A Study of 1920S Cinematic Representations of the French Revolutionary Crowd
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A Crowded Theater: A Study of 1920s Cinematic Representations of the French Revolutionary Crowd Katharine Allen A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of BACHELOR OF ARTS WITH HONORS DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN April 3, 2013 Advised by Professor James Cook and Professor Giorgio Bertellini For my ever supportive family TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures .................................................................................................................. ii Acknowledgments .......................................................................................................... iii Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter One: Introducing the Crowd ........................................................................... 6 Chapter Two: Rex Ingram, Scaramouche, and the Active Audience........................ 35 Chapter Three: D.W. Griffith, Anarchy, and Revolution.......................................... 63 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 96 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 99 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1: Scaramouche. The first crowd……………………………………………….43 Figure 2.2: Scaramouche. The crowd’s potential for violence…………………………..44 Figure 2.3: Scaramouche. Moreau as orator to an attentive audience…………………...45 Figure 2.4: Scaramouche. Moreau’s food fight………………………………………….46 Figure 2.5: Scaramouche. Revolution in a theater……………………………………….47 Figure 2.6: Scaramouche. A crowd ready to revolt……………………………………...48 Figure 2.7: Scaramouche. The crowd is activated……………………………………….49 Figure 2.8: Scaramouche. Sharpening the ax……………………………………………50 Figure 2.9: Scaramouche. The crowd assembles………………………………………...50 Figure 2.10: Scaramouche. Danton in the lead…………………………………………..50 Figure 2.11: Scaramouche. A massacre led by a woman………………………………..50 Figure 2.12: Scaramouche. Dancing around the flames…………………………………51 Figure 2.13: Scaramouche. A humane crowd……………………………………………52 Figure 2.14: Scaramouche. Moving through the screen…………………………………53 Figure 3.1: Orphans of the Storm. A sympathetic depiction of the poor………………..70 Figure 3.2: Orphans of the Storm. Starving outside a bakery……………………………71 Figure 3.3: Orphans of the Storm. Avenging the death of a child……………………….72 Figure 3.4: Orphans of the Storm. A culture of oratory………………………………….74 Figure 3.5: Orphans of the Storm. Beating the drums of revolution…………………….75 Figure 3.6: Orphans of the Storm. The mob materializes………………………………..76 Figure 3.7: Orphans of the Storm. The orators speak on………………………………...77 Figure 3.8: Orphans of the Storm. A female crowd……………………………………...78 Figure 3.9: Orphans of the Storm. Danton leads his army……………………………….79 Figure 3.10: Orphans of the Storm. Danton’s powers of persuasion……………………80 Figure 3.11: Orphans of the Storm. The carmagnole…………………………………….81 Figure 3.12: Orphans of the Storm. The ridiculous crowd………………………………81 Figure 3.13: Orphans of the Storm. The female murderess……………………………..82 Figure 3.14: Orphans of the Storm. Danton, the king……………………………………83 Figure 3.15: Orphans of the Storm. Disorder in the court……………………………….84 Figure 3.16: Orphans of the Storm. Attacking the jury………………………………….85 Figure 3.17: Orphans of the Storm. Riding to the rescue………………………………..86 Figure 3.18: Orphans of the Storm. At the guillotine……………………………………87 Figure 3.19: The Birth of a Nation. The celebration of freed slaves…………………….91 Figure 3.20: The Birth of a Nation. Racially-defined mob violence…………………….91 Figure 3.21: Orphans of the Storm. Danton to the rescue……………………………….93 Figure 3.22: The Birth of a Nation. The KKK rides……………………………………..93 ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Writing a significant scholarly work for the first time is an intimidating task but it helps to have people there to support you. Professors Derek Peterson and Christian de Pee were instrumental in both the conceptual development and practical framework of the project. The guidance they provided in the courses History 398 and 399 gave me with the basic knowledge and strategies necessary to write a thesis. My advisors, Professors James Cook and Giorgio Bertellini, always believed in my project and that, perhaps, was the greatest gift they could ever give to an intimidated student. In addition, their depth of knowledge regarding the thesis’ subject was invaluable as the thesis moved from a scattered and undefined concept into a solid argument. In addition, the members of my writing group, Riley Linebaugh and Dale Spicer, provided constant emotional support. When you come away from a day of working on your thesis it is a