art outside of the mainstream system. Expressive limitations can be removed by the blurring of the high and low distinction, providing a richer body of creative text to be explored and criticized by an ever-increasing number of people.
