In other words, the redefinition of the motion picture as a form of participatory recreation (as opposed to passive entertainment) took place against the background of its competition for audiences with other leisure-time activities. They could afford to spend more on entertainment than the relatively inexpensive cost of a movie ticket ( Belton, 2013, pg. With more money to spend on recreation and more time to spend it in, Americans could now afford more expensive forms of recreation than they had in the past. Given greater leisure time and greater disposable income in the post-war era, increasingly more money was spent for recreation. The reasons for this change points to the changing spending habits of the American public in the 1950s: box office statistics, detailed a sharp decline in average weekly admissions from a post-war high of 90 million in 1948 to an all-time low of 46 million in 1953 ( Steinberg, 1978, pg. With the keywords being ‘fine showmanship’, the cinematic experience of Ben-Hur in lavish, well-presented venues and an even grander picture, showcases an industry whose past decade had been obsessed with redefining its place in the post-war economy. It, therefore, deserves all the fine showmanship and care in its presentation that has been devoted to its preparation and production’, proclaims the MGM ‘Exhibitors Promotional Portfolio’ Press book, provided to exhibition presenters of William Wyler’s biblical epic ( 1959). ‘Only once or twice in a decade does a motion picture of the stature and importance of Ben-Hur come along and stimulate the interest and imagination of everyone in and out of the industry. Sink Or Swim: Hollywood’s Extravagant Bet on CinemaScope This essay will contextualise the technical, artistic and political backdrops of the 1950s wide-screen evolution and its legacies, through the focused lens of William Wyler’s 1959 biblical epic, Ben-Hur. As a key cultural export, Hollywood’s construction of the United States’ national identity as a country of God’s ‘Chosen People’, is tied intimately with what Rogan argues to be the ‘demonological impulse’ of tying the building of the modern America with the opposition against the sinful ‘other’ ( 1987). Of course, such pervasive platforms of mediated messaging were utilised as catalysts of identity construction for the United States, and therefore, particular attention needs to be paid to a central conflict of the 20th century: The Cold War. Such an audio-visual effect was utilised to its zenith by a subset of gigantic productions during this period: historical epics. The movie experience as mandated by the studios’ attempt to reverse the dropping audience attendance rate with spectacles of epic proportion, engaged their audiences through sheer illusory immersion, not only through giant images, but revolutionary multi-track stereo sound as well. Belton went on to observe, that ‘The wide-screen revolution represented a dramatic shift in the film industry’s notion of the product that it was supplying to the public…shifting its primary function of providing entertainment to the public to include another function as well – that of recreation’ ( pg. With the wide-screen technologies and formats of the 1950s, the movies engulfed their audiences, wrapping images as great as 64 by 24 feet around them ( Belton, 2013, pg. Before Cinerama and CinemaScope, the movies contented audiences with screens whose dimensions averaged 20 feet by 16 feet.
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