Term
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Definition
(SKAL // FRANKENSTEIN)
-shift in public mood in 1931 (depression) --> "end of all earthly possibilities"
-gangster films became popular with public
-monsters = gangsters of human psyche
-surrealism --> monsters = blurring lines between human and animal
-"dracula", "frankenstein", "dr jekyll & mr hyde", "freaks" |
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Term
| The Hollywood Studio System: 1930-1949 |
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Definition
(SCHATZ // FRANKESTEIN)
-goal of hollywood --> make money (oligopoly: controlled production, distribution, and exhibition)
-big 5: warner, mgm, paramount, 20th century fox, rko
-little 3: universal, columbia, united artists
-studios made hella money from exhibition (theaters)
-1920s era: presentation cinema (1/3 live performance 2/3 film)
-great depression goal --> attract audiences for money
-people broke during depression
-1938: FDR filed anti-trust suit against studios --> 1948: paramount antitrust act (broke oligopoly) |
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Term
| Bullets, Beers, and the Hays Office: Public Enemy |
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Definition
(JOWETT // PUBLIC ENEMY)
-people don't care about glamour anymore
-"little caesar", "scarface", "public enemy" --> classic gangster films
-1930s, studios bought up a bunch of theaters only to be screwed because no one can go to movies anymore
-depression effect on hollywood = catharthis
-archetypical american man became the fast-talking temperamental lower-class immigrant man
-people related with the gangster because he rejected americanism (the very thing that caused depression and failed the people)
-synch sound (gunfires, yelling, snappy dialogue)
-upper-class vying for domination and power over lower class (and lower class gangster protagonist is praised)
-1922: Hays pushes for production code
-no one goes to movies --> HW uses sex/violence --> PCA |
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Term
| The Gangster as Tragic Hero |
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Definition
(CAWELTI // PUBLIC ENEMY)
-tragedy is norm during depression
-people relate to gangster's experience (not crime)
-we live vicariously through the gangster and get satisfaction from seeing him fail
-gangster represents human psyche that rejects americanism/modern life (since it failed during depression)
-failure of rugged individualism (Hoover)
-gangster is obligated to succeed, success is punished |
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Term
| War, Prosperity, Divorce and Loss |
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Definition
(IZOD // BEST YEARS)
-war effort Hollywood rules
-HW just used same old stories but in military uniforms
-HW began to market to Latin America (since European market was closed off)
-through war effort: unemployment fell, workers got increased wages, women joined workforce
-people looking for more recreation --> double bills, 24/7 theaters
-film noir
-baby boom + mortgages + commute from suburb + TV --> declining attendance at movie theaters
-film audience changed to younger, well-educated (but studios thought opposite and made movies that made fun of that group)
-1938-1948: anti-trust act breaks up oligopoly
-studios become distributors, paired with independent producers |
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Term
| The Uncertain Peace: The Best Years of Our Lives |
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Definition
(JACKSON // BEST YEARS)
-postwar america = limitless power + nagging inability to find comfort/joy in unfamiliar future
-"glory for me" picked up by wyler who wanted to make a social conscious film (after coming from war)
-location shooting, gregg toland, "realistic"/minimal hair and makeup
-glorifies "good" women and punishes "bad" women |
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Term
| The Lady in the Tutti Frutti Hat: Carmen Miranda, a Spectacle of Ethnicity |
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Definition
(ROBERTS // WEEKEND IN HAVANA)
-miranda = acceptable/nonthreatening Other
-miranda = personification of good neighbor policy (illusion of racial harmony)
-miranda = conflation of latin america (robs her of own ethnicity and power)
-miranda = sexy visual (del Rio) + comic (velez)
-ethnic performative drag
-speculation of miranda's subversive agency in creating her own image |
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Term
| Are All Latins from Manhattan? Hollywood, Ethnography, and Cultural Colonialism |
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Definition
(LOPEZ // WEEKEND IN HAVANA)
-way in which minorities are represented are reflective that given time
-HW doesn't represent minorities but creates their own image of them based on what they think should be their image
-latinas = racial & sexual threats (to be contained)
-HW needs latin american market (money + allies)
-del Rio / Velez
-white people are narrative subjects, miranda is the spectacled object |
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Term
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Definition
(SCHATZ // RED RIVER)
-normalcy is impossible to return to after ww2
-studios become distributors of independently-produced films
-rise of independent producer
-no more block booking / blind buying
-TV --> HW was complacent, competitive, and colluded with TV (renting and telefilms)
-new generation of cine-knowledgeable directors
-fall of PCA --> films granted 1st amendment rights |
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Term
| Wild in the Streets: Juvenile Delinquency |
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Definition
(BISKIND // REBEL)
-delinquents = shame of America (backlash against conservatism?)