great feeling to know that others share your same anxieties and frustrations. Finally, Professor Mark Kligerman and his course on film history brought a more sophisticated level of theory into my thesis as it taught me how to think film and film history in new ways. iii INTRODUCTION I’m going to try to do pioneer work in the great task of universalizing motion pictures. They should belong to all countries and all times, the best picture stories, and should be so well made that the best of them could be placed in libraries for future use, just as the best books are. Thus great film masterpieces can be shown 100 years from now, just as old books are read. Imagine how valuable these will be, not only for story values, but for real information regarding our times passed on to future generations.1 In 1921, four months after his career-making film, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, debuted in New York, Rex Ingram’s words were published in the Los Angeles Times and thus, immortalized.2 Ninety years later they resurfaced in a search for information about the director and his film, Scaramouche.3 Ingram’s call for the immortality of films was answered. The study of film and its history represents a rich discipline in modern scholarship and this thesis represents only a fraction of the research conducted on the subject. Over the years the focus and intent of film history’s practitioners have changed drastically. According to Eric Smoodin, author of Looking Past the Screen, the key bifurcation in the discipline emerges around the question of how film should be studied, as a mode of art or through the history of its reception, production, and more general position within an historical context.4 Early studies of film history largely focused on the latter issue. In the middle of the century, however, films began to be studied as pieces of art, leaving questions of context and reception behind.5 Now the focus of the discipline, or at least some of its practitioners, has shifted once again, resulting in new studies exploring the historical 1 Grace Kingsley, “Rex Ingram to go to Europe,” Los Angeles Times 24 Jul. 1921: III1, ProQuest, Web, 3 Jul. 2012. 2 Liam O’Leary, Rex Ingram: Master of the Silent Cinema (British Film Institute, 12th Pordenone Silent Film Festival, 1993) print., O’Leary 81. 3 Rex Ingram, dir, Scaramouche, adapt. Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini, 1923, Turner Entertainment, 2009, DVD., “Scaramouche,” AFI: Catalog of Feature Films, American Film Institute, 2013, web, 24 Mar. 2013. 4 Eric Smoodin, Introduction, Looking Past the Screen, ed. Jon Lewis and Eric Smoodin (Durham and London: Duke Univ. Press, 2007) 1-33, print. 5 Smoodin 6. 1 relationship between film and its audience.6 Scholars focused particularly on audience-film relations now push for the reexamination and ultimately redefinition of the early film audience. These scholars insist on the abandonment of old assumptions regarding this audience by exploring its intricacy (racial, gendered, and geographical) and how this impacted the exhibition and reception of films. In accordance with these new insights, this thesis avoids depicting the audience as homogenous mass and remains cognizant of its heterogeneity In this thesis I look at how crowds came to be represented and explored in the two films, Orphans of the Storm (1921) directed by D.W. Griffith and Scaramouche (1924) directed by Rex Ingram as well as how these represented crowds enriched the discussion on the crowd as it existed in 1920s American society.7 In the end, what I wish to reveal is the way in which the two directors utilized the figure of the crowd in their films to comment upon the political and social issues of 1920s America, many of which also manifested themselves, at one point or another, in the figure of the crowd. Both films are set during the French Revolution, allowing the directors to dedicate a significant amount of screen time to the crowd and its actions. Although this thesis relies heavily on the analysis of early films in 6 A few examples: Kathryn H. Fuller-Seeley and George Potamianos, “Introduction: Researching and Writing the History of Local Moviegoing,” Hollywood in the Neighborhood, ed. Kathryn H. Fuller-Seeley (Berkeley: Univ. of Calif. Press, 2008) 3-19, print., Melvyn Stokes, Introduction, American Movie Audiences: From the Turn of the Century to the Early Sound Era, ed. Melvyn Stokes and Richard Maltby (London: British Film Institute, 1999) 1-11, print., Miriam Hansen, Introduction, Babel in Babylon: Spectatorship in American Silent Film (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1991) 1-19, print., Richard Maltby and Melvyn Stokes, Introduction, Going to the Movies: Hollywood and the Social Experience of Cinema, ed. Richard