Bazin, André
1953 -> 2002 -> 2003
Will CinemaScope Save the Film Industry? Cinémascope: sauvera-t-il le cinéma?

80
“Everybody knows by now, even the average movie-goer, that Hollywood is trying to come to terms with one of the most severe economic crises in its history through the introduction of both 3-D, whose avant-garde stereoscopy has already been seen on French screens, and CinemaScope, whose big war machine, The Robe (Henry Koster, 1953), has already been shown in New York and is soon going to be exhibited in Europe. in New York and is soon going to be exhibited in Europe. Everybody knows, too, that Hollywood is forced to accept the risks of such an endeavor – which totally upsets the norms not only of production, but also of distribution – in view of the acute competition represented by television. At least everybody thinks he knows these things, for the details of the problem are not that simple. The aim of this article, then, is precisely to try to create some order out of all this.” -> Hollywood is doing the same thing it did 60 years ago!
“While some big companies almost completely ceased production only a few months ago, one can see a minor company like Monogram double its annual schedule for the production of B-movies for normal screens. Clearly, the heyday of Hollywood is over.”
“By investing totally in CinemaScope, Fox is not repeating Warner Brothers’ gamble with talkies. None of the American companies, in spite of a film-consumption crisis that has become worse and worse over the last five years, are yet on the verge of bankruptcy. They can probably all afford to indulge in a long period of Malthusianism without being threatened with extinction. This means, of course, that the technical experiment will be relatively controlled and that Hollywood will probably be able to draw some conclusions as soon as the moviegoing wind starts blowing one way or another.
The situation will probably be more serious for the unemployed technicians and actors.”
“underscoring the fact that Hollywood is still in control. It is important to know this especially for those who naïvely believe in some huge crash, in Hollywood’s sinking into an economic chaos from which Europeans could benefit.”

80f
“On the contrary, its operation will continue to be mounted with caution and firmness, and that operation will be massively supported by the various publicity departments.”

81
“The film revolution will be universal or it won’t take place at all. Whether we like it or not, Hollywood remains the magnetic pole of the film industry, at least as far as technical proficiency is concerned. We can particularly see it today: Cinerama, which is little more than Abel Gance’s triple screen, and CinemaScope, which was invented twenty-five years ago by Professor Chrétien, seem viable all of a sudden because of the interest that America has shown in them now that the moviemaking business is in decline.”
“The immediate cause is the dramatic reduction of the number of moviegoers since the introduction of television. In the last five or six years, the American film industry has lost approximately half of its national audience; this has meant the closing down of five thousand movie theaters (all of France doesn’t have that many), and will mean the bankruptcy in the near future of several thousand others.”
“Furthermore, we know that in various European countries, particularly France, where the number of television sets is still insignificant, a disturbing reduction in the number of moviegoers has been observed in the last few years. Everything, then, seems to indicate that a general, deep, and a priori weariness with the cinema on the part of the American public has found in television a visible means of manifesting itself. The viewer statistics are therefore all the more alarming, and they indicate that the haemorrhage cannot be checked through a mere cauterization – a CinemaScoping, as it were – of the wound made by television to the film industry.”

82
He explains why Hollywood’s defence mechanism had to “be of a spectacular nature.” It was foreseeable that the quality and size of TV screens won’t grow much more (for technical reasons). So if cinema was of high quality, it had something TV didn’t have. History has proven him right! But today things are very different. TV’s size and quality IS becoming competitive. Plus it remains all its other advantages. Can Hollywood’s response of increasing the quality/spectacle really have an impact?
“After two years of continuous running, seats still have to be booked six months in advance [at the Cinerama New York.” UNBELIEVABLE!!!