An analytical assessment of the audio-visual structure in Eisenstein's "Alexander Nevsky" which utilizes both primary and secondary sources. I focus on the functional and conceptual aspects of the film's score by contextualizing it within the framework of Eisenstein's theory of sound-film and the nature of Eisenstein-Prokofiev collaboration.

Citation:

"'Casablanca' and United States Foreign Policy." Raskin, Richard. Film History. Vol. 4. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990. 2 vols. 153-164.

The following excerpt from a film history book by Rishard Raskin of the University of Indiana places Casablanca as a film in the grander scheme of historical context.  Raskin gives the valuable background of the war effort at the time and demonstrates the direct correlation with the historical events in French North Africa, Europe, and the plot and motifs of the film.  Raskin explains the significance of the Casablanca Conference and the exterior significance of the city as an important meeting place that changed the course of World War II.  Raskin demonstrates that the film had an impact on the decisions of Roosevelt and that the film was a classic example of using a romantic plotline to cast meaning over strong political undertones.  Raskin further discusses the political development of the region both before and after the film’s release and how it changed many of the policies of the region.  Ultimately, Raskin demonstrates how Casablanca was influenced by the political, economic, and wartime climate to create an influential World War II propaganda film.  Additionally, Rakin shows how Casablanca played an important role in the development of U.S. foreign policy and domestic attitudes towards both the small city and towards the United States involvement in the war as well.

 

 

 

Did the Nazis overvalue film (specifically during the filming of Kolberg)? The Nazis, embodied by minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels, did overvalue film at times; specifically, this overvaluation of film is illustrated in the diversion of needed war resources to the film industry when Germany was approaching defeat, i.e. the production of Kolberg. The Nazis (Goebbels) placed a great importance on propaganda because they wanted a unified Germany, and they needed to maintain an appearance of strength to maintain public support, which was necessary to maintain power. Film was the most important form of propaganda because of its great effectiveness due to its subtlety and ability to reach the masses. Because of this importance of film to the Nazi cause, Goebbels, the minister of propaganda, remained preoccupied with the production of propaganda films even when the war was being badly lost. The best example of this is the production of the film Kolberg. During its production Germany was suffering many military losses and its economy was suffering. Despite the fact that Germany needed all the troops and resources it could get for the war, Goebbels diverted these troops and resources to this extravagant film with the hope that the film would inspire the support of the citizens, yet the film was released only a few months prior to German defeat. Overall, these misguided priorities of choosing investment in film versus directly into the war show that the Nazis overvalued film because they stubbornly stuck to the principles that got the Nazis in power, ignoring the dire situation with the war.

The article opens with the note that it is easy to forget that Walt Disney "was once celebrated as a great artist" for his innovations in the field of animation as well as his creative abilities.  However, by the late 1940s the filmmaker's critical acclaim began to wane.  Critics began to see Disney as having sold out his talent to pander to popular tastes.  The author argues that Walt Disney's aesthetic evolved to reflect the contradictory intersection of Victorian sentimentalism and modernism, creating a hybrid style that helped mediate an important cultural shift in the United States during the 20th Century.  The author goes as far as referring to Disney as "a kind of popular Picasso" to reflect his hybrid style that combined commercial entertainment and elements of surrealism (such as fantastic imaginary settings).  In response to Disney's early modernist aesthetic, Sergei Eisenstein is quoted as having said in the early 1940s that the animator's work constituted "the greatest contribution of the American people to art."  However, as Disney's efforts grew increasingly dedicated to enhancing realism in animation, his style onscreen became firmly rooted in a sunny aesthetic that reflected the sentimental idealism of the Victorian tradition.  Disney was working at a time when other cartoonists had already developed a modernist aesthetic (often dark and surreal), and he curbed their style with his own anthropomorphic, fantastic-yet-optimistc idealism.  The author argues that Fantasia represents the embodiment of this hybrid agenda.  Abstract shapes and bizarre images set to classical music form the modernist component (especially through the juxtaposition of "high" and "low" images), while the idealistic nature scenes that form the imagery for several sequences form the  counterpoint of Victorian sentimentalism.  Many critics of the early 1940s likened Disney's appeals to the unconscious to the trickery and even drugging of audiences.

This article provides a retrospective analysis of Walt Disney's unique artistic style at the time leading up to and including the creation of Fantasia.  It is important to note the temporal distance between the realm of the article's subject (the 1930s and 1940s) and that of its author (1995).  The hindsight of this 60-year lapse enables the author to draw clear distinctions between different artistic movements in history, namely Victorian sentimentalism and modernism.  While Disney's work was criticized at the time for being too "cutesy" and commercially exploitative, this modern author re-defines Disney's style as an innovative hybrid of two conflicting artistic movements.  Thus it is in the context of these historical paradigm shifts that the author resurrects Disney as an artist.  This article relates to my thesis because the author uses historical/retrospective insight to read Fantasia as the prime example of Disney's hybrid artistic style.  While many music critics of the time condemned Fantasia for destroying the classical music at the film's center, this author uses the more than 50 years since the film was made to develop an analysis that sees the "bigger picture" of how the film fit into various definitions of art.

Watts, Steven. "Walt Disney: Art and Politics in the American Century." The Journal of American History june 82 (1995): 84-96. JSTOR. University of Pennsylvania Library, Philadelphia. 24 Nov. 2008 .

This article, written by a painter and film producer, discusses the presence of avant-garde techniques within the film industry.  The author argues that, in addition to documentary and fictional entertainment, a third category of film should be formally added: experimental film.  The article describes the nature of the avant-garde, outlining its history from cubism to surrealism, and posits that it is not necessarily technique that defines the style, but rather disinhibition of the artist.  For the author, technique without creative energy is not justified as avant-garde, a style that is dedicated to the freedom of the artist.  The article mentions Fantasia as one of two examples of mainstream films that the author deems avant-garde.  This qualification is given to the film because of its focus on abstract movement, a visual

The fact that this article was written almost a decade after the initial release of Fantasia supports my thesis because the 9-year period in between substantiates a retrospective analysis.  The author is able to describe Disney's work as avant-garde because of the priveleged position to look back and compare it to other films of its time and to view it in the context of the artistic movement of surrealism.  However, the time elapsed between the release of the film and the publication of this article is relatively short, and thus the article could also be analyzed as a "late contemporary" of Fantasia.

Richter, Hans. "The Avant-Garde Film Seen from within." Hollywood Quarterly autumn 4 (1949): 34-41. JSTOR. University of Pennsylvania Library, Philadelphia. 27 Nov. 2008 .

This article, written in 1946 by a professor of theater arts at the University of California at Los Angeles, weighs the merits and drawbacks of the animated cartoon as an art form.  The author notes that the beauty of the form is that, at its best, individual cartoons can be watched repeatedly and still hold the viewer's interest.  The article describes Walt Disney as the master of the animated cartoon, a man who brings infinite imagination to his work to produce rich details that warrant repeated viewings of his short films.  However, the author does not respond as favorably to Disney's feature films, arguing that they progress only in terms of technical skill.  The article mentions the shortcomings of many of Disney's early feature films, specifically describing Fantasia as an "ambitious experiment lacking over-all perfection," but still recognizes Walt Disney as a man working within the constraints of a larger industrial system that limits his art through economics.  The author argues that Disney, himself, is a genius but is unable to bring true artistic innovation to his feature films because they represent "an expensive medium for far too large a public."  The article closes by announcing two new Disney shorts to be released in the coming months, predicting that these cartoons will be able to "comment on life and society and still be entertainment" because they do not suffer the same burden of economic popularity as Disney's feature films.

Written just six years after the original release of Fantasia, this article is an example of negative critical reception of the film based on criteria that do not revolve around the film's "destruction" of classical music.  Here the author situates his disappointment in Fantasia's execution within an overall critique of Disney's feature length films.  The author's main criticism of the Disney feature length format is that it tries to cater to too large an audience and is bound by expectations of economic performance, a fact that strengthens my thesis that art is often seen as being in opposition to mass entertainment/commodities.

Macgowan, Kenneth. "Make Mine Disney: A Review." Hollywood Quarterly july 1 (1946): 376-77. JSTOR. University of Pennsylvania Library, Philadelphia. 27 Nov. 2008 .

 

The author, writing in 1945, offers a lengthy critique of why musical "re-creations" do not qualify as art.  The article begins by stating that the addition of images to "absolute" music qualifies as a form of corruption and that Disney is guilty of this crime in Fantasia.  The author goes on to list other offenses against canonical musical pieces: betraying the original intention of the composer, disrupting the continuity of the original piece, changing the original instrumentation (including changes to volume), and the introduction of expressiveness.  The author uses metaphors of paintings and other visual art forms in order to demonstrate the horrific effects of each of these sins against music.  The article closes with the statement that this practice of musical re-creation is merely a passing fad that will surely die out with the "current period of hyperindividualism."

This article is significant because it presents the common opinion of those in the music world that Fantasia is a heretical misuse of classical music, but it puts forth a more methodical reasoning behind this type of disapproval.  The highly structured argument is significant because it shows that there existed an organized explanation of why films like Fantasia should not be considered valuable pieces of art.  The author classifies this kind of impressionistic reworking of classical music as a passing trend, a fact that relates to my thesis by providing a direct temporal dimension to definitions of art.  It seems that this author refuses to accept Fantasia as art partly because it represents what the author sees as a current (at that time) practice.  The style of the film did not have the historical precedence behind it to be considered art.  This article is especially interesting in terms of comparisons to more recent analyses of the film because it marks as criminal the very thing that Disney is praised for by contemporary cultural critics: the re-editing of classical music pieces in order to make them accessible to a wider audience.  Whereas modern critics see this democratization of high art as a positive, artistic aspect of Fantasia, this author gives a methodical explanation of why this is a crime against music.

Balet, Leo. "The Nuisance of Music "Re-Creations"" The Kenyon Review summer 7 (1945): 382-98. JSTOR. University of Pennsylvania Library, Philadelphia. 27 Nov. 2008 .

The author of this article argues that Disney's editing/reworking of canonical classical music pieces in Fantasia vignettes does not merely butcher these artistic compositions (as was the common outraged response from people in the field of music), but instead brings to them a new series of visual associations that make them accessible to "middlebrow" audiences.  He claims that it was the film's "technical virtuosity" that legitimized these decisions as art.  The article discusses the ideological rhetoric underlying the film, such as evolution and technological progress, and how the harmony between image and sound onscreen works to naturalize these ideological underpinnings.  The author also includes a discussion of the "Centaurettes" in one sequence that embody the racist trope of the "picaninny," characters that were self-censored out of the film in later releases, and how their presence signifies a certain racist ideology that reinforces the social hierarchy of the time.  Briefly tracing the appearance of Fantasia over time, the author also mentions Fantasia 2000 as a continuation of this musical democracy that highlights the "cutting edge" technology legacy of the film through its IMAX format.

