Manhunter is a 1986 American thriller film based on Thomas Harris's novel Red Dragon. Written and directed by Michael Mann, it stars William Petersen as Will Graham and features Brian Cox as Hannibal Lecktor. When asked to investigate a killer known as "The Tooth Fairy", FBI profiler Will Graham comes out of retirement to lend his talents to the case, but in doing so he must confront the specter of his past and meet with a jailed killer who nearly counted Graham amongst his victims. Dennis Farina co-stars as Jack Crawford, Graham's superior at the FBI, and serial killer Francis Dollarhyde—"The Tooth Fairy"—is portrayed by Tom Noonan.

Manhunter focuses on the forensic work carried out by the FBI to track down the killer and shows the long-term effects that cases like this have on Graham, highlighting the similarities between him and his quarry. The film features heavily stylized use of color to convey this sense of duality, and the nature of the characters' similarity has been explored in academic readings of the film. This was not the first adaptation of a Harris novel for the screen—the 1975 novel Black Sunday, a story of a terrorist attack on the Super Bowl, was made into a film in 1977—but it was the first film to feature serial killer "Hannibal the Cannibal", who would later appear in The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, Red Dragon and Hannibal Rising.

Opening to mixed reviews, Manhunter fared poorly at the box office at the time of its release, making only $8.6 million in the United States. However, it has been reappraised in more recent reviews and now enjoys a more favorable reception, as both the acting and the stylized visuals have been appreciated better in later years. Its resurgent popularity, which may be due to later adaptations of Harris' books and Petersen's success in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, has seen it labelled as a cult film.

Plot[link]

Will Graham (William Petersen) is a former FBI criminal profiler who has retired because of a breakdown after being attacked by a cannibalistic serial killer, Dr. Hannibal Lecktor (Brian Cox). Graham is approached at his Florida home by his former FBI superior Jack Crawford (Dennis Farina), who is seeking help with a new serial killer case. Promising his wife (Kim Greist) that he will do nothing more than examine evidence and not risk physical harm, Graham agrees to visit the most recent crime scene in Atlanta, where he tries to enter the mindset of the killer, now dubbed the "Tooth Fairy" by the police for the bite-marks left on his victims.

Having found the killer's fingerprints, Graham meets with Crawford. They are accosted by tabloid journalist Freddie Lounds (Stephen Lang), with whom Graham has a bitter history. Lounds' paper had run photographs of Graham taken secretly while he was hospitalized. Graham pays a visit to the cell of Lecktor, a former psychiatrist, asking for his insight into the killer's motivations. After a tense conversation, Lecktor agrees to look at the case file. Lecktor later contrives to obtain Graham's home address by deceit.

Graham travels to the first crime scene in Birmingham, Alabama, where he is contacted by Crawford, who tells him of Lounds' tabloid story on the case. Crawford also patches Graham through to Frederick Chilton (Benjamin Hendrickson), Lecktor's warden, who has found a note in Lecktor's personal effects. Reading it, they realize it is from the Tooth Fairy, expressing admiration for Lecktor—and an interest in Graham. Crawford brings Graham to the FBI Academy at Quantico, where a missing section of the note is analyzed to determine what Lecktor has removed. It is found to be an instruction to communicate through the personals section of the National Tattler, Lounds' newspaper. The FBI plants a fake advertisement to replace Lecktor's, and Graham organizes an interview with Lounds, during which he gives a false and derogatory profile of the Tooth Fairy to incite him. After a sting operation fails to catch the killer, Lounds is kidnapped by the Tooth Fairy (Tom Noonan). Waking in the killer's home, he is shown a slideshow of William Blake's The Great Red Dragon paintings, along with the Tooth Fairy's past victims and slides of a family the killer identifies as his next targets. Lounds is forced to tape-record a statement before being set alight in a wheelchair and killed, his flaming body rolled into the parking garage of the National Tattler as a warning.

Graham is told by Crawford that they have cracked Lecktor's coded message to the Tooth Fairy—it is Graham's home address with an instruction to kill the family. Graham rushes home to find his family safe but terrified. He tries to explain to his son Kevin why he had retired previously. At his job in a St. Louis film lab, Francis Dollarhyde—The Tooth Fairy—approaches a blind co-worker, Reba McClane (Joan Allen), and ends up offering her a lift. They go to Dollarhyde's home, where Reba is oblivious to the fact that Dollarhyde is watching home-movie footage of his planned next victim. She kisses him and they make love. Dollarhyde is confused by this newfound relationship, though it helps suppress his bloodlust. Just as Graham comes to realize how much the Tooth Fairy's desire for acceptance factors into the murders, Dollarhyde watches as Reba is escorted home by another co-worker. Mistakenly believing them to be kissing, Dollarhyde murders the man and abducts Reba. When she calls him Francis, he tells her "Francis is gone. Forever."

Desperately trying to figure out a connection between the murdered families, Graham realizes that someone must have seen their home movies. He and Crawford deduce where the videos were processed. They identify the lab in St. Louis and fly there immediately. Dollarhyde has been casing the victims' homes through home videos, enabling him to prepare for the break-ins in extreme detail. Graham determines which employee has seen these films and obtains Dollarhyde's home address, to which he and Crawford travel with a police escort. At Dollarhyde's home Reba is terrified as he contemplates what to do with her. As he struggles to kill Reba with a piece of broken mirror glass, police teams assemble around the house. Seeing that Dollarhyde has someone inside with him, Graham lunges through a window. He is quickly subdued by Dollarhyde, who retrieves a shotgun and uses it to wound Crawford and kill two police officers. Wounded in the firefight, Dollarhyde returns to the kitchen to shoot Graham, but misses because of his injuries and is killed himself. Graham, Reba, and Crawford are tended to by paramedics before Graham returns home, this time permanently retired.

Cast[link]

• William Petersen as Will Graham. Richard Gere, Mel Gibson and Paul Newman were considered for the role, but Mann cast Petersen after seeing footage from To Live and Die in L.A.^[2] Petersen spent time with officers of the Chicago Police Department researching for his role.^[3]
• Kim Greist as Molly Graham. Greist, who according to reviews was "wasted in a tiny role",^[4] had previously worked with Mann on an episode of Miami Vice.^[5]
• Joan Allen as Reba McClane. In preparation for her role, Allen spent time with the New York Institute for the Blind, learning to walk through New York blindfolded.^[6] She had previously worked with co-star William Petersen on stage, in the 1980 Steppenwolf Theatre Company production of Balm in Gilead.^[7]
• Brian Cox as Dr. Hannibal Lecktor. Actors John Lithgow, Mandy Patinkin, and Brian Dennehy, and director William Friedkin were also considered for the part of Lecktor,^[2] whose name was changed from the novel's "Lecter" for unknown reasons.^[8] Cox based his performance on Scottish serial killer Peter Manuel.^[6] Cox was asked to audition with his back turned to the casting agents, as they felt they needed to focus on the power of his voice when considering him for the part.^[9]
• Dennis Farina as Jack Crawford. Farina had already worked with Mann before, making his acting début in the 1981 film Thief^[2] before appearing in Crime Story^[10] and several episodes of Miami Vice.^[11][12][13] Farina had already read the novel Red Dragon He was called to audition at the same time as Brian Cox.^[14]
• Tom Noonan as Francis Dollarhyde. Noonan credits his ability to improvise during rehearsals for his casting.^[2] He took up bodybuilding to prepare physically for the part.^[15] He began preparation for his role by studying other serial killers, but quickly rejected this approach.^[6] While shooting the film, Noonan remained in character at all times, keeping away from cast members playing his pursuers.^[2][6]
• Stephen Lang as Freddy Lounds. Lang had previously starred in Band of the Hand, on which Mann was executive producer. He went on to appear in the Mann-produced Crime Story with Farina^[10] and in Mann's 2009 film Public Enemies.

