4/2/98 (rev. 4/1/98)
 
I. The Origins of American Movies (May, Screening out the Past) [review]
 
A. Motion pictures initially heralded as "scientific," and like some literary realism, tied to 19th centaur "morality" by virtue of its ability to tell the "truth." Edison embodied this in his philosophy and his person.
 
B. Various forces dashed dream of "scientific" enlightenment: immigrant culture, political machines which protected their preferred forms of popular culture, and desire of workers (with disposable income for first time) to escape mechanical work.
 
C. Movies proliferate in "nickelodeons," and prompt widespread outcry by older middle classes. Culminates in drive to censor (NYC 1908), and move within industry to make "uplifting" films as direct censorship fails.
 
 
II. Movies and Modernism D.W. Griffiths [review]
 
Thesis: although Griffiths had no intention of being a modernist, or to introduce the latest "European" ideas into the United States, his decision to make uplifting movies led him into to artistic experiments which raised the film above simple narrative, that is, led him to explore some of the new ways of seeing that film allowed.
 
A. This is time Griffiths entered. Also his southern background made him ideal vehicle for new "uplift" since he combined admiration for his Confederate father (and anti-Yankee, anticommercial bias) with adoration of pure women as the embodiment of all that was best in "civilization," and which commercialism threatened.
 
1. at conscious level DWG certainly repudiated "modernistic" approaches, that is, he wished to work in the grand European tradition of high culture realism.
 
2. yet his desire to imbue movies with "spiritual" quality seems to have been a reason he experimented with various camera techniques. Thus, says May, he infused "new dynamism" into his movies (p. 71). "...it was Griffith's immersion in the practical, empirical side of life that led to his break with formal ways of viewing the world." Thus he transcended realism.
 
 3. Tallack p. 39 on combination of realism and modernism in American film tradition. Both predated Griffiths, e.g Porter, Great Train Robbery 1903 which (a) used multiple frames, cross cutting, editing etc. to highlight discontinuities in experience and to point to "a different concept of cinematic language." (Tallack, p. 39); and (b) at the same time employs narrative to tie scenes together and thus preserve "realism."
 
4. Birth of a Nation also combines both-- but despite "artistic experiments" (fades outs etc.), the focus is still realistic, e.g. in long shot (same scene) of confederate soldiers down the main street or minor characters doing background action that presumable continues off screen. In fact, critics complained of the "Art"
 
5. insofar as the realism also had a social/ideological component--one a later generation sees as blatantly "racist", subsequent arguments about Griffiths have reflected this duality in his films--i.e. was he an incipient "modernist" or a "racist." [note: has broader implications when one thinks f the social attitudes of other "modernists" such as Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot]
 
 
III. Chaplin and the Collapse of Victorianism
 
*based on Kenneth S. Lynn, Chaplin and His Times (l997) [omitted 1998]
 
IV. An Empire of their Own: Jews and Hollywood.
 
*based on Gabler, Neal, An empire of their own : how the Jews invented Hollywood (New York : Crown Publishers, c1988) [ McCabe PN1993.5.U65 G28 1988; and recently presented in an A&E special as "Hollywoodism".
 
V. 1950s Movie in Context of the Response of "Juvenile Delinquency": (based on James Gilbert, A Cycle of Outrage)
 
VI. Rebel without a Cause
 
A. Context
 
1. See set against background of "deviant" movies back to "Little Caesar"
2. New Pattern : The Wild One (1954), Blackboard Jungle (1955), Rebel (1955)
 
B. Social Analysis/themes: what was bugging the fifties?
 
1. Family
2. sexual identity
3. Science (see Planetarium and its role)
4. Affluence (""Don't I buy you everything you want")
5. Teen culture : animism, fetishism
 
C. Resolution?
 
1. color symbolism
2. Plato's death?
3. Role of Ray (cf. Lasch, Haven in a Heartless World)
4. redefining masculine ideal?
5. The new American family?