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InMedia The French Journal of Media Studies

3 | 2013 Cinema and Marketing

Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/inmedia/524 DOI: 10.4000/inmedia.524 ISSN: 2259-4728

Publisher Center for Research on the English-Speaking World (CREW)

Electronic reference InMedia, 3 | 2013, « Cinema and Marketing » [Online], Online since 22 April 2013, connection on 22 September 2020. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/inmedia/524 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/ inmedia.524

This text was automatically generated on 22 September 2020.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Cinema and Marketing When Cultural Demands Meet Industrial Practices

Cinema and Marketing: When Cultural Demands Meet Industrial Practices Nathalie Dupont and Joël Augros

Jerry Pickman: “The Picture Worked.” Reminiscences of a Hollywood publicist Sheldon Hall

“To prevent the present heat from dissipating”: Stanley Kubrick and the Marketing of Dr. Strangelove (1964) Peter Krämer

Targeting American Women: Movie Marketing, Genre History, and the Hollywood Women- in-Danger Film Richard Nowell

Marketing Films to the American Conservative Christians: The Case of The Chronicles of Narnia Nathalie Dupont

“Paris . . . As You’ve Never Seen It Before!!!”: The Promotion of Hollywood Foreign Productions in the Postwar Era Daniel Steinhart

The Multiple Facets of Enter the Dragon (Robert Clouse, 1973) Pierre-François Peirano

Woody Allen’s French Marketing: Everyone Says Je l’aime, Or Do They? Frédérique Brisset

Varia

Images of the Protestants in Northern Ireland: A Cinematic Deficit or an Exclusive Image of Psychopaths? Cécile Bazin

Bibliographical Essay

British Docudrama Georges Fournier

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Interview

Latino images in Austin, Texas Eugenio Del Bosque and Emilie Cheyroux

Critical Perspective

(Re)defining Visual Studies François Brunet

Book Reviews

Richard Osborne, Vinyl: A History of the Analogue Record Farnham: Ashgate, 2012, 213 pages Claude Chastagner

Ruth Nicole Brown and Chamara Jewel Kwakye (eds), Wish to Live: The Hip-hop Feminism Pedagogy Reader New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2012, 296 pages David Diallo

Tricia Jenkins, The CIA in Hollywood: How the Agency Shapes Film and Television Austin: University of Texas Press, 2012, 167 pages Nolwenn Mingant

Kathleen Loock and Constantine Verevis (eds), Film Remakes, Adaptations and Fan Productions: Remake/Remodel Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, 252 pages Julie Gueguen

Géraldine Chouard, Eudora Welty et la photographie : Naissance d’une vision Paris : Michel Houdiard, 2012, 178 pages Hélène Valance

Judith Brodie (ed.), Shock of the News Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2012, 154 pages Jason E. Hill

Divina Frau-Meigs, Media Matters in the Cultural Contradictions of the ‘Information Society’ – Towards a Human Rights-Based Governance Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 2011, 390 pages Christopher Ali

Nolwenn Mingant, Hollywood à la conquête du monde. Marchés, stratégies, influences Paris : CNRS éditions, 2010, 316 pages Delphine Robic-Diaz

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Nathalie Dupont and Joël Augros (dir.) Cinema and Marketing When Cultural Demands Meet Industrial Practices

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Cinema and Marketing: When Cultural Demands Meet Industrial Practices

Nathalie Dupont and Joël Augros

EDITOR'S NOTE

This dossier was followed for InMedia by Divina Frau-Meigs and Charlotte Gould.

1 With the advent of the modern consumer society, being able to sell mass-produced objects on a large scale became part and parcel of the modern way to do business. Consequently, the art of marketing, of creating advertisements able to entice people to buy precise items, was further developed. The cinema industry that grew in the 1910s and 1920s also resorted to marketing to sell its films to the largest possible audience. As production costs started increasing,1 marketing became a key component of film releases, and it has never stopped since then. For example, at the turn of the 21st century, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) member companies spent an average of $47.7 million to produce a film and $31 million to market it, and in 2010, Hollywood studios spent a total of $3.6 billion to advertise their motion pictures.2 Consequently, there has been a growing interest in the subject of cinema and marketing, not only from trade publications but also from the academic world, whether it be in Europe or in the United States.

2 According to John Caldwell, quoted by Daniel Steinhart, marketing can be “viewed as a quintessential form of industrial self-representation.”3 Film marketing thus has specific characteristics linked to the product it is supposed to sell. But films are not the usual type of mass-produced items, they are not the result of carefully planned gestures on an assembly line. Needless to say, a lot of technical expertise is involved in the development and the making of motion pictures, but each film is unique and cannot really be reproduced – even if Hollywood now and then releases remakes or sequels that aim at copying, for better or for worse, what made a motion picture successful.

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Films also reflect their era, and are ultimately experienced in the darkness of a movie theatre by different people who have come to share the same experience for two hours or so. Films can even become symbolic, social or popular events, as was the case for example with Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977).

3 Cinema is thus a complex cultural industry, and the challenge facing marketers when it comes to films is quite daunting. People may need to go to the cinema now and then to have a good time or to try to forget about their worries, but the average cinemagoer rarely needs to see a particular film. Therefore, marketers have to create a whole experience, the urge to see a product whose fleeting value–or lack of it–is only known after it has been watched. Marketers have to deliver to the right crowd in the right way and in a short time span what is both a commercial product and the result of a historical, social and national context, while “positioning [it] in relation to its competitors,” as noted by Peter Krämer. The challenge is even more daunting for independently-produced films that, contrary to many studio blockbusters, are usually unknown right to the time of their release.

4 This situation leads to specific problems calling for specific answers. In the field of film studies, research linked to film marketing falls into two categories. On the one hand, there are the numerous ‘how to …’ handbooks and studies focusing on one or several motion pictures.4 On the other hand, there are studies using an ideological approach and presenting marketing as a tool Hollywood uses to monitor and control its audiences,5 either to dazzle them or to accentuate Hollywood’s domination of world cinema through tasteless American behemoths at the box office. The research group on Cinéma, Economie & Sociétés Anglophones–Cinema, Economy in English-Speaking Countries (CinEcoSA)6 has tried to go beyond this dual approach.7 Marketing relies on both economics and culture, and as a result requires to explore the questions of identity, which are connected to a film’s development as well as its advertising campaigns. But the issues of identities have to be associated with marketing practices in a globalized economy. Consequently, this fact also requires to compare marketing techniques used in the English-speaking film industries with practices from other cultural areas. The following themed section is therefore inspired by this approach and features original contributions by French and foreign scholars in the field of cinema.

5 Sheldon Hall’s “Jerry Pickman: “The Picture Worked” Excerpts from the reminiscences of a Hollywood publicist” is a primary source that gives us a unique insider look into the business of marketing and distributing films in America. While mentioning classics like The Greatest Show on Earth (Cecil B. DeMille, 1952), Shane (George Stevens, 1953) or Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960), and famous names like Adolph Zukor or Alfred Hitchcock, this firsthand and precious testimony puts the human aspect of marketing to the forefront. It reminds us that advertising films has its uncertainties, but is also a human endeavour involving individuals like Jerry Pickman, whose dedication to their task can even transform an average film into something more than what it was meant to be. Last but not least, this unique look into the marketing business also shows how cinema marketing has evolved to reach an industrial level at the beginning of the 1980s, when “now you sell pictures like hot dogs–it’s the same for everybody.”

6 “ ‘To prevent the present heat from dissipating’: Stanley Kubrick and the Marketing of Dr. Strangelove” (1964) switches to the director’s point of view. Marketing interests can sometimes converge or be different when it comes to film production or distribution companies and artists, and in “The Marketing of Dr. Strangelove,” Peter Krämer depicts

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how a director involves himself in the marketing of his films. Stanley Kubrick is a famous artist who never balked at promoting his own motion pictures. Making extensive use of the Stanley Kubrick Archive at the University of the Arts London, the article describes how, from a very early stage, Stanley Kubrick got involved in the American marketing of Dr. Strangelove, up to the point of taking great care to neutralize any possible competitor. The article also underlines the fact that during the production and the first promotional campaign of Dr. Strangelove, the famous director was very gifted for his self-promotion, even if the marketing material later used for the second promotional campaign and the release of the film rather focused on the usual topics of “stars, comedy and sex.”

7 Marketing films is also about profits, and this means taking specific audiences into account when dealing with a film genre. In “Targeting American Women: Movie Marketing, Genre History, and the Hollywood Women-in-Danger Film,” Richard Nowell deals with women-in-danger films and their potential female audience. Spanning nearly a decade of the genre at a time when more women were breaking through the glass ceiling in America, “Targeting American Women” first centres on the ad campaigns for sensationally promoted exploitation fare at the end of the 1970s. Richard Nowell then goes on to analyze how Hollywood distributors, informed by those previous campaigns, carefully handled the marketing of the women-in-danger films released at the beginning of the 1980s. He argues that contrary to some studies that denounced women-in-danger films as “the greatest misogynist trend in American film history,” the marketing analysis of those films shows that studios and distributors precisely wanted to avoid such potentially damaging accusations of misogyny. Hollywood’s goal was to attract the adult female audience in a way that was later to shape the marketing campaigns of films targeting a similar audience.

8 “Marketing films to the American conservative Christians: the case of The Chronicles of Narnia” also deals with the subject of specific marketing, this time with a religious niche slant. The relationship between Hollywood and conservative religious groups has always been difficult, but Nathalie Dupont illustrates that now and then, the time is ripe for some kind of collaboration. Using the example of The Chronicles of Narnia, her article first describes the reasons that enticed Hollywood to target the American conservative Christians. It then goes on to describe the way Hollywood handled The Chronicles’ Christian niche marketing and how it particularly targeted the Evangelicals. But the article also shows that Hollywood walked that path very cautiously, in what can only be a limited marketing collaboration solely destined to the American market.

9 The last section of this issue focuses on marketing films abroad. The foreign market was rapidly important for Hollywood, and in “ ‘Paris…As You’ve Never Seen It Before!!!’: The Promotion of Hollywood Foreign Productions in the Postwar Era,” Daniel Steinhart shows how authentic locations were used to promote postwar films on both the American and foreign markets. As the Hollywood industry was changing in the 1950s, shooting abroad became a way to distinguish films from television fare, and to lure audiences back into movie theatres. “Paris…As You’ve Never Seen It Before!!!” reflects these changes and thus sheds light on the self-image the American film industry was manufacturing at the time, for example in the way Hollywood publicists carefully brought to the fore authentic locations in the American and foreign press–and then in cinema lobbies–during all the development stages of a film.

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10 In “The multiple facets of Enter the Dragon”, Pierre François Peirano delineates how the international distribution and marketing of a film can influence a project right from its inception. By pointing to various narrative elements, the article underlines how the Hollywood-Hong Kong co-production Enter the Dragon was designed to please both Asian and Western audiences, while launching the career of Bruce Lee in the United States. These elements were then used in the marketing of the film, as the latter was adapted to suit the tastes of local moviegoers. Consequently, elements linked to martial arts, the James Bond franchise, serial movies or comic books were more or less highlighted in the customized local marketing of the film. Finally, “The multiple facets of Enter the Dragon” also underlines that motion pictures can be a reflection of their time, as is made clear by the American marketing of the film. It was indeed clearly rooted in the political climate of the Cold War, consequently giving Enter the Dragon a dimension its Asian marketing clearly ignored.

11 Finally, “Woody Allen’s French Marketing: ‘Everyone Says Je l’aime,’ or do they?” focuses on a specific aspect of marketing films abroad, i.e. the title and the poster that embody one of the first contacts audiences have with films. Frédérique Brisset compares the American and French posters for Woody Allen’s films, their layout as well as their titles and their use of the para-text. She also shows how assumptions about French-speaking audiences may condition marketing strategies of the “Woody Allen brand” on the French market.

12 Spanning different eras, subjects and markets, the featured articles thus shed a new light on marketing and cinema. This relationship is an old and ongoing one that pertains to every type of motion pictures, whether studio or independent ones. These articles show that the relationship between marketing and cinema does not represent a by-product or an after-thought of the movie industry, but is truly part and parcel of film production and the experience of cinema-going.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Austin Thomas. Hollywood, Hype, and Audiences: Selling and Watching Popular Film in the 1990s. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2002.

Calvo Herrera, Concepcion. Distribución y lanzamiento de una película. Alcalá : Grupo Editorial y Distribuidores de Libros, 2008.

Crafton, Donald. The Talkies: American Cinema’s Transition to Sound (History of the American Cinema, vol. 4). Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001.

Drake, Philip. “Distribution and Marketing in Contemporary Hollywood,” in Wasko Janet and McDonald, Paul (eds), The Contemporary Hollywood Film Industry. Malden (MA) and Oxford: Blackwell, 2008.

Durie, John, Pham, Annika and Watson, Neil. Marketing and Selling Your Films around the World. Los Angeles: Silman-James Press, 2000.

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Hayes, Dade and Bing, Jonathan. Open Wide. New York: Miramax books/Hyperion, 2004.

Kerrigan, Finola. Film Marketing. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2010.

Laurichesse, Hélène. Quel marketing pour le cinéma ? Paris: CNRS Editions, 2006.

Lukk, Tiiu. Movie Marketing: Opening the Picture and Giving it Legs. Los Angeles: Silman-James Press, 1997.

Marich, Robert. Marketing to Moviegoers: A Handbook of Strategies Used by Major Studios and Independents. Boston: Focal Press, 2005.

Miller, Toby et al.. Global Hollywood. London: BFI Publishing, 2001.

Schatz, Thomas. Boom and Bust: American Cinema in the 1940s. (History of the American Cinema, vol. 6). Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999.

Wyatt, Justin. High Concept: Movies and Marketing in Hollywood. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994.

NOTES

1. For example with the arrival of sound in 1927, when The Jazz Singer (Alan Crosland) was one the films revealing the possibilities of the talking pictures. 2. Motion Picture Association of America, U.S. Entertainment Industry: 2002 MPA Market Statistics, http://www.mpaa.org and Robert Marich, “Research study details ad spend allocation,” Variety, August 13, 2011. http://www.variety.com . 3. John Thornton Caldwell, Production Culture: Industrial Reflexivity and Critical Practice in Film and Television (Durham: Duke University Press, 2008), 274. 4. See for example Tiiu Lukk, Movie Marketing (Los Angeles: Silman-James Press, 1997), Dade Hayes and Jonathan Bing, Open Wide (New York: Miramax books/Hyperion, 2004) or Robert Marich, Marketing to Moviegoers: A Handbook of Strategies Used by Major Studios and Independents (Boston: Focal Press, 2005). 5. See for example Toby Miller et al., Global Hollywood (London: BFI Publishing, 2001). 6. CinEcoSA brings together academics working on the cinema and television industries of English-speaking countries. Their research focuses on American-English studies with an economic slant. http://www.cinecosa.com . 7. http://www.cinecosa.com/pages/Colloque_2010_Programme_et_photos-2792379.html et http://www.cinecosa.com/pages/ Journee_detude_2011_Programme-5913295.html .

AUTHORS

NATHALIE DUPONT Nathalie Dupont is an Associate Professor in American studies at ULCO (Université du Littoral & de la Côte d’Opale). She has published several articles on the American film industry. Her research interests also include how Hollywood films reflect the American society. She is a co-

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founder of research group CinEcoSA (http://www.cinecosa.com). She is currently writing a book on Walden Media.

JOËL AUGROS Joël Augros is a Senior Lecturer at the Film Department of the Université Paris 8-Vincennes in Saint-Denis. After completing a PhD in Economics on the multimedia development of the international film industry, he continued his research on the economic aspects of Hollywood film and the French cinema. In the past years, he has been developing a comparative approach to the different film businesses across the world.

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Jerry Pickman: “The Picture Worked.” Reminiscences of a Hollywood publicist

Sheldon Hall

AUTHOR'S NOTE

I would like to thank John Godl for approaching me to write about Jerry Pickman and the many individuals who provided generous hospitality, assistance, and companionship on my first-ever visit to New York, including Brendan Cooper, Barbara Herburger, Bud Rosenthal, Sue Zamkow, and especially Jerry’s daughters, Peggy Reiner and Patricia Udell. Mostly, however, I would like to thank Jerry, for his considerate interest in me, the pleasure of his company, and the memory of his friendship, however brief its duration. All photographs are copyright © the Estate of Jerry Pickman. Used with permission.

1 Jerome (Jerry) Pickman (b. 24 August 1916; d. 18 November 2010) worked for more than fifty years in Hollywood film marketing and distribution. A native New Yorker, Pickman served as a reporter on the Brooklyn Eagle and other New York newspapers and took a law degree before entering show business as a publicist for Ted Lewis, Tommy Dorsey, and other musicians and bands. His association with the film industry began in 1944 through a chance meeting with the entertainer Eddie Cantor, who employed Pickman in a personal capacity before he joined the publicity department of Twentieth Century-Fox later that year. Short stints with various independent outfits followed, including Eagle-Lion Films as publicity manager and later as assistant to its director of advertising, publicity, and exploitation, Max E. Youngstein.

2 In April 1949 Pickman was appointed director of exhibitor relations at Paramount Pictures. When Youngstein joined the company as senior publicist, Pickman again became his assistant and, after Youngstein resigned in February 1951 to join the newly reorganized United Artists, eventually replaced him. According to Variety, this made Pickman, at 34, “the youngest ad-pub chief in the business”.1 He subsequently became

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vice president in charge of worldwide advertising, publicity, and exploitation, and in November 1960 was appointed general sales manager for the domestic market while retaining his “ad-pub” responsibilities, thus becoming “the first domestic sales head to move up through the ranks of publicity in a major motion picture company.”2

3 Due to what was termed in the trade press a “personality conflict” with the company’s head of worldwide distribution, George Weltner, Pickman’s contract with Paramount was terminated in July 1962.3 After attempting with Youngstein to set up a new distribution and production finance company modeled on United Artists, he became a special sales executive at Columbia Pictures, handling the films of major producers such as Carl Foreman and Sam Spiegel, and then was associated with an independent theatre company, the Walter Reade Organization, publicizing both art and exploitation pictures through Reade’s distribution arm, American Continental. Pickman set up his own distribution outfit, Levitt-Pickman Film Corporation (later the Pickman Film Corporation), in 1971 with the builder William Levitt. In 1978 he was appointed head of domestic distribution for Lorimar Films while retaining control of his own company. The Pickman Film Corporation was absorbed by Scotti Brothers Entertainment Industries in 1985, though Pickman again remained in position as its president. He continued to be a consultant for publicity and distribution matters and in the year of his death he was working with Albert S. Ruddy, the producer of The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972), to set up a 3-D remake of an epic blockbuster.

4 In February 2010, I was approached by an associate of Pickman’s to collaborate with Jerry on writing his memoirs. I was given access to a transcript of recently recorded reminiscences, from which the present article was adapted, and later met with Jerry in London. Instead of a memoir, I proposed a book on postwar Hollywood marketing built around Jerry’s experiences. In November I flew to New York to discuss this with him further and to examine his surviving papers and photographs. (There were few written documents in his personal files because Jerry took it as a point of pride that he never wrote things down, never kept records, or even used a briefcase.) However, by this time Jerry was seriously ill in hospital and, shortly after my return to the UK, at the age of 94, he died.

5 The transcript of Jerry’s taped reminiscences runs to nearly 48,000 words. It is largely discursive and anecdotal; many of the stories recounted in it were also delivered to me by Jerry in person and via email. There are also many typographical and factual errors (such as inaccurate dates and film titles), and the material as a whole is unstructured either chronologically or thematically. What follows, then, is my edited and corrected version of selected extracts from the transcript, rearranged to follow a roughly chronological order and with many passages transposed or otherwise amended to maintain clarity and coherence. I hope, however, that it preserves something of the flavor of Jerry’s Brooklynese speech and his engaging personality as well as conveying the nature of his work. I dedicate the article to his memory.

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1. Jerry Pickman (1916-2010)

Early Years at Fox and Eagle-Lion

6 I lived with the Cantors in their house on Roxbury Drive. The neighbors included Jimmy Stewart and Jack Benny and the Gershwins. It was a great street right behind the Beverly Hills Hotel. I was the chauffeur, gopher, major domo, manager–I did everything. I spent about a year, a year and half, with the Cantors and we made a picture, Show Business [Edwin L. Marin, 1944], with George Murphy, who later became a Senator, and Joan Davis, who I think was having an affair with Eddie Cantor at the time. We finished the movie and came back to New York to open it. I went to see my father who was very ill, I discovered, with diabetes. I knew he had to stop working and I had to work out something to take care of him and my mother. I ended up with Cantor and that afternoon I told him I couldn’t return. We were out somewhere and he introduced me to a man named Hal Horne, who was the head of advertising and publicity for 20th Century-Fox. Cantor, in his own impetuous way, said, “Hal, this young man is a good man. You have to hire him. He needs a job and I told him to come to your office Monday morning and go to work.” And that’s how I got into the film business. He hired me to take advantage of my “vast” background in show business, which I embellished. I became the administrative assistant to the vice president in charge of advertising, publicity, and exploitation at 20th Century-Fox. That was my first true experience with the part of the business I enjoyed, thrived on, and stayed in: distribution and marketing.

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2. Pickman (right) at dinner with Mr and Mrs Eddie Cantor

7 I remember the office on 56th Street way over on the West Side near 11th Avenue. All of the major companies were headquartered in New York in those days. Paramount was at the Paramount Building overlooking Times Square. Warners had a building on 43rd Street and 8th Avenue and RKO was on 6th Avenue; MGM was in the old Loew’s State building. I had to look at all the bills and see that they were getting value for their money and that the work was being done on schedule. We had a series of twenty or thirty men all across the country that worked the field. We would create all the materials, trailers, and ads. There was a great deal of showmanship because you would open a picture maybe in LA or New York for a month or two and build it up. You released pictures in an inverted pyramid with two or three theatres at the bottom, then branched out to maybe 300 and ultimately play five or six thousand; now you play 2,000 the first week.

8 After I graduated out of the administrative side, I kind of became an operating head of the exploitation and publicity side. I helped to plan the campaigns and premieres and how we would promote the picture, what kind of emphasis, the amount of money we would spend, and the different attitudes that you would take toward it: sell it as a kid picture, adult picture, action, and when to go with it and how. The first big film I worked on was a picture called Wilson [Henry King, 1944]. I went to Washington D.C. and oversaw the entire launch of the picture with all the government officials and big tributes to [President Woodrow] Wilson’s memory. It was a Darryl Zanuck production and a very, very good movie. We lived in the best hotel–I never lived so well. We had cars and drivers and money to spend and it was just… it was truly Hollywood. The band business was nothing. This was big-time movies. They brought in a trainload of people from the studio, Zanuck and everybody you could think of, and they were out to do it full blast. The whole town turned out. It was spectacular. Then I worked on A Tree Grows

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in Brooklyn [Elia Kazan, 1945]–I remember chaperoning Peggy Ann Garner and her mother around–and I worked on a couple of pictures with Roddy McDowall and some Dana Andrews pictures. One picture I remember was Laura [1944], made by Otto Preminger. It was my project and I nurtured it all the way through, culminating in a big, big premiere at the old Roxy Theatre which Fox owned and controlled.

3. Window display promoting the release of 20th Century-Fox’s political biopic Wilson

9 I stayed at Fox for a year or so and we got into a hassle and Hal Horne got eased out. I was offered a job in the foreign operation and I said no. I ended up working for David O. Selznick on a great Western [Duel in the Sun, King Vidor, 1946], doing promotion. I did that for about six months to a year and then I got a call from Horne, who was starting a company with a man named Armand Deutsch. He was the heir to the Sears Roebuck family and was starting a little independent film company. Stanley Kramer was going to be their producer and we acquired a book and we worked on that for three to six months. Then Max Youngstein, who I had worked with at 20th Century-Fox, invited me to join Eagle-Lion. Arthur Krim and Bob Benjamin were lawyers, and through a great, talented guy named Matty Fox, who was a great mover and manipulator, they joined the J. Arthur Rank Organization of England (which was the Lion) and Robert R. Young, the railroad magnate who owned the Chesapeake and Ohio railroads (the Eagle).

10 We got the second tier of pictures from Rank and produced pictures in California with Bryan Foy, who was the studio head, and Swifty Lazar, the talent head. Rank used to make a lot of pictures and the good pictures they made would go to Universal. They had first pick; we would get the leftovers, like Green for Danger [Sidney Gilliat, 1946] and Bedelia [Lance Comfort, 1946]. One day we got a picture titled The Red Shoes [Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1948]. Max and I were just ready to kill ourselves; we

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didn’t know what to do with it. We had our office on 46th Street, but whenever we got depressed or wanted to feel important, we would walk over to Sardi’s on 44th Street and have lunch. We felt so badly after seeing Red Shoes, we walked over to Sardi’s to drink a little bit and commiserate. We had a great lunch and we walked back through Shubert Alley and as we got to 45th Street there was a legitimate theatre called the Bijou Theatre. There was a guy we knew standing inside the door just hanging on and looking very disconsolate and we stopped to talk. He said, “Hey, you guys got a movie? We got no stage shows, we gotta do something with this theatre.” Max looked at me and I looked at Max and said, “That’s it. We’re gonna put Red Shoes in here, we’re gonna make a road show special”–two [performances] a day, very elitist, a snob thing. And that’s how Red Shoes became a classic.4

Paramount

11 I was at Paramount when the guy who headed the advertising department left. I wasn’t strong enough to take over the top job but I was able to maneuver Max Youngstein into it and Max came over as #1 man and I was #2 man. We were kind of almost equals at Eagle-Lion but he was older and had the stature for it. It was at that time that United Artists was re-formed and he went over to UA. He wanted me to go; we didn’t know if UA would survive so we decided he would go there and if things got bad he could always come back to Paramount and if ever I got into trouble at Paramount I would go over and he would protect me. I got the job at Paramount on a temporary basis and in about six months I became VP in charge of advertising and publicity.

12 When Max came over I was finding my way, just kind of being a specialist in little things. Max and I were finally teamed up together with Sunset Boulevard [Billy Wilder, 1950]. It was a great picture that never went anywhere [commercially]. Then we ended up with the first of three DeMille pictures I worked on, Samson and Delilah [1949].5 Later I worked on The Greatest Show on Earth [1952] and The Ten Commandments [1956]. I worked on four pictures over four years with four women and each won the Best Actress Academy Award: Shirley Booth for Come Back, Little Sheba [Daniel Mann, 1952], Audrey Hepbun for Roman Holiday [William Wyler, 1953], Grace Kelly for The Country Girl [George Seaton, 1954], and Anna Magnani for The Rose Tattoo [Daniel Mann, 1955]. Before Roman Holiday Audrey had made one little picture.6 We signed her to a seven- year deal. She got $25,000, and we gave her a bonus of $25,000 after she won the Academy Award. Then Dino De Laurentiis wanted to hire her for War and Peace [King Vidor, 1956] and give her $300,000 and her husband Mel Ferrer $175,000. We controlled her and the company didn’t want to let her go, but I said, “If we can get the distribution of a picture like War and Peace at no investment, other than giving her the right to do the picture, let’s do it.” And that’s how the picture came to Paramount.

