The use of the audio/visual media of film entertainment has been a huge influence on society since it came to be. People everywhere have been drawn to the glamour of the stories that can be told on the film outlet. The business side of the film industry has proved successful and brought in a tremendous revenue over the years and has become a record-setting industry. The film industry has become a giant over the years and creates revenue by telling stories and appealing to the emotions of the audience. Over the past fifty years, the film industry has changed drastically conservatively, economically, technologically, and socially. Films that are viewed today look and feel completely different than films that were released in the 1960s.

Films in the 60s were very conservative, not showing major violent or sexual themes. According to Kristen’s blog post, Bonnie and Clyde: Milestone or Tasteless, the film Bonnie and Clyde was released in 1967 and became quite a controversial film because of the explicit use of sex and violence on-screen. The film didn’t hide the brutality behind the gun violence which caused a stir within audiences who were not used to seeing such mayhem on screen. Critics were split in the middle on the issue if this film was acceptable or not, but it ended up paving the way for future films to expand on the less conservative style that was coming to fruition. This film even influenced future crime films such a Pulp Fiction.

Because of the gaining popularity of the film industry, and the increasing revenue that it produced, the budgets for films became bigger and bigger. Films that began with smaller budgets  focused more on the story line with a goal to effect peoples’ emotions by showing a story about outsiders that people could relate to, creating the melodrama genre. Ali: Fear Eats the Soul was a foreign film that was produced in Germany in 1974 by Fassbinder. This film was shot in only fourteen days at a cost that it equivalent to $98,000 USD. Being an unconventional film, it contained an unpopular storyline that dealt with the racism that ensued Germany after World War II and an ambiguous ending. The lower budget allowed Fassbinder to tell the story he wanted to in his own style because he didn’t need the movie to create a giant revenue in order to make a profit on the film. Fassbinder created a love story that was between an older German woman, Emmi, and a young Arab immigrant. He addressed social issues that audiences needed to see and experience so that they could realize how bad the situation was and experience the pain that the characters felt. There was little to no violence, but there was sex including male full-frontal nudity that casually made its way into the film twice. Ali: Fear Eats the Soul is an art film that wasn’t trying to impress the masses, but instead tell a difficult story.  This film was received very well by critics upon its release and throughout the years. The Guardian review of the film that came out in 2017 praises the film for being urgent and relevant today still. The issues that the film addressed will always hold true in the social setting that society puts people in.

As the film industry progressed through time, producers realized that they could create films with a huge budget and if they marketed correctly and made a popular film, then they could create a huge revenue. This had to do with technology advancing so that films could be spread all over the world much easier and at a much higher quality than before. Stanley Kubrick had the idea to create the film A.I.: Artificial Intelligence for decades before he could actually pull it off. The idea of the film was based off of a short novel by Brian Aldiss called Supertoys Last All Summer Long. Although Kubrick had a vision for the film, the technological effects at the time were not at the level for how he wanted viewers to see the story. Kubrick didn’t believe the film could happen until he saw Stephen Spielberg’s Jurassic Park in 1993. He then recruited Spielberg to help him produce the film, and when Kubrick died, Spielberg shot the film with such a mixed style between the two directors that it is considered by many to be Kubrick’s last film.

The storyline of A.I.: Artificial Intelligence follows a robot that resembles a young boy, David, that wants nothing more than to be human so that his human “mother” will accept him and love him. The theme of the film was to consider if a robot actually becomes human after it has gained human emotions. A philosophy essay entitled When Robots Really Become Human Simulacra describes David as actually becoming human when he showed the emotion of fear when his life was threatened. The film humanizes the robot using a child to connect him to the audience creating another melodrama. The film flopped at the box office because in 2001 people were not very concerned about the issue of artificial intelligence that is rapidly becoming a social issue today. The story of this film is much before its time, when the effects of the film didn’t hold up to the standards that the industry had held, making the effects behind the time of the film.

Within ten years of the release of A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, the technological effects of Hollywood had increased greatly. Inception was directed by Christopher Nolan and released in 2010. Inception was marketed heavily directing audiences to the stunning effects that were contained in the film. The film was a type of espionage film in which the characters went into peoples’ dreams in order to steal information and implant ideas. From the beginning to the end, the film contained mind bending effects and action sequences. The film was produced to become a blockbuster, and because of the excellent marketing techniques and the stellar effects, it succeeded. Inception contained an all-star cast, sparing no expense on making this one of the best visual experiences of the decade. This film cost around $160 million to created and generated a revenue of $828 million, making it highly successful.  An ideology review of the film talks about how the majorly complicated storyline wrapped around the superb CGI effects create a brilliantly chaotic film. Although it was a very conventional film, it contained an unconventional ending that was ambiguous enough to make the audience think about what the meaning of reality really is.

Inception also contained sub-stories that made it a melodrama, like the interaction with Cobb and his deceased wife within his dreams and flashbacks, but because the film focused on the heavy action it drew the attention of viewers. The action and spot-on effects of Inception is the difference of why this blockbuster succeeded where A.I.: Artificial Intelligence failed. Joei-Conwell’s blog post entitled Violence and Intimacy suggests that the use of violence in a film can limit how the film deals with intimacy, which is not the case in Inception which found a happy marriage between the two. Since Ali: Fear Eats the Soul was such a low-budget, unconventional film, it could contain much more of the melodrama aspect in it than A.I.: Artificial Intelligence or Inception without the fear of losing viewers and money because it is more of a fine art and the audience would expect more melodrama out of a low-budget art film than a blockbuster.

As technology advanced, it became much easier for low-budget films to adapt and use cheaper technology to make a better quality product while still incorporating an unconventional style and displaying social issues that mainstream audiences may be uncertain about. Tangerine is a full length film that was released in 2015 displaying two transgender actors as the main characters in a story about L.A. transgender sex workers. The social message in this film is strong, and it did surprisingly well bringing in a revenue of almost $1 million while spending only $100,000. The reason that this film was so cheap to make was because it was shot entirely on 3 different iPhone 5s phones. The use of the iPhones not only is a great example of how the advancement of technology has made things easier on directors to produce a quality low-budget film, but it also added an extra layer of depth to Tangerine. The 2018 Elliot and Barber review of the film suggests that the use of the iPhone puts the viewer in the film as part of the cast because it makes you feel like you are there experiencing the events with the characters.

Both Tangerine and Ali: Fear Eats the Soul were very unconventional films that had low budgets and therefore were able to display socially controversial themes. A:I: Artificial Intelligence was a high-budget film and also tried to produce a socially controversial theme but failed to make a good profit in return. Inception was a high-budget film that kept away from socially controversial themes and kept the melodrama in the sub-stories. Most high-budget blockbusters have stayed away from social themes, but there are some exceptions such as Avatar. Connor’s blog post, Social and Political Influences in Major Films, discusses how Avatar immolated a major social theme by reconstructing the colonization of America by using an alien planet. This film did very well at the box office, but it may be credited to the awe-inspiring visual effects that were well ahead of its time. The conventional films that have evolved throughout time have taken a very unconventional turn using aspects like ambiguous endings, social issues, and major violence to turn the conventional category into more of a hybrid.

The evolution of film has progressed rapidly through the last fifty years. The conservativeness that once ruled the film industry was shattered and out came a new wave of violence, gore, and questionable themes that brought viewers into the theaters and money to the industry. It seems like as generations of people grew and changed their moral compasses, the film industry adapted as well.