Film and HistoriographyHUM 3280: Narrative Film

Fall 2013Dr. Perdigao

August 21, 2013

A history of film• Evolutions, masterpieces, and periodization

• Different ways of studying the relationship between history and film, constructing a film history

• Historiography: “the study of the methods and principles through which the past becomes organized according to certain perspectives and methods” (Corrigan 356).

• Hollywood film—as a “framework for conventional histories of the movies” (Corrigan)

• Periodization—standardization and differentiation (Corrigan and White 356-357)

• Recognizable themes, plot devices, characterizations, genres, and visual styles, extends to costuming, casting, editing, and sound practices

Measuring time• Early Cinema (1895-1913)

• Classical Cinema (1917-1945)– Silent films (1917-1927)– Sound films, golden age of Hollywood (1927-1945)

• Postwar Cinema (1946-1965)

• Contemporary Cinema (post-1965)

Early Cinema (1895-1913)• (Corrigan and White 357-358)

• Markers: rapid development and experimentation during the period

• 1895: public exhibition of movies• 1910: rise of the star, or celebrity, system• 1907-1913: beginning of the international dominance of Hollywood

• March 22, 1895: showing of Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory

• New forms of entertainment emerging in the nineteenth century—vaudeville halls and popular literature, “dime novels”

• After 1905, nickelodeon theaters showing fifteen minute long movies, replaced by movie palaces between 1914-1920

• Characteristics: shift from scenes to shots and beginnings of continuity editing; experimentation with crosscutting, close-ups, and long shots

Foundations• 1640: Kircher’s magic lantern

• 1839: Daguerre’s daguerreotype

• 1877: Muybridge’s images as movement

• 1892: Edison and Dickson’s Kinetoscope (machine selling for about 200 dollars; twenty-five cent admission)

• 1895: Lumière brothers—public viewings with Kinetoscope: actualités; Cinèmatographe as alternative to Edison’s use of Armat’s and Jenkins’s Vitascope

• Méliès A Trip to the Moon (1902)

• Recording of social and historical realities

• Kinein: Greek, to move (Dick 2)

• Recording image to recreating it, telling a story

Origins• http://americanhistory.si.edu/muybridge/

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrRUDS1xbNs&feature=related

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dgLEDdFddk

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JDaOOw0MEE

• E. S. Porter’s The Great Train Robbery (1903): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc7wWOmEGGY

Classical Cinema (1917-1945)• (Corrigan and White 358-361)

• Silent and sound films

• Effects of World War I on American culture, represented in film

• “energetic optimism” and “trembling fear”

• Developments in early twentieth century (1910-1920): standardization of film production, establishment of the feature film, and cultural and economic expansion (Corrigan and White 359)

• Normalized running time of 100 minutes for narrative film

• Characteristics: full development of narrative realism and the integration of viewer’s perspective into editing and narrative action (Corrigan and White 359)

Classical Cinema (1917-1945)• New developments: representation of simultaneous actions, complex spatial

geographies, and psychological interaction of characters through narrative (Corrigan and White 359)

• Point-of-view shots developed placing viewers within characters’ perspectives

• 1926: Warner Bros. introduced the Vitaphone system, synchronized sound with images

• Introduction of sound in 1927, with The Jazz Singer premiering on October 6

• Roaring twenties: Great Depression; spirit of optimism with Roosevelt’s New Deal

• Presence of musicals in the 1930s

• 1930s-1940s developments in sound: synchronous sound to show reality; asynchronous sound to communicate psychological realities

• 1930s and improvement of Technicolor

Classical Cinema (1917-1945)• Elaboration of movie dialogue, emphasis on characterization; emergence of

generic formulas for narratives

• Screenwriters—from novels to films (F. Scott Fitzgerald)

• Hays Office and Production Code

Violations• Motion Picture Production Code, Hays Code

• Established by Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), later Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)

• Adopted in 1930, enforced in 1934, maintained until 1968

• Attempts to “clean up” film industry, after moves toward censorship in film

• “The Formula” developed by Will Hays, hired as president of the MPPDA in 1922

• Follows 1915 Supreme Court ruling that free speech did not extend to film (Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio)

• Promoting “traditional values,” protecting children, establishing standards of good taste

Coding• http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93301189• http://www.artsreformation.com/a001/hays-code.html • http://www.mpaa.org/ratings/ratings-history

Postwar Cinema (1945-1965)• (Corrigan and White 364-366)

• World War II contexts and aftermath

• Doubts about human nature, social progress—ideas about what art can do

• Deterioration of American family, fears of the “other” as extension of Cold War culture

• Civil Rights movement in the 1950s

• Spread of television in 1950s

• 1948 Paramount decision, 1968 relaxation of codes and introduction of ratings system

• United States v. Paramount, antitrust laws violation, separation of production companies and theaters that arose with vertical integration (Corrigan and White 365)

• More experimentation in film, testing boundaries, 3-D format developed in 1950s

Contemporary Cinema (1965-present)• (Corrigan and White 369-371)

• Vietnam War—anger and confusion, fragmentation in American culture, idea of national identity

• Revolutionary 1960s, 1970s—ideas about sexuality

• New Hollywood, influence of European cinema

• VCRs (and Beta players!), cable, dvds, dvrs

• Changing modes of production, dissemination

• Multiple perspectives, opportunities to watch again, put together puzzles

• Characteristics: image spectacles and special effects and fragmentation and reflexivity of narrative constructions (Corrigan and White 370)

• Mid-1960s, Dolby sound reduces noise and enriches sound

Re-assessments• Evolutionary/revolutionary film history, ideas of progress

• Technological, economic, and artistic dimensions

• Chronicling history

• Film archives

• 80 percent of films made before 1930 have disappeared (Corrigan and White 394)

• 1930s movement to restore and preserve films

• 1950s developments in film theory