13 Even though I worked in New York I made it a practice to get to the studio once or twice during production and to work with the producer in the campaign.7 I would go to the studio in California twice in one week sometimes. I never was domiciled there, because I didn’t want to work in a company town. I would go out on an afternoon flight; in those days it would take eight to ten hours to fly. You would have to stop in Chicago to refuel, arrive late at night, work all day, and maybe go back the next night or stay an additional day. I would see every producer who was either in production or in post- production and spend a great deal of time with key creative, oftentimes very insecure,

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but talented individuals. Because of the insecurities and attitudes producers and directors always thought that everybody was sabotaging them. My theory was always to stroke them and I would go out of my way to spend time with them, show them that we had an interest. No matter whether it was George Stevens, DeMille, Dean [Martin] and Jerry [Lewis], or [Melville] Shavelson and [Jack] Rose, or [Norman] Panama and [Melvin] Frank, Hal Wallis, everybody I ever worked with I always worked with directly. I would always discuss the marketing and how the picture would be released. That’s why Paramount worked so well–it wass like a little family company and through the Fifties and into the Sixties we never had a losing year, we always made money–not a lot, but when the industry was at its lowest ebb. The Fifties was when television started its ascendancy and people were so infatuated with television, they would just sit and watch it regardless of what was being shown. Most of the film companies were in terrible shape but we at Paramount had a great run of highly received, well-produced pictures through the Fifties. We had the Danny Kaye pictures, the Bill Holden pictures, the [Bing] Crosby pictures, plus three big DeMille pictures. We had Elvis Presley pictures, we had Dean and Jerry going twice a year and never missing at the box office.

14 The studio would tell us what they wanted to do and we would approve it. So the studio ran certain things, but the studio didn’t get into distribution, the studio didn’t get into advertising, the studio didn’t get into sales. I saw a rough cut of White Christmas [Michael Curtiz, 1954]. It was almost finished and I think it was early August. I loved the picture–it was schmaltzy and it grabbed me. I almost cried during the movie, sitting alone in the cold projection room. In those days I could call my own shots–I could make my decision on how to handle a picture and just tell management what I wanted to do and they usually agreed. Y. Frank Freeman, whom I always called Mr. Freeman, was kind of administrative head in the company and then head of production and he was the [West Coast] liaison with New York and management. I walked in to his office and said, “How soon can we get White Christmas ready?” He said–he was a Southerner–,“Jerry, ain’t no hurry making the picture, we could get it done in time for Christmas.” I said, “Mr. Freeman, if it‘s up to me we’re not going to release the picture at Christmas, we’ll release it in September.” He debated and we called Music City, a music store on Hollywood and Vine, put the loud speaker on and got the manager on. I said, “Have you ever heard the song White Christmas?” He said, “Oh yeah, know it well.” I said, “When do you start selling?” He said, November. “Does it sell pretty well? “Yes, it sells very well.” I said, “How would you sell it on December 30th?” “We don’t sell anything December 30th. Christmas Day we stop selling.” I made my point, they rushed to finish the picture and we opened in the [Radio City] Music Hall. It was on fire from October 14th until Christmas Day and then it died.

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4. Pickman (right) discusses publicity matters with White Christmas star Bing Crosby

15 I remember vividly we had a budget for advertising in those days and Jerry Lewis actually left the studio because I wouldn’t approve a trade ad. In those days we had eight or ten trade papers like Hollywood Reporter and Variety and Film Daily and so forth and we had a budget for trade ads. He wanted a special trade ad somewhere and I said no. My people asked me and I said no, it’s not in the budget. He stormed, screamed, hollered, and we went to the head of the studio and he walked off the lot. We didn’t give him the $400, he came back to work. We controlled the money and we would tell them. I would always try to communicate with the producers and the people but it was how we wanted to do it. We would listen, we would discuss it, and do what we wanted to. But now, the stars tell them what they want.

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5. Paramount executives including Pickman (third from left) meet with Jerry Lewis (foreground). At left is Martin Davis, future president of the company.

16 I was part of the advent of pay-per-view [television] in the mid-Fifties. Paramount had a thing called Telemeter–perfected by scientists. Your house was wired and a coin box was placed on your TV set which had a reel in it. An announcement would come on announcing a film for 75 cents and you would put in three quarters or two 50-cent pieces–you could get credit. It was tested for many months in the suburbs of Toronto and in Palm Springs, California, and it just petered out. When it was at the height of its research and development we had a meeting at Paramount and I said it can’t work unless you go and self-start it by going to at least ten major American cities that have major baseball and football and wire up, at your expense, 100,000 homes in the ten cities, which would give them a base of 1,000,000 outlets. I will say they liked the idea and played with it for weeks and discussed it, did all kinds of feasibility studies, and the reason why they didn’t do it was it would have cost $100,000,000. It was an idea that could have worked and would have worked. They would have had a lock on the entire cable business in America but it didn’t happen.8

Barney Balaban and Adolph Zukor

17 Paramount was run by Barney Balaban, a legendary figure in the business, who was brought in by the banks during the Depression. He was a remarkable man. I stood with Barney in the airport in LA talking to Lew Wasserman. Wasserman got on the plane and sat in first class and Barney and I sat in economy. Barney said, “The plane gets there the same time, it doesn’t matter.” He was very frugal in every way. He ran the company like his own family business: no memos, rarely had a secretary. Green-lighting was oral–he knew who the producer, director, cast were and got a synopsis. All meetings

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took place in Balaban’s office, no matter what department it was. He was at the meetings even if he just sat reading the paper or doing something else.

18 There were maybe six or seven executives. We would travel together, be together. We were part of management and we sat in on all the production decisions—not the nitty gritty, but the studio would get the ingredients together and call New York. Barney Balaban had a loudspeaker on his desk; he would buzz–there was a buzz box, an intercom–to the head of Eastern production, myself, maybe the treasurer, head of foreign sales. We would gather in Barney’s office, standing around the desk, and the studio head would get on the loudspeaker. I'll give you an example. [Alfred] Hitchcock wanted to make a picture called The Trouble with Harry [1955]. He had a little girl named Shirley MacLaine– “I never heard of her,” said the studio head–and an old man, Edmund Gwenn, and it was going to cost $800,000. We all shook our heads, the answer was no. Well, every morning I would have the studio send me a capsule of all the announcements they made to the press. They would give me a summary, and the next morning I see they announced The Trouble with Harry. I was a little annoyed but I wasn’t going to go down and challenge the president of the company. We used to have a lunch room–a dining room with a big old boardroom table. Adolph Zukor would sit at one place and maybe ten of us had entree to the room. I would sit as far away from Balaban as I could, at the other end of the table, because he used to ask me a lot of questions which I didn’t have the answers for and I didn’t want to be bothered. The less I talked to him, the less trouble I got into. He walked in, had his lunch, and as he walked around he said, “Is something bothering you? You didn’t you say hello to me.” I said, “I’m annoyed, Barney. Why did we have the meeting yesterday? We decided not to make the picture and the studio wired this morning saying we’re going ahead with it. If you changed it, why didn’t you tell us?” He said, “I was too embarrassed. After we all said no, the studio head called back and said, ‘Barney, I can’t tell Hitchcock no, because he gave us To Catch a Thief and Rear Window. I haven’t got the courage to say no to him, so I told him we were going to make the picture.’” And that’s how the picture was made. That was how the company was run.

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6. Pickman (at right) on set with Alfred Hitchcock (right of camera)

19 Adolph Zukor’s office was next to Balaban’s. I will say one thing about Barney. He didn’t need Zukor, he could have thrown him out, fired him when the bank put him [Balaban] in as president. He was so gracious and tolerant of the old man who founded Paramount that if he was talking to you and Zukor wasn’t around, he would refer to him as Mr. Zukor and when he addressed him directly, he would call him boss. Now Zukor must have been thirty years older, a beaten old man, and Balaban treated him with such reverence and respect that you couldn’t believe. I guess late in the Fifties we were having a bad run of pictures. They weren’t working and one day I was going into a meeting. I was dragging myself, looking depressed, and the old man, Zukor, stopped me and said, “You don’t look so good, Jerry.” I said, “I don’t feel right—we can’t do anything right.” He said, “Come with me.” He had a high stool he sat on, his legs were draped over, he lit a big cigar and started pontificating–very sweet–and said in his Russian-Jewish accent,9 “I’ve been in the business a long time. You’ve got to remember show business is like a vheel [sic] and the vheel turns. Sometimes you’re up and sometimes you’re down, but you gotta hang on because the vheel will turn.” And that’s the best philosophy I ever heard from anybody.

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7. Paramount founder, Adolph Zukor

DeMille, Stevens, and Hitchcock

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8. Pickman and Cecil B. DeMille discuss The Ten Commandments while star Charlton Heston looks down from above

20 I was very close to Cecil B. DeMille on The Greatest Show on Earth. I spent three or four weeks in Sarasota where he was shooting the picture and traveled with him. I looked at some footage on the picture and he asked me what I thought. I said: Fine, but I think we got a problem. I don’t think people will believe that Betty Hutton really left the trapeze and swung through the air and was actually caught by Cornel Wilde as true circus performers. They’re going to say it’s trick photography. They are not going to believe an elephant stepped on Dorothy Lamour’s head and other things. He said, “What will we do about it?” I said: We’ve got to get the entire company and do it under a true canvas setting in the actual circus just so that we can say The Greatest Show on Earth was actually filmed under the Big Top. If we do that, C.B., I will bring out 100 newspapermen and we’ll put them in the audience and we’ll let Betty Hutton fly through the air, and let the people see her leave the trapeze, and let them see Cornel Wilde grab her by the wrist, and so on and so on.

21 It would have cost $900,000 to do it. He said, “Do you know my deal?” I said, “The company pays everything to you and once the negative cost is returned twice you get 50 cents of every dollar.” If it costs $5,000,000 to make the picture, he doesn’t get a dime until the picture earns $10,000,000. He said, “Jerry, I have to earn almost $2,000,000 more to do what you are asking me. Will Paramount take half of it?” I said, “Certainly.” I didn’t have to go to anybody because I knew it was a deal. We went to Philadelphia, we got the 100 newspapermen, we did the thing, and it worked. The Greatest Show on Earth became an event movie and was nominated for Best Picture and won the award. That’s an example of marketing, where we made a contribution.

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9. Pickman in the Big Top used for the filming of The Greatest Show on Earth. The photograph is signed by star Cornel Wilde.

22 We had a preview of Shane [1953] in San Francisco and everybody came out from Los Angeles. I came out with a couple of my guys and the picture was an absolute disaster. It just didn’t play, it lay there and nothing happened. Afterward the Paramount executives–a group–were standing on the side street, commiserating. They would have liked to burn the negative and hopefully get the insurance. [Producer-director] George Stevens, whom I knew and liked–we got along well–came out of the theatre several minutes later, and he nodded to me. He said, “I know it didn’t play well, Jerry, don’t worry about it. I know exactly what it is. I will call you in about a month. It’s going to be okay.” Cut. A month or two goes by and I get a call from Stevens. He shows me the picture and it is absolutely remarkable. George Stevens was a notorious overshooter. I think George shot 100,000 feet, but the [first] picture he showed us was told through Shane’s eyes. He went back and reedited it and told it through the little boy’s eyes. It was a completely different movie. The picture worked. I cried, I thought it was the greatest thing I ever saw.

23 I talked about it all over the country. I used to go the Paramount offices, have sales meetings, meet the customers and talk to the press, and I billboarded this picture for months. One day I get a call from the Music Hall, which was pretty much the home of MGM pictures, and apparently they had a hole–an MGM picture for some reason dropped out and in four weeks they needed a picture. I had talked to Russell Downing, who was managing director, and he said, “Could we have Shane?” We were still not set on what we were going to do with the picture and we had a big meeting with Balaban, Zukor, the other people involved, and I said I wanted to open the picture in the Music

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Hall, which went against the trend. It was a Western and you didn’t play Westerns in the Music Hall. Zukor, who saw the preview and hadn’t seen the new picture, said, “What the hell are you going to do? The picture is no good. Jerry’ll be as ready in four weeks as he will be in four months and if it works there it’ll work anywhere, so open it.”

24 We had to work feverishly and I oversaw the campaign. We came up with a device–the ads with a big, big outdoor vista and a little figure of a little boy and the line “SHANE, SHANE, come back SHANE.” [The title] must have been three or four inches high, and then down the bottom was the billing: “Alan Ladd, Jean Arthur, Van Heflin in George Stevens’ Shane.” Well, I went through the motions of showing Stevens the ads but he was pretty astute and he said, “Jerry, that’s a violation of my billing–you’ve got the tagline bigger than the title.” It all had to be 100%, Shane had to be the biggest thing and everybody’s name had to equal the title. I said, “George, fuck you, sue us. That’s the way the ads are going to be.” We opened the picture with those ads. It worked. The picture went into the Music Hall and set an opening day record. I flew all night to Denver and we opened it in Denver the next day. I bought the last $5 worth of tickets at 9 o’clock at night to set a record at the theatre, where we did $4,000.

25 I worked with Hitchcock on five pictures: Rear Window [1954], To Catch a Thief [1955], The Man Who Knew Too Much [1956], Vertigo [1958], and Psycho [1960]. I was responsible for the whole Psycho premiere and not letting people in [after the film had started], which was a classic stunt. Hitchcock was making a Paramount picture on the Universal lot because he was busy making Alfred Hitchcock Presents, a TV show. I had been over to visit and he showed me the picture alone, unscored. I told him I thought it was nothing but a very violent Hitchcock Presents. He said, “Well, that’s basically what it is.” I said, “Hitch, we got a problem.” In those days, people didn’t always come in at the beginning of the movie. “People are going to walk into the theatre after the picture starts and they are going to look for Janet Leigh and she ain’t gonna be there. And they will never get into the movie.” Hitch said, “What do you propose to do, my boy?” I said, “Very simple, Hitch. We won’t let anybody in once the picture starts.” He said, “How will you accomplish that?” I said, “We will do a series of ads and promotions. We will use you and if you give me your TV writer, the guy who does all your intros, I will work with him and we will do things like, ‘No one, not even Her Majesty the Queen, will be admitted once the picture has started.’” The picture became a classic.

Strategic Air Command

26 Jimmy Stewart was a classic unto himself. I never really got to know him personally except in one or two meetings professionally when we were making a couple of pictures. Jimmy was a colonel in the Air Force and apparently attached to the Strategic Air Command, which was then headed by Curtis LeMay, a very militant general who was fighting the Cold War practically single-handed. LeMay was quite cavalier about the military and didn’t care about anybody living or dying. Jimmy came up with the idea of doing a story aggrandizing the Strategic Air Command and particularly LeMay. The story was patterned after a ballplayer whose career was interrupted to go into the service and pretty much resembled that of Ted Williams. At that time, we perfected a new presentation method called VistaVision which was really, I guess, 70mm film as opposed to 35mm.10 We shot the film sideways; I am not too good technically, but it

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came up with a beautiful, beautiful picture. If you can visualize, big 47s going off into the sky–it was magnificent.

27 I started to play with a campaign and it was very rough to come up with an easy, saleable approach if what you had to present was Jimmy Stewart and June Allyson over a title called Strategic Air Command [Anthony Mann, 1955]. You couldn’t make it romantic or very appealing and I sent somebody to Washington to see what kind of cooperation we could get. My young man came back empty-handed and I decided I sent the wrong guy. I had better go myself, which I did, and went to Washington to see what I could do. The first stop was at the office of a man who handled the lobbying for Paramount in Washington and when I told him what I was there for, he kind of smiled and said, “Jerry, you’re wasting your time. You will never get any cooperation in this town from any of the government or the military on behalf of anything that favors Curtis LeMay. This town just doesn’t like him. They don’t like the way he operates, the way he does business, or anything about him.” I immediately called Frank Freeman and told him we needed help. We weren’t getting anywhere with the military on promoting the picture. He asked me what I wanted done. I said I would like to get a date with LeMay and talk to him. He hung up the phone and about an hour later the phone rings. I was told, you’ve got a date with General LeMay tomorrow morning at the Air Force base in Omaha, Nebraska.

28 I flew all night, checked in to the Blackhawk Hotel, and got a cab and went out to the air base in the morning. My name was at the gate. I was put into a vehicle with some MPs and driven into this cavernous, cavernous hangar which was empty except for a desk that looked like it was two football fields away and a pinpoint light. With the military police I was escorted down and one of the policemen said, “This is Mr. Pickman from Paramount.” The man I could see had salt and pepper hair, didn’t get up, didn’t look up, and growled, “What do you want?” I explained to him who I was and what I was there for and the picture—did my whole pitch and that we needed a lot of cooperation to properly market this movie; at which point he stands up. He was a short, stocky man, I think 5’6” –5’7” and in gray overalls, mustache, butt cigar, two pearl- handled revolvers at his side. He looks up at me and says, “Young man, I am fighting a war here and I haven’t got time for your nonsense.” And he practically dismisses me. As I had learned in the Army, they couldn’t court-martial me for something I wasn’t a part of and I just looked right back at him and I said: Well, General, you run your war and I will run my war. I just want you to know so that it’s not a surprise when I get back to New York, I am going to recommend to my people that we change the title of this picture from Strategic Air Command to Into the Wild Blue Yonder and it will show a nice picture of airplanes in the sky with a nice romantic two-shot of Jimmy and June in the foreground. And I turned on my heel and walked out. Military police picked me up, drove me back to the hotel.

29 The following Monday, I came in the office and there were six people all from the Strategic Air Command standing there, a major, lieutenant, WACs, and a couple of other PR people. They had been detached to me and Paramount to help us on the promotion of Strategic Air Command and they did one hell of a job. [Talk-show host] Arthur Godfrey was a big aviation buff and a great friend of LeMay’s. I don’t think that Leno and Letterman today combined are as big as Godfrey was in those days. He was the king of nighttime TV. Anyway they arranged every night for a month that Arthur Godfrey had a clip from the picture, or some piece of business or actor or something going. They did

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interviews, they had people coming, we did more promotion, more nonsense. From what is now the Letterman theatre on Broadway, where Godfrey used to broadcast, down to the Paramount Theatre, we closed off Broadway and had a parade the night before the picture opened. We had the damnedest premiere we ever had for no reason at all, with military bands, police, you name it, everybody. Godfrey and the SAC put it together and the week before that we had two or three days in Omaha where LeMay opened up the whole base, where he explained how he had constant surveillance of the Russians and the Cold War was on. We brought press in from all over the world and every important columnist in America; we had a half dozen planes fly in from New England, from the South, from the Southwest, the West Coast and then had a three-day big press showing out there. And the kicker was the next morning after the big parade, the Paramount Theatre opened early in the morning, and the place was jammed–the people were lined up around the block. I remember vividly going up to a little old lady and saying, “What‘s your interest in this picture?” She said, “Oh, Arthur Godfrey said I wouldn’t be a real American if I didn’t come to see this picture and I want to be the first one because I am a real American.” The picture became a hit in America and didn’t do business overseas, but we did very well.

10. Distribution executives including Pickman (far right of top table) and exhibitors attend a conference in aid of a 1952 publicity drive

The Joker Is Wild

30 The Joker Is Wild [Charles Vidor, 1957] was the story of Joe E. Lewis, a Chicago nightclub entertainer who in the heavy days of the Mafia changed clubs. One day they sent a few

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of their boys over to visit him and they cut his throat. He ultimately recovered and became quite famous. He worked the Copacabana and he was a great boozer and a great raconteur. We finally made a picture about his life based on a book. Frank Sinatra played Lewis and the picture was a wonderful little movie. The strategy to me was to use Joe and Frank and I had them all agreed. We were going to do what I thought was a unique stunt: one day we were going to open the same picture with the same stars in New York and Chicago, because the picture mainly took place in New York and Chicago. We were going to open the picture a little bit early in New York, let’s say 6pm, grab a plane and be in Chicago at 8pm. We were going to charter a plane, have it all synchronized. When we leave the theatre the police would run us out to LaGuardia where we get into the plane, fly to Chicago, run to the theatre, and we would be covered by what little TV there was in those days and the newspapers. We would maybe take twenty newspapermen. That was the gimmick.

31 It was difficult to put a campaign together because of the title. How do you have a romantic two-shot with Frank Sinatra with “The Joker Is Wild”? People will think it’s a card picture or a joke. Sitting in the office one afternoon doing something else I get a call from the Paramount music company to come right over: “Sammy has to play a song for you.” Sammy Cahn was a great songwriter who wrote with Jimmy Van Heusen and wrote a lot for Crosby, one of the hot writers of his time. Sammy is a peppery little guy, jumping around, and he plays a song: “Jerry, this is the greatest song I ever wrote and it’s going to win the Academy Award.” The name of the song was “All the Way”. Well, that personified the picture, how this guy, Joe E. Lewis, lived. He lived all the way, he gambled all the way, he ran women all the way, everything was all the way. I loved the song and I believed Sammy was right. I got all excited. I prepared two campaigns for the picture: one campaign for The Joker Is Wild and one campaign for All the Way. I got everybody that was involved, from the management, to the studio, to producers, the agents and directors, including the guy who wrote the original book, Art Cohn. I did my best [pitch] ever. I did an hour with props, visuals, bells, whistles, trailers, showing the two campaigns to contrast which one would work, and they were practically standing and cheering. At which point a guy sitting in the back of the room, who was wearing his hat all through the meeting, smoking a cigarette, just said, “I’m Art Cohn. Some of you may know that I wrote the book and my contract says you can’t change the title without my permission. And gentlemen, I’m not giving you my permission. Good day.” The picture didn’t do very well. You just couldn’t sell the picture. Many times titles are so misleading that it will hurt them.

Departure from Paramount

32 I got into a power struggle at Paramount unbeknownst to me. Somebody was very jealous of me and did me in. When I got the job as head of sales, I needed to replace myself as head of advertising although I was the first one to keep advertising under the sales manager’s job where they always had been separate. At that time I think I was the first one who held both jobs; both advertising and sales reported to me. I interviewed a half dozen people. I kept being badgered by two old friends, one a guy named Herb Golden, who was a banker friend of mine at Bankers Trust, and Tom Pryor, who had been at the New York Times and who I later got a job as the editor of Variety. They kept foisting a guy named Martin Davis on me. I had interviewed him once and the second

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time I interviewed him I noticed he carried the Wall Street Journal with him and I said to myself, this is not right. I don’t want a guy with the WSJ. He should be carrying Variety with him. But I didn’t trust my instincts and I did hire him and taught him a whole lot of what I knew and tried to bring him along. He managed to sabotage me by nefarious ways and I would say added to my demise.

33 I went to visit all the [Paramount distribution] offices over a protracted period–I would go out on a Tuesday and hit somewhere on Wednesday, somewhere on Thursday, Friday, come back in the office on Monday. This was over a period of weeks because we had thirty-two offices in the US and six in Canada and offices all around the world. In those days there was uniformity, each of the distributors had thirty-two offices in the US and they were standard. Everybody distributed pictures from the same bases. In the US today nobody has offices anywhere, because you have so much modern communication. But I was doing a big drive and you’d go into Chicago, Cleveland, etc, work with your people in the morning and have a lunch for the exhibitors in the afternoon, and then you take on the press. I really worked the town. I guess while I was on this series of trips Marty Davis was able to undermine me for his own purposes.

34 When I was finally terminated I remember telling Barney Balaban that there will be no Paramount in three years as you now know it with your people because you’re all old and don’t have the energy. And sure enough in three years they were all out. Almost three years to the day, a raid was started on the company by Herb Siegel and Ernie Martin, who was one of the great producers on Broadway (he did Guys and Dolls). They wanted to take over, when a white knight was brought in, who happened to be Charlie Bluhdorn.11 Davis became very tight with Bluhdorn and ended up succeeding him when Bluhdorn died. But I always said that my instinct on so many things was so good that the one time I didn’t trust it, it cost me. Now Davis has been dead for ten years and I’m not mad at anybody. But I should have gone with my instincts and not hired a guy who read the Wall Street Journal rather than Variety.

35 I think I made a big contribution to the company in the years that I was there, maybe not because of my talent, but because of my energy and what I brought to the table. As I said, the Fifties were the toughest years ever in the film business. We had a great run of great pictures with great people and we had major market share through all of the Fifties.

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11. Near the end: company president George Weltner and Paramount executives including Pickman (second from right) in the early 1960s. Pictured at left is studio founder Adolph Zukor

Columbia

36 I went to Columbia for five or six years and I handled special sales and advertising. They would give me a couple of pictures to handle, and I would liaise and oversee the advertising and distribution around the world. Carl Foreman was a writer-producer and had made a lot of good movies. He was making Born Free [James Hill, 1966] and I was very close to him. I was on the [African] location and got very friendly with Joy Adamson. We brought her to America and we spent a lot of time with her. The picture came to New York and we had a preview. Everybody in the office was thrilled by it and I was making some arrangements for the movie, representing Foreman, when I get a fax or cable from Carl saying he wanted the song Born Free eliminated from the film. He was unhappy with the music and he was going to change the whole score and I was supposed to tell the management what he was going to do. Well, I didn’t agree with him and management didn’t but he prevailed. We took the lyrics off the main title and end title, but the song got out somehow and come Academy Award time everybody was talking about nominating the song. But the song wasn’t in the picture so they had to go redub the end and have a special engagement in LA for a week so the song would qualify, and it won the Academy Award.

37 A friend of mine, Harold Hecht, who had been a partner of Burt Lancaster and really made Burt as a good producer, was down on his luck and made a deal to make a picture called The Ballad of Cat Ballou. I went up to Loew’s 86th Street [cinema] to see a preview of the picture and it didn’t play very well at all. It was a disaster. I’d have said if the

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audience had stones they would have stoned the screen. It was a satire and they just didn’t dig it. And the Columbia people were distraught. They just ran like thieves from the building and I got left with Harold Hecht. We walked into a German coffee shop and had some coffee. I’m giving him all the bromides to avoid telling him the truth and finally he goes back to his hotel. Next morning I get a call from Abe Schneider; he was the president of Columbia at the time. I get into Schneider’s office and there are ten executives in there and little Harold Hecht, and Schneider turns me to me and says: Jerry, Harold tells me you think the picture is great and it’s going to work, it’s going to be a big hit and you know what to do with it and you’d like to handle it. Well, you’re in charge of the picture. Whatever you want to do, you distribute it, you merchandise it, you handle it, and it’s the most important thing you have to do. Whatever else you’re doing, forget it, just do this. I couldn’t say no.

38 I took the picture on and I made them change the title from The Ballad of Cat Ballou to Cat Ballou [Elliot Silverstein, 1965]. Jane Fonda and Lee Marvin were in the picture. They were nothing at the time. We hid them in the billing and we came up with a drunken horse falling down as a symbol and we did a campaign: it’s outlandish, it’s hilarious, it’s so forth–every big adjective–and it’s also very funny (in small type). I knew the picture needed a slow build-up and instead of opening in New York or LA, as you did in those days to build public opinion, critical acclaim, I had somebody do research and I got a lot of colleges in non-major markets: college towns that were big towns, not small towns. They came up with about twenty or thirty cities and we got those cities, those towns that were in session between Easter and Decoration Day, where we would have six or eight weeks. We picked eight or ten of those towns that were minor cities, such as Austin, as opposed to Dallas, and Madison, as opposed to Chicago. We opened the picture very modestly in each town in April and May, and the young people understood it and it built. Finally we came into New York in mid-July or early August. The picture had almost a groundswell and took off. It built up enough momentum and word of mouth and it ended up with Marvin getting an Academy Award.

