Appendix 2: Correlating success at the UK box office
and cultural prejudices about cinema likely to reinforce
hegemonic discourse. Charles Barr, in his Ealing Studios (1977)
avoids the problem of sampling altogether by dealing with the
entire output of a particular studio for the whole of its
productive life: an appendix lists the credits of all the films
produced at Ealing and synopsises most of them. Clearly this
option was not available to Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson, whose
object of study comprised some 30.000 films, nor to the Firethorn
Press in their attempt to delineate a substantially larger field.
Barr's object of study - the exploration of an already defined
product - is coherent enough to be susceptible to this degree of
thoroughness. Other more general studies tend on the whole to
be unashamedly idiosyncratic in their dependence on the
assumptions of their authors.
Arthur Knight in The Liv⅛iest Art (Mentor 1959) for example,
assumes that film is indeeɑ an 'art' and proceeds to describe its
evolution in terms such as 'style' and 'movement' which are
directly borrowed from the histories of the 'high' arts of
painting, music, literature and architecture:
Consequently I have centered this book on what I consider
to be key films, pictures that are important not only in
themselves but also that seem to summarise a whole style or
movement in film history.
Knight op cit introduction p vi.
A little earlier, in 1937, Gilbert Seldes asserted the peculiar
features of the cinema audience:
The movie is mass entertainment - and both these words are
important because the feeling that a large crowd is sharing
one's experience is cherished by almost all human beings.
Seldes Movies for the Millions Batsford 1937 p 9.
He characterised his book as a 'guide' for the filmgoer,
purporting to distinguish between 'good' and 'bad' products and
essentially conforming to the paternalist model of culture
prevalent in the thirties and forties.
My position is a different one. Like Bordwell, Staiger and
Thompson I wish to explore, as untrammeled as possible by
prejudice and assumption, some familiar and well worked terrain.
Unlike them my emphasis is not so much on the product itself -
in their case the 'Hollywood film' - but on the consumption of
the product. My sampling method must therefore privilege
contemporary audience assessments. Fortunately there are further
relevant constraints: I am interested in the UK audience, and
though this inevitably implies attention to the American product
assessments of the American audience are of marginal interest.
I have, therefore, noted successes at the US box office (appendix
2.1) but I have not included them in my calculations (appendix
2.2, 2.3). Similarly I have noted but not included the
assessments of critics and professional peer groups as evidenced
in the American Oscar awards and the British Academy awards since
these have a fairly low correlation with box office success.
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