This article provides a rare instance in which a cultural critic from the field of music actually praises Fantasia for its reworking of classical music.  However, it is significant that this positive reaction comes more than six decades after the film's initial release.  Looking back on the film as a moment in history, the modern critic is able to locate Fantasia within a particular socio-historic context.  This vantage point enables the author to comment on the sociological effects of the film, effects that comprise much of this article's redemption of the film's unorthodox usage of classical music.  The author marks Fantasia as art because of both its technical brilliance and the creativity it displays in the methods used to ideologically affect its audience.  This retrospective appreciation of the film relates to my thesis in that it provides an example of the notion that hindsight leads to Fantasia's validation as art rather than commodity.  It is also significant that this article appears after the release of the contemporary Fantasia 2000, which served to refocus attention on the film in contemporary times.  This re-emergence of the film, marketed as the resurrection of a classic, may have had a direct influence on the likelihood of a reviewer to see the original as art because of its connection to a particular moment in American history.

Clague, Mark. "Playing in 'Toon: Walt Disney's "Fantasia" (1940) and the Imagineering of Classical Music." American Music spring 22 (2004): 91-109. JSTOR. University of Pennsylvania Library, Philadelphia. 24 Nov. 2008. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3592969?seq=9&Search=yes&term=fantasia&term=disney&term=2000&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dfantasia%2B2000%2Bdisney;gw%3Djtx;prq%3Dfantasia%2B2000;Search%3DSearch;hp%3D25;wc%3Don&item=1&ttl=68&returnArticleService=showArticle&resultsServiceName=doBasicResultsFromArticle

What is art? This question has taken on many different forms and functions over time, changing in regard to social and historical circumstances. Can a piece of work that achieves commercial success still be considered art? Can true art be produced with a massive audience in mind? This project examines how the answers to these questions change over time in relation to a particular cultural production, Walt Disney's Fantasia (1940). Drawing upon sources from different points in history, I aim to demonstrate that as time passes since the original release of Fantasia, the critical discourse surrounding the film becomes increasingly mounted in artistic terms. This would indicate that the definition of art becomes more inclusive as time elapses since the production of a specific work. The socio-historical perspective that is gained through temporal distance allows a richer reading of a cultural production, beyond its classification as either high art or popular commodity, and it is from this vantage point that qualifications as art are more likely to spring.

This article, appearing in a 1941 issue of The Musical Times, is a review of the original release of Fantasia.  The author presents a somewhat biting critique of the film for failing to meet the standards put forth by the classical music pieces it features.  The main criticism voiced here is that the film's visual "Disney style" is so overbearing that the character of the music is overshadowed.  While  the author acknowledges the creative and effective pairing of visuals with music in a few of the film's sequences, the article maintains that Fantasia still does not constitute an innovative work of art.  The author argues that the film is merely a second-rate extension of the "Silly Syphonies" series of animated shorts.  The article closes with the repitition of its orginial criticism: Fantasia takes on too much in terms of the music at the heart of its presentation.

This article represents the prototypical response from the music community at the time of Fantasia's orginal release.  This critic conveys ambivalence at best, describing some redeeming qualities of the film but still condeming it as a failure in both the beginning and end of the article.  This relates to my thesis in that it provides an example of negative criticism at the time of the film's release.  The author is not able to view the film through a historical lens, so the only perspectives offered are those that relate to the aesthetics and intertextuality of the film.  In this case the reviewer is predominantly concerned with the face value of how Fantasia treats classical music, and in his eyes it fails to meet its potential in this respect.

McN. "Disney's 'Fantasia'" The Musical Times sep. 82 (1941): 349-49. JSTOR. University of Pennsylvania Library, Philadelphia. 29 Nov. 2008 <http://http://www.jstor.org/stable/922891?&search=yes&term=fantasia&term=disney&list=hide&searchuri=%2faction%2fdoadvancedsearch%3fq0%3dfantasia;f0%3dall;c0%3dand;q1%3ddisney;f1%3dall;c1%3dand;q2%3d;f2%3dall;c2%3dand;q3%3d;f3%3dall;wc%3don;search%3dsearch>.

The 1942 Warner Brothers film, Casablanca, is one of the most famous romance films in history; yet, the film's characters, setting, film techniques, and motifs create an undertone of American propaganda. With subtle tendencies towards antifascism and supporting the Free French movement, the film demonstrates Hollywood's support against the Nazi regime in Europe.

Citation:

 

Blakley, Johanna. "Propaganda, Pop Culture & Public Diplomacy.” Warner’s War: Politics, Pop Culture & Propaganda in Wartime Hollywood 73-77.

 

In the book entitled Warner’s War: Politics, Pop Culture & Propaganda in Wartime Hollywood, Johanna Blakley discusses the influence the Warner Bros. studio had during the wartime and how its films and cartoons influenced public opinion and war sentiment during the time.  In this chapter, Blakley specifically talks about the Warner Brothers studio and how it was deeply entrenched in the pro-war movement by creating pro-war, patriotic, and antifascist films and cartoons.  The article briefly talks about how Casablanca was a prime example in which Warner Bros. used a romantic theme as a stage for propagandistic undertones which supported aiding the Allied European powers.  As a whole, the article demonstrates Warner Brother’s clear intention of spreading propaganda which supported the antifascist movement.  This is important because it establishes a clear connection between a pro-war studio and Casablanca.  This ultimately demonstrates that the studio intended to have propagandistic undertones in its film.   

Citation:

 

Polan, Dana. "Stylistic Regularities (and Peculiarities) of the Hollywood World War II

Propoganda Film." Warner’s War: Politics, Pop Culture & Propaganda in Wartime Hollywood 38-47.

 

In the book entitled Warner’s War: Politics, Pop Culture & Propaganda in Wartime Hollywood, Dana Polan discusses the influence the Warner Bros. studio had during the wartime and how it’s films and cartoons influenced public opinion and war sentiment during the time.  In this portion of the book, Polan demonstrates the particular influence and propagandistic influence of Casablanca and how this film changed the typical style of Hollywood in order to incorporate the propaganda of wartime.  Polan discuss the romantic overtone of the film and how this theme keeps in line with the traditional film style of Hollywood at that time.  However, she goes further to demonstrate how this romance accentuates the strong division between the two different conflicting powers in the film.  This chapter serves as an important connection between propaganda and the film in that is demonstrates how the simple romantic theme is enhanced to create a protagonist hero with whom the audience can closely relate and sympathize for.  She portrays how this sentiment can be perverted to support his goals of suppressing the fascist powers.  Ultimately, Polan demonstrates how the romance theme closely ties into the film’s wartime significance as a part of World War II propaganda.

Luckett explores the cultural discourse surrounding Fantasia at the time of its release, finding mixed reviews of the animated feature film.  Positive reception focused on the film's master animation techniques and somewhat abstract narrative structure, while negative criticism came mainly from representatives of the music world who saw classical music and film as incompatible - the former being art and the latter being a "distraction."  The author also analyzes the marketing and distribution strategies that made Fantasia a spectacle.  Disney positioned the film as a "prestige picture" by releasing it as a roadshow, traveling around the country visiting large theaters in major cities.  This strategy of infrequent screenings served popular as well as technical purposes, creating suspense/"buzz" but also allowing time for theaters to install the necessary equipment for the film's multi-channel audio "Fantasound" technology.  However, this distribution method also kept the film from earning enough revenue to make up for its enormous budget.  As a reslt, the film went on to be re-released many times over the next several decades.  Luckett examines the conditions around these re-releases as well as their individual receptions, finding a "double connotation" in the contemporary United States.  Some products (e.g. home video copies of the film) signal the film as a children's/family amusement, while other products (e.g. the Collector's Edition tapes, classical music soundtrack, lithograph) associate the film with art.  The author concludes that contemporary (1990-91) marketing strategies for Fantasia re-releases mirror those for its original release: both focus on the rarity of the chance to see the film.

This article is important because it represents a kind of meta-analysis of the releases and receptions of Fantasia over time.  The author acknowledges the hostility the film originally received from the musical community and argues that Fantasia has consistently been marketed as a rare event.  My thesis uses similar information as explored in this article and expands on the author's conclusion by also taking into account how temporal distance from the original film affects its interpretation as art versus mass commercial commodity.  While Luckett does mention the "double connotation" of the film in recent years regarding its relationship to art, this aspect of the article is mainly focused on the marketing techniques involved to produce such an effect.  In this way the author's explanation here provides a more complete picture of how Fantasia has come to be viewed as art over the years.

Luckett, Moya. "Fantasia: Cultural Constructions of Disney's 'Masterpiece'" Disney Discourse: Producing the Magic Kingdom. Ed. Eric Smoodin. New York, NY: Routledge, 1994. 214-36. Google Books. 22 Nov. 2008 <http://http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=wpxzl1lcr30c&oi=fnd&pg=pr9&dq=fantasia+disney&ots=fdmktnkohv&sig=hx9e44_3n-ovwcn1ikbssvzu1vy#ppr6,m1>.

This New York Times article was written in response to the announcement of Disney's recent (2006) strategy to reintroduce animated shorts to its lineup of cinematic productions.  These short programs will appear before Disney feature films in theaters.  The author mentions that nearly half a century has passed since the company regularly produced short cartoons, a hiatus initially brought on by soaring production costs after World War II.  According to the article, the short format is making a comeback not with the hopes of turning a profit in the short run but instead as a long-term investment.  These shorts represent a relatively low-risk way of "trying out" new talent (directors, animators, especially women).  A key distinction is made between the recent animated shorts that Disney has made as a "purely artistic exercise" and the new cartoons that will be more commercial in nature.  The author notes that Warner Brothers tried a similar resurrection of an old commercial form (Looney Toons shorts), but they did not succeed in their attempt.  According to leaders within the Disney company, this new endeavor is meant to grow the studio in the same way the shorts program grew Walt's original studio more than 70 years ago.

The article is important because it highlights the resurgence of an older form of entertainment/cultural production in modern times first as art form, then as commercial product/commodity.  When the "artistic" animated shorts (''Destino,'' ''Lorenzo'' and ''The Little Match Girl'') were introduced, they utilized an antiquated format (short cartoon) to experiment with new artistic and methodological techniques.  This "new wave" of shorts provided a space for the introduction of new art forms, as opposed to the upcoming variety of short cartoons that are meant to be exercises in proficiency at conventional techniques for "new talent."  While the first wave of new shorts was intended to be an artistic experiment, some of the films even winning Oscars, the newer variety of shorts is designed purely as a cost-effective training ground for Disney animators.  This vocational transformation supports the idea that nostalgia for old commercial formats lends them an aura of art, while the familiarity of a form in current use (even one that has recently been resurrected from an older time) makes it a prime candidate for mass commercial use.  The notion that old=art and current=commodity is supported by the distinction made between the commercial plan for these two types of recent Disney shorts.

Solomon, Charles. "For Disney, Something Old (and Short) Is New Again." The New York Times 3 Dec. 2006: 22-22.

