VLVL2 (10) Hollywood, 192

[Paul Nightingale]

(192.11-14) "... a basic LA business/shopping complex that stood on a piece
of former movie-studio lot. Space devoted to make-believe had, it was
thought, been reclaimed by the serious activities of the World of Reality."

In 1948, anti-trust legislation separated film production and distribution:
studios no longer owned the theatres that would show their films. Hence the
decline of the studio system can be linked to the end of one kind of
monopoly.

One of the enduring myths about Hollywood is that film production there also
began as a result of monopoly: when the Motion Picture Patents Company was
formed in 1908 to licence film production, at that time based in New York,
independent producers (sometimes called outlaws) went west to avoid
prosecution. The story is rubbished, perhaps unfairly, by Robert Sklar, who
emphasises climate (favoured film locations at the time included Florida and
Cuba) and physical environment:

"In close proximity to one another were mountains, desert, a city and the
sea. Within an hour or two of downtown Los Angeles one could find a location
resembling almost any conceivable scene one might want to use--factory or
farm, jungle or snowy peak. Land was inexpensive and available" (Movie-made
America: A Cultural History of American Movies, 1994, 67-68).

Hence, a passage that cites the decline of the studio system alludes both to
what came after (ie television) and also what preceded ("reclaimed" turns
the clock back) that Fall.

But if studio lots were built on desert, what kind of "serious activities"
had been displaced?

According to Mike Davis: "Unlike other American cities that maximised their
comparative advantages as crossroads, capitals, seaports or manufacturing
centers, Los Angeles was first and above all the creature of real-estate
capitalism" (City of Quartz, 1990, 25).

Davis juxtaposes sunshine and noir in his description of the mythology of
LA: "The ultimate world-historical significance--and oddity--of Los Angeles
is that it has come to play the double role of utopia and dystopia for
advanced capitalism. The same place, as Brecht noted, symbolized both heaven
and hell" (18).