39 In those days the airlines had something called in-flight movies. But the theatres objected if they played a picture on the airlines before the theatres. They thought it would hurt the theatre business. And most of the companies respected it. But to get the build-up I needed for Cat Ballou, I wanted the kind of exposure I could get with a captive audience, and I told the guy who was handling the airlines to book it, contrary to the policy of waiting until after the theatres. He went to his boss, Sol Schwartz, and said Jerry Pickman wants to do so forth and so forth. I had a meeting with Schwartz and Bobby Meyers, and I said, “Sol, we got cooperation from the airlines, we’re going to paint the plane in Western colors, stewardesses are going to wear Western outfits, we’re gonna take a horse on the plane, flying him across the country in a passenger seat.” And I give him all of this bullshit. I adlibbed twenty or thirty things they were going to do and we walked out of the meeting. Bobby looked at me and said, “Jerry, what are we going to do? How can we do all that?” I said, “Bobby, don’t be silly, we’re not going to do anything. In a week they’ll forget we ever said anything.” And we went and opened the picture and the picture worked.

40 I came up with this very unorthodox approach to the handling of a picture, going against the norms of distribution. The sales manager at the time was a very old guy and I indirectly reported to him. Somewhere in the conversation, I said, “Rube, I don’t know whether this is going to work or not but I really am going to do some unusual things

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with this picture. I want you to back me.” I remember he said, “Kid, if you’re right, I’ll back you all the way.” I said, “You stupid old son of a bitch, I don’t need you to back me if I’m right, so fuck off.” And I think that’s what ruined me at Columbia. But he was only going to back me if I was right.

Walter Reade

41 I was very friendly with a guy named Walter Reade, who had a small theatre company, and he prevailed upon me to come and work for him. I ended up running the picture company [Continental] for him. I ran whatever I wanted to and we had a good time for a couple of years. I took a documentary that had been on PBS about Johnny Cash; we doctored it up and called it Johnny Cash! The Man, His World, His Music [1969] and we did a tremendous amount of business with it. That’s also when I had my second War and Peace [Sergei Bondarchuk, USSR, 1965-67; US release, 1969]. After I had handled the American version at Paramount, Walter Reade and I bought the six-hour Russian version that we used to sell in two halves. We had a first half and a second half. We would run it afternoon, evening, and we kept rotating the picture and it became a classic but we never really got everything out of it. But I was the only one associated with two War and Peaces.

12. Pickman outside a theatre presenting the two-part Russian version of War and Peace

42 We had no money, and we were picking pictures. While Walter was in Europe somewhere, a friend of mine, this old agent, Bud Rogers, came to see me and said he wanted me to screen a picture. I said, “I can’t do it. It’s on 16mm and I don’t want to look at 16mm, what am I going to do with it?” He said, “It’s a 16mm negative–please look at it.” We set up a 16mm projector in the office and we looked at it. It was called

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The Night of the Anubis. I didn’t know what Anubis meant. So I went to the dictionary and I saw the definition: a jackal-headed God who conducted the dead to judgment. It was a terrible, terrible picture. And I said, “Okay Bud, I’ve changed the name to Night of the Living Dead [1968]. I don’t want to make a blow-up; you’ll have to provide the blow-up. I want a 35mm negative with a new title and I want you to add some more screams and some more things to it.” And he delivered it. I think Reade still didn’t know about it. The picture was made by a half-dozen guys in Pittsburgh. They were in the advertising business and George Romero, the director, became a legend. We took the picture to Pittsburgh and I remember we opened it on Rosh Hoshana or Yom Kippur; we did a lot of business and we promoted the shit out of the movie. When Reade saw it, he said “I don’t want to be associated with it.” When he saw the grosses, it was the best thing we ever did. The picture was made by the way we handled it and the campaign. That’s marketing.

13. Pickman addresses the press at a conference for Walter Reade’s release of the controversial Ulysses (Joseph Strick, 1967)

Independence

43 After twenty years of making big contributions I didn’t want to work for anybody. That’s when I started the Pickman Film Company and ultimately met Bill Levitt, who was the famous builder of Levittown. I was struggling with the Pickman Company and he said, “Why can’t you do bigger things?” And I said, “Bill, I don’t have the money.” He said, “You’ve got the money, I’m your partner.” We opened an account at Chase Manhattan and we had unlimited credit. That’s how we became Levitt-Pickman until

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we terminated. We had a lot of fun with The Groove Tube [Ken Shapiro, 1974], which went on to make $11,000,000; the picture cost $200,000. We made a tax shelter deal and the tax shelter gave us $75,000 to cover our expenses. I got Movielab–I screwed them a bit–making answer prints from a CRI [color reversal internegative], and kept rejecting the answer prints till we had four of them. I took the answer prints and we opened with them–four engagements. The picture worked.

44 Heartland [Richard Pearce, 1979] was a beautiful movie. I saw a review at the New York Film Festival. I tracked it down and called William Morris [Agency]. “Oh no, we got a deal with Warners.” Year later, I called the same agent, Jeremy Zimmer, who was a big Hollywood agent. “Whatever happened to Heartland?” “Oh, we’re deeply in a major deal!” A year later, Zimmer called me. “Remember that picture Heartland?” “Yeah, Jeremy, that piece of shit still around?” He said, “Yes and we’d like to talk to you.” I said, “Be happy to–on two conditions. One, we talk in my office ’cause I’m not coming to your office, and second, before we go any further, no matter what happens I get 40% of the gross from the first dollar.” I got the picture, I got my 40% distribution fee, and they paid all marketing costs. But I waited my time and it worked. It was a small picture and also had played a special TV run on American Playhouse–it had a run on PBS before it went to theatres. The film did very well at the box office. We played the Northern part of the United States because the picture was so heavily snow-oriented. It was the story of a family in the Dakotas and I knew it wouldn’t work in the South. And it never worked in the South. These are the instincts.

14. Pickman at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival, with actress Susan George

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Instincts

45 Everybody you meet wants to be a producer or a director. I never wanted to be a producer. I didn’t have the patience to be a producer. I couldn’t ever visualize that any more than I could visualize motherhood. I couldn’t take a piece of paper, have to get ten writers to write and rewrite, cast it, then recast it, shoot it, reshoot it, edit, reedit it, and spend nine months and then take it out one day and have it go on its ass. I couldn’t live that way. I think I could run a studio. I think my instincts are good. I think I know material, but I couldn’t live with any one project that much, for that long.

46 I think I know pictures. I contended in those days that I could call 90% of the pictures within 75% of their ultimate domestic gross or I could call 75% of the pictures within 90%. I really knew the market and I’m not saying this immodestly, because I knew what was going on out there, I knew how to spend, and what to spend, and this was before you bought the gross with TV. We actually worked the campaigns, we exploited the pictures. We might open a picture in New York, LA, Chicago or maybe open twenty cities one day; or you might open fifty theatres in Dallas and nowhere else, unlike the 2,000-theatre break you have today, because the public’s attention was different. We didn’t have the gongs on every street corner. Now you sell pictures like hot dogs–it’s the same for everybody. We created different markets for different pictures.

15. Operation Box office

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NOTES

1. “Youngstein quits Par for UA top spot; Pickman succeeds,” Daily Variety, February 13, 1951, 8. 2. “Par promotes Jerry Pickman as domestic sales chief,” Daily Variety, November 23, 1960, 1. 3. “Boasberg replaces Pickman as Par’s distrib’n chief,” Daily Variety, July 27, 1962, 4. 4. The Red Shoes ran at the Bijou Theatre on a two-a-day, reserved-seat basis for 108 weeks, earning a box-office gross of $960,000, Variety, November 15, 1950, 4. 5. Although Samson and Delilah was produced before Sunset Boulevard (indeed, one sequence in the latter shows DeMille’s film in production), its initial engagements were on a limited roadshow basis and it was not generally released until 1951. It was probably on the film’s general release that Pickman and Youngstein worked together. 6. Before signing for Paramount, Audrey Hepburn played the lead in a French film, Monte Carlo Baby (Jean Boyer and Lester Fuller, 1953), and had supporting roles in one other French and five British films. 7. By “the studio” Pickman means Paramount’s production division, based in Los Angeles, as opposed to the New York-based distribution division and senior corporate management. 8. On the history of Telemeter and other early pay-TV experiments, see Michele Hilmes, Hollywood and Broadcasting: from Radio to Cable (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990), 124-36; Megan Mullen, “The Pre-History of Pay Cable Television: an overview and analysis,” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 19 1 (1999): 39-56. 9. Adolph Zukor was born in Hungary. 10. Introduced by Paramount in 1954, VistaVision was a widescreen process which used 35mm film running horizontally through the camera rather than vertically. Each frame was twice the size of regular 35mm. The first two films released in the process were White Christmas and Strategic Air Command. 11. After an attempted takeover bid, Paramount was bought in 1966 by the conglomerate Gulf + Western Industries, whose chief executive officer was Charles Bluhdorn. After Bluhdorn’s death in 1983 he was succeeded by Martin S. Davis. See Bernard F. Dick, Engulfed: the Death of Paramount Pictures and the Birth of Corporate Hollywood (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2001).

ABSTRACTS

Jerome (Jerry) Pickman (b. 1916; d. 2010) worked for more than fifty years in Hollywood film marketing and distribution. Entering the film industry in 1944, he spent short stints at several companies, including Twentieth Century-Fox and Eagle-Lion, before embarking on a thirteen- year stay at Paramount Pictures (1949-62), where he became vice president in charge of worldwide advertising, publicity, and exploitation, and subsequently also general sales manager for the domestic market–the first executive to hold two such major posts simultaneously. While at Paramount he orchestrated the promotional and distribution campaigns for such films as The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), Shane (1953), White Christmas (1954) and Psycho (1960), and worked with such figures as Cecil B. DeMille, George Stevens, Jerry Lewis and Alfred Hitchcock. After leaving Paramount, Pickman worked for Columbia on films including Cat Ballou (1965) and Born Free (1966) and for the Walter Reade Organization on Night of the Living Dead (1968), among many

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others. Subsequently forming the Levitt-Pickman Film Corporation to distribute films independently, he continued to be a consultant on publicity matters until his death, aged 94. In his reminiscences, Pickman talks candidly about his experiences at the heart of the American film industry and reflects on the role he played in helping to shape postwar Hollywood marketing.

INDEX

Keywords: Hollywood, postwar, marketing, publicity, distribution

AUTHOR

SHELDON HALL Sheldon Hall is a Senior Lecturer in Stage and Screen Studies at Sheffield Hallam University, UK. He is the author of Zulu: With Some Guts Behind It (Tomahawk Press, 2005), the co-author with Steve Neale of Epics, Spectacles, and Blockbusters: a Hollywood History (Wayne State University Press, 2010) and the co-editor with John Belton and Steve Neale of Widescreen Worldwide (John Libbey Publishing, 2010). He has also contributed articles to numerous books and journals on aspects of American and British cinema history and is currently writing a monograph, Armchair Cinema: Feature Films on British Television.

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“To prevent the present heat from dissipating”: Stanley Kubrick and the Marketing of Dr. Strangelove (1964)

Peter Krämer

1 On 7 March 1963, five weeks into principal photography for Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, the film’s director, producer and co-writer Stanley Kubrick wrote to Columbia Pictures about the marketability of his latest project: My original belief that this subject matter would be very commercial, create an almost unprecedented public and critical reaction, and be possibly the most exploitable film of recent times, has, I believe, been largely proven by the tremendous success of its plagiarised cousin Fail-Safe and the very unusual attention which is being given to the dispute between the two films. ... Naturally, I would like to have the film released as quickly as possible in order to prevent the present heat from dissipating.1

2 The “commercial” subject matter of Kubrick’s film was the outbreak of nuclear war. This topic had already been the focus of several bestselling novels, the latest of which had been Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler’s Fail-Safe, published in October 1962.2 Because Fail-Safe shared many elements with Peter George’s 1958 novel Two Hours to Doom (published in the US as Red Alert), on which Dr. Strangelove was based, Kubrick, George and Columbia had sued Burdick and Wheeler as well as the film production company planning to adapt the novel, for plagiarism.3 It is this on-going “dispute” which generated the “heat” that Kubrick wanted to exploit, when one might have expected him to refer instead to developments in the nuclear confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union, notably the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, which, it was widely perceived, had actually brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.

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3 In his letter to Columbia, Kubrick acknowledged that the distributor, which had only taken on Dr. Strangelove a few months earlier in November 1962, needed time “for your sales and exploitation forces to manage a co-ordinated national release,” and therefore would have to go “five to six weeks” beyond his preferred release date (which he gave as 15 August 1963) for the as yet unfinished film: If I understand you correctly, your plan is to break the film nationally (...I would assume in somewhere around 50 cities), so that we can take the most efficient advantage of heavy national television advertising, national magazine advertising and the big national magazine breaks [that is, substantial articles about the film, PK] which have so far been promised by a number of important editors.

4 It is unclear to what extent Columbia was in fact already committed to an expensive national advertising campaign for Dr. Strangelove, but Kubrick here certainly pushed very strongly for it. Indeed, he acknowledged how unusual this would be by claiming that the kind of marketing he envisioned for Dr. Strangelove “has never been done on a national scale.” At the same time, he showed himself to be reasonable and conciliatory towards Columbia by accepting the unfortunate delay of his film’s release caused by the extensive preparations necessary for “a co-ordinated national release.” Kubrick’s letter indicated that he had already embarked on the marketing of his film on his own, by contacting magazine editors with a view of securing publicity for his forthcoming release. It is also obvious that Kubrick expected to be involved very closely with Columbia’s marketing of Dr. Strangelove, and that his ideas and interests might not always be in line with those of the distributor; Columbia, for example, might not agree with Kubrick’s estimation of the film’s commercial potential and hence refuse to invest a lot in its marketing.

5 In this essay, which makes extensive use of archival sources, most notably from the Stanley Kubrick Archive at the University of the Arts London, I examine Kubrick’s involvement in the marketing of Dr. Strangelove. The first section provides background information on Kubrick’s early career, which helps to explain how he came to take such a central role in the film’s marketing. It also deals with the Fail-Safe dispute, which loomed so large in Kubrick’s thinking, reminding us that, crucially, marketing is about positioning a product in relation to its competitors; in this case, the aim was to neutralize the nearest competitor altogether. The second section explores the key selling points highlighted in advertising materials (including the press book) and in the publicity surrounding the film. Among these were the serious, topical subject, the film’s comedic nature, and, last but not least, the famous director himself. This section also examines the release strategy for the film, discussing its ever shifting release date and the national dimension of the marketing campaign around the time of the film’s US release in January 1964.

Stanley Kubrick, Hollywood and Films About the “Nuclear Nightmare”

6 After working as a staff photographer for Look, one of America’s leading mass market picture magazines, Stanley Kubrick moved into filmmaking in the early 1950s, intending from the outset to make films for the major Hollywood studios.4 Even though he was only in his twenties, he managed to complete two short documentaries and four

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feature films for theatrical release by 1957.5 Kubrick had to gauge what kinds of films the majors would want to finance and/or distribute, and he settled on the following: two short documentaries about the everyday lives of interesting people (Day of the Fight and The Flying Padre, both 1951), two war films (Fear and Desire, 1953, and Paths of Glory, 1957) and two urban crime dramas (Killer’s Kiss, 1955, and The Killing, 1956). Working closely with various collaborators, Kubrick initiated and developed these projects, then sought production financing (initially mostly derived from his own savings, from relatives, acquaintances and business partners; after his second feature mostly from the majors) and distribution deals. With the exception of the somewhat experimental debut feature Fear and Desire (which was released by the arthouse distributor Joseph Burstyn), all of these films were distributed by major studios (RKO and United Artists). None of them was particularly successful in commercial terms, but The Killing and Paths of Glory received considerable critical acclaim. In addition, from the outset of his film career Kubrick had used his press contacts to promote himself in interviews as an independent-minded, important new filmmaker who was personally involved in all aspects of film production.6 The reputation he built through this self-promotion, and also of course through his films, helped him gain production finance and distribution deals; it also became a cornerstone of the films’ marketing and critical reception. In addition, wherever possible, Kubrick contributed ideas for the marketing of his films, as when he managed to get the well-known literary critic Mark Van Doren to write an endorsement for Fear and Desire, which was used in the film’s advertising.7

7 Both The Killing and Paths of Glory were adaptations of novels. Kubrick had been able to afford the film rights for these novels because in 1955 he had formed a business partnership with the well-off producer James Harris. The Harris-Kubrick Pictures Corporation specialized in adaptations and invested increasing amounts of money in the purchase of film rights for a wide range of novels (most of them dealing with war, crime or problematic sexual relationships) in the late 1950 and early 1960s. Among these novels were two bestsellers published in the US in 1958, Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita and Peter George’s Red Alert. One of the key advantages of adapting bestsellers is, of course, that the success of the book has done a lot of the groundwork for the marketing of the film to be made from it; to some extent future film audiences can be assumed to be already familiar with, and interested in, the story’s title and subject matter. This does not only help the distributor with advertising and publicizing the film to audiences, but it also helps independent producers in their negotiations with financiers and distributors. Kubrick and Harris nevertheless had difficulties making a deal for the production of Lolita, because they insisted on high levels of control over the project which the majors were not willing to grant. As a consequence of the delay of the Lolita project and also of the business relationship he had established with Kirk Douglas (who starred in Paths of Glory which Kubrick had made for his production company Bryna), Kubrick was willing to take over the direction of Spartacus (1960), after Douglas–who starred in the film and whose company produced it–had fired the original director Anthony Mann. Somewhat ironically, the huge commercial and critical success of this mega-budget film–which Kubrick had comparatively little control over–finally established him as an important player in Hollywood.

8 Even before Spartacus was released in October 1960, Harris-Kubrick Pictures finally managed to get financing (but not yet a distribution agreement) for Lolita through a deal with Seven Arts, an important telefilm distribution company which was entering

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the field of movie production at that time.8 Seven Arts eventually released the film through MGM in June 1962, and agreed also to finance Harris-Kubrick Pictures’ next project, which the company’s annual report, in July 1962, described as “a satirical view of The Bomb.”9 This project fit in well with Kubrick’s preoccupation with military organizations and combat in his early work, escalating from the small scale attacks of four soldiers caught behind enemy lines in an unspecified war (Fear and Desire) and the stalemate of trench warfare on a section of the Franco-German front in World War I (Paths of Glory) to battles between rebellious slaves and the Roman army sweeping across the Roman empire (Spartacus)–and now the possible destruction of humankind in a nuclear war.

9 In an article he published in 1963–as part of the extensive pre-release publicity for Dr. Strangelove–Kubrick explained that he had long had a “great desire to do something about the nuclear nightmare,” reading dozens of books about the subject and eventually–after a recommendation from a British nuclear strategist–choosing Red Alert as the main source for his film.10 However, during script development he realized that the adaptation of this “completely serious suspense story” would have to be a “nightmare comedy” with the unusually long title Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. The archival record tells a complex, indeed convoluted story about the genesis of this film.11 Towards the end of 1961, Kubrick started working with Peter George on the (not yet comical) adaptation of Red Alert.12 Apparently, it was widely known that Kubrick was interested in a nuclear story, because Eugene Burdick approached Harris-Kubrick Pictures in December 1961, sending them “[a] partially completed novel and outline of a novel tentatively entitled Fail-Safe ... for your consideration in connection with the potential purchase by you of the world-wide motion picture and allied rights.”13 Already involved with Red Alert, Kubrick was not interested in this offer, but immediately recognized the similarities between Fail-Safe and Red Alert and hence the danger that someone else might pick up the film rights for Fail-Safe and produce a rival picture. In preparation of a possible plagiarism suit, Kubrick sent Burdick and his co-author Harvey Wheeler, via registered mail, a copy of Red Alert, “to which we own the exclusive world-wide motion picture and allied rights,” as well as “other literary materials which we have heretofore prepared relative to our theatrical motion picture project.”14 This protected Kubrick against later claims by Burdick and Wheeler that he had stolen their material, and also helped to establish the fact that the two authors had indeed been familiar with Red Alert and also with Kubrick’s adaptation before they completed their novel, which in turn would help to prepare a plagiarism suit against them.

10 Kubrick’s worry about competition from a film version of Fail-Safe probably contributed to the decision he and George took in March 1962 not to adapt Red Alert after all, but to develop a whole new story for their film, centering on a nuclear strategist who eventually came to be called Dr. Strangelove.15 Nevertheless, in May Kubrick strongly encouraged George to take legal action against Burdick and Wheeler, once “the actual proofs of the book are available to be read.”16 Surprisingly, Kubrick reverted back to the adaptation of Red Alert in July and August, incorporating various aspects of the story of the nuclear strategist, not least his name and also the story’s comical tone.17 At this point, it was certain that Kubrick’s film would overlap significantly with Fail-Safe, and it is entirely possible that Kubrick was already planning to exploit this overlap and the likely law suit for publicity purposes (instead of asking his financial backers to neutralize the competition by buying the rights to the forthcoming novel). Fail-Safe was

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first serialized in the Saturday Evening Post and then published as a book in October 1962, and, helped perhaps by the Cuban Missile Crisis, became a bestseller.18 In the light of the novel’s success, a film adaptation seemed unavoidable, and by November Kubrick and George were preparing a plagiarism suit.19 At the same time, they finally found a distributor when Columbia took over the project from Seven Arts.20 Then, on 7 February 1963, Variety announced that the American Congress of Exhibitors (ACE) and the Entertainment Corp. of America (ECA), two recently formed production companies, had joined forces to adapt Fail-Safe and planned to have the film “ready for release in mid-August,” thus coinciding with the release date Kubrick envisioned for Dr. Strangelove.21 A few days later, an ECA executive told the Hollywood Reporter that he “does not think Fail-Safe will conflict with Columbia’s upcoming Dr. Strangelove, [and] pointed out that one is a serious story and the other a comedy treatmen.”22 However, the adjacent article in the Hollywood Reporter reported that Stanley Kubrick, Peter George and Columbia had just “sued to prevent [ECA] from proceeding with plans to film Fail-Safe ... charging copyright infringement and unfair competition.” Indeed the suit aimed at preventing Burdick, Wheeler and their publishers as well as ECA from “marketing” (here meaning “publicizing”) the novel and the production of a film based on it.23 What is more, Kubrick et al were seeking damages “plus all profits from these unfair practices.”24

11 Kubrick explained the thinking behind these harsh measures in an interview with Variety published on 27 February 1963: Not knowing much—or indeed anything—about Red Alert, “people are asking me why I am copying that story [Fail-Safe] and not crediting it. That is why I must take action.”25 The article reported that, according to Kubrick, “even if ECA did not make a film version of Fail-Safe the presence of the book itself would harm his own personal reputation and possibly affect the public desire to see the film.” As we saw at the beginning of this essay, Kubrick was in fact very happy about the publicity his dispute with ECA generated for his forthcoming film, and he took the success of Fail-Safe as a good omen for the box office potential of Dr. Strangelove. In the end, the plagiarism suit against ECA was settled out of court when Columbia took over the production of Fail-Safe from ECA in April 1963. According to the Wall Street Journal, “[a] Columbia spokesman said that [the] company is no longer worried about plot similarities of Fail-Safe and Dr. Strangelove ... since the company now can control the release date of both.”26

12 In order to get Kubrick’s agreement to the settlement, the distributor guaranteed that Fail-Safe would not be released “prior to the expiration of six ... months after the release ... of Strangelove or June 1 [1964], whichever date shall be later.”27 In this way, Fail-Safe– which was eventually released in October 1964 to considerable critical acclaim but without much financial success28–could not damage the box office performance of Kubrick’s film. Indeed, later on Kubrick thought that, as far as re-releases were concerned, Fail-Safe might actually help Dr. Strangelove. In April 1965, he wrote to Columbia, “I do have one rather bizarre idea ... What about a double bill ... with Fail- Safe? ... [I]t would be one of the most talked about combinations in film history.”29 While I am not sure whether this double bill ever came to pass, the developments I have reconstructed here demonstrate that a key objective of Kubrick’s (and Columbia’s) thinking about the marketing of Dr. Strangelove was to neutralize the commercial threat posed by a, in many ways, quite similar film.

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13 One might have expected (like the ECA spokesman referred to above) that, in the light of the obvious generic differences between the two films (drama versus comedy), direct competition would not have been regarded as such a big issue. However, Kubrick always regarded Dr. Strangelove as a comedy and a suspense drama, and aimed to market it as both.

Marketing Dr. Strangelove: Publicity, Advertising and Theatrical Release

14 In the run-up to the much-publicized release of Lolita in June 1962, Harris-Kubrick Pictures issued a press release announcing their next project.30 It quotes Stanley Kubrick who described the as yet untitled film as “a satirical comedy about the Bomb. … We chose to tell our story this way as a reaction to the stupefying reverence with which the subject has been approached in the past.” At this point, the fact that the film dealt with a serious subject–arguably the most serious subject of all–in a comical fashion was seen as the project’s most distinctive feature.31 This was also emphasized in the comments Kubrick made to New York Post columnist Archer Winsten in July; Winsten reported, “For the past three years he has read everything he could find on nuclear warfare…. [Dr. Strangelove] will, in his own words, be a satirical comedy of Kafka-ish, nightmarish mood.”32 After Columbia had taken over the project in November 1962, the distributor’s first press release mentioned the film’s title, its source novel and its main star (Peter Sellers), yet placed most emphasis on the filmmaker: “[Stanley Kubrick] will direct from his own screenplay … [He has been] hailed as one of Hollywood’s most brilliant young directors.”33 Thus, three key selling points were established early on: the important subject matter (“the Bomb”), its comical treatment and the “brilliant” director.

15 When, on 4 January 1963–three weeks before the start of principal photography– Kubrick wrote to Columbia to discuss their ideas for the first advertisement for the film, he addressed the issue of how to weigh serious subject matter and comical treatment. He restated the basic principles that had been agreed in a previous meeting with representatives of the distributor: “The subject matter and plot of the film is the leverage by which we shall win the sympathy and support of the vast majority of the world’s press.”34 Referring to the recent success of nuclear-themed novels (Fail-Safe and Seven Days in May), he added: “we shall win the public in the same manner.” Given the primacy of the nuclear subject, he reminded Columbia that “[w]e also settled that the comedy flavor of the film is precisely that – a flavor, and nothing more” (emphasis in the original). More so than laughter, “[t]he most direct emotional result of the film will be suspense, excitement, and fascination”. He demanded that the advertisement should “have the same balance of tone as the film.” In particular, “it is terribly important to remove the film from [the] ‘a Peter Sellers picture’ category,” because that category would identify Dr. Strangelove too exclusively with the comedy genre. Although Kubrick does not mention it here, this emphasis on Sellers would also divert attention from the fact that Dr. Strangelove was, of course, “a Stanley Kubrick picture”.

16 When the first Dr. Strangelove advertisement was published soon afterwards in Variety, Time and other places, Variety commented that, despite some discrepancies, one might

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easily mistake its plot synopsis “as applying to Fail-Safe”; in other words, the film was presented more as a nuclear thriller than as a comedy.35 The text of the ad read: A nightmare comedy in which a psychotic Air Force General triggers an ingenious, foolproof and irrevocable scheme, unleashing his Wing of B-52 H-bombers to attack Russia. The President of the United States, unable to recall the aircraft, is forced to cooperate with the Soviet Premier in a bizarre attempt to save the world.36

17 The generic term “comedy” is here qualified (“nightmare”) in a way that suggests tension and fear rather than the levity and release of tension usually associated with laughter, while the adjective “bizarre” indicates that a suspenseful attempt “to save the world” can give rise to moments of comical detachment.