Citation:

Dirk, Timothy. "Casablanca (1942)." FilmSite. 1 December 2008 <http://www.filmsite.org/casa.html>.

 

In this review of the film, Tim Dirk goes beyond simple analysis of the plot and the film’s intrigue as one of the greatest films of all time in order to demonstrate some of the underlying messages that are conveyed by the film’s editing techniques, lighting, scenes, and character development.  Dirk begins by describing how the film’s use of lighting in the introductory map to convey a protagonist conflict between the lightly colored Allied countries on the map and the dark Axis countries.  This subliminal coloring of the two differing forces, generates a political tone to the film in which the Axis powered are conveyed as the antagonist.  Such sentiment only becomes enhanced as the film progresses.  Dirk then describes the introductory scene in which Casablanca is displayed as a chaotic and disorderly city full of crime and corruption.  This enhances the antifascist undertones in that it remarks poorly on the Nazi “control” of the neutral city.  Dirk also points out several ironic montages such as the French slogan “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité” which had not been replaced by the Vichy power, and the imprisonment of citizens in “Le Palais de Justice”.  Dirk then moves to other images that are portrayed throughout the city which further augment the propagandistic and antifascist undertones of the film.  He then moves to analyze the dialog throughout the movie and point out the subtle tones and words in the script which convey a strong connection with the Resistance Movement and a rejection of the fascist ideology.  In all, this review offers a close analysis of the film’s techniques of filming, set, script, and imagery in order to demonstrate its political influence and use as propaganda.

Citation:

Wilson, Kristi. "Casablanca." St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture. Gale Group, 1 January 2000.

In this article, Kristi Wilson gives a brief summary of the plot of the movie and expands on this superficial interpretation of the film by analyzing how the film presented a strong antifascist sentiment.  Wilson begins by contrasting the different characters in the film.  To begin, Lazlo and Isle gain sympathetic compassion from viewers on account of their troubling situation and the flashback history of chaos they experienced in Vichy-France.  This is used the make the viewers feel empathetic towards the French Resistance.  A deeper connection with such sentiment is achieved through the development of Rick’s character.  Rick, whose involvement in the resistance becomes increasingly apparent as the movie progresses, creates a heroic character image in which the viewers support his endeavors.  Wilson explains how such support is augmented by the viewers’ hope that his romantic endeavors succeed.  In contrast with these characters, the German officers are portrayed as being stiff and unyielding.  Garnering little sympathy, but rather gaining distaste for their apparent egotism, the German characters are continuously portrayed as being corrupt and malevolent.  Such stark contrast, as Wilson states, creates a classic protagonist vs. antagonist in which there is a strong political undertone against the power and authority of the Nazi command.  Consequently, the film demonstrates a strong antifascist motif by the way it contrasts the characters and their personal objectives and dispositions.  

Citation:

"The Casablanca Conference, 1943." Casablanca Conference. Casablanca: U.S. Department of State, 1943.

This source comes from the U.S. Department of State and gives the historical significance and background of the Casablanca Conference of 1943.  This conference, which took place between January 14^th and the 24^th of 1943, served as a meeting between U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.  Only a few weeks after the release of Casablanca, these two powerful figures met in the city to discuss the strategic plans for the Allied forces against the Axis powers.  They determined to further cut off Japan, concentrate efforts in Germany, begin by removing Italy from the war, and make unconditional surrender an ultimate goal so they could guarantee “the destruction of the philosophies in those countries which are based on conquest and the subjugation of other people.”  This is significant because it shows the clear political connection with the film and the film’s location.  The film sparked a large interest not only in Casablanca, but also the political implications of the war.  The clear connection of the two at the Casablanca Conference created a much larger appeal on account of the film’s success.  In addition, the historical account also shows that the Anglo-American aid arrived in French North Africa in November 1942, the same time at which the movie was released.  Ultimately, this demonstrates a clear political connection with the film.

Citation:

Crowther, Bosley. "'Casablanca' With Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman." New York Times 27 November 1942.

 

This is the original film review from the New York Times written on November 27, 1942 after the film’s release.  This review, unlike the myriad of reviews on the films, gives the unique perspective of an erudite audience of that specific time period.  The reviewer not only heralds the film as one of the greatest of all times, but remarks about its unique story and subtle tendencies.  He demonstrates how Warner uses the action-packed thrill of the setting to enhance the romantic overtone to the film.  Most importantly, the author describes how the film contained a strong political message.  He writes that the film “inject[ed] a cold point of tough resistance to evil forces afoot in Europe today”.  With this statement, it is apparent that the film was viewed as a propagandistic tool of the war effort.  Its antifascist undertone and subliminal support for aiding the European cause against the Nazis is clearly demonstrated and understood at the time.  This further shows how the film was viewed not only as a great romantic drama film, but also a powerful piece of propaganda that influenced its audiences.

Citation :

Leon, Charls L. Ponce de. "Progressive Politics and American Dreams." Review in American History September 2008: 348.

Charles L. Ponce de Leon provides a critical analysis of Lary May’s book, The Big Tomorrow: Hollywood and the Politics of the American Way.  Leon begins by giving a background into film history and how cinema developed in a political manner.  He demonstrates how it became politically powerful and how it can be interpreted in revisionist studies through cultural anthropology, sociology, literary criticism, and social history.  It is with these methods that Leon further critiques the work of May’s book and demonstrates the true power of cinema.  Leon demonstrates how cinema’s production can be used to “peddle products that are subversive” and create a specified appeal for audiences.  In this manner, he claims that producers are able to use film techniques to create an exact interpretation which can vary little amongst audiences in the grand scheme.  Leon also states that cinema uses political implications to challenge the authority of the elites.  Such is seen in the production of Casablanca.  Leon then progresses his critical analysis towards films of the 1940’s and how they were heavily influenced not only by the lingering effects of the New Deal and the Great Depression, as can be seen by the dramatic mise-en-scene of the city of Casablanca in the film.  He also demonstrates how “progressive moviemakers eagerly contributed their talents to government service and a host of pro-war, antifascist films”. Leon then moves to analysis of the cultural, social, and political implications of the film Casablanca specifically.  He contends that the films played an important political role to the antifascist movement and demonstrated a strong propagandistic desire to aid the resistance movement.  However, he also notes that Rick’s “loss of independence” later hurt the film’s political undertones and created an opposite sentiment later on in the sixties.  In all, Leon critiques May’s book which discusses the political and social effects of early cinema and discusses the value they have towards audiences.  With this, he lends support to Casablanca’s social significance as a film of antifascism and pro-war significance.

This project is an analysis of the film making style of Yasujiro Ozu through his 1932 film "I Was Born, But...". Yasujiru Ozu's early films can easily be classified as the typical middle-class drama put out by Shochiku studios during this time. However, Ozu's films are notable for their incorporation of traditional Japanese values (thematically and aesthetically). The end result are films that criticize the social structure and attitude of the time and make novel use of camerawork and editing to create a unique aesthetic. "I Was Born, But..." is typical of Ozu's early work in middle-class drama, a comedy with a clear socially critical message embedded within.

This article discusses Ozu’s use of traditional Japanese concepts aesthetically and thematically in his films.  Some of these include sabi, hashi, and susabi.  Sabi is particularly obvious in Ozu films.  Sabi is an awareness of the ephemeral.  Sabi can seen in the many scenes in his films that include various actions in his characters’ lives that may or may not serve to progress the plot.  Because much of what is ephemeral is also cyclical, Ozu’s tendency to use repetition and cyclical storytelling can also be interpreted as sabi.

“I was born but…” include many sabi moments.  During much of the on-screen time, the characters are engaging in seemingly menial behaviors unimportant to a grander plot.  Much time is spent watching the boys eat or play.  There are also many repetitions of scenes.  This is particularly remarkable during the scenes where they cross the railroad tracks or when the neighborhood boys come to yell at the protagonists’ house.  The repeated scenes are so similar it gives an odd sense of déjà-vu.

Geist, Kathe. West Looks East: The Influence of Yasujiro Ozu on Wim Wenders and Peter Handke.Art Journal; Sep83, Vol. 43 Issue 3, p234, 6p.

This article gives a good summary and overview of Yasujiro Ozu’s life and Shochiku studios, to which he belonged.  After the 1923 earthquake, Tokyo studios had to recreated and westernize themselves.  Shochiku in particular actively adopted American techniques and sought modernism.  Shiro Kido led Shochiku in becoming a large producer of middle-class drama (shomin-geki).  Shomin-geki soon became characterized by “bleak comedies” and “bitter melodramas”.  Many of these films in the 1930s challenged traditional Japanese values. Ozu was one of Shochiku’s most prominent directors and made many shomin-geki.

Yasujiro Ozu made most of his films with Shochiku studios and so it comes as no surprise that many of his films fall into the shomin-geki genre.  “I was born but..”  is an excellent example of one of these films.  The film combines comedy with social commentary.  There are many funny scenes, especially in watching much of he two boys’ hijinks as well as the many sight gags used by the father in the home movie.  However, the social criticism is also poignant.  In fact, the comedy done by the father in the home movie ends up serving a greater significance, as it shames his sons.

"The films of Yasujiro Ozu: true to form". ArtForum. . FindArticles.com. 30 Nov. 2008. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_2_42/ai_109023345

Citation:

University, San Diego. Casablanca. 1 December 2008 http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/st/~ksoroka/hollywoodfilm.html

An article from the Film History department of the University of San Diego, this short reference demonstrates a crucial interpretation of a scene in which Lazlo (Paul Henreid), a French refugee, begins singing “La Marseillaise”, the French national anthem, as a direct challenge to the German officers who occupy Rick’s (Humphrey Bogart) nightclub.  The article explains how this action glorified the French resistance against the Vichy regime and displays propaganda in favor of the Allied powers.  The scene begins with the German officials who display their dominance and power in the locale by chanting the patriotic German song Die Wacht am Rhein.  Lazlo, a member of the Resistance Movement, begins to counter their power by singing the French National Anthem.  The entire nightclub, previously subdued by the German chant, begins to join Lazlo and Rick, a former member of the Resistance Movement in France, orders the band to play the tune.  In the end, the German officers stop their chanting and appear defeated by the resistance, a clear metaphor for their hopeful downfall.  The scene not only demonstrates support of the resistance against the Nazi regime, but it also demonstrates the renewed resistance in Rick’s character.  As noted in the article, his broken love with Isle (Ingrid Bergman) made him a “cynical” person, but such was the sacrifice he needed to make in order to pursue his duty to combat the wrongdoings of the Vichy-Berlin situation.  