-teens are a huge market for HW so no making fun of teens
-30s/40s criminals --> victims of poor society
-50s teen criminals --> victims of shitty home life
-pluralist JD films: good vs bad JDs
-conservative JD films: all JDs are bad and must die
-left-wing JD films: kids vs. adults and kids win (generation gap) |
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Term
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Definition
(DOHERTY // REBEL)
-"rebel without a cause" = quintessential rep of 1950s JDs
-james dean = new kind of masculinity
-teenpic double bills (drag racing + rocknroll)
-drive-in theaters to contain teen delinquency
-softie JD films: victims of shitty home lives + cure
-hard-nosed JD films: teen psychopaths that deserve punishment, not understanding |
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Term
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Definition
(GOMERY // GOLD DIGGERS)
-picture palaces with huge shows of orchestra, vaudeville, shorts, etc (film was only 1 part of the show)
-synch sound replaced shorts at first
-soon major studios took up sound (and indie theaters did more live shows) |
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Term
| Some Warner's Musicals in the Spirit of the New Deal |
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Definition
(ROTH // GOLD DIGGERS)
-Hoover --> depression denial, rugged individualism (and failure of --> gangster)
-Roosevelt --> new deal, american dream, working together (--> musicals)
- |
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Term
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Definition
(SCHRADER // OUT OF THE PAST)
-1946: french critics notice dark, cynical, corrupt, hopeless, fatalistic themes in postwar US films
-4 film noir influences: war/postwar disillusionment, postwar realism, german expatriates, hard-boiled writers
-style
-war-time period (41-46): lone wolf
-post-war realism (45-49): crime in streets
-final phase (49-53): psychotic chaos
-1950s --> end of film noir (suburbia, white flight, TV, consumerism, communism) |
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Term
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Definition
(BOGLE // ODDS AGAINST TMRW)
-1950s --> change from glamour to auteuristic/social conscious
-ethel waters: 40s mammy, suffering black character personification
-dorothy dandridge: tragic mulatto, good girl gone bad
-sidney poitier: integranionist hero, white-black person
-harry belafonte |
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Term
| Movies and the Racial Divide |
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Definition
(KNIGHT // ODDS AGAINST TMRW)
-3 reasons harbel wasn't huge: rise of belafonte & poitier, belafonte's characters go against white racists, 11 yr hiatus
-slow integration
-williamsburg vs chicago
-white flight
-civil rights movement |
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Term
| Glorious Technicolor, Breathtaking, Cinemascope, and Stereophonic Sound |
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Definition
(BELTON // INVASION OF BODY SNATCHERS)
-new tech --> throwback to cinema as event
-widescreen actively engages audiences (was passive before)
-cinerama, ersatz, vistavision, todd-ao, cinemascope
-cinemascope becomes new norm (and loses the novelty) |
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Term
| Age of Conspiracy / Conformity: Invasion of the Body Snatchers |
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Definition
(SAMUEL // INVASION OF BODY SNATCHERS)
-films either 1) reflect/embody ideology, or 2) produce their own ideology
-IBS is "a statement about the collective paranoia and issue of conformity widely discussed in the period" (McCarthyism / Red Scare)
-replicas of humans --> communists in disguise
-threats of universal annihilation --> conformity, paranoia, alienation
-pods --> nonhuman (giving up individuality)
-feeling of constraint |
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Term
| Hollywood at War for American and at War with Itself |
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Definition
(SKLAR // WATERFRONT)
-no matter what HW does, --> un-Americanness
-purge of "radically oriented" HW people
-HW was particularly weak at this time (antitrust, senate, TV, Hays retirement) --> easily succumbed to HUAC pressure
-film noir
-movies not protected by 1st amendment
-friendly + unfriendly --> Hollywood Ten and Blacklist (guilty until proven innocent)
-HUAC attacked the "risque, violent, comic, and fantastic" version of America that Hollywood portrayed --> conservatism |
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Term
| The Politics of Power in On the Waterfront |
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Definition
(BISKIND // WATERFRONT)
-prolificness of Elia Kazan in the 1950s
-auteurist Kazan
-Kazan testified as friendly witness at HUAC trials --> anti-communist --> Kazan screwed others over
-individualism = bad, conformity = good
-"On the Waterfront" = child of HUAC from Kazan
-ethics of testifying (testifying is honorable for the just man)
-nuclear family solution |
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Term