18 Two internal memos about possible magazine articles to be generated in conjunction with the film’s release indicate that Kubrick and the marketing team (at his own company and at Columbia) were unsure about how to deal with the film’s political implications. There was some anxiety that the film might be perceived as “un- American” due to its “audacity to joke about such official things as the Pentagon”; one marketing expert suggested in January 1963 that this could be countered by an “an article on how the old American custom of taking comic pokes at ourselves got lost as far as the screen is concerned during the McCarthy era,” also by a piece celebrating the tradition of “social satire” in American cinema.37 There was agreement that Kubrick himself should very much be at the heart of the publicity for the film, for example by getting someone to write an article about his distinctive approach to filmmaking; the above marketing expert wrote: “I would like with this picture to have what amounts to THE KUBRICK TOUCH emerge as a valid screen commodity” (along the lines, as he pointed out, of Lubitsch, DeMille and Hitchcock). Yet, the filmmaker’s personal views on political measures to be taken about the nuclear stalemate should not be made explicit, “Stanley’s theme is inspection for the sake of control of arms, not really for disarmament,” and the best way “to air his views” was to have them expressed by a sympathetic magazine writer, rather than by Kubrick himself.38 An earlier memo (from December 1962) also put a lot of emphasis both on comedy (with proposed article titles such as “Comedy As a Weapon of Social Criticism” and “Anatomy of a Comedy”) and on the political implications of Dr. Strangelove: “I would suggest that [peace campaigner] Bertrand Russell is approached for possible articles.”39 This suggestion was crossed out, most probably by Kubrick himself, presumably because he feared that the impact of the film would be weakened if it was tied too closely to a particular political stance.40

19 Before principal photography on the film started towards the end of January, there had thus already been an extensive discussion about the key selling points to be highlighted in advertisements and publicity, notably the nuclear theme, comedy and Kubrick. It is perhaps somewhat surprising that the memos quoted above also introduced sex into the marketing equation. Since the film’s screenplay included appearances by a scantily clad female character (in the form of pictures in a Playboy like magazine and in person), both memos suggested that the actress playing that character should actually be featured in Playboy and other men’s magazines. Sex would indeed become an important component of the film’s presentation to the public.

20 From February 1963 onwards, Columbia and Kubrick’s company courted the press. They issued more press releases, which contained extensive quotations from Kubrick as well as background information about the film.41 In February and March, Kubrick gave interviews for articles in Variety and Queen magazine, and he then published a piece

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under his own name in Films and Filming in June.42 In April, journalists were invited to the set (at Shepperton Studios in London), so as to entice them to write articles about the film’s production.43 Some journalists were even provided with copies of the script.44 In the press releases and articles published up to June 1963, Kubrick clearly is the focus of attention, with many comments on his total control of the production process; the fact that other people work on the film as well is acknowledged but they are presented (and present themselves in interview statements) as working for, rather than with, Kubrick. In these texts, the filmmaker is given considerable space to outline his motivations for making the film (which was to deal with the most important issue of the day), to comment on the extensive research he had done on the subject of nuclear war, to express his personal belief–shared by many experts–that there was a good chance that nuclear war would actually happen (most likely by accident) in the not too distant future, and to explain the comical approach he took to the subject (it was the only way fully to confront the absurdity and terrible danger of the present situation). Both Kubrick’s own statements and the surrounding text (which often included references to Red Alert) tended to focus on the serious subject matter, with comedy being seen as an innovative, insightful and, it was hoped, impactful way to relate this subject matter to the audience.

21 There was, then, a considerable publicity campaign for Dr. Strangelove in the first half of 1963. As we saw at the beginning of this essay, Kubrick had initially been hoping for a mid-August release, but in March he had accepted that it would take Columbia until the end of September to get ready. Production delays then made an even later release date necessary. The original shooting schedule from January 1963 expected principal photography (excluding special effects shots) to be completed on 26 April, yet the shoot took a whole month longer, and effects shots were done as late as June.45 During that month, the suggested release date was moved twice, first to October and then even later.46 By October 1963, two endings were being discussed, the first included a huge pie fight in the war room, the other was the shorter scene that was eventually used in the film.47 On 1 November, a telegram announced that, after consultation with various people,48 Kubrick had finally arrived at a decision: “Pie sequence out.” 49 In mid- November, there was a plan to premiere the film in a London cinema on 12 December, yet it took extra negotiation time to get an “A” (rather than the highly restrictive “X”) certificate from the British Board of Film Censors; the certificate was only issued on 9 January 1964.50 The American Production Code Administration also issued its Seal of Approval as late as 2 January 1964.51 A memo from 18 December 1963 had advised Columbia “publicity managers” in various countries that “[i]n the United States the film is opening in 300 key situations between January 22-29, and the local efforts are being backed up by a huge national television campaign of approximately $ 300,000.”52 Yet even this information did not turn out to be correct, because the actual release date in the US and the UK was 30 January 1964.53 Final changes to Dr. Strangelove were only implemented during the first week of its release; under pressure from the US Air Force, Columbia decided to ship a “silent Roll-up ‘Disclaimer’ Prologue” (a printed text starting “It is the stated position of the US Air Force ….”) which was to be added to all prints of the film.54

22 When it became clear that the film’s release would be delayed considerably, Columbia and Kubrick prepared for a second round of publicity from November 1963 onwards. Once again, printed materials (including a voluminous press book) were made available, and Kubrick gave a series of interviews.55 While the articles based on

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interviews with Kubrick covered the same ground as the ones from spring 1963 (the main addition being more detailed information about the film itself), Columbia’s press book, which was addressed both to the press and to exhibitors, included a wealth of new material. Among this material were numerous quotations from positive reviews of the film in the American press.56 The most important addition, however, were articles about the film’s stars (both Peter Sellers and George C. Scott were credited above the title) and supporting actors. This took into account the fact that, in general, press coverage of Hollywood has always been more focused on stars than on directors.

23 The film’s sexual dimension also featured prominently in its advertisements. The press book displayed the designs for a wide range of ads to be placed in newspapers and magazines. The two main designs revolved around a series of six questions. In one case, these were superimposed on the drawing of a bomber fleet; the nuclear-themed first question (“Why did US H-Bombers attack Russia?”) was here followed by the highly sexualized question “Why did Dr. Strangelove want ten women for each men?”57 The other design used six panels, each containing a publicity still of the film’s character that is referred to in the accompanying question, starting with a picture of Sterling Hayden playing General Ripper and the question “Why did General Jack D. Ripper unleash his H-Bombers to attack Russia?” The second and fourth panel featured Tracy Reed. In one only her naked legs are seen, next to George C. Scott, “Where was General ‘Buck’ Turgidson when the Hot-Line rang?” The fifth panel shows her on the phone in revealing clothes, “Why did Miss ‘Foreign Affairs’ phone the Pentagon War Room?” A “press book insert” featured “an alternate campaign … [which] now has been tested around the country and has proven tremendously successful.” The main design for this campaign featured a scantily clad Tracy Reed surrounded by smaller pictures of General Ripper, Dr. Strangelove and others, accompanied by the question about Dr. Strangelove’s demand of ten women for each man, or the exclamation: “Ten women for each man!” The tagline used in these ads–“the hot-line suspense comedy” or “the wild hot-line suspense comedy” (my emphasis)–also had vaguely sexual undertones (“wild,” “hot”), yet, of course, as with the ads in general, the emphasis was on the fact that the film dealt with a serious subject in a both suspenseful and comical fashion. Kubrick’s name is not very prominent in the ads; it is inserted, in comparatively small print, between the name of the two stars and the film’s title, and also appears, again in small print, twice at the bottom of the ad.

24 The press book also listed the various trailers available for Dr. Strangelove ranging from a 10 second “teaser trailer” for television to a theatrical trailer over three minutes long, and describes them as “[p]robably the wildest ever devised for a motion picture, utilizing a system of quick cuts in all three creative areas–film, sound and dialogue– with a number of different voices”. Indeed, most of the shots last for only a fraction of a second, flashing a word (or part of a word) or providing a glimpse of a scene from the film.58 The words shown in rapid succession on screen add up to the long title of the film and to questions similar to those used in the ads. Serious moments from the film are used as well as comical ones, but the frantically rhythmic editing in combination with childish sounding music clearly emphasize comedy rather than suspense. It is also worth noting that a bikini-clad Tracy Reed makes several appearances while the last three words of the film’s title (“love the bomb”) are spoken by a (comically exaggerated) sexy female voice. An effort is made to highlight Kubrick’s name at the very beginning of the trailer both through printed words (“A Stanley Kubrick Production”) and pictures of the director being flashed on the screen, but overall the

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actors are of course much more prominent. Thus, the ads and trailers did not maintain the strong focus of the earlier publicity on Kubrick and the serious subject matter he was dealing with, and instead fore-grounded stars, comedy and indeed sex.

Conclusion

25 In January 1963, after several years of research on the subject of nuclear war and over a year of script development, Stanley Kubrick finally started principal photography on Dr. Strangelove. From the beginnings of his film career in the early 1950s, Kubrick - usually working closely with various collaborators, notably James Harris - had been involved in all aspects of film production, from finding source material and finance to making deals with distributors (with one exception all of these deals where with major Hollywood studios). In the process he had learnt to promote himself, the projects he had in development and the films he completed to financiers, distributors, the press and cinema audiences. Dr. Strangelove was the second of his films financed by Seven Arts, a major new force in film production, but it was sold to Columbia in November 1962. Following on from an initial press release about his new film project earlier in 1962, after November 1962 Kubrick and the marketing team he employed, in collaboration with Columbia, embarked on the preparation and execution of a complex marketing campaign. While the film was shot from January to May 1963 (with special effects work lasting until June), print advertisements were prepared and released, press releases were issued, journalists and editors were courted (with a view of getting them to write and publish articles about the film), and Kubrick gave interviews to the press. The main focus of this campaign was Kubrick himself, the extraordinary filmmaker who had taken on the biggest issue of the day and had decided that only a comical treatment could do it justice. Because of this focus, Kubrick and his team were particularly worried about a rival project entitled Fail-Safe, which also dealt with the subject of nuclear war (albeit in a non-comical fashion). From the moment he had learnt about this project (in December 1961) Kubrick appears to have made preparations for a possible plagiarism suit which would eliminate this competition. After several twists and turns, this objective was achieved when Columbia took over Fail-Safe in April 1963 and assured Kubrick that it would be released long after Dr. Strangelove.

26 Columbia also accommodated Kubrick’s wish, expressed as early as March 1963, for a wide release of Dr. Strangelove supported by a national TV advertising campaign. However, the “heat” that Kubrick felt had been generated by the very public “dispute” about Fail-Safe early in 1963, had long dissipated when–after substantial production delays and several last-minute changes–Dr. Strangelove was finally released in the US and the UK at the end of January 1964. In the run-up to this delayed release, there had been a second round, starting in November 1963, of courting the press, giving interviews, handing out material for the press and exhibitors, and paying for advertisements. All of this was accompanied by a wide range of trailers being shown on television and in cinemas. In contrast to the first flourishing of the marketing campaign in the early months of 1963, the emphasis–especially of the ads and trailers– was now more on comedy and sex than on suspense and serious subject matter, on stars rather than on the filmmaker.

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27 How successful was this marketing strategy? While there is no space here to offer a detailed discussion of the press discourse about Dr. Strangelove, we can note that in line with the overall objective of Kubrick and his marketing team (which was to generate interest in the film), there were a lot of articles about the film in the American press from spring 1963 onwards.59 The main focus of these articles, and also of the many reviews published in January and February 1964, was on Kubrick, on the film’s serious and topical subject matter, and on its unusual, comedic approach to this subject matter–once again, this is perfectly in line with the themes highlighted in the film’s marketing from spring 1963 onwards.60 At the same time, a considerable amount of the writing about Dr. Strangelove at the beginning of 1964 focused on Sellers (who played three different parts in the film) and also on Tracy Reed, who plays a bikini-clad secretary (a publicity still showing her in this outfit found wide usage), which reflected the particular emphasis on stars, comedy and sex in the marketing materials from autumn 1963 onwards.61

28 The film received praise from the majority of critics, several declaring it to be one of the best American movies of recent years and an important contribution to the public debate about nuclear weapons; however, it also was the target of political attacks from some film critics and other commentators, which in turn provoked a vigorous defense of the film by its supporters.62 In addition, the film was a success at the box office; by the end of 1964 it had earned $ 4.15 million in rentals in the US, and was listed by Variety as the fourteenth highest grossing film of the year.63

29 Judging by the film’s critical and commercial success, the marketing campaign can be said to have worked well. However, it is, of course, by no means the only, or even the main, reason for the film’s success. After all, although they are primed by publicity and advertising, film reviewers and audiences ultimately respond to the qualities of the film itself, not to the qualities of posters, trailers etc. Marketing can attract attention to the film, but it cannot make viewers like it. This is an important caveat, which is easily forgotten in marketing studies. No matter how much effort distributors and filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick put into the marketing of their films, their main financial and creative investments are focused on film production. Thus, marketing research needs to be modest in the claims it makes about the contribution of marketing to a film’s success or failure.

30 A final point concerns the national dimension of the marketing campaign for Dr. Strangelove. One has to be cautious about the importance of Columbia’s willingness to invest money in television advertising and advertisements reaching a nation-wide audience (through the TV networks or national magazines). After all, the massive press book for the film was full of advice about what exhibitors could and should do locally, including the placing of ads and trailers in local media. In addition, Kubrick and Columbia organized a large number of preview screenings, which an internal memo identified as one of the main reasons for the film’s box office performance: “The fantastic success of Dr. Strangelove in England and America is largely due to the intensive screening program the picture received many weeks in advance of opening.” 64 This program had initially been scheduled for November 1963, but, judging by the letters Kubrick received in response to these previews, the vast majority of the screenings took place from January onwards.65 The screenings were invitation-only events, involving the press, opinion leaders, prominent members of the various communities in which they were organized and indeed anyone who might spread the

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word, the idea being that the people seeing the film this way would talk to others about it and thus prepare the way for its commercial release: “we want to penetrate to the greatest possible depth and get word-of-mouth going. Hold one for leading doctors, one for leading lawyers, one for cab drivers, barbers and beauticians.”66 This raises the possibility that “heat” was generated at the local rather than the national level, by members of local communities rather than by mass media. Without further research, however, it is difficult to know to what extent this was indeed the case.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Acronyms for archival sources referred to below AMPAS = Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills. NYPL = Performing Arts Research Center, New York Public Library at Lincoln Center, New York. SKA = Stanley Kubrick Archive, University of the Arts London.

“ACE Opens Purse, Helps First ECA Film, Fail-Safe”, Variety, February 7, 1963, 1, 4.

“Analysis of Film Content Form” for Dr. Strangelove, January 2, 1964, Production Code Administration Collection, AMPAS.

Archer, Eugene. “How to Learn to Love World Destruction”, New York Times, January 26, 1964, X13.

“A 22-Year-Old Producer Makes Real Films for Fun and Profit”, New York Journal-American, December 27, 1950, 16.

“Big Rental Pictures of 1964”, Variety, January 13, 1965, 3.

Boardman, Tom. Letter to Stanley Kubrick, November 22, 1962, SK/11/9/12, SKA.

Burdick, Eugene. Letter to Louis Blau, December 26, 1961, SK/11/9/14, SKA.

Burdick, Eugene, and Harvey Wheeler. Fail-Safe (New York: HarperCollins, 1962).

Caras, Roger. Letter to Bill Lewis, January 2, 1964, SK/11/9/19, SKA.

“Claim Fail-Safe Plagiarized Brit 2 Hours to Doom”, Variety, February 12, 1963, 1, 4.

Cohn, Lawrence. “All-Time Film Rental Champs”, Variety, May 10, 1993, C76-C108,

“Columbia Press Book” for Dr. Strangelove, *ZAN-*T8 microfiche, Reel 238, No. 1069, NYPL.

“Columbia Sues to Stop Fail-Safe”, Hollywood Reporter, February 12, 1963, 1, 7.

“Coming: The End of the World”, Newsweek, 4 March 1963, unpaginated clipping in SK/11/6/71, SKA.

Daly, Phil M. “Along the Rialto”, Film Daily, December 14, 1950, 4.

“Direct Hit”, Newsweek, February 3, 1964, 79-80.

Dundy, Elaine. “Dr. Strangelove and Mr. Kubrick”, Queen, March 13, 1963, unpaginated reprint in SK/11/5/10, SKA.

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“Fact Sheet” for Dr. Strangelove, SK/11/1/18, SKA.

Ferguson, Bob, and Hortense Schorr. “Proposed Magazine Program for Dr. Strangelove”, December 7, 1962, SK/11/9/27 2/2, SKA.

George, Peter. Red Alert (New York: Blackmask, 2005; originally published in 1958).

Hackett, Alice Payne, and James Henry Burke, 80 Years of Best Sellers, 1895-1975 (New York: R. R. Bowker, 1977).

Hodgson, Lee. Letter to Stanley Kubrick, October 29, 1963, SK/11/9/68 1/2, SKA.

Keys, Donald. Letter to Stanley Kubrick, July 9, 1964, SK/11/9/97 2/3, SKA.

Knebel, Fletcher, and Charles W. Bailey II. Seven Days in May (New York: Harper and Row, 1962).

Krämer, Peter. “The Making of an Independent Filmmaker: Stanley Kubrick and Post-War Hollywood”, unpublished paper presented at “American Independent Cinema: Past, Present and Future”, Liverpool, May 2009.

Krämer, Peter. “The Limits of Autonomy: Stanley Kubrick, Hollywood and Independent Filmmaking, 1950-53”, in American Independent Cinema: Indie, Indiewood and Beyond, ed. Yannis Tzioumakis, Claire Molloy and Geoff King (London: Routledge, 2013), 153-64.

Krämer, Peter. “’The Greatest Mass Murderer Since Adolf Hitler’: Nuclear War and the Nazi Past in Dr. Strangelove (1964)”, in Dramatising Disaster: Character, Event, Representation, ed. Christine Cornea and Rhys Owain Thomas (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2013), 120-35.

Kubrick, Stanley. Letter to Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler, January 19, 1962, SK/11/1/13, SKA.

Kubrick, Stanley. Letter to Peter George, May 4, 1962, SK/11/9/12, SKA.

Kubrick, Stanley. Letter to Jonas Rosenfield Jr., January 4, 1963, SK/11/9/19, SKA.

Kubrick, Stanley. Letter to Rube Jackter, March 7, 1963, SK/11/9/27 1/2, SKA.

Kubrick, Stanley. “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Cinema”, Films and Filming, June 1963: 12-13.

Kubrick, Stanley. Letter to Victor Lyndon, December 12, 1963, SK/11/9/79, SKA.

Kubrick, Stanley. Letter to Leo Jaffe, April 13, 1965, SK/11/9/35, SKA.

LeBrun, W. L. G. Letter to Ron Phipps, November 5, 1962, SK/11/9/19 1/4, SKA.

LeBrun, W. L. G. Letter to Al Schwartz, June 26, 1963, SK/11/3/7, SKA.

LeBrun, W. L. G. Letter to Victor Lyndon, November 15, 1963, SK/11/9/19 1/4, SKA.

LeBrun, W. L. G. Letter to Victor Lyndon, January 10, 1964, SK/11/9/19 1/4, SKA.

Lee, Laura. “More Action, Less Talking in Movies”, Sunday Bulletin (Philadelphia), July 26, 1953, 8, 10.

Lerner, Max. “Folly on Film”, New York Post, April 16, 1963, 33.

Lewin, David. “The Fingers of Oblivion”, Daily Express (London), March 14, 1963, unpaginated clipping in SK/11/6/61-2, SKA.

LoBrutto, Vincent. Stanley Kubrick (London: Faber and Faber, 1998).

“Lolita Producer-Director Team Announces New Project”, draft of press release, SK/11/6/71, SKA.

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Losey, Joseph. Letter to Stanley Kubrick, November 14, 1963, SK/11/7/17 3/3, SKA.

Lovejoy, Ray. Letter to Victor Lyndon, December 6, 1963, SK/11/9/79, SKA.

Lyndon, Victor. “Schedule Status”, May 27, 1963, SK/11/2/2, SKA.

Lyndon, Victor. Letter to Al Schwartz, June 13, 1963, SK/11/3/7, SKA.

Minoff, Lee. Letter to Robert Musel, March 4, 1963, SK/11/9/29 1/2, SKA.

Minoff, Lee. Letter to Robin Bean, Films and Filming, November 1, 1963, SK/11/9/18 3/4, SKA.

Minoff, Leon. “’Nerve Center’ for a Nuclear Nightmare”, New York Times, April 21, 1963, unpaginated clipping in Dr. Strangelove clippings file, NYPL.

“Not With a Bang but a Simper”, New York Herald Tribune, April 28, 1963. unpaginated clipping in Dr. Strangelove clippings file, NYPL

“November Screening Schedule” for Dr. Strangelove, SK/11/9/33, SKA.

Piler, Jack. “Stanley Kubrick’s Point of View”, Variety, February 27, 1963, unpaginated clipping on Stanley Kubrick fiche, AMPAS.

Press release for Dr. Strangelove, SK/11/6/61-2, SKA.

Price, Stanley. “Hot Line on Dr. Strangelove”, Town, January 1964, unpaginated reprint in SK/ 11/5/10, SKA.

“Prodigies”, People Today, April 8, 1953, 58-60.

“Producer”, New York Times, June 29, 1952, X3.

Pryor, Thomas M. “Kubrick Plans 3rd Film”, Motion Picture Daily, December 19, 1950, 2.

Scherman, David E. “Everybody Blows Up!”, Life, March 8, 1963, unpaginated clipping in Dr. Strangelove clippings file, NYPL.

Schwartz, Al. Letter to branch managers, January 29, 1964, SK/11/4/3, SKA.

“Seven Arts Plans to Back 15 Films”, New York Times, September 13, 1960, unpaginated clipping in “Seven Arts Productions” clippings file, NYPL.

Seven Arts Productions Limited, “Annual Report Year Ended January 31, 1962”, July 1962, John Huston Papers, file 1693, AMPAS.

“Shooting Schedule No. 1” for Dr. Strangelove, January 15, 1963, SK/11/2/2, SKA.

Shute, Nevil. On the Beach (New York: William Morrow, 1957).

“Stanley Kubrick signed multiple picture deal with Columbia. Initial Production will star Peter Sellers”, Columbia Pictures press release, SK/11/6/71, SKA.

“Statement by Peter George regarding legal action for plagiarism against authors and publishers of the novel Fail-Safe”, January 3, 1963, SK/11/9/84, SKA.

“Television Industries Halts Production Plans”, Wall Street Journal, April 10, 1963, 3.

Thirer, Irene. “Kubrick Another Boy Film Producer”, New York Post, March 27, 1953, 58.

Thomas, Bob. “New Sellers Picture Finds Fun in H-Bomb”, Newark Evening News, 29 January 1964, unpaginated clipping in Dr. Strangelove clippings file, NYPL.

Tornabene, Lyn. “The Bomb and Stanley Kubrick”, Cosmopolitan, November 1963, 14-16.

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Tornabene, Lyn. “Contradicting the Hollywood Image”, Saturday Review, December 28, 1963, 19-21.

Weiss, Nat. Letter to Lee Minoff, January 30, 1963, SK/11/9/27 2/2, SKA.

Werneth, William. “Fail-Safe To Be ECA ‘Image-Making’ Project”, Motion Picture Daily, January 14, 1963, 1, 4.

Winsten, Archer. “Rages and Outrages”, New York Post, July 2, 1962, 59.

“Young Man with Ideas and a Camera”, New York Times, January 14, 1951, X5.

“Youngstein Sets Starting Dates on 3 ECA Pix”, Hollywood Reporter, February 12, 1963, 1.

NOTES

1. Stanley Kubrick to Rube Jackter, March 7, 1963, SK/11/9/27 1/2, Stanley Kubrick Archive (SKA), University of the Arts London. For an example of the “heat” generated by the Fail-Safe suit, see David E. Scherman, “Everybody Blows Up!”, Life, March 8,1963, unpaginated clipping in Dr. Strangelove clippings file, Performing Arts Research Center, New York Public Library (NYPL) at Lincoln Center, New York. Kubrick had advance notice of this publication, which appeared the day after he wrote the above letter. Also see “Coming: The End of the World,” Newsweek, March 4, 1963, unpaginated clipping, SK/11/6/71, SKA. 2. In total, the novel sold in excess of 2 million copies, as did Nevil Shute’s post-apocalyptic novel On the Beach (1957) and Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey’s Seven Days in May (1962), which deals with an attempted coup in the US caused by the military’s dissatisfaction with a nuclear disarmament treaty; Alice Payne Hackett and James Henry Burke, 80 Years of Best Sellers, 1895-1975 (New York: R. R. Bowker, 1977), 15-19. 3. For details on this law suit, see below. 4. This paragraph and the next one are based on: Peter Krämer, “The Limits of Autonomy: Stanley Kubrick, Hollywood and Independent Filmmaking, 1950-53,” in American Independent Cinema: Indie, Indiewood and Beyond, ed. Yannis Tzioumakis, Claire Molloy and Geoff King (London: Routledge, 2013), 153-64; Peter Krämer, “The Making of an Independent Filmmaker: Stanley Kubrick and Post-War Hollywood,” unpublished paper presented at “American Independent Cinema: Past, Present and Future,” Liverpool, May 2009; Vincent LoBrutto, Stanley Kubrick (London: Faber and Faber, 1998), Chs. 7-11. 5. Kubrick was also involved in three other film projects (for television and for non-theatrical exhibition). 6. See, for example, Phil M. Daly, “Along the Rialto,” Film Daily, December 14, 1950, 4; Thomas M. Pryor, “Kubrick Plans 3rd Film,” Motion Picture Daily, December 19, 1950, 2; “A 22-Year-Old Producer Makes Real Films for Fun and Profit,” New York Journal-American, December 27, 1950, 16; “Young Man with Ideas and a Camera,” New York Times, January 14, 1951, X5; “Producer,” New York Times, June 29, 1952, X3; Irene Thirer, “Kubrick Another Boy Film Producer,” New York Post, March 27, 1953, 58; “Prodigies,” People Today, April 8, 1953, 58-60; Laura Lee, “More Action, Less Talking in Movies,” Sunday Bulletin (Philadelphia), July 26, 1953, 8, 10. 7. See Krämer, “The Limits of Autonomy,” 160. 8. “Seven Arts Plans to Back 15 Films,” New York Times, September 13, 1960, unpaginated clipping in “Seven Arts Productions” clippings file, NYPL; cp. Seven Arts Productions Limited, “Annual Report Year Ended January 31, 1962,” published in July 1962, John Huston Papers, file 1693, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), Beverly Hills. Cp. LoBrutto, Stanley Kubrick, 192, 202, 218.

