MoviesMass Producing Entertainment

Resource Manual:Ralph E. Hanson, Mass Communication: Living in a Media World

We will cover:• The history of moving pictures• Rise and fall of studio system | Blacklisting• Style and Genre • Classical Narratives• Day for Night, La nuit américaine (Truffault, 1973)• Or, Good Night, and Good Luck (Clooney, 2005)

Early Movie Technology

• 1878: Eadweard Muybridge, watch movie

Early Movie Technology• 1894: Thomas Edison

opens first kinetoscope parlor.

• See Annie Oakley.

Early Movie Technology

• Lumière brothers invent portable movie camera and projector.

• A Trip to the Moon.

Telling a Story With Film• 1903: Edwin S. Porter directs The Great Train

Robbery• Contains 12 separate scenes• Is shot in a variety of locations• Tells a realistic story• Established basic film storytelling conventions

D.W. Griffith • 1915: Birth of a Nation, the

first feature-length film• established “classical editing” --

editing for dramatic intensity and emotional emphasis rather than purely physical reasons.

•

The Studio System• Stars worked directly for studios• Block bookings• Vertical integration• Development of talking pictures

Response to the Studio System• 1919: United Artists

created by directors and actors.

• Rebelled against the controls placed on them under the studio system.

The Blacklist• 1947: HUAC holds

hearing on communist influences in Hollywood.

• Hollywood Ten resisted testifying, were jailed and blacklisted.

Hollywood 10: Herbert Biberman, Alvah Bessie, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Adrian Scott, and Dalton Trumbo.

The Blacklist• By 1953, as many as 324

were blacklisted, including many prominent screenwriters.

• Blacklist continued until 1960 when Hollywood Ten member Dalton Trumbo hired to write Spartacus, Exodus.

Senator Joseph McCarthy• 1950. McCarthy was the most

visible public face of a period in which Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread Communist subversion.

• A prominent attack on McCarthy's methods was an episode of See It Now, hosted by Edward R. Murrow, March 9, 1954.

Movies React To Television• Movie audiences peak in 1956—80 million tickets

sold per week• By 1953, ticket sales drop to 46 million per week• First round of 3-D movies, larger format theaters• Growing popularity of color• Growth of multiplex theaters

Styles and Types (Modes) of Films

REALISM CLASSICISM FORMALISM

Documentary F I C T I O N Experimental

Manufactured Landscapes Boogie Doodle

Good Night and Good Luck Avatar/ Gone With the Wind Fellini Films

NB. These are not airtight categories and often overlap.

styles

Types (modes)

What About the Classical”Style?•Often handsomely mounted, story oriented, high premium placed on the the entertainment value of the story which conforms to popular genre.

•Characters often played by “stars” and roles are often tailored to their personal charms. Audience is encouraged to identify with their goals/values.

CLASSICAL NARRATIVES

• Derived from live theatre (Aristotelian Poetics and the “well-made-play”) the classical narrative model is based on a conflict between a protagonist, who initiates the action, and an antagonist who resists it

• Beginning, middle and end with cause and effect plot escalation.

• Most films in this form begin with an implied dramatic question -- we want to know if the protagonist will get what they want in the face of opposition.

What About Genre?• Definition: A recognizable type of movie, characterized by

certain pre-established conventions. Common genres are Westerns, Drama (Romance, War, Action etc.), Thrillers, Sci-Fi, Comedy, etc. A ready-made narrative form.

• Genre was developed by French directors François Truffault, Jean-Luc Godard and their Cahiers du cinema associates in the mid-50s. Simultaneously with their Auteur Theory, they also developed the theory of film genre.

• Believed that the genius of American cinema was its repository of ready-made forms saying “The tradition of genres in a base of operations for creative freedom.”

La nuit américaine (Day for Night). Truffault, 1973A committed film director struggles to complete his movie while coping with a myriad of crises, personal and professional, among the cast and crew. (From imdb.com)Director: François TruffautWriters: François Truffaut, Jean-Louis Richard, Stars:Jacqueline Bisset, Jean-Pierre Léaud and François Truffaut

Good Night, and Good Luck. Clooney, 2005Broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow looks to bring down Senator Joseph McCarthy. (From imdb.com)

Director: George ClooneyWriters: George Clooney, Grant HeslovStars:David Strathairn, George Clooney and Patricia Clarkson