Production[link]

Pre-production[link]

The film was originally going to be called Red Dragon, like the novel. Michael Mann, who called the new title "inferior", said that producer Dino De Laurentiis made the change after Michael Cimino's film Year of the Dragon, produced by De Laurentiis, bombed at the box office in 1985.^[2] William Petersen has commented that another reason for the change was to avoid any suggestion that it might be a karate movie.^[6][16] "At the time, Bruce Lee was knocking out Dragon movies, and Dino, in his wisdom, decided people would think it was a kung-fu movie", he later recalled.^[2] Brian Cox, who played jailed killer Hannibal Lecktor, has also expressed disdain for the film's title, calling it "bland" and "cheesy".^[6]

William Petersen worked with the Chicago Police Department Violent Crimes Unit and the FBI Violent Crimes Unit in preparation for the role of Will Graham, talking to the officers and reading some of their crime files.^[3] He spoke to the investigators on the Richard Ramirez case about how they coped with the effects these disturbing cases had on them and how they learned to "compartmentalize" their working and personal lives. "Of course you don’t really turn it off", he recalled. "At the end of the day, even if you’re just a regular policeman, it takes a toll".^[2] During the three years he spent working on the script,^[17] Michael Mann also spent time with the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, where he claimed to have met people very like the character of Will Graham.^[2] This level of research led Brent E. Turvey to describe the film as "one of the most competent blends of cutting-edge forensic science and criminal profiling at the time".^[18] Mann also spent several years corresponding with imprisoned murderer Dennis Wayne Wallace. Wallace had been motivated by his obsession for a woman he barely knew, and believed that Iron Butterfly's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" was "their song". This connection inspired Mann to include the song in the film.^[2]

Tom Noonan, who played killer Francis Dollarhyde, initially researched other serial killers to study for the role, but was repulsed by it. He then decided to play the character with the sense that he felt he was doing right by his victims, not harming them. "I wanted to feel this guy was doing the best he could", Noonan explained, "that he was doing this out of love".^[6] Noonan credits his casting to improvisation during his audition, recalling that he was reading lines alongside a young woman. During a reading of the scene featuring the torture of Freddie Lounds, Noonan noticed that the woman began to seem frightened, and deliberately tried to scare her more. He believed that this is what secured the role for him.^[2]

Joan Allen, who played Dollarhyde's blind love interest Reba McClane, recalls meeting with representatives of the New York Institute for the Blind in preparation for her role. She spent time walking around New York wearing a mask over her eyes to get accustomed to walking as though she were blind.^[6]

John Lithgow, Mandy Patinkin, William Friedkin, and Brian Dennehy were all considered for the role of Hannibal Lecktor, but Brian Cox was cast after being recommended to Mann by Dennehy.^[2] Cox based his portrayal on Scottish serial killer Peter Manuel, who (he said) "didn't have a sense of right and wrong".^[6] Cox has also suggested that his selection was due to his nationality, claiming that characters who are "a little bit nasty" are best played by Europeans.^[2] Mann kept the role of Lecktor very short, believing that it was "such a charismatic character that [he] wanted the audience almost not to get enough of him".^[19] For the role of Will Graham, De Laurentiis had expressed interest in Richard Gere, Mel Gibson and Paul Newman, but Mann, having seen footage of William Petersen's role in To Live and Die in L.A., championed Petersen for the part.^[2]

Filming[link]

Petersen has claimed in an interview that one of the film's scenes forced the crew to adopt a guerrilla filmmaking approach. The scene in which Petersen's character Will Graham falls asleep while studying crime scene photographs during a flight required the use of an airplane during shooting. Michael Mann had been unable to gain permission to use a plane for the scene and booked tickets for the crew on a flight from Chicago to Florida. Once on board, the crew used their equipment, checked in as hand luggage, to shoot the scene quickly, while keeping the plane's passengers and crew mollified with Manhunter crew jackets.^[2]

Cinematographer Dante Spinotti made strong use of color tints in the film, using a cool "romantic blue" tone to denote the scenes featuring Will Graham and his wife, and a more subversive green hue, with elements of purple or magenta, as a cue for the unsettling scenes in the film, mostly involving Dollarhyde.^[20] Petersen has stated that Mann wanted to create a visual aura to bring the audience into the film, so that the story would work on an interior and emotional level.^[3] Mann also made use of multiple frame rates in filming the climactic shootout: different cameras recording the scene at 24, 36, 72 and 90 frames per second, giving the final scene what Spinotti has called an "off tempo", "staccato" feel.^[20]

During principal photography, Noonan asked that no one playing his victims and pursuers be allowed to see him, while those he did speak to should address him by his character's name, Francis. The first time Noonan met Petersen was when Petersen jumped through a large window during the filming of the climactic fight scene.^[6][21] Noonan admits that, because of his request, the atmosphere on set became so tense that people actually became afraid of him.^[6] He had also begun body-building to prepare for the role and felt that his size intimidated the crew when filming began, as the first scene to be shot was his character's interrogation and murder of another.^[15] Noonan claims that this led him to take separate flights and stay in separate hotels from the rest of the cast,^[2] and while on the film's sets, he would remain in his trailer alone in the dark to prepare himself, sometimes joined by a silent Mann.^[6]

Petersen recalled filming the climactic shoot-out scene at the end of principal photography, when most of the crew had already left the production because of time constraints. With no special effects crew to provide the blood spatter for the gunshots, Petersen described how the remaining crew would blow ketchup across the set through hoses when such effects were needed.^[6] Joan Allen also related that Mann would simulate the impacts of bullets in Dollarhyde's kitchen by throwing glass jars across the surfaces so they would shatter where he needed them to; one of these broken jars left a shard of glass embedded in Petersen's thigh during filming.^[6] The pool of blood forming around Noonan's character at the end of this scene was intended to allude to the "Red Dragon" tattoos worn by the character in the novel.^[2] This shot left Noonan lying in the corn syrup stage blood for so long that he became stuck to the floor.^[6]

Post-production[link]

Spinotti has commented on how Mann's use of mise en scène when framing shots evokes "the emotional situation in the film at that particular time", noting the director's focus on the particular shape or color of elements of the set. He has also drawn attention to the scene in which Graham visits Lecktor in his cell, pointing out the constant position of the cell bars within the frame, even as the shots cut back and forth between the two characters. "There is nothing in Manhunter ... which is just a nice shot", says Spinotti. "[It] is all focused into conveying that particular atmosphere; whether it's happiness, or delusion, or disillusion".^[20] This "manipulation of focus and editing" has become a visual hallmark of the film.^[22]