"How American Intellectuals Learned to Love Ozu," by Mindy Aloff, April 1994, The New York Times

In this article, Mindy Aloff investigates how American audiences have responded to Ozu since the 1950s, when his works became available in the United States. Aloff asks what attracts Americans to Ozu's body of film, and discovers a number of possible reasons. While Ozu's films are not widespread in the U.S., a few New York City venues continue to present his surviving films at special screenings. These screenings draw a diverse viewership with a variety of reasons for liking Ozu's films. Some identify Ozu with the New York City art scene, especially when he became noticed alongside revolutionary directors like Godard and Antonioni. Others cite the surprisingly powerful emotional impact of his artfully understated films as the main reason for their fascination with his work. Still others are attracted to the Western aspect of his quiet, simple films, which admittedly were influenced greatly by Griffith and Harold Lloyd. The simplicity and familiarity of his films rendered them accessible and engaging to the Western audience. The moralistic themes and subtle humor of Ozu's films are also universally appealing regardless of the era in which they are viewed.

This article is significant to my study of Ozu through his film Passing Fancy primarily because it discusses the western association of his films. It reinforces the idea that Ozu was not a unitary, uninfluenced figure in filmmaking, but a simultaneously impressionable and original director who adapted what he learned from western films to direct and write his own. It also helps us better understand the source of the humor in Passing Fancy.  Comedies are said to typically not translate well across cultures--this is not the case with Ozu's comedies (Passing Fancy among them), which do not rely on the audience's prior understanding of Japanese culture of language to make their unsophisticated jokes and visual gags. It is in part the western association that so many have made with Ozu's work that renders it successful among foreign audiences.

 

I entered this project with very little knowledge of Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu save the fact that he was known for often breaking the rules of classical Hollywood editing. Therefore, the question I intended to ask with my research was, "What does the style and narrative of Ozu's film Passing Fancy (1934) suggest about him as an early progressive, modernist Japanese director?" What I discovered in my viewing of the film and ensuing research was much more complicated. If I had to develop a thesis based on the research, I could not get away with the oversimplification that the question demanded. I discovered that Ozu was both a modernist and a fundamentalist filmmaker, a director very much informed by both Japanese sensibilities and Western filmmaking conventions. He developed a personal style that certainly marks him an auteur in his own right, but did so mainly out of a desire to present a clear and lucid narrative that typically focused on everyday Japanese life. This narrative and thematic focus accounts for much of the "Japanese" quality that scholars attribute to Ozu's work.

This chapter calls Ozu the most Japanese of the directors of his time.  While Kurosawa was modern, Ozu was traditional.  Cinema itself is a western art, so by trying to preserve traditional Japanese values, Ozu often went against the mainstream of film.  While he certainly expresses the strain of relations and interactions between people, he also tackles the strain between westernized Japan and traditional Japan.  “I was born but…” is firmly within the shomin-geki genre, which is characterized as “light understated comedies with a tinge of social consciousness”.

The strain between traditional and western Japan is evident in the “I was born but…”.  The father in particular is fully a citizen of westernized Japan.  He wears a suit everyday as he goes to work at a western-style company. There is a scene in the middle of the film at the father’s office where we see all of the workers in a line, working like drones and visibly bored with their work as they yawn.  In addition, the father is forced to humiliate himself to please his boss.  This is an evident criticism of the de-humanizing effects of westernization.  There scene at the office transitions to a scene at school in which all of the kids sit in order at their desks, drawing an obvious comparison.  We also see the children marching in unison at the order of a teacher in the schoolyard.  The children in school are simply being prepared to become drones like their fathers.  The shame that the two boys see in their father is also Ozu’s shame that men must submit themselves in that way in modern Japan. However, the boys (and Ozu) finally admit that it has become a necessity.

Schrader, Paul. Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer. Da Capo Press, 1988.

Richie, Donald and Joseph L. Anderson. "Traditional Theater and the Film in Japan." Film Quarterly. 12.1 (1958): 2-9.

 

This article discusses the influence Japanese theatre had on the country's film industry. However, it singles out The Last Forty Seven Ronin as one of the rare films to have the Kabuki theatre influence. Although they come from the same story, Mizoguchi's film version is much more realisitic than the original Kabuki plays.

 

The fact that this article describes the influence of Kabuki theater on Mizoguchi's film shows that there was no intent to change the story to conform to the nationalistic feelings of World War II Japan. Even when it differs in its portrayal of reality, the film is much more a historical epic than a war propaganda effort. The realistic movements of the actors break away from traditional Kabuki theater and give a much more modern feel to Mizoguchi's picture.

"Kenji Mizoguchi." Encylopedia of World Biography. 2004

 

   This is a encylopedia article on the life and career of Kenji Mizoguchi. It explains hows Mizoguchi's version delves into explorations of the samurai code, its ceremonies and obligations. It also mentions that Mizoguchi's wife was committed to a mental asylum during filming. The article explains how Mizoguchi's belief of pathos lead him to emphasize punishment over triumph by neglecting to show the violent revenge of the ronin and instead, showing their death.

     This article is helpful in showing how Mizoguchi's beliefs and the events going on in his life at the time affected the way he remade the story. The fact that the film explores the oblligations and ceremonies of the samurai code explains why the main theme of the story was the way of the samurai and not an attempt to boost morale of the Japanese soldiers during World War II.

While this article refers to a movement that began shortly after Ozu released Passing Fancy (1934), it may be useful for understanding the “Japanese” quality that many attribute to Ozu's films. Passing Fancy might be considered a precursor to the “monumental film” movement that Davis describes. It practices a number of the stylistic innovations that the “monumental” films later employed, among them long takes and slow camera movements. More importantly, it contains a mostly premodern narrative focused on traditional Japanese living. In this sense, we might understand Ozu's sensibilities expressed in Passing Fancy as setting or helping to establish a trend in which Japanese filmmakers made special effort to embody a “Japanese” aura.

 

 

Transcendental Style in Film, Chapter 2, by Paul Schrader, 1988

In this chapter, Paul Schrader characterizes the films of Yasujiro Ozu as fundamentally transcendental works and attempts to map Zen principles onto Ozu's filmmaking techniques. Schrader begins by qualifying Zen art as a form of transcendentalism for its spiritual focus and merging of sacred and secular spheres. Ozu, whose traditionalistic themes and style have led many regard him as Japan's “most Japanese” director, had an easier time adapting transcendentalist principles to film than many western filmmakers because its ideas were already fixed in oriental culture. To properly convey his themes in film, however, Ozu had to overcome opposing Western cinematic trends. Despite this reactionary aspect of Ozu's work, Schrader describes him as “cinema's consummate formalist,” more of a craftsman than an expressive artist: he consistently focused on the same themes, relied on the same actors and crew, and used the same types of shots and editing patterns throughout his films. Schrader draws parallels between this repetitive approach to filmmaking and the repetitive, ritualistic aspect of Zen art. Similarly, Ozu aims to capture the concept of “emptiness” or “the void” in the many silences, pauses, and slow contemplative scenes of his films, a preoccupation that has long informed Zen artwork. Finally, Ozu's family comedies and melodramas often deal with communication failure between man and his environment. These films consistently advocate oneness and unity in the face of our changing and unbalanced environment. Both of these ideas are central to Zen philosophy.

This article is useful because it highlights the paradoxical nature of Ozu's work: Ozu was reactionary in his techniques, rejecting many western film conventions, but only so that he could express Japanese fundamentalist ideas. Schrader holds that many of these reactionary techniques were in fact based on traditionalist techniques that guided Zen art. This no doubt helped Ozu earn his reputation as Japan's “most Japanese” director, but it also complicates any notion that classifies his work as distinctly conservative or traditionalist. Passing Fancy exhibits this contradiction nicely. Artistically it is very unlike western films, focusing on pauses, repetition of the same motifs and shots, and inviting the audience’s detached contemplation (much like the Zen art that Schrader claims informs it). It uses these new techniques in order to focus on the traditional Japanese home and quietly lament the encroaching modern world.

 

The Problem of Japaneseness in Ozu, by Daniel Hui, April 22, 2000

In this blog Daniel Hui challenges film critics who have called Ozu Japan's “most Japanese” director. This designation is problematic because it is based on a number of flawed presuppositions that are required to characterize Ozu's work as especially “Japanese.” First, it ascribes a distinct Japanese national identity to film, an originally western phenomenon. Because film form was developed in the west, Hui argues, it cannot be well defined in Japanese terms. Secondly, the classification of Ozu's work as particularly “Japanese” requires that this Japanese cinema be defined by older Japanese artistic forms (kabuki theater, Zen painting, etc.) that are only marginally applicable to film. Here we find another limitation: the “Japanese” qualities of these older arts could only be analyzed and defined in western terms, since it was exposure to the west that forced Japan to define its own culture. Finally, the “Japanese” designation mistakenly assumes that as an auteur, Ozu exercised unchanging control over the artistic expression of each of his films. Hui argues that Ozu was not so unimpressionable—his early films, for example, were strongly influenced by the sweeping changes to reflect Hollywood production that were occurring in Japanese film studios after the Kanto earthquake of 1923. Attempts to unify Ozu's body of films often oversimplify the director's range of work, ignoring the films that are clearly influenced by Hollywood films or inconveniently diverge from his typical style. Moreover, Ozu's tendency to establish norms within his films and then purposely undermine them renders such a “typical style” even harder to define. Ozu may have tried to construct a unified body of work, Hui states, “but this body is fractured, irregular, and impossible to read.” All critics seem to agree, however (Hui included), that Ozu's films attempt to represent “everyday life.” Hui contends that this focus on the everyday, not some abstract artistic construction, is ultimately what accounts for the “Japanese-ness” that so many claim to detect in his films. Because Japanese life changed over the course of Ozu's career, Hui concludes, so then did Ozu's films.

This article not only contradicts notions that Ozu was a fundamentalist/traditionalist director, but undermines my attempts to classify him at all. In suggesting that Ozu created a dynamic body of film with many influences rather than a repetitive, thematically and stylistically static one, Hui rejects the “consummate fundamentalist” description posited by other Ozu scholars. Hui goes to claim that a unifying theme characterizing all of Ozu's work is impossible to locate given Ozu's unclear assessment of his own films and his tendency to break from his own established patterns. Unfortunately, this approach was the aim of my research—I had hoped to use Passing Fancy as an indicator of Ozu's traditionalism or progressivism as a director. There may be hope for my project, however, in the one area that this article is consistent with others: its acknowledgment that all of Ozu's films represent everyday life. Hui notes that Ozu's films change to reflect the changing of everyday Japanese life. This is certainly a key idea in Passing Fancy, where a stubborn, uneducated father struggles to keep up with the changing world. In this sense, Ozu might be best described not simply as focusing on traditional aspects of Japanese life; rather, he focuses on contemporary life, and adapts his style to reflect its changes.