| The Social Problem Film in the 1950s |
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Definition
(BYARS // NOT WANTED)
-aesthetics linked to ideology
-"woman's film" --> woman's structure (based on courtship / revolving around men)
-social conscious film addressing taboo topics by indie producers
-but lupino's narrative/form rein scribe back to heteronormative ideology |
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Term
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Definition
(WALDMAN // NOT WANTED)
-unwanted pregnancy vs unwed motherhood
-female sexuality as a social problem
-originally titled "Bad Company" --> not approved by PCA
-sin must be depicted as WRONG
-protagonist is granted female sexuality via stylization |
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Term
| Strange Brew: Hollywood & The Fabrication of Homosexuality in Tea and Sympathy |
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Definition
(CUSTEN // TEA & SYMPATHY)
-homosexuals = america's most hated Other
-PCA --> heteronormativity
-LGBTQ audience can "read" straight characters as queer
-producer and censor direct the types of messaging that come from films
-3 requirements for "Tea & Sympathy" by playwright:
1) Tom bullied for homosexuality
2) Mrs. Reynold's offering Tom sex to make him straight
3) Tom going to town whore
-homosexuality = effeminacy --> substituted for adultery
-gender norms |
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Term
| Here we go! Down and Dirty! |
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Definition
(MILLER // TEA & SYMPATHY)
-society loosening (conformity on outside, darkness on inside)
-1948: paramount antitrust act
-1952: film industry granted 1st amendment rights ("The Miracle")
-TV --> less movie audience --> Hollywood uses more risque themes/adult material
-Breen/PCA: films are FAMILY entertainment (question of taste, not morality)
-concerned more about sex than violence
-Shurlock succeeds Breen --> no more black and white morality question of films
-censorship is no longer about certain explicit scenes; entire narratives are changing |
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Term
| Psycho: The Making of Hitchcock's Masterpiece |
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Definition
(REBELLO // PSYCHO)
-Hitchcock depressed, despite success of "North by Northwest"
-ennui from "Vertigo"
-sick of "average man in bizarre situations" theme
-inspired by Bloch's "Psycho"
-Paramount wanted another "North by Northwest" --> Hitchcock wanted "Psycho" --> low-budget (self-funded), TV crew
-joseph stefano screenwriter --> Anthony Perkins as Bates and a big name actress killed off in first 1/3
-TV crew
-nudity/blood
-new rule for films: "no one will be admitted to the theater after the start of each performance" |
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Term
| The Grapes of Wrath: Thematic Emphasis Through Visual Style |
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Definition
(SOBCHAK // GRAPES OF WRATH)
-film was widely appraised for thematic depiction of depression era america --> people don't consider the style in this claim
-novel and film are opposites
-novel: presence, harsh reality, radical politics, need for social/political change, focus on larger picture/families/land
-film: nostalgic past, nostalgic reality, apolitical/atemporal, harmony/community, isolated yet universal family
-visual is contrastive --> space is constricted to family w/o big picturesque landscapes of dust bowl |
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Term
| The Golden Age of Turbulence and of Order |
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Definition
(SKLAR // GRAPES OF WRATH)
-Hollywood "called into question sexual propriety, social decorum, and institutions of law and order"
-new deal
-1st golden age of 1930s hollywood (1930 - 1934): luring audiences with all shit (no conservatism), sound = noise = thrills, sex! violence! horror!, gangsters
-2nd golden age of 1930s hollywood (1935 - 1941): screwball comedy --> romcom with sexual innuendo, return to tradition |
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Term
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Definition
Leroy, 1933
-sound --> exploitation of sound / humor from dialogue / class differences
-visual pleasure --> female bodies
-regular harsh reality --> male bodies
-musical as escapism
-explicitly talks about depression effects |
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Term
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Definition
Whale, 1931
-time/setting is stylized/purposefully ambiguous --> adapted to any time --> scary
-dr frankenstein's negligence of taking responsibility for the monster --> HE is very monstrous
-german expressionist style --> inhospitable/alienating to humans (enormous architecture, crooked sets, distorted angles, shadows, lighting)
-frankenstein/fritz/monster --> on outskirts of town/edge, stylized, producing life together outside heterosexual norm
-frankenstein/elizabeth/family --> conventional/classically shot, heteronormativity
-sympathy moves from frankenstein/fritz to monster |
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Term