Despite having initially filmed the scenes involving Francis Dollarhyde with an elaborate tattoo across Noonan's chest, Mann and Spinotti felt that the finished result seemed out of place and that it "trivialize[d] the struggle" the character faced.^[2][20] Mann cut the scenes in which the character appeared bare-chested, and quickly re-shot additional footage to replace what had been removed. Spinotti noted that in doing so, scenes which he felt had been captured with a "beautiful" aesthetic were lost, as the production did not have the time to recreate the original lighting conditions.^[20]

Petersen had difficulty ridding himself of the Will Graham character after principal photography wrapped. While rehearsing for a play in Chicago, he felt the old character "always coming out" instead of his new role. To try and rid himself of the character, Petersen went to a barbershop where he had them shave his beard, cut his hair and dye it blond so that he could look into the mirror and see a different person. At first he felt it was due to the rigorous shooting schedule for Manhunter, but later realized that the character "had creeped in".^[6]

Soundtrack[link]

Manhunter's soundtrack "dominates the film",^[23] with music that is "explicitly diegetic the entire way".^[24] Steve Rybin has commented that the music is not intended to correlate with the intensity of the action portrayed alongside it, but rather to signify when the viewer should react with a "degree of aesthetic distance" from the film, or be "suture[d] into the diegetic world" more closely.^[25] The soundtrack album was released in limited quantities in 1986, on MCA Records (#6182). It was not, however, released on compact disc at the time, but only on cassette tape and vinyl record.^[26] On 19 March 2007, a two-CD set entitled Music from the Films of Michael Mann was released, featuring four tracks from Manhunter: The Prime Movers' "Strong As I Am", Iron Butterfly's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida", Shriekback's "This Big Hush", and Red 7's "Heartbeat".^[27] In March 2010, Intrada Records announced that they were releasing the Manhunter soundtrack on CD for the first time, with an extra track, "Jogger's Stakeout" by The Reds.^[28]

The Reds were contacted about contributing to the film's soundtrack after submitting their music for possible use on Miami Vice. They recorded their score over a period of two months, in studios in New York and Los Angeles. They recorded a total of 28 minutes of music for the film; however, several cues were replaced later with music by Shriekback and Michel Rubini. "Comfortably Numb" by Pink Floyd and "I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)" by The Electric Prunes have both been cited by The Reds' vocalist Rick Shaffer as influences on the film's soundtrack.^[29] Mann selected "Strong as I Am" by The Prime Movers for the film and later funded the filming of a music video for the song's release as a single.^[30]

Music in the film's screen credits which are not listed above included:

Themes[link]

Visually, Manhunter is driven by strong color cues and the use of tints,^[31] including the hallmark blue of Mann's work.^[32] Dante Spinotti has noted that these visual cues were meant to invoke different moods based on the tone of the scenes in which they were used: cool blue tones were used for the scenes shared between Will Graham and his wife Molly, and unsettling greens and magentas were used for the scenes with the killer Francis Dollarhyde.^[20] Steven Rybin has observed that "blue is associated with Molly, sex, and the Graham family home", while green denotes "searching and discovery", pointing out the color of Graham's shirt when the investigation begins and the green tone of the interior shots in the Atlanta police station.^[25] John Muir suggests that this helps identify the character of Graham with the "goodness" of the natural world, and Dollarhyde with the city, "where sickness thrives".^[31] This strongly stylized approach drew criticism from reviewers at first,^[33] but has since been seen as a hallmark of the film and viewed more positively.^[2][34]

Academic studies of the film tend to draw attention to the relationship between the characters of Graham and Dollarhyde, noting, for example, that the film "chooses to emphasize the novel's symbiotic relationships between Graham, Lecter and Dolarhyde [sic] by visual techniques and screen acting where subtlety plays a key role".^[35] In his book Hearths of Darkness: The Family in the American Horror Film, Tony Williams praises the depth of the film's characterizations, calling Dollarhyde a "victim of society" and his portrayal "undermining convenient barriers between monster and human".^[36] Philip L. Simpson echoes this sentiment in his book Psycho Paths: Tracking the Serial Killer through Contemporary American Film, calling Manhunter a "profoundly ambiguous and destabilizing film" which creates "uncomfortable affinities between protagonist and antagonist".^[37] Mark T. Conard's The Philosophy of Film Noir follows this same idea, claiming that the film presents the notion that "what it takes to catch a serial killer is tantamount to being one".^[38]

Release[link]

Box office[link]

Manhunter was released in the United States on 15 August 1986. It opened in 779 theaters and grossed $2,204,400 in its opening weekend. The film eventually grossed a total of $8,620,929 domestically, making it the 76th highest-grossing film that year.^[1] Because of internal problems at De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, the UK premiere was postponed for over a year.^[2] It was screened in November 1987 as part of the London Film Festival^[39] and saw wide release on 24 February 1989.^[40] In France, Manhunter was screened on 9 April at the 1987 Cognac Festival du Film Policier, where it was awarded the Critics Prize.^[41] It was also shown at the 2009 Camerimage Film Festival in Łódź, Poland.^[42] On 19 March 2011, it was screened at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood to celebrate the 25th anniversary of its release. Michael Mann was present for discussion at the event.^[43]

Home media[link]

Manhunter was released in a widescreen edition on laserdisc in 1986.^[44] It was released on VHS several times, including by BMG on 10 October 1998^[45] and by Universal Studios in 2001.^[46] It has also been available on DVD in various versions. Anchor Bay released a two-DVD limited edition in 2000. A standard edition, an individual release of the first disc from the two-disc set, was also released at the same time. In 2003 Anchor Bay released the "Restored Director's Cut", which is very close to the "Director's Cut" on the 2000 disc but omits one scene. It does, however, feature a commentary track by Mann.^[47]

In 2004 MGM (current holders of The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal) released a pan and scanned version of the film, and this was the one seen in theaters.^[48] The theatrical cut was released on DVD for the first time in 2007 by MGM in widescreen as part of The Hannibal Lecter Collection, along with The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal. They released the same collection on Blu-ray as a three-pack set in September 2009.^[47][49] Manhunter was also released alone on 11 September 2007.^[48][50]

Reception[link]

On its release, Manhunter was met with reviews varying from mixed to negative. At first, it was seen as too stylish, owing largely to Mann's 1980s trademark use of pastel colors, art-deco architecture and glass brick.^[4][33][51] A common criticism in the initial reviews was that the film overemphasized the music and stylistic visuals.^[3] Petersen's skill as a lead actor was also called into question.^[4][33][51] Particularly critical of the film's stylistic approach was the New York Times, which called attention to Mann's "taste for overkill", branding his stylized approach as "hokey" and little more than "gimmicks".^[33] Chicago Tribune writer Dave Kehr remarked that Mann "believes in style so much that he has very little belief left over for the characters or situations of his film, which suffers accordingly", adding that the film's focus on style serves to "drain any notion of credibility" from its plot.^[4] Sheila Benson of the Los Angeles Times was critical of the film's visuals and soundtrack, comparing it unfavourably with Miami Vice and describing it as a "chic, well-cast wasteland" that "delivers very little".^[51][52] The film's stylistic similarity to Miami Vice was also pointed out by Film Threat's Dave Beuscher, who felt it was the chief reason for the film's poor box office results.^[53] Writing for the San Francisco Chronicle, Steve Winn derided the film, claiming its lack of a strong lead role caused it to "fall apart like the shattered mirrors that figure in the crimes".^[52] Time was more favorable in its review, praising the "intelligent camerabatics" and "bold, controlled color scheme".^[54] Leonard Maltin gave the film three stars, calling it "gripping all the way through and surprisingly nonexploitive", although adding that "the holes start to show through" if looked for "too carefully".^[55] Manhunter was, however, nominated for the 1987 Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture.^[56]