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9. Seven Arts Productions Limited, “Annual Report Year Ended January 31, 1962,” 10. Cp. LoBrutto, Stanley Kubrick, 228-9. According to LoBrutto, it was around this time that Harris and Kubrick decided to dissolve their partnership and go their separate ways. Rather than merely releasing Dr. Strangelove through a major studio, Seven Arts sold the project to Columbia in November 1962; see W. L. G. LeBrun (Columbia) to Ron Phipps, 5 November 1962, SK/11/9/19 1/4, SKA. Seven Arts is not listed in the film’s credits, nor is James Harris. 10. Stanley Kubrick, “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Cinema,” Films and Filming, June 1963: 12. 11. Cp. Peter Krämer, “‘The Greatest Mass Murderer Since Adolf Hitler’: Nuclear War and the Nazi Past in Dr. Strangelove (1964),” in Dramatising Disaster: Character, Event, Representation, ed. Christine Cornea and Rhys Owain Thomas (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2013), 120-35. 12. See material contained in folder SK/11/1/13, SKA. 13. Eugene Burdick to Louis Blau, Harris-Kubrick Pictures Corporation, 26 December 1961, SK/ 11/9/14, SKA. 14. Kubrick to Burdick and Wheeler, January 19, 1962, SK/11/1/13, SKA. 15. Cp. Krämer, “‘The Greatest Mass Murderer Since Adolf Hitler’”. 16. Kubrick to George, May 4, 1962, SK/11/9/12, SKA. 17. Cp. Krämer, “‘The Greatest Mass Murderer Since Adolf Hitler’”. 18. “Claim Fail-Safe Plagiarized Brit 2 Hours to Doom,” Variety, February 12, 1963, 1, 4. 19. Tom Boardman to Kubrick, 22 November 1962, SK/11/9/12, SKA; and “Statement by Peter George regarding legal action for plagiarism against authors and publishers of the novel Fail-Safe, ” 3 January 1963, SK/11/9/84, SKA. 20. W. L. G. LeBrun (Columbia) to Ron Phipps, 5 November 1962, SK/11/9/19 1/4, SKA. 21. “ACE Opens Purse, Helps First ECA Film, Fail-Safe,” Variety, 7 February 1963, 1, 4. Cp. an earlier announcement: William Werneth, “Fail-Safe To Be ECA ‘Image-Making’ Project,” Motion Picture Daily, January 14, 1963, 1, 4. 22. “Youngstein Sets Starting Dates on 3 ECA Pix,” Hollywood Reporter, February 12, 1963, 1. 23. “Columbia Sues to Stop Fail-Safe,” Hollywood Reporter, February 12, 1963, 1, 7. 24. “Claim Fail-Safe Plagiarized Brit 2 Hours to Doom,” Variety, February 12, 1963, 1, 4. 25. Jack Piler, “Stanley Kubrick’s Point of View,” Variety, February 27, 1963, unpaginated clipping, Stanley Kubrick fiche, AMPAS. 26. “Television Industries Halts Production Plans,” Wall Street Journal, April 10, 1963, 3. 27. Columbia to Louis Blau, undated, SK/11/8/1, SKA. 28. Cp. the reviews for Fail-Safe in the Collection of Newspaper Clippings of Moving Picture Criticism, MFL+ Collection, NYPL; according to Lawrence Cohn, “All-Time Film Rental Champs,” Variety, May 10, 1993, C76-C108, the film did not even return $3 million in rentals in the US. 29. Stanley Kubrick to Leo Jaffe, 13 April 1965, SK/11/9/35, SKA. 30. “Lolita Producer-Director Team Announces New Project,” draft of press release, undated (yet content indicates it is from before the release of Lolita), SK/11/6/71, SKA. 31. As mentioned earlier, Kubrick nevertheless temporarily reverted back to the idea of doing a straightforward adaptation of Red Alert, which indicates that, in his thinking, the subject matter was the main point of the film. 32. Archer Winsten, “Rages and Outrages,” New York Post, July 2, 1962, 59. 33. “Stanley Kubrick signed multiple picture deal with Columbia. Initial Production will star Peter Sellers,” Columbia press release, no date (but most probably from November 1962), SK/ 11/6/71, SKA. 34. Kubrick to Jonas Rosenfield Jr., Columbia Pictures, January 4, 1963, SK/11/9/19, SKA. 35. “Stanley Kubrick’s Point of View”. 36. Quoted in ibid. For a selection of actual ads from a range of newspapers and magazines, see SK/11/6/61-2, SKA; also see a sheet listing ads and articles from early 1963 in SK/11/6/71, SKA.

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37. Nat Weiss to Lee Minoff, January 30, 1963, SK/11/9/27 2/2, SKA. 38. It is not clear which writer Nat Weiss had in mind, but it is certainly the case that in the run- up to the film’s release and during the first few months of its release, Dr. Strangelove was widely discussed as an important contribution to the public debate about nuclear strategy. I have explored this in Krämer, “‘The Greatest Mass Murderer Since Adolf Hitler’”. 39. Bob Ferguson and Hortense Schorr, “Proposed Magazine Program for Dr. Strangelove,” December 7, 1962, SK/11/9/27 2/2, SKA. 40. Indeed, throughout the pre-release publicity and the film’s release, Kubrick stayed clear of pronouncements on what ought to be done about the nuclear stalemate, and maintained his distance from peace campaigners. In response to a letter from SANE (the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy), for example, Kubrick wrote in July 1964: “Though I obviously share most of their views and objectives (the film speaks for that) I have avoided any identification with Peace Groups because I believe this film and my future films will have more impact coming from an uncommitted source, not easily labeled asa a Peace Group effort.” Kubrick’s handwritten note on letter from Donald Keys (SANE) to Kubrick, July 9, 1964, SK/11/9/97 2/3, SKA. 41. See, for example Dr. Strangelove “Fact Sheet,” no date (the content suggests that it is from spring 1963), SK/11/1/18, SKA; undated press release (probably from February or March 1963), SK/11/6/61-2, SKA. 42. “Stanley Kubrick’s Point of View”; Elaine Dundy, “Dr. Strangelove and Mr. Kubrick,” Queen, March 13, 1963, unpaginated reprint in press material contained in SK/11/5/10, SKA; Kubrick, “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Cinema”. Also see David Lewin, “The Fingers of Oblivion,” Daily Express (London), March 14, 1963, unpaginated clipping, SK/11/6/61-2, SKA. 43. Max Lerner, “Folly on Film,” New York Post, April 16, 1963, 33; Leon Minoff, “‘Nerve Center’ for a Nuclear Nightmare,” New York Times, April 21, 1963; “Not With a Bang but a Simper,” New York Herald Tribune, April 28, 1963; these last two are unpaginated clippings in Dr. Strangelove clippings file, NYPL. 44. Lee Minoff to Robert Musel (UPI London), 4 March 1963, SK/11/9/29 1/2, SKA; Elaine Dundy, “Dr. Strangelove and Mr. Kubrick”. 45. “Shooting Schedule No. 1,” January 15, 1963, and Victor Lyndon, “Schedule Status,” May 27, 1963, both SK/11/2/2, SKA. 46. Victor Lyndon to Al Schwartz (Columbia), 13 June 1963, and W. L. G. LeBrun (Coumbia) to Schwartz, 26 June 1963, both SK/11/3/7, SKA. 47. Lee Hodgson to Kubrick, October 29, 1963, SK/11/9/68 1/2, SKA. 48. Cp. documents in SK/11/9/68 1/2, SKA. 49. Lee Minoff to Robin Bean, Films and Filming, November 1, 1963, SK/11/9/18 3/4, SKA. 50. LeBrun to Lyndon, November 15, 1963, SK/11/9/19 1/4, SKA; Kubrick to Lyndon, December 12, 1963, SK/11/9/79, SKA; LeBrun to Lyndon, January 10, 1964, SK/11/9/19 1/4, SKA. Cp. LoBrutto, 245 51. Production Code Adminstration, “Analysis of Film Content Form,” January 2, 1964, PCA Collection, AMPAS. 52. Memo, no author, December 18, 1963, SK/11/9/83, SKA. 53. The first reviews in the general press (rather than the trade press) came out in the US and the UK on January 29-30, 1964. See SK/11/6/16 for British reviews, and the Dr. Strangelove clippings file, NYPL, for American reviews. 54. Al Schwartz, Columbia, to “branch managers,” January 29, 1964, SK/11/4/3, SKA. Another change had taken place in December, when, in the wake of the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November, it had been decided to delete a dialogue reference to Dallas by overdubbing it “Vegas”; Ray Lovejoy to Lyndon, December 6, 1963, SK/11/9/79, SKA. 55. Material for the press: envelope filled with various materials, probably from January 1964, SK/11/5/10, SKA; “Columbia Press Book,” probably from February 1964, *ZAN-*T8 microfiche,

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Reel 238, No. 1069, NYPL. Kubrick interviews quoted in: Lyn Tornabene, “The Bomb and Stanley Kubrick,” Cosmopolitan, November 1963, 14-16; Lyn Tornabene, “Contradicting the Hollywood Image,” Saturday Review, December 28, 1963, 19-21; Eugene Archer, “How to Learn to Love World Destruction,” New York Times, January 26, 1964, X13; Stanley Price, “Hot Line on Dr. Strangelove,” Town, January 1964, unpaginated reprint contained in the above press envelope; “Direct Hit,” Newsweek, February 3, 1964, 79-80. 56. The presence of these quotations indicates that the press book was put together after the film’s release in late January 1964. 57. I have discussed the importance of Dr. Strangelove’s climactic speech, which this question refers to, in “‘The Greatest Mass Murderer Since Adolf Hitler’”. 58. The full theatrical trailer can be found, for example, on the 40th anniversary DVD edition of Dr. Strangelove. There is a significant stylistic shift after the first 90 seconds (towards a much slower cutting rate), which, together with the appearance of the Columbia logo at this point, suggests that the first half of this long trailer was also shown separately. 59. For early articles about the film’s production and content, see, for example, Dundy, “Dr. Strangelove and Mr. Kubrick,” and Max Lerner, “Folly on Film,” New York Post, April 16, 1963, 33. Other prerelease articles include Tornabene, “The Bomb and Stanley Kubrick,” and Tornabene, “Contradicting the Hollywood Image”. 60. For a more detailed discussion of the film’s reception, see Krämer, “‘The Greatest Mass Murderer Since Adolf Hitler’”. 61. See, for example, Bob Thomas, “New Sellers Picture Finds Fun in H-Bomb,” Newark Evening News, January 29, 1964, unpaginated clipping, Dr. Strangelove clippings file, NYPL. The emphasis on the two British actors was, as could be expected, particularly pronounced in the UK press (Sellers was a huge star in this country, and Tracy Reed was the daughter of well-known film director Carol Reed). See the many press clippings contained in SK/11/6/16, SKA. 62. For details, see Krämer, “‘The Greatest Mass Murderer Since Adolf Hitler’”. 63. “Big Rental Pictures of 1964,” Variety, January 13, 1965, 3. With re-releases, the film would eventually earn $5 million in rentals; Cohn, “All-Time Film Rental Champs,” C84. 64. Memo, no author, no date (it has to be from after January 1964), SK/11/9/83, SKA. 65. “November Screening Schedule,” no date, SK/11/9/33, SKA; for letters to Kubrick, see the three folders of SK/11/7/17, SKA. The only letter from November 1963 in this collection is from Joseph Losey; Losey to Kubrick, November 14, 1963, SK/11/7/17 3/3, SKA. 66. Roger Caras to Bill Lewis, January 2, 1964, SK/11/9/19, SKA.

ABSTRACTS

Making extensive use of archival sources, most notably from the Stanley Kubrick Archive at the University of the Arts London, this article examines the production history and marketing of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and the Love the Bomb (1964), a film based on Peter George’s 1958 novel Red Alert. The focus is on the complex relationship between Kubrick and the people behind a rival project, Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler's nuclear thriller Fail-Safe which was published in 1962 and eventually released as a film a few months after Dr. Strangelove in 1964. The article also outlines two major efforts to promote Kubrick's forthcoming film through press releases and a press book, interviews, contacts with editors and journalists, paid

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advertisements as well as theatrical and television trailers. The initial promotional campaign took place in the first half of 1963 and fore-grounded the film's director, its serious, topical theme and the unusual, comical treatment of that theme. The second campaign, which started in November 1963 and was necessitated by delays in the film’s production and release, placed more emphasis than the first one on comedy; it also fore-grounded sex and the film's stars, especially Peter Sellers.

INDEX

Keywords: film marketing, adaptation, Stanley Kubrick, Dr. Strangelove, Fail-Safe

AUTHOR

PETER KRÄMER Peter Krämer is a Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of East Anglia (Norwich, UK) and a regular guest lecturer at Masaryk University (Brno, Czech Republic). He has published more than fifty essays on American film and media history, and on the relationship between Hollywood and Europe, in Screen, The Velvet Light Trap, Theatre History Studies, The Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, History Today, Film Studies, Scope, Sowi: Das Journal für Geschichte, Politik, Wirtschaft und Kultur, The New Review of Film and Television Studies, Iluminace, Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies and numerous edited collections. He is the author of A Clockwork Orange (Palgrave, 2011), 2001: A Space Odyssey (BFI, 2010) and The New Hollywood: From Bonnie and Clyde to Star Wars (Wallflower Press, 2005), and the co-editor of Screen Acting (Routledge, 1999) and The Silent Cinema Reader (Routledge, 2004). He also co-wrote a book for children entitled American Film: An A-Z Guide (Franklin Watts, 2003).

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Targeting American Women: Movie Marketing, Genre History, and the Hollywood Women-in-Danger Film

Richard Nowell

AUTHOR'S NOTE

The author would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers, editor Nathalie Dupont, and Jindriska Blahova for their helpful and insightful comments on earlier drafts of this essay.

1 Hollywood’s women-in-danger films, as American critics tended to call them, comprised one of the most prominent and widely discussed cinematic trends of the early 1980s.1 From 1980 to 1982, major distributors released an unprecedented eight films that had been made to an industrially recognized textual model wherein scenes of a maniac stalking and killing predominantly female characters were fore-grounded. By comparison, these companies had only handled three similar films in the previous half- decade: Lipstick (Lamont Johnson, 1976), Eyes of Laura Mars (Irwin Kerschner, 1978), and When a Stranger Calls (Fred Walton, 1979). The majors released more women-in-danger films from 1980 to 1982 than any other type of film, including even teen slashers like Friday the 13th (Sean S. Cunningham, 1980). This essay examines the six Hollywood women-in-danger films that were given a wide theatrical release: Windows (Gordon Willis, 1980), Dressed to Kill (Brian De Palma, 1980), He Knows You’re Alone (Armand Mastroianni, 1980), The Fan (Ed Bianchi, 1981), The Seduction (David Schmoeller, 1982), and Visiting Hours (Jean-Claude Lord 1982). The remaining two–Eyes of a Stranger (Ken Wiederhorn, 1981) and Night School (Ken Hughes, 1981)–received very limited US releases that were backed by low-profile marketing campaigns. Because they exerted minimal influence on subsequent campaigns, they are not examined in this essay.

2 Scholars and commentators have generally denounced Hollywood’s women-in-danger films as representing the greatest misogynist trend in American film history. They have

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argued that the films amounted to little more than reactionary sleaze. Moreover, they suggested that they had been cynically made to pander to the resentment that simpleminded, working-class, male grind-house patrons supposedly felt about the recent gains in power that were being enjoyed by second-wave feminists and self- determining women. This position emerged when some feminist activists and journalists derided what they saw as the films’ celebration of misogynistic violence.2

3 It was later echoed by scholars who applied psychoanalytic feminist frameworks to gender representation in the films,3 and it was centralized by several critical reception studies that examined the cultural politics of the feminist activists.4 Even countervailing writings ultimately upheld these dominant critical readings of the films when they suggested that even though the women-in-danger film could be used to demonize misogyny–by showing the unjustifiable harassment of likeable women by unsympathetic misfits–, such examples were in fact quite rare.5 The influence of the position can be gauged by the extent to which it has also shaped understandings of other trends, especially the aforementioned teen slasher film cycle.6

4 The fact that scholarship on Hollywood’s women-in-danger films pays little attention to their marketing campaigns is not at all surprising. Despite calls by Gregory Lukow and Steven Ricci, Alan Williams, and Steve Neale, marketing continues to occupy a relatively peripheral position in genre historiography. On the whole, genre histories prioritize production, content and themes, and critical reception,7 thereby leaving insufficiently explored a key contribution to the cultural construction of motion picture categories.8 Furthermore, the study of movie marketing has tended not to consider how the constituent films of a production trend are promoted and publicized. Rather, such scholarship either provides a detailed case-study of a single campaign or an examination of a template that has been used to shape countless campaigns, such as minimalistic “high concept” print advertising and American distributors’ exaggeration of the erotic content of imported art films.9 Whereas the first tendency highlights a campaign’s status as a unique event, the second foregrounds its status as an institutional practice. However, in addition to the individuality of each campaign and the commonalties generated by templates, movie marketing—not unlike film production—also functions as a dynamic historical process.10

5 Frameworks that have been developed in the study of film genres and cycles can enrich the way we understand how the marketing of a particular type of film develops over time. As with films, a balance of stasis and incremental change characterizes the marketing of similar movies across a given period. This combination of characteristics is a product of the structural, systemic, and industrial dimensions of movie marketing campaigns and of the individual para-texts that comprise a campaign, both of which present a film as a multifaceted inter-textual construct by highlighting several attractions or “hooks”.11

6 For example, poster art rendered a close-up of a woman’s face and a silhouette of a pram in grainy shades of black and green so as to frame Rosemary’s Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968) as, among other things, a gothic horror film and a female audience picture. The remobilization of a hook across several campaigns produces stasis. Conversely, incremental changes occur when hooks are emphasized, deemphasized or dropped, or when hitherto unused hooks are introduced into the mix. Thus, print advertizing for big-budget horror films such as The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973) and The Omen (Richard Donner 1976) tended to duplicate the simple composition,

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“newsprint” look, and near-monochrome palette of Rosemary’s Baby’s promotional artwork but somewhat downplayed its female-orientated iconography.12

7 In addition to drawing on features that are specific to an individual film such as its bankable performers and technicians, campaigns are heavily influenced by assessments of campaigns that recently accompanied the release of similar films–much like the greenlighting of films is influenced by hit patterns.13 Marketing departments invite associations to what they deem to be attractive films by referencing their titles, content, and reputations or, more often than not, by employing overtly derivative marketing materials that evoke the films indirectly.14 Consequently, Paramount Pictures aimed to tap into the commercial success of Rosemary’s Baby by using its poster art as a blueprint for that of the romance/sports film Downhill Racer (Michael Ritchie, 1969).15

8 Marketers also attempt to invoke binary oppositions between a new release and undesirable films, which consequently serve either as structuring absences or as foils against which the new release may be contrasted.16 When Rosemary’s Baby -like advertizing became associated with underperforming films, marketers distinguished new releases such as American Werewolf in London (John Landis, 1981) by using comparatively intricate, colorful, lifelike poster art.17 The specific objects of evocation and differentiation change rapidly as marketers respond to box office shifts, to developments in film culture, and to other media discourses, thereby suggesting the benefits of examining campaigns chronologically.18

9 In contrast to previous studies, this essay focuses on Hollywood’s marketing of women- in-danger films in the early 1980s. I argue that print and audiovisual para-texts– posters, newspaper ads, publicity articles, lobby cards, trailers, and TV spots–were used to preempt accusations of misogyny based on supposedly misogynistic intent, sexist content, lower-class male spectatorship, sadistic consumption, and exhibition in rundown urban areas that were associated with predatory males. In so doing, the majors aimed to differentiate their women-in-danger films from sensationally marketed independent releases so as to avoid commercially damaging controversy and to attract the lucrative adult female audience. Across the period, Hollywood’s women- in-danger film marketing changed incrementally in response to the commercial and critical performances of both women-in-danger films and other female-oriented releases. Accordingly, this essay will begin by spotlighting the importance of mature females to Hollywood’s audience targeting strategies. From there, it will show how the marketing of women-in-danger films in the late 1970s informed their counterparts of the early-1980s. Finally, the essay will focus on the marketing of the films during their high-water mark of 1980-1982. Shifting attention to marketing promises to enrich, complement, and develop genre historiography by generating revisionist, supplementary, and alternative histories.

Those Who Never Go Roller Disco Skating: New Hollywood, Women, and Output

10 It is usually argued that during the 1970s and 1980s Hollywood largely abandoned mature women in favor of courting male youth, either by making films specifically for them or by “juvenilizing” general audience fare.19 However, the purported male-youth- orientation of the period is undermined by the fact that the majors continued to target

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a wide range of audiences with a broad repertoire of films.20 Accordingly, Hollywood’s women-in-danger films were released when, contrary to received wisdom, American females between the ages of 25 and 39 were seen by the major studios as still being an important audience group.

11 The Hollywood majors continued to pitch large numbers of films to American adults because they were seen to be a sizable audience that boasted major growth potential. In 1975, Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) research confirmed that moviegoers aged 25-39 accounted for more than one third of tickets sold to patrons over the age of 12.21 Whereas other demographics were projected to stagnate or to decrease, this group was expected to swell thanks to the aging of the postwar baby boomers.22 Within this sizable cohort, women were attractive to the industry because they–rather than their husbands, partners or dates–were assumed to decide what film a couple watched together. With adult audiences having risen as projected, MGM’s vice president of domestic sales and distribution publically underscored the need for his company to continue complementing its youth market operations with films that had been tailored specifically for adults.23 The impact of this practice was also recognized by industry-watchers, with, for example, Janet Maslin of the New York Times applauding Hollywood for paying attention to “the over-21 bracket who never go disco roller skating.”24

12 The continued production of films that were designed specifically for adult females was fuelled by a pattern of ongoing success at the North American box office. Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, the majors targeted women with numerous films that had been built around the personal, professional, and romantic travails of strong female protagonists. As Joan Mellon observed in a 1978 report that referred to the upcoming women-in-danger film Eyes of Laura Mars, “Hollywood is fascinated with women–their careers, their individual identities, their relationships with each other, their passions, and of course (but no longer exclusively) their relationships to men.”25 Industry decision-makers such as Twentieth Century-Fox president Alan Ladd Jr. reiterated their support for the ongoing financing and distribution of primarily female-oriented entertainment because they had determined that a profitably large number of American women gravitated to such films rather than primarily male-oriented fare like the Dirty Harry series (Don Siegel 1971; Ted Post, 1973; James Fargo, 1976).26

13 As is to be expected of any production trend, some of these films, including Our Time (Peter Hymas, 1974) and First Love (Joan Darling, 1977), failed to find a sizable audience. Crucially however, hits of the caliber of The Way We Were (Sydney Pollak, 1974), A Star is Born (Frank Pierson, 1976), Julia (Fred Zinnemann, 1977), and Nine to Five (Colin Higgins, 1980) ensured that production would continue throughout the period. As part of their efforts to cater to adult females, the majors also continued to angle horror films and suspense thrillers to women. This was a long-standing cornerstone of industry practice that had underwritten the assembly and marketing of the aforementioned female- friendly combinations of horror and familial drama that followed Rosemary’s Baby, as well as classical-era tales of women-in-jeopardy such as Dracula (Tod Browning, 1931), Rebecca (Alfred Hitchcock, 1940), and The Spiral Staircase (Robert Siodmak, 1945). 27

14 While the Hollywood women-in-danger films represented a continuation of industry practice, the socio-political climate of late-1970s and early-1980s America provided significant new challenges when it came to marketing this type of material to female audiences. Unlike the period’s nominally similar teen slashers, women-in-danger films

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were far from critic-proof. Their adult target audience made them susceptible to the protests of taste-makers such as critics, commentators, and activists.28 The greatest threat to a film’s commercial viability came from feminist activists and pro-feminist media elites. As entertainment that fore-grounded sequences of female characters being menaced and attacked, women-in-danger films were vulnerable to accusations of exploitative or celebratory practices; in other words, to suggestions that they applauded, rather than condemned, femicide.

15 At this time, three prevalent and highly compatible ideas made feminists and pro- feminists particularly sensitive to such material. First, serial homicide was in the process of being recast as a form of sexual genocide that was said to be committed by men against women.29 Second, some media effect theories were positing that pornographic and violent films were outlets for misogynistic and sadistic impulses.30 Third, suspicions were growing about a backlash against second-wave feminists that was partly driven by the on-screen demonization and punishment of independent women.31 The suggestion that a women-in-danger film exemplified these ideas–in terms of its authorial intent, content, modes of address, and conduct of its putative male spectator–threatened to deter females from attending them, thereby reducing revenue. This scenario had been signaled by events of the late 1970s.

A Classier Look: Marketing the Hollywood Women-in- danger Film in the late 1970s

16 A veritable tableau of “dos & don’ts” of marketing women-in-danger films took shape across the second half of the 1970s and would ultimately underwrite the ways in which the majors marketed the films in the early 1980s. It was shaped by developments at the North American domestic box office and in US critical circles that unfolded from 1976 to 1979. They indicated that placing emphasis on topicality and sensation led women- in-danger film to perform badly. However, they also suggested that solid returns were possible for those whose marketing spotlighted female-orientation, middle-class trappings, and forms of self-reflexivity that preempted claims of misogyny.

17 The marketing of early-1980s women-in-danger films was shaped partly by two high- profile controversies over male-on-female violence that engulfed American audiovisual culture in 1976. The first controversy served to crystallize the image of independently released horror films as misogynist sleaze intended for lower-class patrons of urban grind-houses.32 That controversy provided the marketers of women-in-danger films with a foil against which to position their products. It centered on the micro-budget exploitation movie Snuff (Anon, 1976). Across the United States, feminist activists came out to protest against Snuff after it was inaccurately advertised on the presence of an unstaged sequence in which the film’s makers butchered an actress.33 Marketing materials framed this (simulated) content as violent, pornographic entertainment. Posters, for example, featured a sketch of a naked woman who had been cut into three pieces, and the tagline: “The bloodiest thing that ever happened in front of a camera.”34 Promotion of this sort–and not necessarily the authenticity of the murder footage–led groups such as the newly established Women Against Violence Against Women to accuse Snuff of laying bare what they saw as the inherent violence of heterosexual pornography and the pornographic nature of male-on-female violence.35 The marketing of Snuff also literalized a connection between the motives of the film’s makers and the

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violent misogynists whom they portrayed on the screen. The commercial damage that could be done to a film that became embroiled in this type of controversy was soon brought home by a critical firestorm that erupted over Lipstick, the story of a model who turns vigilante when the man acquitted of raping her turns his attentions to her adolescent sister.

