It has been widely believed that subsidies can help revive film industries, but the link between the intent and the actual results deserves more careful scrutiny. This paper addresses this issue by comparing and analyzing Europe and the United States. Originally, Europe’s subsidies were developed to increase the number of film productions, but they soon became ineffective and were largely exploited by Hollywood as a way to circumvent European protectionist measures. By contrast, US subsidy policies have been initiated and implemented by local state governments in order to enjoy the economic and cultural benefits from the filmmaking business, instead of supporting the film industry per se. Again though, these local subsidies have been exploited by Hollywood studios leaving little benefit for the local states. All of these points show that subsidies can easily become a myth, thus careful consideration should be undertaken when developing more effective policies for the future.

人们普遍认为，补贴可以帮助电影业复兴，但是，意图与实际结果之间的联系值得更仔细的研究。本文通过比较和分析欧洲和美国来解决这个问题。最初，欧洲的补贴是为了增加电影制作的数量而制定的，但是它们很快就失效了，好莱坞大体上将其用作规避欧洲贸易保护主义措施的一种手段。相比之下，美国的补贴政策是由地方州政府发起和实施的，目的是享受电影制作业务带来的经济和文化利益，而不是支持电影业本身。。再次，这些本地补贴已被好莱坞制片厂所利用，对当地各州几乎没有好处。所有这些都表明，补贴很容易成为神话，因此在为未来制定更有效的政策时应谨慎考虑。