Modern appreciation of the film has seen its standing among critics improve. Salon.com called Mann's original the best of the Lecter series,^[57] and Slate magazine described it as "mesmerizing", positing that it directly inspired television series such as Millennium and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, though calling attention to its "Miami-Vice-like overreliance on synthesized sludge".^[58] The Independent called it "the most aestheticised film of the 1980s", and noted its "chilly integrity".^[59] British television channel and production company Film4 called it "the most refined screen adaptation of Harris' books", although they found the film's contemporary soundtrack "dated".^[60] Sky Movies echoed this sentiment, summing up their review by saying "although it still remains a classic, the film has dated slightly."^[61] Retrospective reviews tend to be less critical of the stylized visuals: the BBC's Ali Barclay called the film "a truly suspenseful, stylish thriller", awarding it four out of five stars,^[62] and Nathan Ditum described it in Total Film as "complex, disturbing and super-stylish", adding that the 2002 remake could not compete with it.^[63] Empire editor Mark Dinning gave the film five stars out of five, praising the "subtlety" of the acting and the "neon angst" of the visuals.^[34] Television channel Bravo named Dollarhyde's interrogation of Freddie Lounds as one of its 30 Even Scarier Movie Moments in 2007,^[64] and Noonan's portrayal of Dollarhyde was praised by Simon Abrams of UGO Networks as "a highlight of his career".^[65]

Despite the low gross on its initial release, Manhunter has grown in popularity in recent years and has been mentioned in several books and lists of cult films.^[66][67][68] These reappraisals often cite the success of Silence of the Lambs and its sequels as the reason for the increased interest in Manhunter, while still favoring the earlier film over its successors.^[67][68] Telling of this resurgence in appreciation are the film's ratings on review aggregation sites such as Metacritic or Rotten Tomatoes. Compiled mostly from recent reviews for the film, Manhunter has a metascore of 78 on Metacritic, based on ten reviews,^[69] and a 94% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, from 33 reviews.^[70]

Legacy[link]

Manhunter's focus on the use of forensic science in a criminal investigation has been cited as a major influence on several films and television series that have come after it^[31][58]—most notably CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,^[71] also featuring William Petersen, which was "inspired, or at least influenced" by the forensics scenes in Manhunter.^[72] Petersen's sympathetic portrayal of profiler Will Graham has also been noted as helping to influence a "shift in the image of the pop-culture FBI agent" that would continue throughout the 1980s and 90s.^[73] The film has also been noted as a thematic precursor to the series Millennium, John Doe, Profiler,^[58] and The X-Files,^[37] and to films such as Copycat, Switchback,^[31] The Bone Collector, Seven and Fallen.^[8]

The Silence of the Lambs, a film adaptation of Harris' next Lecter novel, was released in 1991. However, none of the cast of Manhunter reprise their roles in the later film, although characters such as Lecter and Chilton return with new actors. Actors Frankie Faison and Dan Butler appear in both films, but as different and unrelated characters. The Silence of the Lambs earned several awards and accolades, including the Academy Award for Best Picture. It is one of only three films to have won the Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Actress, and Best Screenplay.^[74] The Silence of the Lambs was followed in turn by a sequel and two prequels: Hannibal, Red Dragon and Hannibal Rising.

Of these later films, Red Dragon (2002), adapted from the same novel as Manhunter, was released to a generally positive critical reception and successful box office receipts, making $209,196,298 on a $78 million budget.^[75] Based on recent reviews, Red Dragon currently has a 68% rating from 183 reviews at Rotten Tomatoes,^[76] and a 60% rating based on 36 reviews on Metacritic.^[77] Manhunter's cinematographer Dante Spinotti also served as the director of photography on this version.^[78]

See also[link]

Film portal

• 1986 in film
• Offender profiling in popular culture

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Manhunter

• Manhunter at the Internet Movie Database
• Manhunter at AllRovi

Manhunter may refer to:

• Manhunter (film), a 1986 film based on the novel Red Dragon
• Manhunter (comics), the name of numerous superheroes and villains from DC Comics
  • Manhunter (Kate Spencer), one such character
  • Manhunters (comics), a fictional robot race in the DC Comics Universe
  • Martian Manhunter, an unrelated DC Comics character
• Manhunter: New York, an adventure game published by Sierra Entertainment in 1988
• Manhunter 2: San Francisco, sequel to above game in 1989
• The Manhunter, a 1974 TV series set in the 1930s
• Sala gangs leader Sigvard Thurneman (born Nilsson) has been claimed to taken his last name from the word manhunter and relocated the letters.
• Manhunters: Fugitive Task Force, a 2008 TV series

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

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This 16 mm spring-wound Bolex "H16" Reflex camera is a popular entry level camera used in film schools.

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects. The process of filmmaking has developed into an art form and industry.

Films are cultural artifacts created by specific cultures, which reflect those cultures, and, in turn, affect them. Film is considered to be an important art form, a source of popular entertainment and a powerful method for educating – or indoctrinating – citizens. The visual elements of cinema give motion pictures a universal power of communication. Some films have become popular worldwide attractions by using dubbing or subtitles that translate the dialogue into the language of the viewer.

Films are made up of a series of individual images called frames. When these images are shown rapidly in succession, a viewer has the illusion that motion is occurring. The viewer cannot see the flickering between frames due to an effect known as persistence of vision, whereby the eye retains a visual image for a fraction of a second after the source has been removed. Viewers perceive motion due to a psychological effect called beta movement.

The origin of the name "film" comes from the fact that photographic film (also called film stock) has historically been the primary medium for recording and displaying motion pictures. Many other terms exist for an individual motion picture, including picture, picture show, moving picture, photo-play and flick. A common name for film in the United States is movie, while in Europe the term film is preferred. Additional terms for the field in general include the big screen, the silver screen, the cinema and the movies.

History[link]

A clip from the Charlie Chaplin silent film The Bond (1918)

Preceding film in origin by thousands of years, early plays and dances had elements common to film: scripts, sets, costumes, production, direction, actors, audiences, storyboards, and scores. Much terminology later used in film theory and criticism apply, such as mise en scene (roughly, the entire visual picture at any one time). Owing to an absence of technology for doing so, moving visual and aural images were not recorded for replaying as in film.

In the 1860s, mechanisms for producing two-dimensional drawings in motion were demonstrated with devices such as the zoetrope, mutoscope and praxinoscope. These machines were outgrowths of simple optical devices (such as magic lanterns) and would display sequences of still pictures at sufficient speed for the images on the pictures to appear to be moving, a phenomenon called persistence of vision. Naturally the images needed to be carefully designed to achieve the desired effect, and the underlying principle became the basis for the development of film animation.