18 A misconceived marketing campaign, in which Paramount Pictures sold Lipstick as a glossy topical film, failed to preempt claims of misogyny. Although Paramount billed this rape-revenge picture as “a modern drama dealing with a highly charged issue facing women in contemporary society,”36 the company’s promotion and publicity led numerous critical elites to denounce Lipstick as misogynist exploitation. 37 Issues had first arisen during early preview screenings, at which point print advertizing had eschewed all mention of protracted and graphic images of sexual violence.38 Instead, posters had featured a close-up of the film’s star, supermodel Margaux Hemingway, and an oblique tagline that read “The story of a woman’s outrage and a woman’s revenge.” Upon being confronted with two brutal rape scenes, some unsuspecting patrons had left screenings and demanded refunds from theaters.39 Paramount’s response only exacerbated the problem. Company executives concluded that viewers had not been outraged by the presence of sexually violent material per se but by its unanticipated eruption on the screen.40 New promotional materials therefore forewarned audiences of this content. For example, one ad featured a close-up of Hemingway being raped and one of her brandishing a rifle beneath the taglines: “In Los Angeles a rape is committed every 30 minutes” and “‘Lipstick’ is the story of one woman’s revenge.”41 By combining rape statistics, sexual violence, and a photogenic young woman, Paramount’s recalibrated campaign summoned the tripate of topicality, sensation, and voyeurism that was associated with exploitation marketing—and which was encapsulated at this time in Snuff’s notorious campaign.42 This association was cemented by promotional taglines that implicated the culture industries in the on- and off-camera sexual abuse of women. “They made her the most famous model in the world, selling youth, beauty, and sex”, ads declared: “When she became the victim of a rape, they discovered they sold her too well.”43 As the New York Times film industry analyst Aljean Harmetz noted, “[…] the blatant advertising campaign [tore] away the film’s last shreds of dignity.”44

19 Paramount’s publicity also backfired. The company had gone to great lengths to pitch Lipstick as a pro-female, anti-rape picture but journalists often appropriated the information that the company had disseminated in order to support their own claims that the film actually trivialized these themes. The evidently noble intentions of Lipstick ’s first-time producer Freddie Fields were recast as the gullibility of a newcomer who had failed to anticipate that relinquishing creative control was part and parcel of collaborating with a super-producer of the caliber of Dino De Laurentiis.45 Merely summoning the Italian’s name allowed some journalists to suggest that Lipstick was a cynical retread of his recent hit revenge film Death Wish (Michael Winner, 1975), which had been also deemed to be little more than a big-budget exploitation movie.46 The most significant failure of Paramount’s publicity, however, involved Lipstick’s female lead. Autobiographical details and numerous interview faux pas led Margaux Hemingway to be presented as proof that Lipstick’s makers were exploiting the film’s subject matter. Her family name, physical assets, and privileged upbringing, along with her time as a pro-skier, her wealthy older husband, her multimillion dollar modeling contracts, and an “I’ll make you a star” phone call from De Laurentiis were offered as

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evidence that Hemingway had led a charmed existence that prevented her from imbuing the role with an appropriate measure of gravitas that might have come from a life of hardship and tragedy. For example, Judy Bachrach of the Washington Post barely concealed her disdain for Hemingway when she reported that the actress had failed to understand the term “sodomy” and had burst into laughter after she had mislead the film’s director Lamont Johnson into believing that she herself had once been the victim of a rape.47 Hemingway was portrayed as self-absorbed, naïve, out-of-touch eye-candy, as a novice actress whose physical beauty and decadent lifestyle betrayed the real purpose of her casting, which in turn exposed the misogyny that had really underwritten the film’s production.48 It was implied that she had been recruited to serve a sadistic male gaze to which Lipstick’s makers were shamelessly and irresponsibly pandering. Comments attributed to the film’s male lead Chris Sarandon supported such an assessment in a manner that aligned the makers of Lipstick to the rapist he had played. “It’s a very degrading thing for a woman to be tied to a bed like that, with the crew around,” he lamented, “[th]e walls were padded during filming but Margaux was literally covered with bruises.”49 Lipstick’s narrative image had failed to preempt cries of misogyny because it had drifted close to that of Snuff.

20 Conversely, 1978’s Eyes of Laura Mars–a tale of a fashion photographer who foresees a series of murders being committed in the style of her work–showed that women-in- danger marketing could fuel solid ticket sales and help a film to avoid controversy.50 One reviewer explained what he saw as the difference between Eyes of Laura Mars and its notorious predecessor. “Inevitably ‘Eyes of Laura Mars’ brings to mind ‘Lipstick’ […],” wrote Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times, “but unlike that film, “Eyes” does not exploit the sex-and-violence chic it is commenting on.”51 To differentiate its property from Lipstick, Columbia Pictures played down topicality, realism, and male-on- female violence. The company instead framed Eyes of Laura Mars as a glossy, self- reflexive whodunit that had been made primarily for women. It proclaimed the film to be “a thrilling vision of romance and terror,” “a romantic thriller,” “a powerful love story,” and “a subliminal mystery, a tragic love story, and a revelation about the nature of the movie medium itself.”52

21 By framing Eyes of Laura Mars as a high-end women’s picture, Columbia offered a quite different putative spectator to the lower-class male that was usually invoked in support of claims of misogyny. The tie-ins that Columbia had arranged with clothing and home wear companies represented an established industry strategy that had been used for decades to designate a film as female-oriented entertainment by maneuvering it into traditionally middle-class, feminine locations such as boutiques, department stores, and women’s magazines.53 Promotional materials also suggested that Eyes of Laura Mars belonged to a number of prestigious female-oriented Hollywood production trends. For example, print advertisements conveyed the film’s female-centeredness with a black- and-white close-up of star Faye Dunaway that evoked the bold, monochromatic artwork of romances such as Love Story (Arthur Hiller, 1970), The Way We Were, and Coming Home (Hal Ashby, 1978), and quality horror hits that fore-grounded motherhood such as Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist, and The Omen.54 Furthermore, audiovisual para- texts emphasized the romantic, professional, and psychological travails of the titular fashion photographer. In so doing, they called to mind several hits that had showcased the interpersonal relationships, careers, and identities of female cultural producers, including a playwright in 1977’s Julia, ballet dancers in The Turning Point (Herbert Ross,

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1977), and, perhaps most important of all, a television executive played by Dunaway herself in the commercially and critically applauded Network (Sidney Lumet, 1976).

22 Columbia also insulated Eyes of Laura Mars from accusations of misogyny by stressing the contributions of female creative personnel. This strategy aligned collaborative authorial intent to the perspective of its female protagonist and not, as Lipstick’s campaign had done, to that of a violently misogynist antagonist—a connection that had undergirded claims of misogyny. To the extent that her profession allowed, Dunaway was positioned as a serious and influential presence in the film’s production. Her acting credentials and reflexive musings placed her in direct opposition to the novice and naivety of Lipstick’s Margaux Hemingway. Dunaway’s sway was implied by playing up her role as a cultural producer in both Eyes of Laura Mars and Network, and by claims that a move into directing was imminent.55 Dunaway’s input, as well as that of fashion photographer Rebecca Blake, also dominated a TV featurette.

23 Moreover, the period’s quintessential showbiz career women Barbara Streisand had been recruited to perform the film’s theme songs, and tie-ins with camera maker Nikon had invited women to become cultural producers themselves by attending fashion photography workshops that were being held in major American cities.56 Even Eyes of Laura Mars’ super-producer-in-the-making Jon Peters was allied to strong women. Claims that he had abdicated creative control to Dunaway, news of his romance with Streisand, and claims that he was planning to make a female-helmed/female-produced remake of The Women (George Cukor, 1939) were all presented as consequences of Peters having spent his formative years working in Hollywood hair salons.57 Eyes of Laura Mars was dismissed as pretentious, superficial, and convoluted, 58 and its $13m production and marketing budget plunged the film into the red.59 However, Columbia’s campaign had preempted cries of misogyny and secured sufficiently large audiences to signal the financial potential of lower priced imitations.

24 The rewards of undermining claims of misogyny were reaffirmed by Columbia’s successful reworking of elements of Eyes of Laura Mars’ campaign in the marketing campaign it used to sell its low-budget 1979 acquisition When a Stranger Calls. Columbia’s $1.5m campaign made some effort to offer older audiences a picture in the vein of Eyes of Laura Mars by way of black-and-white advertisements that featured a close-up of a female face and a telephone.60 Irving N. Ivers, Columbia’s vice president of advertizing, publicity, and promotion, explained that he felt that this design boasted “a classier look” than a “fragile blond” being attacked, one that he believed was well suited to a film “in the genre of Psycho rather than an exploitation-type picture.”61 However, the greatest contribution that the campaign made to the marketing of women-in-danger films came from audiovisual para-texts which centralized the victim- oriented viewing practices of actual female audiences. This strategy recalled the allegories of female spectatorship used to in some 1940s pictures to convey female- friendliness.62 TV spots linked female spectators and characters, thereby preempting claims that When a Stranger Calls was intended for male sadists who rooted for a misogynistic maniac. TV spots eschewed a protracted game of cat and mouse between a cop and a killer that dominated When a Stranger Calls, focusing instead on a short scene in which a babysitter receives menacing phone calls. One self-reflexive TV spot raised the issue of viewer empathy for women-in-jeopardy by showing the babysitter handling the caller after voiceover commentary had intoned, “You are babysitting for a family …” The other spot featured an audience of young couples and young women, whose

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responses to a screening of When a Stranger Calls corresponded to those of the imperiled babysitter.

The Latest Fashions in Murder: Marketing Hollywood Women-in-danger Films, 1980-1982

25 In January 1980, United Artists’ attempts to protect Windows by emphasizing female-on- female violence failed badly when the film excited not only charges of misogyny but accusations of homophobia as well. Print advertizing read, “Somebody loves Emily too much” and featured a black-and-white image of a mannish woman holding a knife to a more traditionally feminine woman’s throat.63 A small version of the image appeared on lobby cards, which otherwise evoked Eyes of Laura Mars by conveying romance, police activity, and violence against women. Critics, however, isolated the sex of the victim from her attacker in order to denounce Windows as misogynistic exploitation. 64 This current of hostility was also likely fuelled by audiovisual marketing materials that linked the putative male spectator and the killer. “Someone’s always watching,” intoned TV spots over a montage of a woman’s surveillance and terrorization. Conversely, much like they would do in response to Cruising (William Friedkin, 1980), The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991), and Basic Instinct (Paul Verhoeven, 1992), some claims-makers focused on the representation of the victimizer to condemn Windows as reactionary exploitation.65

26 Gay rights groups cited the pathologization of same-sex attraction as evidence of Hollywood’s institutional homophobia. One spokeswoman declared that Windows “perpetuates and sensationalizes the most pernicious lies about lesbians and rape,” another that it equated “lesbianism with psychosis, deviance, sin, and crime.”66 Marketing materials that implied serious aspirations on the part of the film’s makers seemed to support such conclusions. Critics had struggled to dismiss Windows as politically questionable hokum because severe monochrome print advertizing, grave taglines, footage of solemn cityscapes, and downbeat voiceovers had all suggested that Windows was a film with a message. This heavy-handedness gave way to a shrewd lightness of touch in the marketing of the next Hollywood women-in-danger film to open theatrically: Dressed to Kill.

27 Filmways’ marketing campaign suggested that Dressed to Kill inspired distanced appreciation rather than the type of character identification and investment that was central to misogynist viewing practices. The company pitched its tale of a murderous transsexual as an exercise in bourgeois gallows humor by presenting it as a quality auteur piece and a jet black comedy. This strategy suggested that scenes of male-on- female violence had been realized with such flair and wit as to undercut character- identification and immersion, thereby supporting the notion that Dressed to Kill served the impassionate, reflective “pure gaze” of high culture.67

28 This narrative image was conveyed by discourses of authorship, quality, and upper- middle-class-ness, and by punning.68 Print advertizing was dominated by numerous lengthy appraisals that had been penned by US critical elites. One that was written by David Denby of the Village Voice anointed Dressed to Kill “The first great American movie of the Eighties,” another, this time from Sheila Benson of the Los Angeles Times, proclaimed that “The terror is stunning.”69 Filmways presented Dressed to Kill as an

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auteur masterpiece by summoning the split public persona of writer-director Brian De Palma: the heir apparent to thriller auteur Alfred Hitchcock, and the iconoclastic darling of leftist independent cinema.70 Furthermore, audiovisual marketing materials were awash with the trappings of the metropolitan idle rich: modern art, psychiatry, high fashion, boredom, and euphemism. For example, the first half of Dressed to Kill’s trailer cut between a well-dressed woman visiting a gallery and propositioning her shrink. Punning lightened this material. The film’s title was itself a play-on-words as was the tagline “Brian De Palma, master of the macabre, invites you to a showing of the latest fashion … in murder.”

29 It has been suggested that Filmways was trying to bait feminist groups by appearing to trivialize and glamorize violence-against-women, yet paradoxically this strategy also insulated Dressed to Kill from such criticism. 71 The campaign invited activists and commentators to protest the film in order to undermine the very credibility of their protests. The campaign suggested that to denounce Dressed to Kill on the grounds that it was misogynistic would be to fail to understand a joke – and to not be in on that joke would be evidence of one’s lacking sufficient cultural capital to distinguish art from trash. This rhetorical trap traded on the stereotype of second-wave feminists as hyper- sensitive, humorless individuals who lacked the perspective to tell reactionary material from harmless jests. It also undermined the credibility of feminist denunciation by implying that such views were out of step with the views of the implied female spectator–the very audience on whose behalf feminists claimed to speak. Dressed to Kill had after all been promoted to mature women as a female-centered film and on the rhetoric of that most feminized of bourgeois cultural events–the haute couture fashion show.

30 The reception of Dressed to Kill testified to the convincingness of Filmways’ marketing campaign. The film polarized public-sphere claims-makers. On the one hand, as noted above, countless critical elites lauded its style and wit.72 On the other hand, feminists groups lambasted the film’s content and that of its marketing campaign. “A movie like ‘Dressed to Kill’ encourages and perpetuates violence and pairs it with sexuality by showing vicious acts instead of loving and caring,” declared one activist; “The movie and the advertizing is a sex crime itself,” lamented another.73 Although Dressed to Kill performed well at the North American box office, its financial achievements did little to excite confidence among distributors. The film’s reception indicated that its commercial and critical achievements had been a product of non-replicable elements, particularly the invocation of writer-director Brian De Palma’s star persona. Under these circumstances, Dressed to Kill exerted minimal influence over the marketing of subsequent women-in-danger films. Rather, the controversies of 1980–of which Dressed to Kill was but one–led major distributors to reuse strategies that Columbia had employed in the late 1970s.

31 MGM remobilized notions of female spectatorship in order to undermine claims of misogyny that might be directed at its independently produced 1980 acquisition He Knows You’re Alone, a film about brides-to-be being stalked by a maniac who was once jilted at the alter. The company’s campaign posited a link between female centeredness, address, and spectatorship. This practice began by changing the film’s title from “Blood Wedding” to one that was imbued with direct address.74 Audiovisual and print advertizing linked characters and spectators to indicate that the word “you” in the new title concerned females. A TV spot, for example, combined images of female

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characters and the following voiceover narration, “On the night before her wedding every girl is alone; every girl is alone with her dreams; every girl is alone with her fears. On the night before her wedding, every girl is frightened; and this time there’s good reason … he knows you’re alone.” The alignment of imperiled women and the female spectator was also conveyed by the film’s logo.75 That logo recast a shot of a woman pulling a turtleneck sweater over her face, which had been extracted from the film, as a stereotyped female horror spectator who is too frightened to look at the screen.76 Although He Knows You’re Alone was aimed primarily at 16-21 year-old females, it exerted an influence on the marketing of subsequent women-in-danger films because of the timing of its release and the character of its reception (much like When a Stranger Calls had done).77 He Knows You’re Alone opened during the most intense critical firestorm over films featuring violence against women. In the fall of 1980, the Chicago- based journalists Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert began a crusade against this material by arguing—as scholars would later do— that the subjective or point of view shots that were sometimes used to indicate the presence and perspective of the killer, while concealing his or her identity, elicited support for homicidal maniacs.78 That He Knows You’re Alone had largely side-stepped such controversy spoke to the effectiveness of its marketing campaign. In the summer of 1981, there was also good reason to insulate women-in-danger films from claims of misogyny. The controversy that Siskel & Ebert had initiated in the previous fall had not blown over. That spring it had crystallized around the print advertizing of another independently released women-in-danger film, Maniac (William Lustig, 1980). Hand-painted promotional artwork suggested that Maniac was a celebration of sexualized femicide told from the perspective of a blood- thirsty misogynist. It featured a waist-down image of a man boasting a clearly visible erection, holding a severed female head in one hand and a bowie knife in the other. Its tagline read, “I warned you not to go out tonight.”79 Protesters denounced the film for its reactionary sexual politics and branded it the epitome of a current of anti-feminist sentiment that they saw emanating from an American right-wing that was being energized by Republican Party Presidential candidate and social conservative Ronald Reagan.80

32 Against the backdrop of the Maniac controversy, Paramount Pictures upped the ante of spotlighting female cultural producers and self-reflexivity in its marketing of 1981’s The Fan, the story of a washed-up Hollywood leading lady/Broadway debutant being stalked by a psychotic obsessive. Where Columbia had mustered a respected actress when marketing Eyes of Laura Mars, Paramount could call upon a genuine Alpha female of Hollywood folklore in Lauren Bacall. Publicity materials portrayed Bacall as a world- weary pro whose poise, presence, and natural authority had steadied a troubled production.81 Spotlighting Bacall linked cultural production and on-screen victimization by showing that The Fan starred a woman whose professional trajectory mirrored that of her character. It was emphasized that Bacall had also been the toast of tinsel town before resurrecting her career on the stage.82 Paramount developed the alignment of cultural production and on-screen victims by positing a connection between the unhinged antagonist in the film and those critics who dared to speak out against it. This strategy suggested that displaying antagonism toward cultural producers was a pathological over-response and the first step on the slippery slope that had been taken by The Fan’s titular psychotic. This angle was buttressed by consistent invocation of a disturbed fan’s recent slaying of musician John Lennon. Notices that Paramount placed before trailers and TV spots stressed that The Fan had not been made

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to capitalize on the assassination–although some cast members spoke publically about their view that the notices themselves had been designed to do just that.83 If the woeful box office performance of The Fan indicated that framing women-in-danger films as self-reflexive, female-friendly entertainment no longer attracted large audiences even if it did preempt controversy, the commercial failure of The Seduction in January 1982 confirmed this to be the case.

33 Avco Embassy’s marketing campaign for The Seduction–a yarn about a TV anchorwoman being stalked by a photographer–summoned the figure of the female spectator by foregrounding discourses of glamour and female self-empowerment. Early publicity emphasized the film’s leading lady Morgan Fairchild and its self-reflexive content. Fairchild was portrayed as a glamorous career-woman who had paid her dues by taking bit parts before she had earned a deserved big break on the glossy prime-time soap Flamingo Road (NBC, 1981-1982).84 Much was made of her character’s media profession in The Seduction. As well as recalling the female-centered hit The China Syndrome (James Bridges, 1979), in which Jane Fonda had also played a newscaster, this angle undermined claims of misogyny by aligning above-the-line talent to on-screen victims. 85 “These things have happened to me,” Fairchild claimed, “[n]ot quite as bad as the person in the script, however [sic].”86 Audiovisual marketing addressed women by framing The Seduction as part glossy soap, part female-centered revenge thriller. Trailers opened to a Dionne Warwick ballad and a soft-focus montage that conveyed the lifestyle of “a woman who has everything”: media career, Beverly Hills home, romance, financial independence. They concluded with the character confronting her stalker, “Now she’s fighting back with the only weapon she has: herself.” TV spots addressed women directly, asking, “If you were the object of one man’s obsession; if he invaded your public world; if he threatened your private world; and if he made you feel alone, terrified, and cornered like an animal: what would you do to stop … the seduction.” The Seduction drew neither controversy nor audiences.

Conclusion

34 American moviegoers might have been forgiven for being surprised to discover that Visiting Hours was a women-in-danger film. The makers of the film had gone to great lengths to make it marketable as a self-reflexive, female-oriented thriller. For one thing, they had cast the outspoken feminist actress Lee Grant as a similarly outspoken feminist anchorwoman who encounters a misogynist maniac. However, the film’s distributor Twentieth Century-Fox had gone to equal lengths to mask these characteristics when it marketed Visiting Hours in early summer 1982. The company sold the film as an indeterminate horror movie. Print and audiovisual advertizing featured a number of illuminated hospital windows forming the shape of a skull and such all-purpose taglines as “So frightening you’ll never recover.” The deliberately vague marketing of Visiting Hours was anything but surprising however, given that Filmways had underplayed a women-in-danger subplot in its campaign for 1981’s Blow Out (writer-director Brian De Palma’s follow-up to Dressed to Kill). The promotion and box office failure of Visiting Hours provided a fitting epitaph to Hollywood’s most intense involvement in women-in-danger film distribution.

35 The US critical response to Visiting Hours testified both to the challenges that the majors faced when marketing women-in-danger films and to the limited ways in which

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they have been constructed in film historiography. At the heart of its popular critical reception was the question of whether Visiting Hours was an exercise in misogyny or a critique thereof. As had been the case with previous women-in-danger films, a consensus was never fully reached. The very act of portraying strong female characters and a woman-hating maniac enabled women-in-danger films to be read both as celebrations of misogyny or as damning indictments of it; in other words, as sexist poison or as cautionary tales about a backlash against second-wave feminists and independent women that seemed to be brewing in American society. To date, scholarship has focused on the views of those who concluded the former, whether they were the authors of the studies themselves or the claims-makers upon whom those studies focused. In contrast, the marketing analysis presented above has shed new light on how distributors encouraged viewers to conclude the latter. An examination of their efforts revealed that a broader range of discourses on women-in-danger films entered into the US public-sphere upon their release than has previously been suggested. The meaning of the films, both individually and as a group, was seen to be up more “in the air”–to be open to greater contestation–than previously assumed.

36 Approaching Hollywood’s women-in-danger film marketing as a dynamic historical process revealed that their campaigns were characterized by a balance of stasis and change. While the majors consistently aimed to undermine potentially damaging claims that the films were misogynistic exploitation in the vein of Snuff and Maniac, their methods changed in response to commercial and critical developments. Some of their efforts were more successful than others. Efforts to frame the films as though they were engaging with topical concerns, and the spotlighting of female-on-female violence, largely failed to preempt cries of misogyny. Invoking the dispassionate reflection of the pure gaze was polarizing. On the whole, the greatest success– conceptually and commercially–involved the evocation of established female-oriented trends, summoning the figure of the female spectator, and employing self-reflexivity to (over) emphasize female agency in cultural production.

37 Whether the strategies that Hollywood employed in its women-in-danger film marketing are deemed to have been cynical, fallacious attempts to fashion a rhetorical alibi for highly dubious fare or whether they were a genuine effort to reach out to female audiences is open to debate; what is not is the influence they exerted on the majors’ efforts to establish a female-friendly identity for suspense thrillers and horror pictures. These strategies served as key components of the marketing campaigns that backed such diverse films as mid-1980s courtroom dramas like Jagged Edge (Richard Marquand, 1985), early-‘90s serial killer pictures like The Silence of the Lambs, mid-to- late-‘90s teen slasher films like Scream (Wes Craven, 1996), and early-twenty-first- century gothic horror like The Ring (Gore Verbinski, 2002). The production of richer genre historiography hinges on heading the calls of Steven Ricci and Gregory Lucow, Alan Williams, Steve Neale, and others to also consider the full influence of the “intertextual relay of information” that orbits films such as these, of which the historical process of marketing is a major component. Such an approach has hopefully demonstrated that Hollywood’s women-in-danger films involved targeting American women, in both senses of the term.

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Kraszewski, Jan. “Recontexualizing the Historical Reception of Blaxploitation: Articulations of Class, Black Nationalism, and Anxiety in the Genre’s Advertisements.” The Velvet Light Trap 50 (Fall 2002): 48-61.

Lansbury/Beruh. Blood Wedding Advertisement. Variety, May 7, 1980: 308.

Lukow, Gregory, and Stephen Ricci. “The ‘Audience’ Goes ‘Public’: Intertextuality, Genre, and the Responsibilities of Film Literacy.” On Film 12 (1984): 28-36.

Lyons, Charles. The New Censors: Movies and the Culture Wars. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1997.

McCarty, John. Splatter Movies: Breaking the Last Taboo of the Screen. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984.

Mann, Roderick. “The Survival Story of Jon Peters.” Los Angeles Times, April 13, 1978: F14.

Mann, Roderick. “Biehn as ‘Fan’: It’s no Matinee Idyll.” Los Angeles Times, April 30, 1981: I4.

Maslin, Janet. “Hollywood: More for the Grown-Ups.” New York Times, August 26, 1979: 59.

Mellen, Joan. “Hollywood Rediscovers the American Woman.” New York Times, April 23, 1978: D1, D15.

“MGM enters horror picture.” Spokesman Review, July 1, 1980: 15.

Mittel, Jason. “A Cultural Aapproach to Television Genre Theory.” Cinema Journal 40 3 (Spring 2001): 3-24.

Murphy, A. D. “Audience Demographics, Film Future: Loss of Youth Adjustment Due.”,

Variety, August 20, 1975: 3, 74.

Murphy, A. D. “Demographics Favoring Films Future: ‘Aging of 60s Teens a Factor’.”

Variety, October 8, 1975: 3, 34.

Murphy, Mary. “Movie Call Sheet.” Los Angeles Times, March 24, 1976: G9.

Naremore, James. More than Night: Film Noir in its Contexts. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.

Neale, Steve. “Questions of Genre.” Screen 31 1 (1990): 45–66.

Nowell, Richard. Blood Money: A History of the First Teen Slasher Film Cycle. New York:

Continuum, 2011.

Nowell, Richard. “‘There’s More than One Way to Lose Your Heart’: The American Film Industry, Early Teen Slasher Films, and Female Youth.” Cinema Journal 51 1 (2011): 115-140.

Nowell, Richard. “‘Where Nothing is off Limits’: Genre, Commercial Revitalization, and the Teen Slasher Film Posters of 1982–1984.”, Post Script 30 2 (Spring 2011): 53-68.

Nowell, Richard. “‘Between Dreams and Reality’: Genre Personae, Brand Elm Street, and Repackaging the American Teen Slasher Film.” Iluminace 25 3 (2012): 69-101.

“On Fashion.” Los Angeles Times, April 19, 1976: E4.

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Perren, Alisa. “A Big Fat Indie Success Story? Press Discourses Surrounding the Making and Marketing of a ‘Hollywood’ Movie.” Journal of Film and Video 56 2 (Summer 2004): 18-31.

Plutzik, Roberta. “Just Plugging along Brands Become the Name of a Film Game.”

Los Angeles Times, June 4, 1978: X4.

Prince, Stephen. A New Pot of Gold: Hollywood under the Electronic Rainbow, 1980–1989 (History of the American Cinema, Volume 10). Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.

Rhodes, Gary D. “The Origin and Development of the American Moving Picture Poster.” Film History 19 (2007): 228-246.

Rich, Frank. “Bloodshot.” Time, August 21, 1978, unpaginated. http://www.lexisnexis.com

Rosenberg, Howard. “Meanwhile, back at the Hot Tub... .” Los Angeles Times, July 10, 1981: H15.

Rosenthal, David. “Dressed for a Killing.” New Yorker, August 4, 1980: 25-27.

Schreger, Charles. “Gays, Feminists Protest 2 Films.” Los Angeles Times, January 25, 1980: F7.

Schaefer, Eric. Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!: A History of Exploitation Films,1919-1959. Durham: Duke University Press, 1999.

Schatz, Thomas. “The New Hollywood.” In Film Theory Goes to the Movies, eds. Jim Collins, Hilary Radner and Ava Preacher Collins. New York: Routledge, 1993: 8-36.

