A Good Look at an American Star

“Some people say the star is the greatest invention of American cinema. You can’t have American films without those big names and bright lights.”

That’s how John Lithgow started the episode of American Cinema: The Star. It was the video we watched in our Cinema class that tackles about American movie stars and how their control and power has changed over the decades.

Based on the video, in the old days of studio system, there was a structure for developing stars. Players were owned body and soul, signed to long term contracts. With the powerful publicity machine owned by the studio, they can reach an audience of millions. That’s how Star System started and so I guess that’s where the word “star” came from. Literally a star because thousands, if not millions, of people look up to them. They’re kind of hard to reach and too good to be true. But just like what Lithgow mentioned, the problem of the studio is to find that one persona out of many possible character roles who can boost an actor to stardom.

Humphrey Bogart

Many young hopefuls came to Hollywood seeking stardom but only a lucky few were ever introduced to the public as potential stars. Humphrey Bogart, for instance, had to go through many different minor roles before he was considered as Rick in the movie Casablanca (with the beautiful Ilsa Lund played by Ingrid Bergman as his leading lady).  But then with the collapse of the old Studio System, stars catapulted to power and became the most bankable commodities in Hollywood.

This video took a good look at how reversal of roles came about starting with how an old fashion star will be shaped by the Studio System. Therefore, since this video is seemingly informative, instead of writing my review, I’d rather jot down notes of what I interestingly learned and discovered (well, I had to re-watch it at home for better grasps of the words used since I don’t want to misquote anyone.) The inserted italicized comments inside the parentheses are mine and not part of the video. Please take time to scroll down further as this may also help you answer that elusive question:  WHAT MAKES A STAR? (Or better yet, WHAT MAKES A HOLLYWOOD STAR?)

• It’s the name on movie marquees that drew the audience in, like moth to a flame.
• Movie stars exist in luminous beauty that transcends time. It’s like mythic or no one you’ve ever seen moving around on your daily life.
• America invented the star in 1910.
• From the early days of motion pictures, stars have driven the stories told by Hollywood.
• The launch of a star career signals the start of a love affair between the public and a movie persona. For the public, it’s a new infatuation. For the star, it’s the end of life as they’ve known it. (Even Julia Roberts had to say “Oh sh*t!” during the interview, emphasizing that it’s like ebb and tide, it’ll come and it’ll go sort of thing. Okay, let’s hold on to that.)
• The greatest stars were often the ones that lasted a lifetime (sounds like a supernova without black holes of stellar mass within the region, to me). They’re extraordinary individuals who refined their personas as they aged.
• Audrey Hepburn, as what Julia Roberts given as an example as one of those greatest star, is incredible and brilliant. (I couldn’t agree more. I’m a fan myself. You understand why I included this in my notes, right? J) 

  

  Audrey Hepburn

• The old kinds of stars were trained; went to (drama) school regularly held within the studios. (True enough, it was shown in the video how two ladies were being trained to walk properly in front of a human-sized mirror.) Once they’re good enough, they will be turned over to Directors and used on movies. (Phew! Sounds like puppet dolls, eh?)
• Each one [of the stars] is an individual. They’re all different. They become stars because of their very difference. They don’t match the crowd at all. (Or maybe because they opted to be different.)
• A STAR, in the old days, was someone taken up by the Studio; trained, processed, etc. (In short, everything about the Star was controlled by the Studio then.)
• Stars made so many movies, like 4 or 5 movies a year. And there was a straight 7-year contract in which an individual is owned, body and soul.
• The investments studios made in individual stars had to last long enough for the largest possible pay-off. (Very business-like indeed.)
• Studios’ goal with their iron-clad contracts was to test market potential stars in roles the public might buy. (And if the public didn’t buy it? That leads us to the next bulleted point…)
• Casting is a very, very important thing. Because there will be some actors that are better for that part.
• A star image is only an image. Yet we know there is a real person. And that knowledge about the real person makes us believe in the image. (Because the real person behind the image is intriguing enough that public had to hold onto something they believe.)
• During the Golden Age of Hollywood, studio certainly did control the image of the stars, to determine what films they would make; how that would be advertised; what they would wear; and even what stories about them would get to the press.
• They would bring two people together that worked at the studio and insist that they date each other and send a photographer along and report it in a fan magazine. (Very showbizness. I think I know now where that phrase originated.)
• They (stars of opposite sex) went along and did the fake dates once a week.
• In the 50s, when studio systems begin to collapse, stars cannot be protected by the machinery of the studio any longer. They’re out in the streets getting interviewed that aren’t controlled and television is picking them up and showing them to people. So they become more known for who they really are.
• The star system is dangerous because it takes a tremendous toll on the minds and emotions of people (this one is something I really like from the video, quoted from Henry Rogers of Public Relations Firm, Rogers and Cowen).
• When the Studio System went down, the studios lost their power and gave it to the artists as independent contractors so the artist in turn would give it to agents while enabling them to do it. (To do what? To be able to get that offer, may it be movie or TV offer, for their clients.)
• In Hollywood today, the Stars, not the Studios, make the major decisions. Stars are no longer employees but independent artists operating to powerful agents.
• Agents though, are believed, not to have the power in themselves. The power is given to them by who they represent.
• Nowadays, studios themselves have no security because there’s nobody they can count on.  They’re just waiting on the line with the absence of a contract, letting the actors take a look at the script (way way different from the old studio system in which an actor needs to be bonded first to a long-term contract before he/she could read the script of a film that’s of the studio’s choice. Now, that’s evolution.)

There you go. Why do I have this feeling that I went down memory lane as I was writing down my notes in this blog? It’s as if I was part of the old Studio System that was reincarnated to the new Hollywood and I felt offended for being used, masked, and locked up onto something just to create entertainment to people, up to a point that my personal romantic relationship had to be at stake.

Oh well, I’m glad I’m not by any chance an actress like Jane Russell or Eva Marie Saint or even Joan Crawford that had to go through the extra level just to be a movie star. You see, it was mentioned in the video that you cannot see these people walk into the drugstore (or malls, for the recent times) because the ones that you do aren’t stars. They’re actors. Talking about the difference between the two!

Lithgow was right; stars today are still a unique match of individual flair and audience aspiration.  They maybe too veracious or fibbing about themselves, at times. But at least they’re far from the fake faces and characters seen from 1910s to a couple of decades more.

Below is a video clip of "The Star" from YouTube that includes a discussion about what makes a cinematic star.