With the development of celluloid film for still photography, it became possible to directly capture objects in motion in real time. An 1878 experiment by English photographer Eadweard Muybridge in the United States using 24 cameras produced a series of stereoscopic images of a galloping horse, is arguably the first "motion picture", though it was not called by this name.^[1] This technology required a person to look into a viewing machine to see the pictures which were separate paper prints attached to a drum turned by a handcrank. The pictures were shown at a variable speed of about 5 to 10 pictures per second, depending on how rapidly the crank was turned. Commercial versions of these machines were coin operated.

A frame from Roundhay Garden Scene, the world's earliest film produced using a motion picture camera, by Louis Le Prince, 1888

By the 1880s the development of the motion picture camera allowed the individual component images to be captured and stored on a single reel, and led quickly to the development of a motion picture projector to shine light through the processed and printed film and magnify these "moving picture shows" onto a screen for an entire audience. These reels, so exhibited, came to be known as "motion pictures". Early motion pictures were static shots that showed an event or action with no editing or other cinematic techniques. The first public exhibition of projected motion pictures in America was shown at Koster and Bial's Music Hall in New York City on the 23rd of April 1896.

Ignoring W. K. L. Dickson's early sound experiments (1894), commercial motion pictures were purely visual art through the late 19th century, but these innovative silent films had gained a hold on the public imagination. Around the turn of the 20th century, films began developing a narrative structure by stringing scenes together to tell a story. The scenes were later broken up into multiple shots of varying sizes and angles. Other techniques such as camera movement were realized as effective ways to portray a story on film. Rather than leave the audience with noise of early cinema projectors, theater owners would hire a pianist or organist or a full orchestra to play music that would cover noises of projector. Eventually, musicians would start to fit the mood of the film at any given moment. By the early 1920s, most films came with a prepared list of sheet music for this purpose, with complete film scores being composed for major productions.

A shot from Georges Méliès Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon) (1902), an early narrative film.

The rise of European cinema was interrupted by the outbreak of World War I when the film industry in United States flourished with the rise of Hollywood, typified most prominently by the great innovative work of D. W. Griffith in The Birth of a Nation (1914) and Intolerance (1916). However in the 1920s, European filmmakers such as Sergei Eisenstein, F. W. Murnau, and Fritz Lang, in many ways inspired by the meteoric war-time progress of film through Griffith, along with the contributions of Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton and others, quickly caught up with American film-making and continued to further advance the medium. In the 1920s, new technology allowed filmmakers to attach to each film a soundtrack of speech, music and sound effects synchronized with the action on the screen. These sound films were initially distinguished by calling them "talking pictures", or talkies.

The next major step in the development of cinema was the introduction of so-called "natural color", which meant color that was photographically recorded from nature rather than being added to black-and-white prints by hand-coloring, stencil-coloring or other arbitrary procedures, although the earliest processes typically yielded colors which were far from "natural" in appearance. While the addition of sound quickly eclipsed silent film and theater musicians, color replaced black-and-white much more gradually. The pivotal innovation was the introduction of the three-strip version of the Technicolor process, which was first used for short subjects and for isolated sequences in a few feature films released in 1934, then for an entire feature film, Becky Sharp, in 1935. The expense of the process was daunting, but continued favorable public response and enhanced box-office receipts increasingly justified the added cost. The number of films made in color slowly increased year after year.

In the early 1950s, as the proliferation of black-and-white television started seriously depressing theater attendance in the US, the use of color was seen as one way of winning back audiences. It soon became the rule rather than the exception. Some important mainstream Hollywood films were still being made in black-and-white as late as the mid-1960s, but they marked the end of an era. Color television receivers had been available in the US since the mid-1950s, but at first they were very expensive and few broadcasts were in color. During the 1960s, prices gradually came down, color broadcasts became common, and the sale of color television sets boomed. The strong preference of the general public for color was obvious. After the final flurry of black-and-white film releases in mid-decade, all major Hollywood studio film production was exclusively in color, with rare exceptions reluctantly made only at the insistence of "star" directors such as Peter Bogdanovich and Martin Scorsese.

Since the decline of the studio system in the 1960s, the succeeding decades saw changes in the production and style of film. Various New Wave movements (including the French New Wave, Indian New Wave, Japanese New Wave and New Hollywood) and the rise of film school educated independent filmmakers were all part of the changes the medium experienced in the latter half of the 20th century. Digital technology has been the driving force in change throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s. 3D technology increased in usage and has become more popular since the early 2010s.

Theory[link]

Film theory seeks to develop concise and systematic concepts that apply to the study of film as art. It was started by Ricciotto Canudo's The Birth of the Sixth Art. Formalist film theory, led by Rudolf Arnheim, Béla Balázs, and Siegfried Kracauer, emphasized how film differed from reality, and thus could be considered a valid fine art. André Bazin reacted against this theory by arguing that film's artistic essence lay in its ability to mechanically reproduce reality not in its differences from reality, and this gave rise to realist theory. More recent analysis spurred by Jacques Lacan's psychoanalysis and Ferdinand de Saussure's semiotics among other things has given rise to psychoanalytical film theory, structuralist film theory, feminist film theory and others. On the other hand, critics from the analytical philosophy tradition, influenced by Wittgenstein, try to clarify misconceptions used in theoretical studies and produce analysis of a film's vocabulary and its link to a form of life.

Language[link]

Film is considered to have its own language. James Monaco wrote a classic text on film theory titled "How to Read a Film". Director Ingmar Bergman famously said, "[Andrei] Tarkovsky for me is the greatest [director], the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream." Examples of the language are a sequence of back and forth images of one actor's left profile speaking, followed by another actor's right profile speaking, then a repetition of this, which is a language understood by the audience to indicate a conversation. Another example is zooming in on the forehead of an actor with an expression of silent reflection, then changing to a scene of a younger actor who vaguely resembles the first actor, indicating the first actor is having a memory of their own past.

Montage[link]

Parallels to musical counterpoint have been developed into a theory of montage, extended from the complex superimposition of images in early silent film^{[citation needed]} to even more complex incorporation of musical counterpoint together with visual counterpoint through mise en scene and editing, as in a ballet or opera; e.g., as illustrated in the gang fight scene of director Francis Ford Coppola’s film, Rumble Fish.

Criticism[link]

Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films. In general, these works can be divided into two categories: academic criticism by film scholars and journalistic film criticism that appears regularly in newspapers and other media.

Film critics working for newspapers, magazines, and broadcast media mainly review new releases. Normally they only see any given film once and have only a day or two to formulate opinions. Despite this, critics have an important impact on films, especially those of certain genres. Mass marketed action, horror, and comedy films tend not to be greatly affected by a critic's overall judgment of a film. The plot summary and description of a film that makes up the majority of any film review can still have an important impact on whether people decide to see a film. For prestige films such as most dramas, the influence of reviews is extremely important. Poor reviews will often doom a film to obscurity and financial loss.

The impact of a reviewer on a given film's box office performance is a matter of debate. Some claim that movie marketing is now so intense and well financed that reviewers cannot make an impact against it. However, the cataclysmic failure of some heavily promoted movies which were harshly reviewed, as well as the unexpected success of critically praised independent movies indicates that extreme critical reactions can have considerable influence. Others note that positive film reviews have been shown to spark interest in little-known films. Conversely, there have been several films in which film companies have so little confidence that they refuse to give reviewers an advanced viewing to avoid widespread panning of the film. However, this usually backfires as reviewers are wise to the tactic and warn the public that the film may not be worth seeing and the films often do poorly as a result.