 

Ozu's Anti-Cinema, Chapter 3, by Yoshida Kiju, 1998

This chapter of Yoshida Kiju's book Ozu's Anti-Cinema deals with the amazing thematic consistency demonstrated throughout Ozu's expansive body of film. Yoshida remarks that this consistency is particularly surprising given the tumultuous era in which they were directed. Ozu was not isolated from the events and circumstances of the day either: he served in the military twice, once as a soldier at the beginning of Japan's invasion of China in 1937 and again as a director for the Information Department of the Japanese military in 1943. Somehow, however, he kept his wartime and postwar films strikingly unrelated to the social and political context of war and postwar Japan. For instance, in 1939 and 1942, times of intense war fever and militarism in Japan, Ozu directed quiet family dramas (There Was a Father) and urban comedies (The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice). Indeed, The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice was deemed so inappropriate to the national wartime milieu and unconducive to the war effort that it was forced to stop production and was not released until 1952. In these sorts of family dramas and comedies, Ozu repeatedly made the same social observations, often about the unconscious acceptance of family roles, the meanings of family ritual, and the inherent disorder of the world. Yoshida maintains that Ozu's simple, consistent presentation of these themes was an attempt to make honest order of the chaotic world as he perceived it. He rejected hidden meanings and considered symbolic likening of images and ideas to be horribly banal and disingenuous.

This article is a significant study of Ozu's auteurism because it demonstrates how he was a simultaneously progressive and conservative director. Ozu was thematically quite conservative, choosing to deal with traditional ideas like social structure and family relationships rather than the more contemporary ones posed by Japan's expansionism and militarization. However, Yoshida suggests that Ozu could be considered a progressive because his films so blatantly ignore their socio-political context and focus so heavily on domestic relationships that they seem to be peaceful antiwar statements. This could explain why Passing Fancy, a film released in 1933 and coinciding with growing Japanese militarization and expansion, makes literally no reference to the events of the “outside world” and remains so squarely focused on the quiet domestic relationship of a father and son in an unnamed Japanese town.

"Against Modernism, in Favor of Tofu: Three Silent Comedies by Ozu" by Clifford Hilo, May 2008

In this essay, occasioned by the re-release of three Ozu silent comedies (Passing Fancy, Tokyo Chorus, I Was Born, But..) on DVD, Clifford Hilo reflects on what made Ozu such a unique director. He attempts to reconcile two contradictory perspectives on the director: the western notion that Ozu was the definitive Japanese modernist, versus the Japanese perspective that he was Japan's most traditional director. Hilo contends that Ozu was neither modernist nor strict traditionalist. Rather, his stylistic idiosyncrasies that many took for “modernism” were simply intended to preserve a fluidity throughout his simple, lighthearted films. The free-flowing, loose form of Ozu's films, he offers, is “more about film pleasure than the hard disruption of forms devouring themselves.” The beauty of Ozu's work is in the details. In this sense, Hilo considers Ozu akin to a comic strip writer such as Charles Schultz for his ability to capture the essence of an image in its minute details. He also notes the western influences that have found their way into Ozu's films, among them the skillfully-conveyed social humor of Ernst Lubitsch, the sight gags of Chaplin, and the charming child-based humor of Hal Roach's Little Rascals. Hilo concludes by remarking that although the drama of Ozu's films was always uncomplicated and close to home, Ozu drew deeply from his repertory of detailed images and simple jokes to drive “the larger gears of melodrama.”

This commentary helps us understand Passing Fancy, one of Ozu's later silent comedies, by noting the trends that run throughout his other dramatic family comedies. In particular, it refutes the notion that Ozu was Japan's consummate modernist filmmaker by explaining how his idiosyncrasies served the intended continuity and playful simplicity of his films, not a progressive artistic sensibility. Many of these are evident in Passing Fancy, among them the use of low-level, direct shots interspersed with quick inserts to draw attention to comedic details. As Hilo argues, each one of these techniques ultimately maintains a sense of uncomplicated narrative continuity.

 

 

"The Production of Modernity in Japanese Cinema: Shochiku Kamata Style in the 1920s and 1930s" by Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano, May 2000

In this chapter, Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano discusses a Japanese film style known as katamacho and its implications for the Japanese conception of modern mass culture. First she stresses the need to draw a distinction between two Japanese words for modernism (“modanisumu” and “kindaishugi”), something that previous scholars have failed to do. “Modanisumu,” she explains, entails a sort of levity, cheerfulness, and novelty, while “kindaishugi” suggests “both positive and negative connotations created by European rationalism.” Our use of the word “modernism” for characterizing Japanese film is further complicated by the fact that most discourses on Japanese/western relations are dominated by Western perspectives. Marciano then describes how the plural meanings of “modernism” are equally deployed in Japanese katamacho film. The katamacho film Our Neighbor Ms. Yae, for example, uses the progressive, light conception of modernism (“modanisumu”) to subordinate certain other aspects of modernism (“kindaishugi”) that threaten the Japanese social order. Katamacho films often appear modern in their use of subjective gazes in the style of other forms of mass modern culture. Marciano contends that this is a result of a sort of inferiority complex among Japanese filmmakers who were attempting to break away from the stereotype that Japanese cinema was a poor imitation of western films and a “low form” of modern culture. Katamachi-style film in particular seemed to align itself European culture to improve the reputation of Japanese film.

This article is helpful to my research because it helps characterize the types of films that were being released simultaneously to Ozu's Passing Fancy and other silent comedies in the 1920s and 30s. Because Japanese films tend to express different attitudes towards the various facets of modernism, we should not expect Passing Fancy to exhibit a sort of distinctly progressive/modern attitude over a distinct conservative/traditionalistic one. Rather, we may interpret Passing Fancy as perhaps having multiple, perhaps even opposing attitudes towards modern ideas and the west. The film seems adopt this more complicated attitude: in one instance, for example, the main character's son falls very ill from overindulging in western sweets; he is only cured, however, by advances in modern medicine.

 

 

"Silent Ozu" by Catharine Russel, Cineaste Vol. 33 No. 4 (Fall 2008)

In this essay Catherine Russel focuses on Ozu's silent comedies and identifies a number of thematic trends that run throughout them. Ozu continued to work in silent film well after sound film had become prominent in Japan in 1931, so that by the time he adopted sound he had developed many of his own visual conventions, particularly the frequent use of use of low camera angles and detailed inserts. With these uniquely styled early silent films, Ozu helped to establish the Japanese shomin-geki genre, which dealt with ordinary middle class people. Many of these films offer various representations of fatherhood, using the economic background of the Great Depression, the tumultuous political situation of the time, and the encroaching modern world as context for challenging the lost, working class protagonist fathers trying to support their families. Each father must do so while caught up in the various hierarchies and obligations of Japanese society. In I Was Born, But..., for example, a father tries desperately to please his boss but loses the respect of his young sons in doing so. While Ozu's films typically contain well developed male characters (mostly fathers and sons), Russel criticizes the early films for a simultaneous trend of inexpressive female roles. Finally, she notes the repetition of suburban locales in Ozu's silent comedies, largely composed of cramped alleyways and undeveloped, telephone-pole-lined lots. She views these semi-developed areas as a sign of the steadily-approaching modern world about to collide with traditional Japanese sensibilities. Ozu's repeated focus on the everyday aspects of these suburban locations allow his films to affect the feel of familiarity that they are so well known for.

A number of Russel's points distinguish her essay from other commentaries and prove relevant to Ozu's Passing Fancy and through this, assist our understanding of Ozu himself. First, that Ozu was late in adopting sound film—he still used intertitles in Passing Fancy in 1933--certainly suggests his comfortability with the older form of filmmaking, if not his artistic conservatism. Second, Russel situates Passing Fancy in context of Ozu's other silent comedies, and then describes how the narratives and themes of these comedies reflect Japan's historical circumstances. Russel's focus on the various fatherhood-related themes that carry through Ozu's comedies is particularly useful in understanding the tenuous relationship between the main characters of Passing Fancy, a poor laborer and his son. Understanding the film's background in the Great Depression and Japan's modernization, we better recognize that Passing Fancy's sympathetically-portrayed father, who is so ill-equipped to confront the changing times, is intended provoke the audience to lament modernization and with it the end of Japanese simplicity that Ozu embraced in his films. This also suggests an old fashioned sensibility on Ozu's part.

 

 

"Ozu, Sound, and Style" by Matt Hauske. date unavailable.

In this article Matt Hauske examines how Ozu's editing patterns changed over his period of directing. Specifically, it discusses the remarkably consistent shot length in his films, and explains that the stylistic choices accompanying this shot consistency remained even after Ozu adopted sound film. The introduction of sound film resulted in an almost universal doubling of average shot length in films. While Ozu's films experienced the same effect, the editing patterns and style of his silent films carried over to his sound ones. Ozu himself admitted that his sound films retained the style of his silent ones. Hauske suggests that Ozu's editing style resisted the changes that new technology seemed to insist upon because Ozu continued to work primarily in family dramas and comedies. To Ozu, who valued narrative clarity and simplicity above all else, these types of films required lengthy shots and heavy use of intertitles. Ozu's characteristic use of long takes and depiction of dialogue suggests that Ozu was in many respects ahead of his time, even though he adopted sound technology much later than other directors. Hauske also notes that Ozu often makes it clear in his silent films that he's aware of the potential for sound technology: scenes where characters react to off-screen sources of sound seem to be playful reminders of this awareness. Hauske concludes by speculating about the reasons for Ozu's remarkable editing consistency in his films. Perhaps Ozu's greatest reason for very consistent shot length and editing patterns, Hauske posits, is the opportunity it affords to play with audience expectations and subvert Hollywood editing norms.

Hauske does not deal with Passing Fancy specifically, but as one of Ozu's later silent comedies this article seems applicable to it. Particularly interesting is Hauske's suggestion that Ozu's silent films were quite advanced for their heavy use of dialogue and lengthy shots. In Passing Fancy Ozu demonstrates a proficient use of both to further the narrative. By Hauske's assessment, then, Ozu proves to be a progressive director for his innovative editing work in his silent comedies. Perhaps even more important, however, is the idea that Ozu used very consisting editing simply in in order to subvert it; in doing so, he would often undermine the audience's expectations and diverge from the classical western editing that he admired so much.

 

 

http://proxy.library.upenn.edu:2055/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=113&sid=8bd0ab1a-27c9-4ba4-9013-563719a28235%40sessionmgr108&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=aph&AN=13485062

EBSCOhost

Hoellering, Franz

Source:

Nation; 11/23/1940, Vol. 151 Issue 21, p513-514, 2p

Abstract: "Fantasia," the newest Walt Disney production, is a promising monstrosity and an experiment containing many lessons. There is enough in it to make up for the shocks one suffers. And to be shocked in these times of blood and tears by the handling of a problem of art is in itself an experience of temporary relief. The essentially new and essentially problematic in "Fantasia" is the use of great music as accompaniment for Walt Disney cartoons. To be sure that viewers are told that it is the other way around and no doubt the intent was the opposite one.

 

VCAT Record

 

This article asserts that Buddhist aesthetics can be seen in Ozu films and then proceeds to compare those films to Kore’eda’s film Maborosi.  The two Buddhist ideas that the author sees expressed in Ozu films are mu (nothingness) and mono no aware (the mysteriousness of things).  Though Ozu was likely not trying to instill Buddhist meaning into his films, he was certainly aware of these concepts.  Ozu even had mu written on his tombstone, implying that he was particularly aligned with this concept.