Scott, Jay. “Nothing to See in Windows except Kinky Plot and Nastiness.” Globe and Mail, January, 26, 1980: unpaginated. http://www.lexisnexis.com

Schoell, William. Stay out of the Shower: The Shocker Film Phenomenon. London: Robinson Publishing, 1985.

Siskel, Gene. “‘Lipstick’ uses Violence to Con and Violate Audience.” Chicago Tribune, April 5, 1976: B20.

Siskel, Gene. “Ugly ‘Windows’ is Streaked with Violence.” Chicago Tribune, January 18 1980: C10.

Siskel, Gene. “Three Recent Bombs Spur a Call to Action.” Chicago Tribune, February 3, 1980: D6.

Siskel, Gene. “De Palma’s Sharp ‘Dress’ Almost has it All.” Chicago Tribune, July 25, 1980: C3.

Siskel, Gene. “Brian De Palma: New Master of Cinematic Terror.” August 3, 1980: E7.

Slater, Jack. “Women Picket ‘Maniac’ in Hollywood.” Los Angeles Times, March 24, 1981, H6.

Snelson, Tim. “‘From Grade B Thrillers to Deluxe Chillers’: Prestige Horror, Female Audiences, and Allegories of Spectatorship in The Spiral Staircase (1946).” New Review of Film and Television Studies, 7 2 (2009): 173-188.

Sobchack, Vivian. “Bring it all Back Home: Family Economy and Generic Exchange.” In American Horrors: Essays on the Modern Horror Film, ed. Gregory A. Waller. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987, 175-194.

Stacey, Jackie. Star Gazing: Female Spectators and Hollywood Cinema. London: Routledge, 1994.

Taylor, Clarke. “Shooting for an Aura of Mystery – will ‘Eyes’ Have It.” Los Angeles Times, January 22, 1978: O42.

Taylor, Clarke. “‘The Fan’: Its Stops and Starts.” Los Angeles Times, June 22, 1980, T31.

Taylor, Clarke. “Cautious Campaign in Release of ‘Fan’.” Los Angeles Times, April 13, 1981: G5.

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Thomas, Kevin, “A Rape Victim’s Cry for Justice.” Los Angeles Times, April 2, 1976: E21.

Thomas, Kevin. “‘Eyes’ Tense though Contrived.” Los Angeles Times, August 3, 1978: J10.

Thomas, Bob. Associated Press Release Reworked as “Film Companies Look at the Youth Market.” Sun-Star, May 30, 1978: 8.

Williams, Alan. ‘Is a Radical Genre Criticism Possible?.” Quarterly Review of Film Studies 9 2 (1984): 121-125.

Williams, Linda. Hardcore: Power, Pleasure and the “Frenzy of the Vizible” (expanded paperback edition). Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.

Wood, Robin. “Returning the Look: Eyes of a Stranger.” In American Horrors: Essays on the Modern Horror Film, ed. Gregory A. Waller. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987:

79-85.

Wyatt, Justin. High Concept: Movies and Marketing in Hollywood. Austin: University of

Texas Press, 1994.

Yakir, Dan. “Industry Campaigns and Caveat.” Film Comment, 16.3 (May/June 1980): 72-80.

Yakir, Dan. “Marketing a Movie is more than Selling Jell-o: The Selling of Films.” New York Times, January 6, 1980: D16.

NOTES

1. This essay uses the terms “Hollywood” and “independent” in an institutional historiographical sense. Accordingly, by “Hollywood” is meant the member companies of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). The term “majors” is used as a synonym. Between 1976 and 1980, the MPAA members were: Columbia, MGM, Paramount, Twentieth Century-Fox, United Artists, Universal, and Warner Bros. They were joined in 1980 by Avco Embassy, Disney, and Filmways. By “independent distributors” is meant those companies that deliver films but are not members of the MPAA. By “independent producers” is meant those companies that make films without the financial backing of an MPAA member. 2. See for example Tacie Dejanikus, “‘Dressed to Kill’ Protested in Six Cities.” Off Our Backs: A Women’s News Journal 10 10 (November 1980): 3-4. 3. See for example Lucy Fischer and Marcia Lundy, “Eyes of Laura Mars: A Binocular Critique,” in American Horrors: Essays on the Modern Horror Film, ed. Gregory A. Waller (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987), 62-78. See also Carol. J. Clover, “Her body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film,” Representations 20 (1987): 187-228. Although Clover claims to derive her findings from teen slasher films, most of her observations are drawn from and supported by women-in-danger pictures. 4. See for example Charles Lyons, The New Censors: Movies and the Culture Wars (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1997), 53-80; Stephen Prince, A New Pot of Gold: Hollywood under the Electronic Rainbow, 1980–1989 (History of the American Cinema, Volume 10) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 351-356. 5. Robin. Wood, “Returning the Look: Eyes of a Stranger,” in American Horrors: Essays on the Modern Horror Film, ed. Gregory A. Waller (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987), 79-85. 6. See Richard Nowell, Blood Money: A History of the First Teen Slasher Film Cycle (New York: Continuum, 2011), 17-18.

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7. This essay follows James Naremore, Jason Mittel, and others by considering genres to be clusters of discourse pertaining to film categories. See James Naremore, More than Night: Film Noir in its Contexts (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 1-9; Jason Mittel, “A Cultural Approach to Television Genre Theory,” Cinema Journal 40 3 (2001): 3-24. 8. See Alan Williams, “Is a Radical Genre Criticism Possible,” Quarterly Review of Film Studies 9 2 (1984): 121-125; Gregory Lukow and Stephen Ricci. “The ‘Audience’ goes ‘Public’: Intertextuality, Genre, and the Responsibilities of Film Literacy,” On Film 12 (1984): 28-36; Steve Neale, “Questions of Genre,” Screen 31 1 (1990): 45-66. See also Gary D. Rhodes, “The Origin and Development of the American Moving Picture Poster,” Film History 19 (2007): 228-246. 9. See for example Rick Altman, Film/Genre (London: BFI, 1999), 132-139; Sheldon Hall, “Selling Religion: How to Market a Biblical Epic,” Film History 14 2 (2002): 170-185; Alisa. Perren, “A Big Fat Indie Success Story? Press Discourses Surrounding the Making and Marketing of a ‘Hollywood’ Movie,” Journal of Film and Video 56 2 (Summer 2004): 18-31; Justin Wyatt, High Concept: Movies and Marketing in Hollywood (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994) 112-133; Betz, Mark “Art, Exploitation, Underground,” in Defining Cult Movies: The Cultural Politics of Oppositional Taste, eds. Mark Jancovich et al (Manchester: Manchester University Press 2003), 202–222. 10. For examples of this approach see Richard Nowell “‘Where Nothing is off Limits’: Genre, Commercial Revitalization, and the Teen Slasher Film Posters of 1982–1984,” Post Script 30 2 (2011): 53-68; Richard Nowell, “‘Between Dreams and Reality’: Genre Personae, Brand Elm Street, and Repackaging the American Teen Slasher Film,” Iluminace 25 3 (2012): 69-101. 11. See Barbara Klinger, “Digressions at the Cinema: Reception and Mass Culture,” Cinema Journal 28 4 (1989): 3-19; Thomas Austin, Hollywood, Hype and Audiences: Selling and Watching Popular Film in the 1990s (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002) 27-31. 12. For the promotional posters of Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist, and The Omen see http:// impawards.com/1968/rosemarys_baby.html; http://impawards.com/1973/exorcist_ver2.html; http://impawards.com/1976/omen.html 13. See Rick Altman, Film/Genre (London: BFI, 1999), 128-132. 14. Nowell, “Where Nothing is Off Limits.” 15. For the promotional posters of Rosemary’s Baby and Downhill Racer see http://impawards.com/ 1968/rosemarys_baby.html; http://impawards.com/1969/downhill_racer.html 16. See Mark Jancovich, “Genre and the Problem of Reception: Generic Classifications and Distinctions in the Promotion of Silence of the Lambs,” in Horror: The Film Reader, ed Mark Jancovich (New York: Routledge, 2001), 150-161; Nowell, “Between Dreams and Reality.” 17. See http://impawards.com/1981/american_werewolf_in_london.html 18. See Jan Kraszewski, “Recontexualizing the Historical Reception of Blaxploitation: Articulations of Class, Black Nationalism, and Anxiety in the Genre’s Advertisements,” The Velvet Light Trap 50 (2002): 48-61; Nowell, “Where Nothing is Off Limits.”; Nowell, “Between Dreams and Reality.” 19. See, Thomas Schatz, “The New Hollywood,” in Film Theory Goes to the Movies, eds. Jim Collins, Hilary Radner and Ava Preacher Collins (New York: Routledge, 1993), 8-36; Thomas Doherty, Teenagers and Teenpics: The Juvenilization of American Movies in the 1950s (revised edn) (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002), 187-212. 20. The majors’ youth market operations—which never exceeded fifteen percent of their annual output—were rarely angled exclusively to young males, who were seen to comprise one half of a mixed-sex cohort that also included their female peers. See Richard Nowell, “‘There’s More than One Way to Lose Your Heart’: The American Film Industry, Early Teen Slasher Films, and Female Youth,” Cinema Journal 51 1 (2011): 122–125.

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21. A. D. Murphy, “Demographics Favoring Films Future: ‘Aging of 60s Teens a Factor’,” Variety, October 8, 1975: 3. 22. Murphy, “Demographics Favoring Films Future…” 3. 23. Thomas, Bob. Associated Press Release Reworked as “Film Companies Look at the Youth Market,” Sun-Star, May 30, 1978: 8; Bryan Shapiro quoted in James Harwood, “Films Gotta Cater to ‘Aging’ Audience,” Variety, February 23, 1977: 7, 34. 24. Janet Maslin, “Hollywood: More for the Grown-Ups,” New York Times, August 26, 1979: 59. 25. Joan Mellen, “Hollywood Rediscovers the American Woman,” New York Times, April 23, 1978: D1, D15. 26. Alan Ladd Jr., quoted in Mellen, “Hollywood Rediscovers the American Woman,” D15. 27. See Rhona J. Berenstein, Attack of the Leading Ladies: Gender, Sexuality, and Spectatorship in Classic Horror Cinema (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996); Kyle Dawson, “Brand-Name Literature: Film Adaptation and Seiznick International Pictures’ Rebecca (1940),” Cinema Journal 45 3 (2006): 32–58; Snelson, Tim. “‘From Grade B Thrillers to Deluxe Chillers’: Prestige Horror, Female Audiences, and Allegories of Spectatorship in The Spiral Staircase (1946),” New Review of Film and Television Studies, 7 2 (2009): 173-188; Vivian Sobchack, “Bring it all Back Home: Family Economy and Generic Exchange,” in American Horrors: Essays on the Modern Horror Film, ed. Gregory A. Waller (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987), 175-194; Nowell, “There’s more than one way,” 125-126. 28. See Deborah Allison, “Courting the Critics/Assuring the Audiences: The Modulation of Dirty Harry in a Changing Cultural Climate,” Film International, 5 5 (2007): 17–29. 29. Phillip Jenkins, Using Murder: The Social Construction of Serial Homicide (New York: Aldine De Gruyter, 1994), 139–148. 30. See for example Linda Williams, Hardcore: Power, Pleasure and the “Frenzy of the Vizible” (expanded paperback edition) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 186-195. 31. Susan Faludi, Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2006). 32. For discussion of the hyper-masculine associations of the grind-house see: Joanne Hollows, “The Masculinity of Cult,” in Defining Cult Movies: The Cultural Politics of Oppositional Taste, eds. Mark Jancovich et al (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003), 41-42; David Church, “From Exhibition to Genre: The Case of Grind-house Films,” Cinema Journal 50 4 (2011): 1-25. 33. Eithne Johnson and Eric Schaefer, “Soft Core/Hard Gore: Snuff as a Crisis in Meaning,” Journal of Film and Video 45 2 3 (1993): 40-59. 34. See http://impawards.com/1976/snuff.html 35. See http://impawards.com/1976/snuff.html 36. Paramount Pictures press release quoted in Aljean Harmetz, “Hustling ‘Lipstick,’ Chopping Classics, Rating Previews,” New York Times, May 9, 1976: 69. 37. See for example Gary Arnold, “‘Lipstick’ Cosmetic Treatment,” Washington Post, April 12, 1976: C7; Vincent Canby, “‘Lipstick’,” New York Times, April 3, 1976, 15; Jack Kroll, “Erotic Kitsch,” Newsweek, April 12, 1976: 94; Gene Siskel, “‘Lipstick’ uses Violence to Con and Violate Audience,” Chicago Tribune, April 5, 1976: B20; Kevin Thomas, “A Rape Victim’s Cry for Justice,” Los Angeles Times, April 2, 1976: E21. 38. Mary Murphy, “Movie Call Sheet,” Los Angeles Times, March 24, 1976: G9. 39. Murphy, “Movie Call Sheet,” G9. 40. Freddie Fields quoted in Aljean Harmetz, “Hustling ‘Lipstick,’ Chopping Classics, Rating Previews,” New York Times, May 9, 1976: 69. 41. See for example Display Ad 62, Los Angeles Times, April 13, 1976: E12. 42. See Eric Schaefer, Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!: A History of Exploitation Films,1919–1959 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999). 43. See for example Display Ad 113, Washington Post, April 8, 1976: 68.

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44. Harmetz, “Hustling.” 45. Harmetz, “Hustling.” 46. See Arnold, “‘Lipstick’.”; Siskel, “‘Lipstick’.”; Thomas, “A Rape Victim’s Cry.” 47. Judy Bachrach, “Margaux Hemingway’s Magic Act: ‘5 Feet 12, Knock-Out Cheekbones,” Washington Post, March 26, 1976: B1. 48. Bachrach, “Margaux Hemingway’s Magic Act:…” B1. 49. Chris Sarandon quoted in Judy Klemesrud, “A Specialist in Weirdo Roles Goes Straight,” New York Times, May 23, 1976: X17. 50. American critics lambasted Eyes of Laura Mars but rarely deemed it misogynistic. 51. Kevin Thomas, “‘Eyes’ Tense though Contrived,” Los Angeles Times, August 3, 1978, J10. 52. Clarke Taylor, “Shooting for an Aura of Mystery – will ‘Eyes’ Have It,” Los Angeles Times, January 22, 1978: O42. 53. See for example Jackie Stacey, Star Gazing: Female Spectators and Hollywood Cinema (London: Routledge, 1994), 178-183. See also Roberta Plutzik, “Just Plugging along Brands Become the Name of a Film Game,” Los Angeles Times, June 4, 1978: X4; Nina S. Hyde, “Fashion Notes,” Washington Post, August 20, 1978: F13. 54. For the promotional posters of The Omen, Eyes of Laura Mars, and Coming Home see http:// impawards.com/1976/omen.html; http://impawards.com/1978/eyes_of_laura_mars.html; http://impawards.com/1978/coming_home.html 55. Taylor, “Shooting for an Aura of Mystery.”: O42 56. See for example Display Ad 5, Washington Post, July 30, 1978: A6; Display Ad 12, New York Times, July 31, 1978: A4; Display Ad 99, Los Angeles Times, August 9, 1978: J7. 57. Roderick Mann, “The Survival Story of Jon Peters,” Los Angeles Times, April 13, 1978: F14. 58. See for example Gary Arnold, “Laura Mars: Not even Good on the Eyes,” Washington Post, August 3, 1978: B5; David Ansen, “Shudderbug,” Newsweek, August 14, 1978: 62; Frank Rich, “Bloodshot,” Time, August 21, 1978: unpaginated. http://www.lexisnexis.com 59. Mary Knoblauch, “News for You: The Big Promotion Machine,” Chicago Tribune, July 12, 1978: B2. 60. To compare the promotional artwork of Eyes of Laura Mars and When a Stranger Calls see http://impawards.com/1978/eyes_of_laura_mars.html; http://impawards.com/1979/ when_a_stranger_calls.html 61. Irving N. Ivers quoted in Dan Yakir, “Marketing a Movie is more than Selling Jell-o: The Selling of Films,” New York Times, January 6, 1980: D16. 62. See Snelson, “‘From Grade B Thrillers to Deluxe Chillers’.” 63. See for example Display Ad 215, New York Times, January 27, 1980: D16. 64. See for example David Ansen, “A Dim View from the Bridge,” Newsweek, January 21, 1980: 91; Jay Scott, “Nothing to See in Windows except Kinky Plot and Nastiness,” Globe and Mail, January, 26, 1980: unpaginated. http://www.lexisnexis.com ; Gene Siskel, “Ugly ‘Windows’ is Streaked with Violence,” Chicago Tribune, January, 18 1980; C10; Gene Siskel, “Three Recent Bombs Spur a Call to Action,” Chicago Tribune, February 3, 1980: D6; Gary Arnold, “Soiled ‘Windows’,” Washington Post, March, 11, 1980: B11. 65. See for example Ansen, “A Dim View.”; Scott, “Nothing to See.”; Siskel, “Ugly ‘Windows’.”; Siskel, “Three Recent Bombs.”; Gary Arnold, “Soiled ‘Windows’.” Washington Post, March 11, 1980: B11. 66. Mary Jane Park quoted in Charles Schreger, “Gays, Feminists Protest 2 Films,” Los Angeles Times, January, 25, 1980: F7; Ellen Herman quoted in “Boston Lesbians Protest ‘Windows’.” Variety, April, 9, 1980: 7. 67. See Bourdieu, Pierre [Translated by Richard Nice]. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984 [1979]), 1-9.

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68. See for example Gene Siskel, “Brian De Palma: New Master of Cinematic Terror,” August 3, 1980: E7; David Rosenthal, “Dressed for a Killing,” New Yorker, August 4, 1980: 25-27. Judy Klemesrud, “At the Movies: Nancy Allen, Making Good by Being Bad.” New York Times, September 5, 1980, C6; Tom Buckley, “At the Movies: Brian De Palma Makes a Thriller near the Docks.” New York Times, November 30, 1979: C9. 69. See for example display Ad 74, New York Times, August 1, 1980: C11. 70. Robert E. Kapsis, Hitchcock: The Making of a Reputation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 188-215. 71. See for example Lyons, The New Censors: 53-80. 72. See Kapsis, Hitchcock, 201-208; see also Lee Grant, “Women vs. ‘Dressed to Kill’: Is Film Admirable or Deplorable,” September 12, 1980: H1, H10, H15. 73. Stephanie Rones quoted in Grant, “Women vs. ‘Dressed to Kill’.”: H1; Susan Gage quoted in Grant, “Women vs. ‘Dressed to Kill’.”: H10. 74. Lansbury/Beruh, Blood Wedding Advertisement, Variety, May 7, 1980: 308. 75. See for example Display Ad 60, Los Angeles Times, September 1, 1980: E5; Display Ad 106, Los Angeles Times, September 17, 1980: H2. 76. See http://impawards.com/1981/he_knows_youre_alone.html 77. “MGM enters horror picture,” Spokesman Review, July 1, 1980: 15. 78. See Nowell, Blood Money: 226-228. 79. See http://impawards.com/1980/maniac.html [accessed on January 13, 1980] 80. Jack Slater, “Women Picket ‘Maniac’ in Hollywood,” Los Angeles Times, March 24, 1981, H6. 81. Clarke Taylor, “‘The Fan’: Its Stops and Starts,” Los Angeles Times, June 22, 1980: T31; John Corry, “Feistiness of Lauren Bacall is still Film and Stage Magic: ‘Try a Reassessment’ an Advantage of Aging,” New York Times, July 10, 1980: C14. 82. Taylor, “‘The Fan’;” Corry, “Feistiness of Lauren Bacall.”. 83. Clarke Taylor, “Cautious Campaign in Release of ‘Fan’,” Los Angeles Times, April 13, 1981: G5. 84. See for example Lee Grant, “A ‘Seduction’ Scene in Beverly Hills,” Los Angeles Times, May 9, 1981: B3; Howard Rosenberg, “Meanwhile, back at the Hot Tub... ,” Los Angeles Times, July 10, 1981: H15. 85. Rosenberg, “Meanwhile, back at the Hot Tub... .” 86. Grant, “A ‘Seduction’ Scene in Beverly Hills.”

ABSTRACTS

By concentrating on elements of film content and the cultural politics of feminist activists, scholars have suggested that Hollywood’s women-in-danger films of the early 1980s represented the greatest misogynist trend in the history of American cinema. However, by focusing on the marketing of such films as Dressed to Kill (Brian De Palma, 1980), He Knows You’re Alone (Armand Mastroianni, 1980), and The Fan (Ed Bianchi, 1981), it is clear that Hollywood distributors consistently framed these thrillers less as celebrations of violent misogyny than as cautionary tales of a backlash brewing against American women. Accordingly, this article suggests that Hollywood’s women-in-danger films were part of an industry-wide effort to retain older moviegoers, especially mature women. The author argues that Hollywood companies used

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marketing materials to differentiate their women-in-danger films from sensationally promoted exploitation fare such as Snuff (Anon., 1976) and Maniac (William Lustig, 1980). This practice crystallized in the late 1970s following a controversy over Paramount’s mis-marketed rape- revenge opus Lipstick (Lamont Johnson, 1976), and the promising returns of Columbia’s Eyes of Laura Mara (Irwin Kershner, 1978) and When a Stranger Calls (Fred Walton, 1979). Approaching women-in-danger film marketing as a dynamic historical process reveals that Hollywood’s greatest successes involved emphasizing female participation in the production of the films, spotlighting similarities to other female-oriented production trends, and invoking the figure of the female spectator.

INDEX

Keywords: Women-in-danger films, Hollywood, marketing, distribution, feminist

AUTHOR

RICHARD NOWELL Richard Nowell teaches American cinema at the American Studies Department of Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. He is the author of Blood Money: A History of the First Teen Slasher Film Cycle (Continuum 2011), has guest edited an English-language issue of the Czech film studies journal Iluminace on the topic of genre and the movie business” and has published articles in Cinema Journal, Iluminace, the Journal of Film and Video, the New Review of Film and Television Studies, and Post-Script.

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Marketing Films to the American Conservative Christians: The Case of The Chronicles of Narnia

Nathalie Dupont

The development of commercial cinema in the United States led to the search of proper stories able to attract audiences of all ages. Very rapidly silent films thus started using the Bible as a source of inspiration. But at the same time, other Hollywood films had storylines deemed immoral and too licentious by some American conservative Christians who wanted the young industry, mostly created in its modern form by Jewish immigrants, to amend itself. Whether Catholic or Protestant, those conservative Christians rapidly called for some control of Hollywood and were behind the ‘Hays Code’ that regulated Hollywood’s productions from the 1930s up to the 1960s. Even if mores became somewhat more relaxed afterwards, conservative Christians1, together with other conservative Americans, have kept a watchful eye on Hollywood. Protestant and Catholic film agencies contributed to establish the 1968 Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) classification, while conservative Christians did not hesitate to make themselves heard when they thought it necessary, such as with the controversy surrounding the production and then release of The Last Temptation of Christ (Martin Scorsese, 1988). They also approved the comments and analyses of conservative film critic Michael Medved who has kept lamenting over a now ‘sick and far too liberal Hollywood’ that undermines traditional American values.2 Therefore the studios’ relationship with the American conservative Christians has always been a tricky one, as they are not an easy audience to satisfy. However, previous examples and the surprising box office success of The Passion of The Christ (Mel Gibson, 2004) underline that, in some cases, the American conservative Christians, and more particularly the Protestant ones, can become a financial asset as a niche audience for Hollywood. This article thus describes the reasons that pushed the producers and distributors of The Chronicles of Narnia to take advantage of that niche audience. It shows how they did it and came to collaborate with the American Evangelicals,3 who make an extensive use of modern methods of communication and welcome such high-

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profile opportunities to spread God’s word. But it also demonstrates that in a globalized movie industry ruled by market shares and profits, Hollywood’s overtures to the American conservative Christians cannot but be limited, as the latter remain a niche audience.

The American Conservative Christians: An Interesting Audience for Hollywood and The Chronicles of Narnia?

Hollywood has always been wary of conservative Christians and their renewed calls for censorship, but it does not mean that the studios have completely ignored them. For example, they worked with Catholic and Protestant representatives to create the Motion Picture Production code also known as the ‘Hays code’ that was implemented in 1934 and that regulated the content of American films until 1966. Producers also consulted religious leaders and involved them in the release of Bible epics such as The Ten Commandments (Cecil B. DeMille, 1956) or Ben Hur (William Wyler, 1959). Then, during the last quarter of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, conservative Protestant values became more visible in America, whether it be thanks to two Republican presidents, Ronald Reagan and the born-again George W. Bush, or to the ideas defended by the Tea Party. As Hollywood is an industry that relies on profits and market shares, it cannot ignore the increasing visibility and popularity of a certain trend and the financial potential that lies with its particular audience. Consequently, when Mel Gibson’s The Passion of The Christ opened first at the American box office in 3,043 theatres at the end of February 2004, every major producer paid attention to what happened. The film had first been thought the fancy and whims of a star, and destined to fail, all the more so as it was intended to be shot and released in Arameic, Latin and Hebrew– with English subtitles–, languages most Americans are not exactly familiar with. Yet, against all odds, the $30 million R-rated production4 became a tremendous success, eventually making $370.78 million at the American box office while staying in cinemas for 22 weeks.5 It turned out that conservative Protestants, and more particularly the Evangelicals, had played their part in that success. The Passion of The Christ thus revealed the potential of those American conservative Protestants as a niche audience that could be added to the more traditional and–sometimes–lay American audience. Financially speaking, many observers also noted several interesting factors. At the beginning of the 21st century, the business linked to the American Christian retailing industry was a booming one representing about $3 billion in 2001–and $4.63 billion in 2007.6 The tremendous success of the Left Behind Christian series of books that had become best sellers7 also showed that the Christian culture could cross over into the American mainstream culture. The conservative Christians were among the 25% to 40% Americans who go to church every week,8 usually as a family, while in cinemas, among the families with children, 41% were occasional moviegoers among those with children under the age of 12, while they were 36% in case of families with teenagers.9 If studios offered conservative Christian families more films destined to please them, those families may become frequent moviegoers and thus may increase the box office potential of Hollywood films at a time when their traditional young audience of 12 to 24 year-olds, which had stood at 42% of moviegoers in 1990, had decreased to 38% in 2004. 10

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Hollywood thus turned an interested eye to the conservative Christians, especially the Protestant ones, co-producing and/or releasing moderately budgeted films with a more obvious Christian subtext such as The Gospel (Rob Hardy, 2005) or The Nativity Story (Catherine Hardwicke, 2006). The scope of Walden’s planned adaptation of The Chronicles of Narnia was more wide-reaching, as it belonged to the blockbuster category. But it was a project that could also please the conservative Protestant audience while representing a potential box office success for Hollywood, as no studio would just co- produce and distribute an expensive film solely destined to a niche audience. The book series had been created by C.S. Lewis, an author who had extensively written and spoken about how he had converted back to his Anglican childhood faith in his thirties, and had since then been known as a Christian apologist among the English- speaking Christians. This Oxford and then Cambridge University Professor had often described how his Chronicles made of seven books had a very strong Christian context, with Aslan the lion standing for Jesus Christ while the journey undertaken by the main young British characters of the book was meant to elevate and better their souls as well as those of the people they met in Narnia. Since the publication of the first volume in 1950, The Chronicles of Narnia had sold more than 100 million copies and become best-sellers in the English-speaking world as well as a required reading in numerous schools. Their Christian subtext had also made The Chronicles a popular reading among believers, especially among Evangelicals as the books could be used to explain and to spread essential Christian values. This had created a pool of potential spectators, a ‘built-in’ audience in Hollywood terms, who might be interested to see on the silver screen what they had imagined while reading the books. Adapting The Chronicles of Narnia thus represented the opportunity to create a cinematographic franchise that could follow in the footsteps of The Lord of the Rings, another successful adaptation–based on the books written by J. R. R. Tolkien, a fellow- professor and friend of C.S. Lewis.11 The adaptations of The Chronicles of Narnia had the potential to become ‘four-quadrant movies’ like Titanic (James Cameron, 1997) or Spider-Man (Sam Raimi, 2002). In Hollywood terms, this means successful films that appeal to the important demographic quadrants of the audience: male, female, over and under 25 years old. Finally, the studios were less reluctant to adapt books with an obvious British context. The tremendous success of the Harry Potter adaptations12 had proved the American and international audiences were ready to welcome films steeped in the British world The Chronicles of Narnia is imbued with. The Chronicles’ main characters also enter Narnia in a way that resembles the way the wizards- and witches-to-be leave the muggles’ world and enter their own at platform 9 ¾ in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s/Sorcerer’s Stone (Chris Columbus, 2001). All those reasons led Walt Disney Pictures to accept readily the partnership with Walden Media when the latter approached them to co-produce and distribute The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Andrew Adamson, 2005).

