A、The United States had a leading position on the world market by the start of World War I. B、The centre of film-making moved ea

The history of the cinema in its first thirty years is one of major and, to this day, unparalleled expansion and growth. Beginning as something unusual in a handful of big cities—New York, London, Paris and Berlin—the new medium quickly found its way across the world, attracting larger and larger audiences wherever it was shown and replacing other forms of entertainment as it did so. Meanwhile, films themselves developed from being short "attractions" only a couple of minutes long, to the full-length feature that has dominated the world’s screens up to the present day.
    Although French, German, American and British pioneers have all been credited with the invention of cinema, the British and the Germans played a relatively small role in its worldwide exploitation. It was above all the French, followed closely by the Americans, who were the most passionate exporters of the new invention, helping to start cinema in China, Japan, Latin America and Russia. In terms of artistic development, it was again the French and the Americans who took the lead, though in the years before the
    First World War, Italy, Denmark and Russia also played a part. In the end, it was the United States that was to become, and remain, the largest single market for films. By protecting their own market and pursuing a vigorous export policy, the Americans achieved a dominant position on the world market by the start of the First World War. The centre of filmmaking had moved westwards, to Hollywood, and it was films from these new Hollywood studios that flooded onto the world’s film markets in the years after the First World War, and have done so ever since. Faced with total Hollywood domination, few film industries proved competitive. The Italian industry almost collapsed. In Scandinavia, the Swedish cinema had a brief period of glory, notably with powerful epic films and comedies. Even the French cinema found itself in a difficult position. In Europe, only Germany proved industrially capable, while in Russia and in Japan the development of the cinema took place in conditions of commercial isolation.
    23. According to the talk, which country played a leading role in the invention and promotion of cinema?
    24. According to the talk, what can we learn about the film market back then?
    25. What is the speaker’s attitude towards the film industry?