It is argued that journalist film critics should only be known as film reviewers, and true film critics are those who take a more academic approach to films. This line of work is more often known as film theory or film studies. These film critics attempt to come to understand how film and filming techniques work, and what effect they have on people. Rather than having their works published in newspapers or appear on television, their articles are published in scholarly journals, or sometimes in up-market magazines. They also tend to be affiliated with colleges or universities.

Industry[link]

Cate Blanchett at the Berlin International Film Festival. Around 20,000 professionals from over 130 countries attend the event in Berlin.

The making and showing of motion pictures became a source of profit almost as soon as the process was invented. Upon seeing how successful their new invention, and its product, was in their native France, the Lumières quickly set about touring the Continent to exhibit the first films privately to royalty and publicly to the masses. In each country, they would normally add new, local scenes to their catalogue and, quickly enough, found local entrepreneurs in the various countries of Europe to buy their equipment and photograph, export, import and screen additional product commercially. The Oberammergau Passion Play of 1898^{[citation needed]} was the first commercial motion picture ever produced. Other pictures soon followed, and motion pictures became a separate industry that overshadowed the vaudeville world. Dedicated theaters and companies formed specifically to produce and distribute films, while motion picture actors became major celebrities and commanded huge fees for their performances. By 1917 Charlie Chaplin had a contract that called for an annual salary of one million dollars.

From 1931 to 1956, film was also the only image storage and playback system for television programming until the introduction of videotape recorders.

In the United States today, much of the film industry is centered around Hollywood. Other regional centers exist in many parts of the world, such as Mumbai-centered Bollywood, the Indian film industry's Hindi cinema which produces the largest number of films in the world.^[2] Whether the ten thousand-plus feature length films a year produced by the Valley pornographic film industry should qualify for this title is the source of some debate.^{[citation needed]} Though the expense involved in making movies has led cinema production to concentrate under the auspices of movie studios, recent advances in affordable film making equipment have allowed independent film productions to flourish.

Profit is a key force in the industry, due to the costly and risky nature of filmmaking; many films have large cost overruns, a notorious example being Kevin Costner's Waterworld. Yet many filmmakers strive to create works of lasting social significance. The Academy Awards (also known as "the Oscars") are the most prominent film awards in the United States, providing recognition each year to films, ostensibly based on their artistic merits.

There is also a large industry for educational and instructional films made in lieu of or in addition to lectures and texts.

Associated fields[link]

Derivative academic Fields of study may both interact with and develop independently of filmmaking, as in film theory and analysis. Fields of academic study have been created that are derivative or dependent on the existence of film, such as film criticism, film history, divisions of film propaganda in authoritarian governments, or psychological on subliminal effects of a flashing soda can during a screening. These fields may further create derivative fields, such as a movie review section in a newspaper or a television guide. Sub-industries can spin off from film, such as popcorn makers, and toys. Sub- industries of pre-existing industries may deal specifically with film, such as product placement in advertising.

Terminology used[link]

Although the words "film" and "movie" are sometimes used interchangeably, "film" is more often used when considering artistic, theoretical, or technical aspects, as studies in a university class and "movies" more often refers to entertainment or commercial aspects, as where to go for fun on a date. For example, a book titled "How to Read a Film" would be about the aesthetics or theory of film, while "Lets Go to the Movies" would be about the history of entertaining movies. "Motion pictures" or "Moving pictures" are films and movies. A "DVD" is a digital format which may be used to reproduce an analog film, while "videotape" ("video") was for many decades a solely analog medium onto which moving images could be recorded and electronically (rather than optically) reproduced. Strictly speaking, "Film" refers to the media onto which a visual image is shot, and to this end it may seem improper for work in other "moving image" media to be referred to as a "film" and the action of shooting as "filming", though these terms are still in general use. "Silent films" need not be silent, but are films and movies without an audible dialogue, though they may have a musical soundtrack. "Talkies" refers to early movies or films having audible dialogue or analog sound, not just a musical accompaniment. "Cinema" either broadly encompasses both films and movies, or is roughly synonymous with "Film", both capitalized when referring to a category of art. The "silver screen" refers to classic black-and-white films before color, not to contemporary films without color.

The expression "Sight and Sound", as in the film journal of the same name, means "film". The following icons mean film: a "candle and bell", as in the films Tarkovsky, of a segment of film stock, or a two faced Janus image, and an image of a movie camera in profile.

"Widescreen" and "Cinemascope" refers to a larger width to height in the frame, compared to an earlier historic aspect ratios.^[3] A "feature length film", or "feature film", is of a conventional full length, usually 60 minutes or more, and can commercially stand by itself without other films in a ticketed screening.^[4] A "short" is a film that is not as long as a feature length film, usually screened with other shorts, or preceding a feature length film. An "independent" is a film made outside of the conventional film industry.

A "screening" or "projection" is the projection of a film or video on a screen at a public or private theater, usually but not always of a film, but of a video or DVD when of sufficient projection quality. A "double feature" is a screening of two independent, stand-alone, feature films. A "viewing" is a watching of a film. A "showing" is a screening or viewing on an electronic monitor. "Sales" refers to tickets sold at a theater, or more currently, rights sold for individual showings. A "release" is the distribution and often simultaneous screening of a film. A "preview" is a screening in advance of the main release.

"Hollywood" may be used either as a pejorative adjective, shorthand for asserting an overly commercial rather than artistic intent or outcome, as in "too Hollywood", or as a descriptive adjective to refer to a film originating with people who ordinarily work near Los Angeles.

Expressions for Genres of film are sometimes used interchangeably for "film" in a specific context, such as a "porn" for a film with explicit sexual content, or "cheese" for films that are light, entertaining and not highbrow.

Any film may also have a "sequel", which portrays events following those in the film. Bride of Frankenstein is an early example. When there are a number of films with the same characters, we have a "series", such as the James Bond series. A film which portrays events that occur earlier than those in another film, but is released after that film, is sometimes called a "prequel", an example being Butch and Sundance: The Early Days.

Credits is a list of the people involved in making the film. Before the 1970s, credits were usually at the beginning of a film. Since then, the credits roll at the end of most films.

A Post-credits scene is a scene shown after the end of the credits. Ferris Bueller's Day Off has a post-credit scene in which Ferris tells the audience that the movie is over and they should go home.

Preview[link]

A preview performance refers to a showing of a movie to a select audience, usually for the purposes of corporate promotions, before the public film premiere itself. Previews are sometimes used to judge audience reaction, which if unexpectedly negative, may result in recutting or even refilming certain sections (Audience response).

Trailer[link]

Trailers or previews are film advertisements for films that will be exhibited in the future at a cinema, on whose screen they are shown. The term "trailer" comes from their having originally been shown at the end of a film programme. That practice did not last long, because patrons tended to leave the theater after the films ended, but the name has stuck. Trailers are now shown before the film (or the A movie in a double feature program) begins.

