Film and Historiography
HUM 3280: Narrative Film
Fall 2011
Dr. Perdigao
August 24, 2011
A history of film
• Evolutions, masterpieces, and periodization
• Different ways of studying the relationship between history and film,
constructing a film history
• Historiography: “the study of the methods and principles through which the
past becomes organized according to certain perspectives and methods”
(Corrigan 368).
• Hollywood film—as “framework for conventional histories of the movies”
(Corrigan 373)
• Periodization—standardization and differentiation (Corrigan and White 394)
• Recognizable themes, plot devices, characterizations, genres, and visual styles,
extends to costuming, casting, editing, and sound practices (Corrigan and
White 394)
Measuring time
• Early Cinema (1895-1913)
• Classical Cinema (1913-1945)
– Silent films (1913-1927)
– Sound films, golden age of Hollywood (1927-1945)
• Postwar Cinema (1946-1965)
• Contemporary Cinema (post-1965)
Early Cinema (1895-1913)
• (Corrigan and White 394-395)
• Markers: rapid development and experimentation during the period
• 1895: public exhibition of movies
• 1910: rise of the star, or celebrity, system
• 1907-1913: beginning of the international dominance of Hollywood
• March 22, 1895: showing of Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory
• New forms of entertainment emerging in the nineteenth century—vaudeville
halls and popular literature, “dime novels”
• After 1905, nickelodeon theaters showing fifteen minute long movies,
replaced by movie palaces between 1914-1920 (Corrigan and White 379)
• Characteristics: shift from scenes to shots and beginnings of continuity
editing; experimentation with crosscutting, close-ups, and long shots
Foundations
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1640: Kircher’s magic lantern (Corrigan and White 375)
1839: Daguerre’s daguerreotype
1877: Muybridge’s images as movement
1892: Edison and Dickson’s Kinetoscope (machine selling for about 200
dollars; twenty-five cent admission)
• 1895: Lumière brothers—public viewings with Kinetoscope: actualités;
Cinèmatographe as alternative to Edison’s use of Armat’s and Jenkins’s
Vitascope
• Méliès A Trip to the Moon (1902)
• Recording of social and historical realities (Corrigan and White 375)
• Kinein: Greek, to move (Dick 2)
• Recording image to recreating it, telling a story
Origins
• http://americanhistory.si.edu/muybridge/
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrRUDS1xbNs&feature=related
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIkLok-BYIk
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrhVvp2IfYA&feature=related
• E. S. Porter’s The Great Train Robbery (1903):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRBi08Z00Ec&feature=watch-nowbutton&wide=1
Classical Cinema (1913-1945)
• (Corrigan and White 395-397)
• Silent and sound films
• Effects of World War I on American culture, represented in film
• “energetic optimism” and “trembling fear” (Corrigan and White 395)
• Developments in early twentieth century (1910-1920): standardization of film
production, establishment of the feature film, and cultural and economic
expansion (Corrigan and White 395)
• Normalized running time of 100 minutes for narrative film
• Characteristics: full development of narrative realism and the integration of
viewer’s perspective into editing and narrative action (Corrigan and White
396)
Classical Cinema (1913-1945)
• New developments: representation of simultaneous actions, complex spatial
geographies, and psychological interaction of characters through narrative
(Corrigan and White 396)
• Point-of-view shots developed placing viewers within characters’ perspectives
• 1926: Warner Bros. introduced the Vitaphone system, synchronized sound
with images
• Introduction of sound in 1927, with The Jazz Singer premiering on October 6
• Roaring twenties: Great Depression; spirit of optimism with Roosevelt’s New
Deal
• Presence of musicals in the 1930s
• 1930s-1940s developments in sound: synchronous sound to show reality;
asynchronous sound to communicate psychological realities (Corrigan and
White 378)
• 1930s and improvement of Technicolor
Classical Cinema (1913-1945)
• Elaboration of movie dialogue, emphasis on characterization; emergence of
generic formulas for narratives
• Screenwriters—from novels to films (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
• Hays Office and Production Code
Violations
• Motion Picture Production Code, Hays Code
• Established by Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors of America
(MPPDA), later Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)
• Adopted in 1930, enforced in 1934, maintained until 1968
• Attempts to “clean up” film industry, after moves toward censorship in film
• “The Formula” developed by Will Hays, hired as president of the MPPDA in
1922
• Follows 1915 Supreme Court ruling that free speech did not extend to film
(Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio)
• Promoting “traditional values,” protecting children, establishing standards of
good taste
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Coding
http://course1.winona.edu/pjohnson/h140/hays_code.htm
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93301189
http://www.artsreformation.com/a001/hays-code.html
http://www.mpaa.org/ratings/ratings-history
Postwar Cinema (1945-1965)
• (Corrigan and White 397-398)
• World War II contexts and aftermath
• Doubts about human nature, social progress—ideas about what art can do
• Deterioration of American family, fears of the “other” as extension of Cold
War culture
• Civil Rights movement in the 1950s
• Spread of television in 1950s
• 1948 Paramount decision, 1968 relaxation of codes and development of
ratings system
• United States v. Paramount, antitrust laws violation, separation of production
companies and theaters that arose with vertical integration (Corrigan and
White 380)
• More experimentation in film, testing boundaries, 3-D format developed in
1950s
Contemporary Cinema (1965-present)
• (Corrigan and White 398-399)
• Vietnam War—anger and confusion, fragmentation in American culture, idea
of national identity
• Revolutionary 1960s, 1970s—ideas about sexuality
• New Hollywood, influence of European cinema
• VCRS (and Beta players!), cable, dvds, dvrs
• Changing modes of production, dissemination
• Multiple perspectives, opportunities to watch again, put together puzzles
• Characteristics: image spectacles and special effects and fragmentation and
reflexivity of narrative constructions (Corrigan and White 399)
• Mid-1960s, Dolby sound reduces noise and enriches sound (Corrigan and
White 378)
Re-assessments
• Evolutionary/revolutionary film history, ideas of progress
• Technological, economic, and artistic dimensions (Corrigan and White 374)
• Chronicling history
• Film archives
• 80 percent of films made before 1930 have disappeared (Corrigan and White
402)
• 1930s movement to restore and preserve films
• 1950s developments in film theory