This article places Ozu’s films in the cultural context of Japanese Zen Buddhism.  The concept of mu is that saying less is saying more.  Ozu’s minimalist plots and still-life shots certainly embody this, as does his tendency to de-emphasize the major events of the story and rather focus on the time and space surrounding them.  Mono no aware is also observable in Ozu’s films.  The way that Ozu’s editing and camera angles often stray from the action and do not always focus on what is most interesting makes the audience slightly perplexed and wondering about the meaning of different events or objects.  Ozu often focuses the camera on a single object and may switch between several before arriving at a shot significant to the plot.  Focusing on different objects leads the audience to wonder at their significance.  This wonder awakens a perspective of “mysteriousness” regarding everyday events and objects that is mono no aware.  Ozu’s tendency of circular stories and repetition is also in line with Zen Buddhism, as circular time is one of its key ideas.

LaFleur, William R. Suicide off the Edge of Explicability: Awe in Ozu and Kore'eda. Film History, Vol. 14, No. 2, Film and Religion (2002), pp. 158-165

This article discusses the visual style of Japanese cinema before 1945.  By the mid 1920s, Japanese editing and visual style had mostly adopted the Hollywood style, meaning continuity editing, the 180-degree rule, and so on.  However, during the 1920s and 30s, Japanese filmmakers revised many of these rules for their own purposes.  For example, the 180-degree rule was sometimes violated.  The pictorialist approach contained “longer takes, more distant framings, [and] less cutting in to details”.  Piecemeal decoupage was typical of many of the directors from the Shochiku studio (of which Ozu was one).  In piecemeal decoupage, every scene is broken up into many different smaller shots.  Ozu was one of the most famous users of this style in his early career, though he later gave it up.  Piecemeal decoupage was mostly used by Shochiku studios in shomin-geki, dramas and comedies about middle and lower class contemporary families.  Shochiku’s studio was in Kamata, so this is called the Kamata style.

This article is useful in putting Ozu’s style in “I was born but…” in context with his peers at the time.  Ozu was an avid admirer of Hollywood films, but much like his peers, he broke many of the rules made by Hollywood.  He often breaks the 180-degree rule, as well as many other basic rules of continuity editing.  “I was born but…” is edited in piecemeal decoupage style, while his later work contains many pictorialist elements.  This article shows that while the techniques used by Ozu were certainly unusual, they were not completely revolutionary.  Other directors of the time were using piecemeal decoupage and pictorialist techniques as well.  In addition, Ozu’s style is very similar to other directors that worked at Shochiku studios (the so-called Kamata style).  “I was born but…”, is done in piecemeal decoupage and focuses on the everyday life of a middle-class family.

Bordwell, David. Visual Style in Japanese Cinema, 1925-1945. Film History, Vol. 7, No. 1, Asian Cinema (Spring, 1995), pp. 5-31

This article discusses Yasujiro Ozu’s use of narrative during his silent film period.  One characteristic is that he uses shots of objects to portray narrative.  This also includes shots of landscapes.  This functions to put together pieces of a whole, or piece together contiguous areas.  Another common technique is to show an object being manipulated by someone and then show the person manipulating it.  This inverts cause and effect, as it shows the effect first, and then the cause.  Ozu also will tend to show the after-effects of an event rather than the event itself.  For example, instead of showing a father scolding his children, he will show the children upset after being yelled at.  Ozu also frequently used empty still-life shots.  However, they are scarce in his earlier films.  Another technique he uses is suppressed transitions.  This is when there is a seemingly continuous shot that is in fact discontinuous.  For example, in “I was born but…” there is a transition between two scenes that both contain a close-up of a telephone pole, but the shots are actually discontinuous.   Also, Ozu’s camera was not always in focus on the main action, and often used confusing camera angles. 

This article is useful as an analysis of the way that Ozu presents his story to the audience, causing the audience to feel as if they are observing everyday events.  All of the techniques discussed in the article serve to slow the understanding of the events on-screen by the audience.  For example, early on in “I was born but…” there is a scene where the camera focuses on the inside of the family’s new house as we see the cart with the two boys arriving out-of-focus through a window.  The audience is interested in the actions of the two boys, the protagonists, but the camera impedes our full sight of them.  Also, suppressed transitions allows Ozu to put scenes that are not related by plot next to one another and impede the logical progression of the plot and order of scenes.  The effect of this is that the audience becomes very aware of their observer role.  The audience is not always in the middle of the action, and is thus often given limited information.  In addition, it subverts the plot by impeding the logical order of events.  The plot does not proceed in directly logical order and there are many scenes which do not seem to have particular importance.  For example, there is the scene in the classroom where one of the boys gets in trouble for eating a swallow egg, as well as the scene in which the protagonist eat their lunches in a field.  Neither of these scenes advance the plot but serve as simply events in the characters’ lives.  All of this has the effect that we not being drawn into some grand plot manipulated by the director and writers, but rather that we are viewing a series of somewhat insignificant, loosely connected events.  This is much closer to everyday life.

Geist, Kathe. Narrative Style in Ozu's Silent Films. Film Quarterly, Vol. 40, No. 2 (Winter, 1986-1987), pp. 28-35

This article is a stylistic analysis of Yasujiro Ozu.  It focuses on the techniques of five of his later films (Late Spring, Tokyo Story, Early Spring, Good Morning, and Late Autumn).  Specifically, it addresses plot, structure, editing, tempo, and scene.  Ozu plots are very straightforward because he saw the story as only a pretext for the film.  As such, his movies played like an episode of normal life.  The structure of Ozu films emphasize the idea of “return”. His films often end where they began.  In his editing, he does not much dialogue or character study to make his point.  He places the emphasis on what happens before or after the primary emotional event, rather than the event itself.  Regarding tempo, Ozu films take place completely in the present, and take place in “psychological time”, not clock-time.  The rate at which time passes is subject to the characters.  Finally, Ozu will often create scenes that resemble beautiful still-lives.

This article is useful to use in order to descirbe the style of “I was born, but…”.  Although the article discusses his later films, he uses many of the same stylistic techniquies in "I was born but...".  Many of the stylistic techniques mentioned in the article also appear in “I was born but…”.  The plot is very straightforward and there is no grand plot.  It simply details a small period of time in the life of two boys.  The major events are small things such as fighting or playing with other boys in the neighborhood, or going over to their father’s boss’ home to watch a movie. The structure also has the idea of “return”.  The film ends and begins with an interaction with the neighborhood boys.  Often times, the editing sends an implicit message of a character’s emotions rather than focusing overtly on it.  For example, after the father has been called a weakling and a nobody by his sons, there is a shot from his back that focuses on the fact that his posture is bent and he is holding a bottle of alcohol.  From this, the audience must infer that he is upset by the previous confrontation with his sons.  This is also a beautifully composed shot, which could be compared to a still painting as there is no action in it.  The tempo of the film is certainly in real time, and there are many shots with very little action.  There is a long scene in the middle of the film where the two boys simply eat rice.

Richie, Donald. "Yasujiro Ozu: The Syntax of his Films". Film QuarterlyVol. 17, No. 2 (Winter, 1963-1964), pp. 11-16

Abstract: Focuses on Disney's studio in the early 1940s. Significance of the release of the motion picture "Fantasia" to Disney; Information on the expedition of Disney in South America; Use of the Donald Duck character in a film requested by the U.S. Treasury Department.

Tom Gunning, "The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde"

"The Debate about Cinema: Charting a Controversy (1909-1929)"

while German film gained status as art through Wegener's "neo-Romantic preference for pre-industrial visual worlds" and expressionism, Hollyood was deemed merely commercial product and escapist fantasy.

see also Kreimeier, The Ufa Story: A History of Germany's Greatest Film Company, 1918-1945, and for consideration of question of whether Expressionist film was kitsch, Elsaesser, Weimar Cinema and After: Germany's Historical Imaginary 

Cavell, "More of The World Viewed" 28 (1974), 571-631.

Gunning, "An Aesthetic of Astonishment: Early Film and the [In]Credulous Spectator"

Mary Ann Doane, "When the Direction of the Force Acting on the Body is Changed: The Moving Image" 1985, 7/2.

thorough discussion of early cinema's relation to theatrical practice, says Gunning. europe and us.  influence and transformation of theatrical performance style, lighting techniques, sensation scenes.

Chapter 4. Displaying Connoisseurship, Recognizing Craftmanship.

In this chapter Hills explores how the pleasures of horror are constructed and narrated through fan discourses. He analyzes horror fan discourses on a few different horror internet forums and concludes that connoisseurship is the master trope in fan struggles against "inauthentic" horror consumers (non-fans) and taste-making authorities who marginalize horror. Horror fans position themselves as "authentic" through knowledge of the genre and by privileging this intellectual engagement with horror over any affective, emotional engagement. That is, "nonfans" react to horror emotionally (they express fear), while "fans" are interact in a conscious, "knowing" (and at times "superior") way. Ironically, the ostensive purpose of horror films (to instill "horror") is marginalized in these fan communities to "non-fans"). However, it is also recuperated through personal narratives of first/childhood experiences with horror. These narratives admit the affective aspect of horror as experienced in childhood and this serves as a "discourse of affect." This discourse allows the horror fan to positions themselves as rational and literate ("serious") to gain cultural credibility pushing emotion to the past and turning affect into knowledge.

Hills considers online communities--following Pierre Levy and Henry Jenkins--as a 'cosmopedia.' In horror fan forums, fans establish their subcultural identities through appropriate performances within this collective, interactive, and contested "knowledge space." Horror fans also express connoisseurship through their recognition and celebration of horror "special effects" (SFX). Hills rightfully points out that while horror directors are celebrated as auteurs (George Romero, Dario Argento, etc.), SFX creates a network of author functions. The reading of horror films by "fans" often involves a "double attention" to both the experience of the horrific content and the content as special effect. While some fans may use the attention to SFX as a "masculine" reading strategy to deflect affective (i.e. "feminine) responses, Hills points out that a aignificant portion of the audience does so to generate and sustain a reading of "horror-as-art." These fan discourses, Hills argues, work contra to many theories of horror which privilege cognitive,literary, or psychoanalytic textual aspects as generating the (dis)pleasures of horror. Fans' constructed pleasures of horror revolve more around imagined version of their "generic community" or subculture and its particular distinctions from other cultures.

 

This edited collection of essays has the overarching goal of exploring the horror film genre by paying attention to the technical and industrial aspects of film that distinguish horror films from horror in other media (such as literature or comic books). The two general questions that the essays-to one degree or another-address are: what role does technology play in the production of horror films, and what role does technology play in the distribution, exhibition, and reception of horror films? ("technology" defined broadly to include production equipment, industrial mechanisms, ideological mechanisms, etc.). The first section of the book consists of essays that explore various technologies and formal innovations employed in the production of horror films. The second section of the book deals with issues surrounding horror films in the marketplace (advertising, distribution, and reception). Finally, the third section examines discursive and ideological aspects of the horror genre from censorship to fan discourse.