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Definition
Wellman, 1931
-chronology of Tommy Powers' criminality --> pushes blame to poor society
-sexuality is violent + violence is eroticized
-violence via off-screen sound --> sound is harder to censor (MPPDA came out with code around this time) |
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Term
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Definition
Capra, 1934
-screwball comedy = post-code film
-self-censoring (characters AND editing)
-but full of sexual innuendo via snappy dialogue
-class difference --> women = higher class, men = lower class
-upper class dependent on lower class (who are praised)
-realistic depression |
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Term
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Definition
Ford, 1940
-gregg toland as cinematography (also did "citizen kane" and "best years of our lives")
-stylized, very dark, close-ups of individual faces, natural/realistic/minimal hair/makeup/costume, location shooting, etc
-no showing of actual dust-bowlness
-individualized |
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Term
| The Best Years of Our Lives |
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Definition
Wyler, 1946
-hollywood war effort
-gregg toland as cinematographer
-long takes, deep focus, clear/light --> puts all characters together (unity)
-veterans alienated from the world
-reality will never be the same --> accept it
-redomestication of women in post-war period (having to mother/take care of their husbands) |
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Term
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Definition
Curtiz, 1945
-flashback structure --> unreliable narrator --> undermines her subjectivity
-noir present / confessional frames the narrative
-emphasizes traditional gender roles (because mildred is punished)
-racial politics (toddy)
-anticipation of re-domestication |
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Term
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Definition
Lang, 1941
-latin america framed as weekend getaway for white americans
-racial performativity (ethnic performative drag) --> racial masquerade
-Othering of language (miranda's gibberish)
-spanish = eroticized love language (latin america as location of sexual awakening)
-musical form as containment for Other (nonthreatening)
-POC as spectacle objects for white romance/narrativity/subjectivity |
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Term
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Definition
Tourneur, 1947
-nonlinear structure/voiceover --> visual demarcation of past and present (like mildred pierce)
-no implication of gangster-ism --> EVERYONE is criminal |
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Term
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Definition
Hawks, 1948
-john wayne vs. montgomery clift (2 kinds of masculinity)
-independent production (big budget, big name) |
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Term
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Definition
Lupino, 1949
-unwed motherhood vs unwanted pregnancy (female sexuality becomes a problem for society)
-stylization of childbirth scene --> female subjectivity
-low-budget, b/w, social conscious film --> long takes/close-medium shots
-other end of indie spectrum from "Red River" (Hawks) |
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Term
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Definition
Kazan, 1954
-child of HUAC (people involved testified at trials)
-ethics of testifying (and how it's good for justice)
-method acting |
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Term
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Definition
Wise, 1956
-black stars shifted to big-budget hollywood films in 1950s
-film doesn't deal with structural racism --> individual racism (relegating that to a generation gap thing)
-white racism + emasculation --> predatory hypersexual/hyperracism (earl)
-film noir/stylization
-mutual destruction (led by earl's racism / refusal to give johnny the key)
-dave's sacrifice = representative of integration (doom) |
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Term
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Definition
Ray, 1955
-parental problems
-jim --> rich, no emotional support, switched gender roles
-judy --> strict, father can't deal with her sexuality
-plato --> divorced / nonexistant parents
-dystopic mentality from teenage angst
-no place for plato's love for jim --> plato killed off to restore heterosexual ending for jim/judy
-delinquency:
-jim --> morally good
-judy --> criminalized sexuality
-plato --> "bad"/crazy teen
-widescreen works to either separate adults and teens or put teens together
-tilts/scanted camera angles in home --> domestic home is claustrophobic/disorienting
-red |
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Term
| Invasion of the Body Snatchers |
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Definition
Siegal, 1956
-flashback structure --> original ending is bennell yelling at camera "you're next!"
