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Despite the crisis of the US economy in the 1930s, the American cinematography of this period experienced the highest rise and prosperity - its "golden age". The viewer wanted to watch movies more than ever. This unexpected, at first glance, situation was explained quite simply. Along with exquisite elitist paintings by J. Ford (1895-1974) "The Grapes of Wrath", "Young Mr. Lincoln", W. Wyler (1902-1981) "The Dead Corner", "The Foxes", O. Wells (1915-1985) " Citizen Kane", which admired for its innovation in the field of drama, in the system of expressive means, stunned with its psychological depth and social significance, commercial genres are becoming widespread: gangster films, horror films, melodramas, musicals, westerns, etc. So, American cinema of the 1930s performed a certain compensatory function, distracting the viewer from life's problems.

At the same time as the Lumiere brothers, J. Méliès began his search in cinema, with whose name the emergence of the feature film phenomenon is associated ("Red Riding Hood", "Blue Beard", "Journey to the Moon", etc.). It is in the bowels of game cinema that a system of genres will begin to form, among which melodrama, comic drama, and adventure film were particularly popular. They existed on the screen both independently and complemented each other.

A premonition of an inevitable tragedy permeates the work of the masters of French cinematography, in particular the films of "poetic realism" by J. Préver and M. Carnet - "The Embankment of Mists", "The Day Begins"; paintings by J. Renoir - "The Great Illusion", "Rules of the Game", "Man-Beast". Therefore, it is no coincidence that the number one actor of the French cinema of this period is Jean Gabin, whose hero defies history and is doomed to death. This gave the well-known theoretician and film historian A. Bazen reason to call Gaben a tragic modern hero.