Philip Simpson's chapter entitled "The Horror 'Event' Movie: The Mummy, Hannibal, and Signs" explores horror films as they are positioned as Hollywood blockbusters. These marketing and promotion of these films often downplay or outright deny the film's association with the horror genre (still often seen as a marginal or low brow genre). Simpson argues that these horror 'event' movies reach a larger mainstream audience by using star actors and high profile directors, high production values, and genre mixing. Simpson distinguishes between major studio horror films and "second tier" cult audience films. While it is true that many of the films that Simpson discusses are marketed as something other than horror (either as thrillers, adventure films, or even supernatural thrillers), it is not clear where the division between A-list productions and "second tier" films lies. He cites the $100 million dollar domestic theatrical gross mark as certifying a blockbuster, but fails to cite many of the low budget, independent, or "second tier" horror films that crossed that barrier such as The Blair Witch Project (1999), The Ring (2002), and The Grudge (2004).

 Variety.com - MPAA tries to remove NC-17 stigma: Glickman takes a hard look at ratings

Sat., Mar. 10, 2007

Hawkins builds off of Jeffrey Sconce’s discussion of “paracinema” and “trash aesthetics” to explore the historical relationship between “high-end” avant-garde or art cinema and “low brow” horror and exploitation films. Hawkins seeks to break down the boundaries erected between “high” and “low” by demonstrating the shared stake that both horror and the avant-garde have in challenging mainstream notions of good taste and dominant Hollywood productions. The most interesting aspect of the book is her exploration of mail-order video companies such as Sinister Cinema and Something Weird Video whose photocopied “DIY” catalogs in the 1980s served as a collective space of horror and cult fandom long before the Internet. These catalogs tended to mix cheap exploitation and European art fare often with little distinguishing between the two. The second chapter of the book (“Medium Cool”) explores the culture of collecting inherent in both paracinema video culture and the niche market for Criterion Collection laser discs. Hawkins’s work is important as it captures a particular historical moment, but it also feels woefully out of date. This is not a critique of the book as much as a call for a revised edition that explores paracinema in the digital age (e.g., blogs, fan forums, web mail-order sites, etc.). In addition to patterns of consumption which blur the boundaries between “high” and “low” art, Hawkins explores a number of films which form a sort of hybrid category by combining aspects of art cinema with the horror genre. Her prime example is Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face (1959) which combines the formal aesthetics of French “poetic realism” with an exploitation story—and graphic gore—many consider as ushering in (along with Hitchcock’s Psycho [1960]) the slasher subgenre. Ironically, when the U.S. imported Franju’s film to play in the “grindhouse” circuit with the sensational new title of The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus, they excised the graphic “face removal” surgical scene which most qualified the film as horror in the first place.

Hawkins’s book provides a useful exploration of how genres circulate within culture often in ways that defy “officially” sanctioned categories and counter to the wishes and intentions of institutions, gatekeepers, and other “taste-makers.”

Heffernan’s book seeks to investigate the economic and industrial aspects of the horror film genre that many scholarly accounts (which typically focus on cultural and/or aesthetic issues) fail to adequately consider. The book focuses on the postwar period (1953-1968); a period comprised of drastic changes in the film industry (i.e., Paramount decree, TV, technological innovation), and charts some of the functions or positions that horror genre pictures filled during this time period. He argues that this period—which is book-ended by 3D technology and the adoption of the MPAA rating system—saw a major cultural and economic shift in the production and reception of horror movies. This was partially due to the Supreme Court’s Paramount decision in 1948 which required the break-up of Hollywood’s vertically integrated system of production, distribution, and exhibition. As Hollywood studios began producing fewer films, independent distributors and exhibitors needed more product to fill out their schedules including B-pictures for the bottom half of popular double-feature bills. Heffernan argues that “low” genres like horror and sci-fi played an important part in the testing and development of new technologies and methods of production, distribution, and advertising to accommodate various changes including suburbanization, the growth of television, new youth markets, and the new economic and business structures of the film industry. Although written as a “corrective” to scholarship which focuses solely on culture and aesthetics, Heffernan avoids “economic determinism” by deftly intertwining the exploration of various aesthetic and formal changes of the horror genre during this period including greater psychological realism and, of course, graphic gore.

Using Philadelphia as his test market, Heffernan chronologically traces the distribution and exhibition patterns of various horror films across both theatrical and television venues. He begins with the early 1950s cycle of 3D horror films arguing that the narrative and stylistic norms of the horror genre could best negotiate the conflicting demands of “attraction” (the gimmick shots) and narrative integration of the classical Hollywood model, and also detailing the challenges faced by small theater owners to equip theaters to show 3D. Heffernan continues through the 50s and 60s exploring the impact of Hammer’s color saturated and bloody Gothic updates of the classic Universal monsters, how shortages in production from majors caused independent distributors and exhibitors to get into the production business, how the rise in art theaters utilized both exploitation/genre films and art cinema (i.e., “paracinema”), and the rise of “adult” horror in the late 60s. Overall, Heffernan’s book is well-researched, clearly written, and provides a wealth of knowledge for film scholars interested in the economic side of the industry—especially those interested in genre film. The only quibble is with the brief conclusion “The Horror Film in the New Hollywood.” It feels not only tacked on, but somewhat dismissive of the horror film post-1968. He also makes some broad—and I believe incorrect—claims such as that in the 1980s horror film spectacle overwhelms narrative. This comment flies in the face of the convincing arguments he lays out in discussing the intricate relation between technology and genre film of the 50s and 60s (such as horror’s ability to navigate 3D and narrative).

Peter Brunette's Commentary: "What David Hemmings is doing here is putting photographs together to makes some kind of narrative to figure
out what the story was, which of course is the definition of a movie, putting together still photographs that run in some kind of narrative way through some kind of temporal sequence to makes some kind of meaning. And that's exactly what's happening here."

Cited by Gitelman Always Already New.

History of Hollywood in 1960’s and 1970’s.  By M. Kach and G. Lane.

 8	Edison's Teeth: Touching Hearing
	Steven Connor	000
 9	Thinking about Sound, Proximity, and Distance in 
	Western Experience: The Case of Odysseus's Walkman
	Michael Bull	000
10	Wiring the World: Acoustical Engineers and the Empire of 
	Sound in the Motion Picture Industry, 1927-1930
	Emily Thompson	000

"Ever since the advent of the two- and three-our photoplay, which also inaugurated an era of building palatial playhouses for their exhibition, there has come an increased demand for these so-called organ-orchestras and the one at the Strand has attracted so much attention that th ewriter ventured to ask Mr. Austin whether he believed that the mechanical orchestra - though operated at the console by a competent musician - was destined to eventually replace the large orchestral bodies in our play-houses of various grades" (335)..."'But we are convinced that the organ can be made a vital part of the equipment of the modern photoplay-house and by special arrangements of its tonal scheme and voicing can be rendered truly imitative of orchestral qualities and at the same time have sufficient inherent dignity which is invariably lacking in the usual theatre orchestra. The best results in my opinion,' continued Mr. Austin, 'can be obtained in the combination of the pipe organ and a limited orchestra, in fact, I think that not only in the moving picture theatres but in all play-houses the best effects will be achieved by such a combination of the larger organ and a few solo pieces in the orchestra.' The influence of the organ orchestra in the theatre of science has tended to greatly augment the musical side of photplay presentation and it is, indeed, a befitting as well as a truly artistic adjunct of the modern motion picture theatre, illustrating as it does the gradual resort to scientific means of expression. Hence, it is not surprising in this era of newly erected palatial photoplay houses that as high as $50,000 is being expended for what is known as the Wurlitzer Unit Orchestra." (336)

Also discusses potential of talking pictures and first experience with telephone. 

Good history of buildings for movies.

Basic historical story, stuff you'll find elsewhere.

The aims of this research project are to 1) historicize the Classical Hollywood orchestra, and 2) interrogate the cultural significations of the orchestral sound that Hollywood both deployed and helped to form.

David Bordwell, Kristin Thompson, and Janet Staiger have provided the canonical and definitive study of the Hollywood film industry of the classical era--approximately 1917 to 1960. As the subtitle to the book indicates, this study looks at the intersection of film style and modes of production (including technology, business models, studio ownership, technical craft, etc.) and generally argues that the studio era of Hollywood is marked by a fairly coherent aesthetic system and consistent style which the modes of production worked to reinforce. According to Bordwell, the classical style does not consist of iron-clad rules, but rather offers a paradigm of "bounded alternatives" from which filmmakers can choose allowing individual creativity while still reinforcing the overall aesthetic system. Additionally, the system is flexible enough to incorporate stylistic innovations into its own schemata--for example, German Expressionism was incorporated into both the horror films of the 1930s and the cycle of film noir in the 1940s and 50s. The book is extensively researched, highly detailed, and very useful for anyone researching Hollywood cinema. The approach to this book is based in industrial history and formal aesthetic analysis of films--it is not a cultural studies text nor does it engage critical theory is any sustained way (which is part of its strength). However, nothing prevents one from applying the insights from Bordwell, Thompson, and Staiger to a cultural studies project. If you are looking for a more cultural history of Hollywood, then Robert Sklar's Movie-made America: A Cultural History of American Movies is a good bet.

Excellent collection of essays on the history of the horror film, the aesthetics of horror, and audience reception of the horror film. Many of the essays presented here can be seen as useful companion pieces to Noel Carroll's seminal book The Philosophy of Horror or Paradoxes of the Heart (1990) as they continue to explore the question of horror affect and why people like to be scared by movies. Also of particular interest are two essays which discuss the under-explored silent-era horror film (see below).

"Shadow-Souls and Strange Adventures: Horror and the Supernatural in European Silent Film" by Casper Tybjerg

Tybjerg argues that despite the fact that most histories of the horror film begin their story with the first Hollywood sound horror films, Tod Browning's Dracula and James Whale's Frankenstein (both 1931), while paying only passing attention to such "precursors" as Murnau's Nosferatu (1922), there are a substantial number of European silent films (especially from Germany, but also from Denmark, Sweden and Russia) that should arguably be considered a part of the horror genre proper due to their common features of the supernatural and depictions of nightmarish situations. Tybjerg also usefully explores the relation between "fantastic" literature of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the development of the horror film in Germany in the 1910s and 1920s which, of course, served as an influence for the "golden age" of the Hollywood sound horror film of the 1930s.

"Before Sound: Universal, Silent Cinema, and the Last of the Horror-Spectaculars" by Ian Conrich.