Film, or other art form?[link]

Film may be combined with performance art and still be considered or referred to as a "film", for instance, when there is a live musical accompaniment to a silent film. Another example is audience participation films, as at a midnight movies screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, where the audience dresses up in costume from the film and loudly does a karaoke-like reenactment along with the film. Performance art where film is incorporated as a component is usually not called film, but a film, which could stand-alone but is accompanied by a performance may still be referred to as a film.

The act of making a film can, in and of itself, be considered a work of art, on a different level from the film itself, as in the films of Werner Herzog.

Similarly, the playing of a film can be considered to fall within the realm of political protest art, as in the subtleties within the films of Tarkovsky. A "road movie" can refer to a film put together from footage from a long road trip or vacation.

Education and propaganda[link]

Film is used for education and propaganda. When the purpose is primarily educational, a film is called an "educational film". Examples are recordings of lectures and experiments, or more marginally, a film based on a classic novel.

Film may be propaganda, in whole or in part, such as the films made by Leni Riefenstahl in Nazi Germany, US war film trailers during World War II, or artistic films made under Stalin by Eisenstein. They may also be works of political protest, as in the films of Wajda, or more subtly, the films of Andrei Tarkovsky.

The same film may be considered educational by some, and propaganda by others, such as some of the films of Michael Moore.

Production[link]

At its core, the means to produce a film depend on the content the filmmaker wishes to show, and the apparatus for displaying it: the zoetrope merely requires a series of images on a strip of paper. Film production can therefore take as little as one person with a camera (or without it, such as Stan Brakhage's 1963 film Mothlight), or thousands of actors, extras and crewmembers for a live-action, feature-length epic.

The necessary steps for almost any film can be boiled down to conception, planning, execution, revision, and distribution. The more involved the production, the more significant each of the steps becomes. In a typical production cycle of a Hollywood-style film, these main stages are defined as:

1. Development
2. Pre-production
3. Production
4. Post-production
5. Distribution

This production cycle usually takes three years. The first year is taken up with development. The second year comprises preproduction and production. The third year, post-production and distribution.

The bigger the production, the more resources it takes, and the more important financing becomes; most feature films are not only artistic works, but for-profit business entities.

Crew[link]

A film crew is a group of people hired by a film company, employed during the "production" or "photography" phase, for the purpose of producing a film or motion picture. Crew are distinguished from cast, the actors who appear in front of the camera or provide voices for characters in the film. The crew interacts with but is also distinct from the production staff, consisting of producers, managers, company representatives, their assistants, and those whose primary responsibility falls in pre-production or post-production phases, such as writers and editors. Communication between production and crew generally passes through the director and his/her staff of assistants. Medium-to-large crews are generally divided into departments with well defined hierarchies and standards for interaction and cooperation between the departments. Other than acting, the crew handles everything in the photography phase: props and costumes, shooting, sound, electrics (i.e., lights), sets, and production special effects. Caterers (known in the film industry as "craft services") are usually not considered part of the crew.

Technology[link]

Film stock consists of transparent celluloid, acetate, or polyester base coated with an emulsion containing light-sensitive chemicals. Cellulose nitrate was the first type of film base used to record motion pictures, but due to its flammability was eventually replaced by safer materials. Stock widths and the film format for images on the reel have had a rich history, though most large commercial films are still shot on (and distributed to theaters) as 35 mm prints.

Originally moving picture film was shot and projected at various speeds using hand-cranked cameras and projectors; though 1000 frames per minute (16⅔ frame/s) is generally cited as a standard silent speed, research indicates most films were shot between 16 frame/s and 23 frame/s and projected from 18 frame/s on up (often reels included instructions on how fast each scene should be shown).^[5] When sound film was introduced in the late 1920s, a constant speed was required for the sound head. 24 frames per second was chosen because it was the slowest (and thus cheapest) speed which allowed for sufficient sound quality. Improvements since the late 19th century include the mechanization of cameras – allowing them to record at a consistent speed, quiet camera design – allowing sound recorded on-set to be usable without requiring large "blimps" to encase the camera, the invention of more sophisticated filmstocks and lenses, allowing directors to film in increasingly dim conditions, and the development of synchronized sound, allowing sound to be recorded at exactly the same speed as its corresponding action. The soundtrack can be recorded separately from shooting the film, but for live-action pictures many parts of the soundtrack are usually recorded simultaneously.

As a medium, film is not limited to motion pictures, since the technology developed as the basis for photography. It can be used to present a progressive sequence of still images in the form of a slideshow. Film has also been incorporated into multimedia presentations, and often has importance as primary historical documentation. However, historic films have problems in terms of preservation and storage, and the motion picture industry is exploring many alternatives. Most movies on cellulose nitrate base have been copied onto modern safety films. Some studios save color films through the use of separation masters: three B&W negatives each exposed through red, green, or blue filters (essentially a reverse of the Technicolor process). Digital methods have also been used to restore films, although their continued obsolescence cycle makes them (as of 2006) a poor choice for long-term preservation. Film preservation of decaying film stock is a matter of concern to both film historians and archivists, and to companies interested in preserving their existing products in order to make them available to future generations (and thereby increase revenue). Preservation is generally a higher concern for nitrate and single-strip color films, due to their high decay rates; black-and-white films on safety bases and color films preserved on Technicolor imbibition prints tend to keep up much better, assuming proper handling and storage.

Some films in recent decades have been recorded using analog video technology similar to that used in television production. Modern digital video cameras and digital projectors are gaining ground as well. These approaches are preferred by some moviemakers, especially because footage shot with digital cinema can be evaluated and edited with non-linear editing systems (NLE) without waiting for the film stock to be processed. Yet the migration is gradual, and as of 2005 most major motion pictures are still shot on film.

Independent[link]

Independent filmmaking often takes place outside of Hollywood, or other major studio systems. An independent film (or indie film) is a film initially produced without financing or distribution from a major movie studio. Creative, business, and technological reasons have all contributed to the growth of the indie film scene in the late 20th and early 21st century.

The Lumière Brothers

On the business side, the costs of big-budget studio films also leads to conservative choices in cast and crew. There is a trend in Hollywood towards co-financing (over two-thirds of the films put out by Warner Bros. in 2000 were joint ventures, up from 10% in 1987).^[6] A hopeful director is almost never given the opportunity to get a job on a big-budget studio film unless he or she has significant industry experience in film or television. Also, the studios rarely produce films with unknown actors, particularly in lead roles.

Before the advent of digital alternatives, the cost of professional film equipment and stock was also a hurdle to being able to produce, direct, or star in a traditional studio film.

But the advent of consumer camcorders in 1985, and more importantly, the arrival of high-resolution digital video in the early 1990s, have lowered the technology barrier to movie production significantly. Both production and post-production costs have been significantly lowered; today, the hardware and software for post-production can be installed in a commodity-based personal computer. Technologies such as DVDs, FireWire connections and non-linear editing system pro-level software like Adobe Premiere Pro, Sony Vegas and Apple's Final Cut Pro, and consumer level software such as Apple's Final Cut Express and iMovie, and Microsoft's Windows Movie Maker make movie-making relatively inexpensive.

