Dimensions of Conventionality and Innovation in Film: The Cultural Classification of Blockbusters, Award Winners, and Critics’ Favourites

Today’s complex film world seems to upset the dual structure corresponding with Bourdieu’s categorization of ‘restricted’ and ‘large-scale’ fields of cultural production. This article examines how movies in French, Dutch, American and British film fields are classified in terms of material practices...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cultural sociology 2014-03, Vol.8 (1), p.3-24
Main Authors: Kersten, Annemarie, Verboord, Marc
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
21st century
Awards
Bourdieu, Pierre
Cinema
Classification
Film industry
France
Innovation
Innovations
Material culture
Netherlands
Social Reproduction
United Kingdom
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Summary:Today’s complex film world seems to upset the dual structure corresponding with Bourdieu’s categorization of ‘restricted’ and ‘large-scale’ fields of cultural production. This article examines how movies in French, Dutch, American and British film fields are classified in terms of material practices and symbolic affordances. It explores how popular, professional, and critical recognition are related to film production as well as interpretation. Analysis of the most successful film titles of 2007 offers insight into the film field’s differentiation. Distinction between mainstream and artistic film shows a gradual rather than a dichotomous positioning that spans between conventionality and innovation. Apparently, the intertwining of small-scale and large-scale film fields cannot be perceived as a straightforward loss of distinction or an overall shift of production logics, but rather as ‘production on the boundaries’ in which filmmakers combine production logics to cater to publics with various levels of aesthetic fluency and omnivorous taste patterns.
ISSN:1749-9755
1749-9763
DOI:10.1177/1749975513480959