Conrich performs a service similar to Tybjerg's but this time concentrates on the cycle of "horror-spectaculars" produced by Universal before the advent of sound: The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), The Phantom of the Opera (1925) and The Man Who Laughs (1928). Conrich does not insist that these pre-sound horror films represented a fully developed genre, but rather that the periodization that tends to be inforced using sync sound as the demarcation can efface continuities and create somewhat false divisions. By tracing certain continuities of technical staff, themes, and film style across this divide, he shows that silent and sound horror films have more in common than often asserted.

James Lastra situates the development of sound technology within the context of modernity with special attention paid to the relation of sound to other representational technologies such as photography and phonography. The book attempts to trace the exchanges and shifting relationships between human senses, technologies, and forms of representation (i.e., senses shaped technology development and those devices shaped our sensory experiences). The first couple chapters are a more general account of the material history of sound technology as both a means of simulating the sensory capacities of the ear and as a means of "writing" sound. The remaining chapters are nominally about the cinema beginning with the coming of sound and moving through the classical Hollywood system. Overall, Lastra's book is indebted to cultural theorists of modernity (Benjamin, Comolli, Adorno) which is not surpising as Lastra teaches at Chicago along with other modernity film scholars Tom Gunning and Miriam Hansen. The book has many strengths including giving ample attention to the practices and theories of early film sound technicians and engineers (and not just academic theorists), but suffers a bit from lack of attention to actual films themselves. Chapters 5 & 6 claim to examine the relationship between sound aesthetics, technology and film form, but while attention is paid to various sound technologies and ideas of "realism" there is little attention paid to demonstrating their effect on the form of actual films. Still, it is a well written and interesting book that will be especially useful for those interested in modernity, technology and theories of representation.

This book is amazing; it situates its contributions to our knowledge of silent film music – which our copious – within the existing body of literature, providing a solid point of departure for all further study. Marks gives extensive consideration to the availability and state of the historical evidence, and works to piece together the surviving (often partial) scores, advertisements and reviews in order to create a more complete picture of the silent era’s musical practices then has elsewhere been achieved. Marks debunks the notion that there was a period during which anything went musically as long as it covered up the noise of the projector and compensated for the uncanny flatness of the moving image by looking at music for some of the proto-film technologies (vitascope, biograph and bioskop). The more compelling case of bioskop took place in Europe, however, and their film music practices were not immediately taken up in America. In 1909 Moving Picture World dubbed the majority of pianists inadequate movie accompaniests, and only months later Edison published its first guidelines for film accompaniment. Marks observes that the 1910-14 period has been subject to severe music scholarly neglect due to the perceived lack of evidence. Marks finds and considers numerous “special scores,” i.e. scores written specially for particular movies, that predate Birth of a Nation (1915), the oft cited “first.” Birth of a Nation gets its own chapter too, however, for it was a significant and influential achievement. Marks includes numerous facsimiles as well as transcriptions of the surviving parts/scores, and subjects them to paleographic as well as music analysis. I would say this is THE book for silent film music.

The aims of this research project are to 1) historicize the Classical Hollywood orchestra, and 2) interrogate the cultural significations of the orchestral sound that Hollywood both deployed and helped to form.

This documentary spends an unfortunate amount of time on a present day studio orchestra recreating the event of recording a hollywood film score. However, besides that there are enlightening discussions and examples of film scores by Max Steinr and Erich Korngold in particular, and conversations with then still living composer of Laura, David Raskin. The state of film music archives depicted is exciting and depressing: some scores from classical hollywood era survive but many were thrown away when studios ran short of space. Much film music research is devoted to reconstructing the partially surviving scores.  The technique for achieving synchrony between sound and image - which involves punches and streamers - is well illustrated.

Sklar argues that the development of the movies during critical years of change (industrialization, urbanization, modernization) in the social structure of America is responsible for their success in becoming the most popular and influential media of the first half of the 20th century; I would say that there is no doubt some truth to this but that it fails to recognize the role of movies in actually bringing about changes in the modern, urban social structure. The older American city, according to Sklar, juxtaposed and intermingled different income levels and occupations, while the new city segregated them.  When Sklar calls the discovery of storefront movie theaters “a shocking revelation to the middle class” he paints the middle class with too broad a brushstroke; he does, however, vividly report the reaction of social reformers to the specter of entertainment and information sources unsupervised by by churches and schools.  Sklar suggests that the middle-class saw censorship as a way to control the movies and to realize a desire to return to a society (a la Elizabethan) in which high culture was popular culture accessible to and enjoyed by alls social groups.  This dream failed to materialize because demonopolization (the busting of the Edison Trust) of the movie industry thwarted efforts at exert complete control over movie content through censorship.  The desire to make high culture popular culture factors significantly in my research interests, and while it is not Sklar’s main concern his history usefully details the movie situation within which such desire was expressed. His history covers the period from the birth of the movies to “Hollywood’s collapse” as he puts it, which coincided with the rise of television, art films and hard-core porn films. 

As Bates has learned over the course of his teaching career, students are often “not much more open to history than they are to old films.”  Thus instead of trying to lecture students on why specific films were so meaningful during the time they were released, Bates attempted to come up with an innovative way to relate students to the historical context of the films they are watching.  Over time, Bates developed and polished a teaching technique in which his students discover the significance of films through writing and self-reflection.  His main assignment consists of three major essays: Essay 1 “asks the students of identify a film that had [a] powerful resonance for them and to account for that response historically.” Essay 2 – the “vertical study” – has students choose a film that was perceived as a major “event” for audiences of the past and develop a theory on why the public responded as it did.  Essay 3 – the “horizontal study” – encourages the students “choose three films that have something in common,” but also span a historical gap of at least thirty years.

            By completing these assignments one after another, Bates’ students learn to define the historical significance of any given film first by thinking critically about how films as a medium affect their own lives and then extrapolating those feelings onto an audience in another time and place.  As an example for his students, Bates contextualizes the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, by discussing his personal encounter with the film as a young viewer 1969.  At the time, Bates explains that he was an eighteen-year-old student with a low draft-number that would likely send him to Vietnam once he graduated from school.  Upon watching the film, Bates instantly identified with “Butch and Sundance’s irreverent defiance of authority,” and strongly sympathized with their “frustration and few over the relentless pursuit of [their] faceless posse.”  The violent conclusion of the film, however, only served to “confirm [his] fatalism: like Butch and Sundance, [he] could defy authority for a while…but ultimately [he] didn’t stand a chance.”

Smith, Dina M. "Global Cinderella: Sabrina (1954), Hollywood, and Post-War Internationalism." Cinema Journal 41.4 (2002): 27.

 

Smith’s complex article focuses on the relationship between the United States and Europe post-World War II, in the framework of politics, foreign policy, economics, and the cinema. Films of that era, like Sabrina, she argues, twist the classic Cinderella story to fit the gendered metaphors intrinsic in foreign policy of the time, namely that Europe, as the “culturally savvy orphan” is in need of a “strong rich man,” like America, to save it. The Europe of these films was like a “postcard fantasy” to sheltered Americans: Paris was marketed as a one-dimensional entity that was the visualization of the notion of culture. Smith traces this relationship between American and French film industries back to the era of Lumiere and Pathe Freres. France, and Paris in particular, was something to be consumed, for its food, literature, fashion, and everything else: this idea is central to the plot of Sabrina, and is reflected in much of Hepburn’s career as a “European” star, as argued by Handyside.

Smith also comments on the casting of Bogart, who she claims had an identity of “rugged cowboy American individualism,” as an antithesis to Hepburn’s European sensibilities. In this film, Bogart’s character is the epitome of American economic style, yet by the end, he is inextricably attached to Europe, as both an idea and physically. The author finds many ties between American and European cultural codes referenced in the film, such as how Sabrina needs her Parisian makeover in order to socialize with the higher class of Americans. The film, as mentioned in many other placed, was the first full-scale use of European fashions in an American film; these only emphasize Hepburn’s thin, “hungry” European body, which becomes the clothing that she wears. Smith notes that this film made significant inroads to “incorporate and denationalize” French cultures and its products, something that has continued in American film through the present.

      One of notable aspects in the movie Grease  is Sandy's transformation. Sandy starts out with a reserved, innocent and sometimes even nerdy “Sandra Dee” character. Therefore, her transformation into “Bad Sandy” is shocking. Tim Riley’s book Fever answers the reason for Sandy’s transformation. It explains how Rock ‘n’ Roll transformed the gender and the world. 

      His main argument is “contrary to the fears of parents, educators, and politicians over the past fifty years, what rock ‘n’ roll stars set in motion had an overwhelmingly positive impact on the concept of gender.”

      To prove his thesis, he defines the role of Rock ‘n’ Roll as “giving the simultaneously liberating and frightening realization that they possessed enormous power simply because they were young.” He argues that Elvis’“unabashed physical expression of pleasure and earthy enthusiasm for sex” was a big sensation of the era. He then, discusses several other features such as Tina, girls group and the Rolling Stones.He explains about political and social changes that the era underwent concluding that these changes accelerated the young generation to acquire freedom of self-expression and change their attitude toward the gender.

    The author Justin Wyatt defines “high-concept” film as one“comprising 'the look, the hook, and the book.' The look of the images, the marketing hooks, and the reduced narratives form the cornerstones of high concept" (22). He waqnts to draw critical attention to the popular films as much as people give to the more “serious” films. He argues that through understanding the economic determinants of the popular films, one can truly appreciate the contemporary landscape of American film. Therefore, he continues to argue, consideration of economic reality should be incorporated in appreciating the high concept films.

    Then he tries make distinction between the “high concept” film ( Grease as an example) and “low concept” film ( All That Jazz as an example). Which aspects of Grease make it a “high concept” movie?

    Wyatt cites the cast of the famous stars such as John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John to attract young audiences and stars of the 50s such as Eve Arden as the principal “to attract older audiences seeking the film’s nostalgia.” Then, he mentions about the sound track of the movie which succeeded in commercializing. Finally, he argues that the logo of the film “ a small car containing the word “Grease” written in fluid, grease-like style” was also a great marketing strategy. Therefore, he says Grease posseses the high-concept qualities while All That Jazz , a less commercially successful movie, is a “low concept movie.”

   The author starts with an explanation of the political environment. He mentions Franklin D. Roosevelt who left a profound impact on American politics. (In the scene when the Principal McGee makes a commencement announcement, she is talking about Eleanor Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt’s wife.This scene tells us how the 1950s was filled up with legacy of the Roosevelts.) He further goes on unfolding forthcoming political developments ;Presidents of the United States after Roosevelt, important world events such as the Korean War, Black Civil Rights Movement and political and economic developments which brought remarkable prosperity to American citizens of the 1950s.

   He then discusses the rise of a new culture- The rise of television and rock ‘n’ roll. It is notable that the author put a strong emphasis on Elvis Presley’s influence! The fast spread of the popularity of Rock ‘n’ Roll is attributed to the rise of television, according to the author. This social upheaval enabled more teenagers to get more contact with Rock ‘n’ roll, which caused psychological change.

belongs to Annotated Bibliographies for film "Grease" project
tagged film_history by chosk ...on 07-APR-06