-new ending --> conservative reassurance of authority
-50s alien invasion films --> fear of communism (silent infiltration)/cold war
-critique either of complacency or conformity
-mass hysteria/paranoia/skepticism (can't trust ANYONE)
-fear of technology annihilating humans
-visual style underscores confusion/skepticism (low angle, unfocused, distorted framing and lighting)
-claustrophobic spaces within widescreen format
-descent into darkness over film |
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Term
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Definition
Kazan, 1957
-tv vs film
-film demographic --> younger, better-educated
-tv demographic --> older, less-educated
-tv is the enemy
-film is above the consumerist culture of tv
-anonymity of the mass tv audience |
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Term
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Definition
Minnelli, 1956
-frame narrative --> heteronormativity of frame colors the main narrative (paints tom's "homosexuality" as a memory/imagination)
-mrs reynolds' is made to be the deviant and is banished (sexually active)
-film equates/substitutes effeminacy with homosexuality
-homosexuality is erased and turned into adultery (which is passable by the PCA but not homosexuality)
-no heterosexual relationship is successful however
-homosocial/eroticized male environment
-transgressive relationship between mrs reynolds and tom --> fake home
-performative masculinity
-3 requirements:
1) bullying because of homosexuality
2) mrs reynolds offering tom sex to make him straight
3) tom going to town whore |
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Term
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Definition
Hitchcock, 1960
-death of production code --> nudity, sexuality (voyeuristic and in bed), violence, blood, toilet, "transvestitism", freudian (voyeurism, oedipal)
-low-budgetness --> black/white, TV crew, etc
-film vs. TV --> tv crew, tv sensibility |
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Term
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Definition
1930: production code
1934: catholic legion of decency / breen & pica
1944: motion picture alliance for the preservation of ideals
1948: paramount antitrust act
1952: films granted 1st amendment rights
1953: "The moon is blue" without code approval |
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Term
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Definition
1938: HUAC formed by congress
1947: friendly/unfriendly witnesses --> HW10/blacklist
1951: 2nd HUAC hearings --> 324 blacklsited |
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Term
| Empire to the West: Red River |
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Definition
(SKLAR // RED RIVER)
-"red river" = quintessential american western film
-upholds same ol' ideology of american values without any explicit social messaging (like most independent films did at the time)
-filmmakers coming back from war wanted to make social conscious independent films
-"red river" is the big-budget, big name, independent film opposite end of spectrum of "not wanted"
-contracts (between dunson/matthew and them with women)
-john wayne/dunson: cold, hard masculinity with little emotion (only around women)
-montgomery clift/matthew: androgynous masculinity (tough and soft)
-matthew's manliness = having a woman = fighting dungeon
-matthew WAS the feminine partner to dunson until he had to "man up" and lead others --> matthew broke from their homosocial friendship and became a man for a heterosexual relationship
-contract of land is broken since native people are depicted as savage/nonhuman, so it's not a real contract, so dunson can take the land
-"red river" is about capitalism, old american values, imperialism |
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Term
| Some Visual Motifs in Film Noir |
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Definition
(PLACE & PETERSON // OUT OF THE PAST)
-noir = visual style, not a genre
-noir moods: claustrophobia, paranoia, despair, nihilism...
-high contrast low-key lighting and weird lighting placement (not 3/4 style)
-night-for-night shooting --> realism
-close-ups to intensify looks of terror
-unstable mies-en-scene meant to unsettle, jar, and disorient the viewer
-fatalistic camera angles, oppressively looking down from high angles at its victims |
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Term
| The Woman's Film: Possession and Address |
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Definition
(DOANA // MILDRED PIERCE)
-"filling up" past history with different stories (woman's stories)
-HW narratives function to defend male psyche from woman (male gaze for the male spectator, objectifying the woman)
-woman's film --> female spectator / female subjectivity & agency
-gendered spaces (woman = home)
-woman's film --> paranoia; institution of marriage is haunted by murder (sexuality + murder) (home = space of dread/horror)
-female image = threat of male castration ???
-female subjectivity granted through POV shots/voiceovers (but also unstable and shadowed as unreliable)
-medical male gaze objectifies women's stories |
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Term
| Feminist Film Theory: Mildred Pierce and the Second World War |
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Definition
(WILLIAMS // MILDRED PIERCE)
-present is in film noir --> male discourse of dark underworld
-flashback/past in classical style --> female discourse of mildred's story
-script written by woman; film noir frame added later by men
-female authorship is undercut 2 fold: scriptwriter + mildred's narration is unreliable b/c of film noir image
-marketing preps audience into criminalizing mildred from the beginning ("don't ever tell anyone what she did")
-film noir casts suspicion on everything mildred says
-resolution: everything goes back to its "normal" place (heterosexual domesticity, race)
-no reference to any specific time frame (ex-hub's unemployment could be during depression or wartime)
-office of war dictates stories of unity/community for war effort --> "mildred pierce" must be decontextualized from the war in order to make itself an individualized story (about mildred) |
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Term
| Screwball Comedy within American Humor |
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Definition
(GEHRING // IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT)
-5 characteristics of comic anti hero: abundant leisure time (wealthy characters, can't mention jobs (too serious)), childlike nature (separation from responsibility of marriage), urban life (romance can only happen in country), apolitical outlook, basic frustration
-childhusband + motherwife
-domination of the woman (reversal of sex roles) |
|
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Term
| Frank Capra and the Screwball Comedy, 1931-1941 |
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Definition
(BERGMAN // IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT)
-early 30s: gangster films (explosive)
-mid-late 30s: screwball comedies (implosive)
-melting of class barriers (ellen depending on warne; upper depending on working)
-"it happened one night" takes place in social/economic vacuum --> FANTASY (aka not real duh)
-upper class mentality is still upheld despite those people becoming poor too
-individualistic heroes --> goes against new deal idea of unity (reinforced by the fantasy theme of social unity) |
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