Classical American Film Texts

Hollywood Films between 1917 and 1960

Table of Contents

1. Film as Illusion2. Classical American Film as Realist Film3. The Paradox of Classical American Film

Film as Illusion ‘The old experience of the movie-goer, who sees

the world outside as an extension of the film he has just left (because the latter is intent upon reproducing the world of everyday perceptions), is now the producer’s guideline. The more intensely and flawlessly his techniques duplicate empirical objects, the easier it is today for the illusion to prevail that the outside world is the straightforward continuation of that presented on the screen. This purpose has been furthered by mechanical reproduction since the lighting was taken over by the sound film.’ Theodor V. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, p. 126

Film as IllusionFILM IS ILLUSION OF WHAT?• Illusion that what you are watching is a ‘real’

world. ‘… spectators experience the diagetic world as environment.’ Noël Burch(diegetic = in a story)

• Film as combination of ‘imaginary signifiers’ Christian Metz(imaginary = the state in which you cannot distinguish between the real and the invented > Lacanian psychoanalysis (signifier = sign)

Film as Illusion

Film as Illusion

• Woody Allen’s Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)• Extreme exposition that film could work as

illusion

Film as IllusionCLASSICAL AMERICAN FILM AS ILLUSIONIST FILM

• American cinema developed its techniques and styles in order to dupe the spectator to take a narrative and images for reality;

• Or to increase its reality and truth effects.• The spectator is willing to accept illusion or

demand it in film.

American Classics as Realist Films• (Classical) Hollywood products between

1917and 1960 are considered as a type of realist films.

• Why 1917 and 1960?

• By 1917 most American fiction adopted fundamentally similar narrative strategies;

PROSIBILITY

American Classics as Realist Film

The studio mode of production had been organized around the division of labour, hierarchical managerial system, factory-like system of filmmaking

CONTINUATION of the established uniformity in narrative and visual styles

Classical American Film as Realist Film

• The 1960s - the end of Hollywood’s traditions

• Studios moved to the production of television programmes → The breakdown of studio system (stars turning free agents; producers becoming independent; the death of B-movies and decrease in demand for studio directors and staff)

American Classics as Realist Films

• Challenge from international art cinema, e.g. Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, Italian neorealists and French directors of Nouvelle Vague

DIVERSIFICATION in contents and styles

American Classics as Realist Films

TECHNIQUES, STYLES AND STRATEGIES EMPLOYED TO CREATE AN ILLUSION OF REALITY IN AMERICAN CINEMAA) A story is the first key element.B) Uniformity is a basic attribute of the visual style.

Classical American Film as Realist Film

C) The American cinema in this period purports to be realistic in an Aristotelian sense - true to the probable.

D) It strives to conceal its artifice through visual uniformity and ‘invisible’ storytelling.

E) It should be comprehensible and unambiguous.

American Classics as Realist Films

F) It should possess a fundamental emotional appeal which transcends class and nature.

PROBABLE, CREDIBLE, NATURAL AND REAL

American Classics as Realist Films• Best Years of Our

Lives (1946) directed by William Wyler

• About three ex-servicemen who try to cope with their lives after returning from the WWII.

American Classics as Realist Film• Story is the primary element of the film• Uniform film style• Probable story• Stylistic understatement• Unambiguous,

Comprehensible• Emotional appeal to

everyone

American Classics as Realist Film

• ‘Long take’ and ‘deep space photography’ generally associated with realist film.

• Long take = an uninterrupted shot which last much longer than a conventional one - a minute to several minutes. e.g. Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas (1990)

American Classics as Realist Film

• But, Goodfellas is an audacious experiment as to how fast the film is cut and jump cut, while the audience can still comprehend what is going on.

• Jump cut = an editing technique in which two sequential shots of the same subject from different camera positions.

American Classics as Realist Film

• Deep focus = a photographic and cinematographic technique using a long depth of field, the front-to-back area of a image. Much of the field is in sharp and clear focus. Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941) and Stephen Spielberg, The Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

American Classics as Realist Films

• Bonnie and Clyde (1967) directed by Arthur Penn• One of the earliest New American Cinema• Departure from the norms of Classical American

Film

• Story-telling is still the most important ingredient• But, constant change of tone and style - from

comic to serious, and from serious to comic• Certain improbable elements• Stylistic bravura and extravaganza• Moral ambiguity: glorification of crimes and

criminals• Emotional appeal is not universal• Strong criticism from older

generations

Paradox of Classical American Film

• Art vs. Nature / Artificial vs. NaturalPARADOX

• Art is needed to make a film look artless (natural), or artificiality is necessary to make a film seem natural.

• If you can make a film look not artificial but natural, then it is very likely that it looks realistic.

Realism in Classical American Film

• Do ‘artless’ arts in American films in the classical period still dupe you to take narratives and images for reality?

• Do those films that the cinema audience in the early half of the twentieth century took realistic or ‘mistook’ as an extension of their reality continue to have the same effect on you now?

• If not, why?