Since the introduction of DV technology, the means of production have become more democratized. Filmmakers can conceivably shoot and edit a movie, create and edit the sound and music, and mix the final cut on a home computer. However, while the means of production may be democratized, financing, distribution, and marketing remain difficult to accomplish outside the traditional system. Most independent filmmakers rely on film festivals to get their films noticed and sold for distribution. The arrival of internet-based video outlets such as YouTube and Veoh has further changed the film making landscape in ways that are still to be determined.

Open content film[link]

An open content film is much like an independent film, but it is produced through open collaborations; its source material is available under a license which is permissive enough to allow other parties to create fan fiction or derivative works, than a traditional copyright. Like independent filmmaking, open source filmmaking takes place outside of Hollywood, or other major studio systems.

Fan film[link]

A fan film is a film or video inspired by a film, television program, comic book or a similar source, created by fans rather than by the source's copyright holders or creators. Fan filmmakers have traditionally been amateurs, but some of the more notable films have actually been produced by professional filmmakers as film school class projects or as demonstration reels. Fan films vary tremendously in length, from short faux-teaser trailers for non-existent motion pictures to rarer full-length motion pictures.

Distribution[link]

When it is initially produced, a feature film is often shown to audiences in a movie theater or cinema. The identity of the first theater designed specifically for cinema is a matter of debate; candidates include Tally's Electric Theatre, established 1902 in Los Angeles,^[7] and Pittsburgh's Nickelodeon, established 1905.^[8] Thousands of such theaters were built or converted from existing facilities within a few years.^[9] In the United States, these theaters came to be known as nickelodeons, because admission typically cost a nickel (five cents).

Typically, one film is the featured presentation (or feature film). Before the 1970s, there were "double features"; typically, a high quality "A picture" rented by an independent theater for a lump sum, and a "B picture" of lower quality rented for a percentage of the gross receipts. Today, the bulk of the material shown before the feature film consists of previews for upcoming movies and paid advertisements (also known as trailers or "The Twenty").

Historically, all mass marketed feature films were made to be shown in movie theaters. The development of television has allowed films to be broadcast to larger audiences, usually after the film is no longer being shown in theaters.^{[citation needed]} In 1967, videocassettes of movies became available to consumers to watch in their own homes.^[10] Recording technology has since enabled consumers to rent or buy copies of films on VHS or DVD (and the older formats of laserdisc, VCD and SelectaVision – see also videodisc), and Internet downloads may be available and have started to become revenue sources for the film companies. Some films are now made specifically for these other venues, being released as a television movie or direct-to-video movies. The production values on these films are often considered to be of inferior quality compared to theatrical releases in similar genres, and indeed, some films that are rejected by their own movie studios upon completion are distributed through these markets.

The movie theater pays an average of about 50-55% of its ticket sales to the movie studio, as film rental fees.^[11] The actual percentage starts with a number higher than that, and decreases as the duration of a film's showing continues, as an incentive to theaters to keep movies in the theater longer. However, today's barrage of highly marketed movies ensures that most movies are shown in first-run theaters for less than 8 weeks. There are a few movies every year that defy this rule, often limited-release movies that start in only a few theaters and actually grow their theater count through good word-of-mouth and reviews. According to a 2000 study by ABN AMRO, about 26% of Hollywood movie studios' worldwide income came from box office ticket sales; 46% came from VHS and DVD sales to consumers; and 28% came from television (broadcast, cable, and pay-per-view).^[11]

This section requires expansion with: optical disc distribution.

Animation[link]

Animation is the technique in which each frame of a film is produced individually, whether generated as a computer graphic, or by photographing a drawn image, or by repeatedly making small changes to a model unit (see claymation and stop motion), and then photographing the result with a special animation camera. When the frames are strung together and the resulting film is viewed at a speed of 16 or more frames per second, there is an illusion of continuous movement (due to the persistence of vision). Generating such a film is very labor intensive and tedious, though the development of computer animation has greatly sped up the process.

Because animation is very time-consuming and often very expensive to produce, the majority of animation for TV and movies comes from professional animation studios. However, the field of independent animation has existed at least since the 1950s, with animation being produced by independent studios (and sometimes by a single person). Several independent animation producers have gone on to enter the professional animation industry.

Limited animation is a way of increasing production and decreasing costs of animation by using "short cuts" in the animation process. This method was pioneered by UPA and popularized by Hanna-Barbera, and adapted by other studios as cartoons moved from movie theaters to television.^[12]

Although most animation studios are now using digital technologies in their productions, there is a specific style of animation that depends on film. Cameraless animation, made famous by moviemakers like Norman McLaren, Len Lye and Stan Brakhage, is painted and drawn directly onto pieces of film, and then run through a projector.

Future state[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

While motion picture films have been around for more than a century, film is still a relative newcomer in the pantheon^{[clarification needed]} of fine arts. In the 1950s, when television became widely available, industry analysts^[who?] predicted the demise of local movie theaters.^{[citation needed]} Despite competition from television's increasing technological sophistication over the 1960s and 1970s^{[citation needed]} such as the development of color television and large screens, motion picture cinemas continued. In fact with the rise of television's predominance, film began to become more respected as an artistic medium by contrast due the low general opinion of the quality of average television content.^{[citation needed]} In the 1980s, when the widespread availability of inexpensive videocassette recorders enabled people to select films for home viewing, industry analysts again wrongly predicted the death of the local cinemas.^{[citation needed]}

In the 1990s and 2000s, the development of DVD players, home theater amplification systems with surround sound and subwoofers, and large LCD or plasma screens enabled people to select and view films at home with greatly improved audio and visual reproduction.^{[citation needed]} These new technologies provided audio and visual that in the past only local cinemas had been able to provide: a large, clear widescreen presentation of a film with a full-range, high-quality multi-speaker sound system. Once again industry analysts predicted the demise of the local cinema. Local cinemas will be changing in the 21st century and moving towards digital screens, a new approach which will allow for easier and quicker distribution of films (via satellite or hard disks), a development which may give local theaters a reprieve from their predicted demise.^{[citation needed]} The cinema now faces a new challenge from home video by the likes of a new high definition (HD) format, Blu-ray, which can provide full HD 1080p video playback at near cinema quality.^{[citation needed]} Video formats are gradually catching up with the resolutions and quality that film offers; 1080p in Blu-ray offers a pixel resolution of 1920×1080, a leap from the DVD offering of 720×480 and the 330×480 offered by the first home video standard, VHS.^{[citation needed]} Ultra HD, a future digital video format, will offer a resolution of 7680×4320. However, the nature and structure of film prevents an apples-to-apples comparison with regard to resolution.^[13] The resolving power of film, and its ability to capture an image which can later be scanned to a digital format, will ensure that film remains a viable medium for some time to come.^{[citation needed]} Currently the super-16 format is seeing use as a capture medium, with digital scanning and post-production providing good results.^[14][15] Despite advances in digital capture, film still offers unsurpassed ability to capture fine detail beyond what is possible with digital image sensors. A 35 mm film frame, with proper exposure and processing, still offers an equivalent resolution in the range of 500 mega pixels.^[13]

Despite the rise of all-new technologies, the development of the home video market and a surge of online copyright infringement, 2007 was a record year in film that showed the highest ever box-office grosses. Many^[who?] expected film to suffer as a result of the effects listed above but it has flourished, strengthening film studio expectations for the future.^{[citation needed]}