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Marketing The Chronicles of Narnia to the American Conservative Christians

The project was the brainchild of Walden Media and its financial backer, conservative evangelical billionaire Philip Anschutz. With his help, the company had acquired from C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. the adaptation rights for three Chronicles books. These books suited Philip Anschutz’s desire as far as film production was concerned, a desire he made clear in one of his extremely rare speeches in 2004: “[…] four or five years ago, I decided to stop cursing the darkness–I had been complaining about movies and their content for years–and instead to do something about it by getting into the film business […].”13 Those words point to a moral and spiritual agenda, which explains why Philip Anschutz was interested when Michael Flaherty and Cary Granat, who were looking for finances, talked to him about their family-oriented media project that would educate and entertain people without using foul language, sex, violence or drugs. Philip Anschutz decided to invest in what became Walden Media, which was created in 2001. The company intended to “tell stories that recapture imagination, rekindle curiosity, and demonstrate the rewards of virtue”14 through the adaptation of children’s books that should be suitable for family viewing. The Chronicles of Narnia thus perfectly suited Walden’s production agenda. Knowing the film would cost a lot of money to produce, distribute and market, Walden Media looked for an associate,15 and Walt Disney Pictures stepped in to share the production costs and American profits on a 50/50 basis, while it was also to distribute the film in the United States and abroad through its Buena Vista international division. The film eventually cost about $180 million to produce and about $120 million to market, bringing the total cost to roughly $300 million. As the price tag was very high, the film’s producers considered every audience that could bring in more money, and the conservative Protestant audience, more particularly the evangelical one, became an obvious choice in the wake of the success of The Passion of the Christ and the marketing practices that had targeted that particular audience. Disney and Walden thus agreed to sub-contract the Christian niche marketing to Motive Marketing, the very company that had already handled the advertisement for Mel Gibson’s film. Together with the more traditional marketing handled by Walt Disney Pictures,16 the niche marketing targeting the American conservative Christians began months before the release of the film that was scheduled for December 2005. There was a teaser/ trailer released in the summer of 2005 at several Christian festivals. Then, at the beginning of September 2005, some of the artists who had recorded an album of songs inspired by the film performed live at ‘Night of Joy,’ the annual Christian music festival held at Disney’s Magic Kingdom theme park in Florida. From September 2005 onwards, Motive also used churches to spread the word about the coming of Narnia, particularly relying on megachurches.17 This was for example the case in New York at the non-denominational Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn. There, the megachurch congregation watched exclusive clips, were given gift bags full of outreach material, and listened to a special live performance by Christian music star Steven Curtis Chapman who had recorded a song on the album inspired by the film and produced by Sparrow Records, the Christian label owned by EMI.18 People were also able to discuss the making of the movie with Douglas Gresham, C.S. Lewis’ stepson and

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a co-producer of the film, and with Michael Flaherty, Walden Media President–both men are committed Protestants.19 Throughout the United States, a few handpicked influential pastors and evangelical leaders were also invited to ‘Narnia Outreach Training Seminars’ that included the showing of a Powerpoint presentation, together with the trailer and some movie clips that could then be found on the Internet. They were also introduced to the Christian resources especially created for the film and that could be downloaded on the site set up by Motive Marketing.20 The company also enlisted the help of the Christian society Outreach Media Inc. that, through its site, invited more pastors and evangelical leaders to about 100 ‘Narnia Sneek Peeks’ organized throughout the country, and more particularly in the South of the United States, in the so-called conservative Bible Belt where part of the film’s niche audience could be located. The Internet site sermoncentral.com, property of Outreach, also provided religious leaders with free online Narnia-inspired sermons. For example, the sermon entitled “Narnia: The King is on the Move!” equated the coming of Aslan to free Narnia from its everlasting winter and its evil Queen Jadis with that of Christ to save mankind from its sins.21 The site also launched a promotional sermon contest with a trip to London and $1,000 for the winning pastor. Motive Marketing also contacted powerful and influential evangelical organizations. The latter welcome such initiatives as they represent another opportunity to “go into all the world and preach the gospel,”22 one of the basic tenets of Evangelicalism. To do so, Evangelicals rely on modern means of communication like radio, television, cinema23 and now Internet. As The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was the example of films that fit their tastes and values, and that can be used for Christian outreach, evangelical organizations such as Campus Crusade for Christ or the National Association of Evangelicals agreed to broadcast the film trailer on their television channels. Motive also got a positive response from the evangelical group Focus on the Family that, in spite of its previous condemnation of Disney for its gay- friendly policy, nevertheless announced it officially endorsed the new film via an email to the popular culture magazine Entertainment Weekly. All those actions were part of a marketing method called replicasting, thus defined by Paul Lauer, the founder of Motive Marketing: We target pastors, teachers, youth leaders, speakers, authors, influencers, heads of organizations or even a really on-fire mom […] We create that bond with these channel partners, and we then equip them to narrow-cast to their group. They then become receivers and transmitters..24 So, through various Christian channels, Motive Marketing was able to build a ‘Narnia awareness’ designed to reach its climax and full potential among the American Protestant community in December 2005, as the film was about to be released. Then, the commitment of evangelical congregations to the marketing of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe even led them to make advance bookings for the pre-opening screenings that took place the day before the official release.25 Consequently, the 36,000-odd registered pre-bookings placed the film at the top of advance bookings, ahead of those for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Mike Newell, 2005) and King Kong (Peter Jackson, 2005), which was quite a feat.26 This, in turn, attracted the attention of cinema owners and convinced those who might have hesitated that the film ‘could have legs at the box office’–as Hollywood puts it–and was a potential blockbuster.

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When The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe opened on December 9, 2005 in 3,616 cinemas, the combination of classic and niche marketing campaigns allowed it to rank first with a box office of $65.56 million and an excellent average of $18,129 per site. The influential Christian Internet site Movieguide,27 which rates films from a Christian perspective for family-friendly entertainment, noted a few differences between the book and the film. But the review underlined that The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe “ retain[ed] most of its Christian focus” and was a “spectacular movie, tremendously exciting, thrilling and redemptive.”28 The film then stayed in cinemas for 22 weeks, and eventually grossed $291.71 million in the United States and $453.30 million abroad. All was boding well for the second instalment entitled The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (Andrew Adamson, 2008). But Hollywood’s rules took precedent and this led to a big disappointment. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian was again a Walt Disney Pictures-Walden Media co-production. Thinking that the family and the conservative Protestant audiences were now acquired, Disney, still in charge of marketing and distributing the film, opted for a new strategy for Prince Caspian. The studio decided against financing any specific niche marketing targeting the conservative Christian audience. Christian Internet sites and newspapers did publish articles on the film, together with some interviews from cast members and producers, Outreach still offered ministers the possibility to download specific sermons from Sermon Central, but all this was part of the normal Christian attention paid to a film that had Christian undertones. The only official resources linked to the producers of the film were those for educators that could be found on the Walden Internet site and that accompany every single film produced by Walden Media. Its representatives, especially Michael Flaherty, together with Douglas Gresham, also discussed with leading members of the Protestant community and gave interviews to Christian newspapers and magazines. But Walden Media and Walt Disney Pictures did not plan or sub-contract the organization of any real preview destined to the conservative Protestant niche, nor did Disney allot any percentage of the $175-odd million marketing budget to specific Christian resources. In fact, the Disney team distributing Prince Caspian seemed to handle the film as a ‘normal’ potential summer blockbuster principally targeting the young audience, and booked the $225 million production for a summer release on May 16, 2008. But in doing so, the studio made several mistakes. Disney literally sandwiched the film between what Hollywood sometimes calls ‘summer behemoths’: Iron Man (Jon Favreau, May 2, 2008) and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Steven Spielberg, May 22, 2008). It was not an easy slot to occupy if Prince Caspian wanted to keep its audience after its first week of release. On May 19, The Hollywood Reporter wrote that the film had made $56.6 million, which put it ahead of Iron Man and at the top of the box office ranking. But the article emphasized that the film was in fact underperforming as many observers had expected $80 million on Prince Caspian’s opening week. Chuck Viane, Disney’s distribution president, commented on Prince Caspian’s box office while trying to justify its release date: We’re off to a good start–not great, but good […] I don’t think it’s written anywhere that movies open and outperform the originals. It's not a truism. […] The safest thing in the world is always to put the (sequel) back where (the original) opened […]. But I believe this picture plays so broadly that you want the biggest audience you can have.29

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The Disney team said they wanted a broad audience, but as Prince Caspian was more sombre than The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and featured many battles, Disney opted to essentially court the young male audience that had transformed The Lord of the Rings into a successful franchise. The trailers for Prince Caspian thus insisted that “you may find Narnia a more savage place than you remember,” while they displayed numerous scenes of battles and sword fights that were not really counterbalanced by more friendly scenes featuring Aslan. This was an important difference with the trailer for The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, as revealed by the French software Lignes de Temps.30 Whereas the percentage of scenes showing Aslan or having a Christian subtext amounted to 41% of The The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’s official trailer, Prince Caspian’s only featured 12%. Disney’s gamble did not pay off as it put off the family and the conservative Christian audiences, while young patrons were moderately interested in the film and rapidly switched to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. After one month, Prince Caspian’s figures lagged behind those of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, heralding a disappointing American box office of just $141.62 million. This led some conservative Protestants and fans of the films to say that Disney had damaged the film’s potential by deliberately ignoring them during the marketing of Prince Caspian. Its foreign box office of $278.04 million also turned out to be disappointing, which Walt Disney Pictures considered as a bad omen. Having box office success abroad is indeed part and parcel of the studios’ way of doing business, all the more so as in a now global economy, expensive American blockbusters often depend on their foreign box office to make up for possible failures at home.31 The foreign box office of Prince Caspian did not match Walt Disney Pictures’ expectations, and fearing another costly international disappointment with the third adaptation–already in pre-production–, the studio decided to quit the franchise at the end of 2008. At the beginning of 2009, different trade publications announced that Fox 2000 Pictures, a division of 20th Century Fox Film Corp., was on board with Walden Media to co-produce and distribute the third instalment entitled The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Michael Apted, 2010). Its release and marketing went through a complete about-face after the box office failure of Prince Caspian. Initially slotted for a May 2010 release, when Disney was still a co-producing partner, the now Fox-Walden co-production re-integrated the December slot that had worked well for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and was to be released in December 2010. But for the marketing of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the Fox team was facing a difficult task, and Chris Aronson, Fox’s distribution vice-president even talked of the necessity of resuscitating the franchise. This included collaborating with the Christian community once again–more particularly with the Evangelicals–and organizing a niche marketing via Motive Marketing and Grace Hill Media–alongside the more classic marketing campaign. In February 2010, Fox 2000 Pictures and Walden Media organized in Los Angeles a two- day conference called ‘Narnia Summit’ that gathered about 100 religious leaders as well as fans’ websites and evangelical organizations like Focus on the Family, Youth for Christ or Young Life. The participants listened to Michael Flaherty, the president of Walden Media, Douglas Gresham, Mark Johnson, the film’s director, or Elizabeth Gabler, president of Fox 2000 Pictures. They were also shown the storyboard and a few clips from the film.

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In June 2010, Christian Internet sites such as Movieguide.com, Christianity Today.com or Focus on the Family.com were also allowed to show the first official trailer ahead of more lay sites such as Apple trailers, Yahoo or MSN. The use of Lignes de temps reveals that in this official trailer, the percentage of scenes showing Aslan or having a Christian subtext was up to 24%–from 12% in Prince Caspian’s–while the number of battle scenes was reduced to a mere 1%. From July to December 2010, the evangelical relief organization Samaritan’s Purse set up ‘Operation Narnia’.32 Via a video clip featuring Georgie Henley/Lucy, young Evangelicals were invited to decorate and then fill shoeboxes with useful presents for children. The boxes would be Christmas gifts to needy children around the world. The community that collected the most boxes was to welcome the official premiere of the film with Georgie Henley and Will Poulter/Eustace in attendance.33 The fact that the conservative Christian community was also targeted became more obvious in November with a second trailer that revealed the ending34 right from its start and contained lines of dialogue such as: “ ‘It seeks to corrupt all goodness’ […] ‘It steals the light from this world’ […] ‘Aslan’s country’ […] ‘do you really believe there’s such a place?’ ‘we have nothing if not belief!’.”35 A few weeks before the release of the film, more ministers, pastors and evangelical leaders were invited to previews so as to then ‘spread the good word’ on Voyage of the Dawn Treader to their congregations. To do so they could also use the numerous resources found on Narnia Faith.com, the Internet site set up by Fox and Walden. Repeating what had been done for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the site also invited the spiritual leaders to “join Aslan, join the adventure in taking [their] congregation to the Voyage of the Dawn Treader” via group sales.36 The producers hoped that advance group bookings would enable the film to have a good first weekend at the box office. Released on December 10, 2010 in 3,555 cinemas, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader ranked first with a box office of $24 million37 and an average of $6,752 per site. Exit surveys showed that the film “attracted audiences comprising 51% of females, with 52% of patrons aged 25 or older and 44% of support coming from family moviegoers,”38 which is what Fox and Walden had hoped for. However, the box office was disappointing as it was already behind those of the previous installments’ opening weekends. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader stayed in cinemas for 18 weeks and eventually grossed $104.39 million in the United States and $311.30 million abroad. The niche marketing had contributed to push more conservative Protestant families to watch The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, but it was far from enough to rescue the costly franchise in the United States, while its international box office barely satisfied its producers.

The Limits of the Christian Niche Marketing in a Hollywood Context

The Chronicles of Narnia came to represent the meeting point between different points of view on films. For the studios, the aim was to increase the box office of expensive films by adding a potential niche audience to their regular one. Walden Media shared that goal, while it also wanted to educate the audience and spark their imagination with

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entertaining all-ages productions having a moral, uplifting and Christian subtext–that could only be advertised within the confines of American churches and evangelical congregations. For the conservative Christian community, and more particularly for the Evangelicals, the films represented an opportunity to spread the word of Christ as was made clear by the evangelical Mission Coalition America: The Chronicles of Narnia fantasy adventure series is just the right thing to penetrate today’s culture in ways that more overt Christian films may not be able to do. We believe the release of this film is truly a unique opportunity that God has created. By clearly conveying the message of Christ and the Cross, it can serve as a powerful evangelistic tool.39 Within the Protestant community, some did not share the Evangelicals’ enthusiasm and involvement in the marketing of The Chronicles of Narnia. Some pastors denounced the intrusion of Hollywood merchants into the temple. They felt used and almost soiled, as shown by the following reactions: “How crassly is the church being used?” asked one pastor in the Christian Post,40 while another half-jokingly denounced the intrusion of marketing into church services: The obvious question is how far will it go? Where do we, as church leaders entrusted with the ministry of the Gospel, draw the line? When do we become guilty of serving both God and money (or the corporations seeking to make it)? Maybe your next baptism service could be sponsored by Evian? Perhaps Nintendo can take out advertising space in your children's ministry newsletter, or maybe you're content with just having a Mouse on your shoulder while you preach.41 Nevertheless, a sort of partnership, albeit limited, was created that managed to find a good balance between different goals, leading two types of marketing to co-exist for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. But this could only work if the more general audience was interested in the films, and throughout the process, the co-producing studios were cautious. They hoped the adaptations would be ‘four-quadrant’ films, but they certainly did not want the Christian niche marketing to drive away their usual young audience that does not really want to be preached at. The fact that Walden, together with Disney and then Fox, sub-contracted the Christian niche marketing is another proof that the studios were very cautious with it. Walt Disney Pictures was reportedly annoyed by the level of media attention lavished on the Christian niche marketing for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Consequently, it refused to comment on its efficiency, as well as it refused to publish the result of the exit surveys carried out on that topic. As for Walden officials, they mainly stressed the educational value of the film. For example, they put forward how the opening scenes showing children being evacuated from Blitz-stricken London could find an echo with the then-recent catastrophe brought about by hurricane Katrina in Florida in August 2005. But Walden officials did not really insist on the Christian aspect and neither did Michael Flaherty: “In terms of how the film can be used at church, we’re out of depth there […] We offer no advice on how to do that.”42 This desire to keep the Christian niche marketing as discreet as possible and the uneasiness from Disney and Walden on that topic also appeared in the way the actors were briefed for the promotion of the film. Tilda Swinton, who played the white witch in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, described it thus: Last year […] in the process of promoting two fantasy films [The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Constantine] for different Hollywood studios, I was advised on the proper

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protocol for talking about religion in America today. In brief, the directive was, hold your hands high where all can see them, step away from the vehicle and enunciate clearly, nothing to declare.43 For the co-producing and distributing Walt Disney Pictures, the Christian niche marketing around The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was a small-size event to which only 5% of the film’s marketing budget had been allotted, and its visibility and impact were only destined to stay within the confines of American churches and evangelical congregations. In fact, Disney’s reaction, as well as Walden’s to a lesser extent, is perfectly understandable, and befits Hollywood’s way of doing business. At a time of declining audience44 and ever-increasing production costs, Disney’s aim, and then Fox’s, was to take advantage of the possibilities offered by the conservative Protestant niche market and simply to add that audience to the other regular young one that has been at the root of Hollywood’s successful films since the release of Star Wars (George Lucas) in 1977. To advertise openly The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and then The Voyage of the Dawn Treader as Christian films would have raised a lot of eyebrows among the ‘general’ American and world audiences, while it would have antagonized the classic young and sometimes lay audience that most of the time just wants to be entertained. When Disney booked Prince Caspian as a possible summer box office, it also followed Hollywood’s rules and style of doing business. American blockbusters are traditionally released during the summer, and taking into consideration The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’s box office, Disney had every reason to believe that Prince Caspian would follow in its footstep and be a similar blockbuster, so better treat the film like all other potential blockbusters. But the film industry is an uncertain business where there is no true recipe for success, as was shown in 2007 by a study entitled Do Movies Make Money? 45 When this happens in a now globalized world, where sometimes the foreign box office of a film cannot really make up for its disappointing American counterpart, it can lead a studio to reconsider its involvement in a franchise, as happened when Walt Disney Pictures withdrew from the adaptation of The Chronicles of Narnia: the Voyage of the Dawn Treader. As Walden Media could not operate in Hollywood without a reliable co-production and distribution partner, it was forced to seek out a new co-producing partner it eventually found in Fox. However, in spite of its renewed courtship of the conservative Christian niche audience, the now Fox-Walden The Voyage of the Dawn Treader rapidly stood behind the figures of Prince Caspian, and also proved to be a disappointment at the box office in the United States and abroad as the general audience seemed less interested in it. This seems to have put a–temporary?–end to the adaptations of C.S. Lewis series, all the more so as the adaptation rights have now to be re-negotiated.46 As William D. Romanoswki said, “As a crucial medium of communication, movies are enmeshed in, and bear the marks of, religious, cultural, and class conflicts throughout the twentieth century.”47 The recent filmed adaptations of The Chronicles of Narnia are an example of this and are anchored in a very precise American context. On the one hand, the films and the company that are at their origin are derived from the will of two founders and a conservative Christian billionaire who have a very precise agenda. On the other hand, there is the American film business that has an established audience but also wishes to broaden it in reaching out to a niche one. The American conservative Christians, and more particularly the Evangelicals, can contribute to the success of a

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film, and The Passion of the Christ as well as The Chronicles of Narnia have shown it, but their impact is nevertheless limited, especially in a now global economy. Abroad, Disney and Fox handled The Chronicles of Narnia like any other Hollywood films for children and family viewing. Even if the evangelical community is growing throughout the world, the Christian subtext was once again confined to a limited marketing targeting some British Christian communities and, in the case of Voyage of the Dawn Treader, to resources in six languages developed in collaboration with the World Evangelical Alliance. There is no denying that Walden Media has a precise educational, moral and subdued religious agenda, as noticed by academic articles.48 Consequently, the company stands apart from other production companies, and its co-productions49 certainly have a ‘Walden touch’. But they are destined for a general audience, not a niche one, and consequently have to follow Hollywood’s way of doing business. For the studios and the independent companies that work with them, marketing films to conservative Christians is thus a limited business and a purely American phenomenon that cannot really be exported.

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Webography

< http://www.theamericanchurch.org>.

< http://www.missionamerica.org>.

< http://www.narniasources.com>.

< http://www.narniaweb.com>.

< http://www.operationnarnia.org>.

< http://religions.pewforum.org>.

< http://www.sermoncentral.com>.

NOTES

1. In this article the words American conservative Christians essentially mean American conservative Protestants, as they are the main target of a specific niche marketing. Trade sources do not mention any specific marketing targeting the American Catholics. Some data come from personal archives, notably MPA reports that can no longer be accessed on Internet. This is also the case with some study guides linked to the films. 2. The Jewish syndicated radio talk show host, author and film critic notably published the bestseller Hollywood vs. America: Popular Culture and the War on Traditional Values in 1992, and co-hosted Sneak-Previews on PBS between 1984 and 1996. 3. Evangelicalism is a branch of Protestantism. “Evangelicals believe that one must be ‘born again’, through personal crisis; that one must follow the dictates of the Bible with relative strictness; that the ‘second coming’ of Christ will occur; that one has a divinely inspired duty to spread the word of Christ salvation, and, crucially, that all aspects of public and private life present an opportunity to honour God.” James Russell, “Independent Christian marketing,” in American Independent Cinema, eds. Geoff King, Claire Molloy and Yannis Tzioumakis (New York: Routledge, 2013), 187. 4. In America, the MPAA rating system is as follows: G for general audiences (all ages admitted), PG for parental guidance suggested (some material may not be suitable for children), PG-13 for parents strongly cautioned (some material may be inappropriate for children under 13), R for

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restricted (under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian), and NC-17 for no one 17 and under admitted. 5. It also made $241.116 million abroad. Box Office Mojo, http://www.boxofficemojo.com/ movies/?id=passionofthechrist.htm . 6. Jeff Jansen and Gillian Flynn, “Christian Entertainment Part 2: the next Temptation,” Entertainment Weekly, December 10, 1999. http://www.ew.com , Marc Peyser, “God, Mammon, & ‘Bibleman’,” Newsweek, July 15, 2001. http:// www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek.html , Annalee Ward, “Faith- based Theme Parks and Musems,” in Understanding Evangelical Media, eds Quentin J. Schultze and Robert H. Woods Jr. (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2008), 175 and Michelle Boorstein, “Religious retailers do a bit of soul-searching this Christmas,” The Washington Post, December 21, 2010. http://www.washingtonpost.com . 7. And, in the case of their filmed adaptations, blockbusters in American megachurches. 8. That is to say between 90 to 120 million people from different denominations. Figures vary depending on sources, and observers note that while answering surveys, some Americans say they go to church every week even if they actually don’t. Religious Tolerance, http:// www.religioustolerance.org/rel_rate.htm , The American Church, http://www.theamericanchurch.org/facts/6.htm and Religious Beliefs and Practices in the United States, http://religions.pewforum.org/maps . 9. 1992 Motion Picture Almanac, New York: Quigley Publishing Company, 24 and 2005 U.S. Movie Attendance Studies, http://www.mpaa.org . According to the Motion Picture association of America, an occasional moviegoer is someone who watches a film in a cinema at least once in 6 months. 10. A frequent moviegoer is someone who watches a film in a cinema at least once per month. Motion Picture Association of America, 2000 & 2004 U.S. Movie Attendance Studies, http:// www.mpaa.org . 11. These books also have Christian undertones. 12. In 2004, the adaptations of the first three Harry Potter books had already earned $829.104 million at the American box office. Box Office Mojo, http://www.boxofficemojo.com/search/? q=Harry%20Potter . 13. Mark Moring, “Hollywood Hellfighter,” Christianity Today, May 13, 2008. http:// www.christianitytoday.com/ct/article_print.html?id=55249 . 14. Walden Media, http://www.walden.com . 15. Walden Media is a production company that does not have any distribution arm. When The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was released in 2005, the average production cost of a studio film was $63.6 million according to MPAA figures while the marketing cost was $36.1 million. Motion Picture Association of America, “2006 U.S. Theatrical Market Statistics,” http://www.mpaa.org . 16. Which included, among other things, toys, a tie-in agreement with MacDonald’s or an attraction called Journey into Narnia: the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Florida. 17. The megachurches can accommodate such events as they have top-of-the-range screens and audio equipment that can rival those found in cinemas. 18. The album, called Music inspired by The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, was released on September 27, 2005, well ahead of the official soundtrack album, produced by Walt Disney Studios, that was released on December 13, 2005. 19. Michael Flaherty became an Evangelical in 1999. http://sixseeds.tv/s/content/movies/696- interview_with_walden_media_president_mike_flaherty . 20. http://www.narniasources.com .

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21. http://www.sermoncentral.com . 22. The Bible, Mark 16:15. New International Version. 23. The first regular evangelical radio broadcast began in 1921. In 1951, the evangelist Billy Graham created WorldWide Pictures, a film production and distribution company. He also started broadcasting evangelical TV programmes in the 1950s. From the end of the 1970s onwards, televangelists became even more numerous with the development of satellite and cable television networks. Paul A. Creasman, “Looking beyond Radio for Listeners,” Kathy Bruner, “Thinking outside the tribal TV Box,” and Terry Lindvall and Andrew Quicke, “Moving from Film to Digital Movies,” in Understanding Evangelical Media, 36, 53 and 59. 24. David S. Cohen, “Execs say Prayers for next ‘Passion’,” Variety, April 2, 2007. http:// www.variety.com . 25. In a repetition of what had already contributed to the box office success of The Passion of the Christ. 26. Chris Gardner, “Walden looks for Lion’s Share,” Variety, December 11, 2005. http:// www.variety.com . 27. In 2007, it was accessed by an average of 3 million people per month, and its newsletter was sent to about 11 million Internet addresses. Sandie Angulo Chen, “Perspective from a Christian Critic,” Variety, April 2, 2007. http://www.variety.com . 28. Movieguide, “The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” December 9, 2005. http://www.movieguide.org/reviews/1-2471.html/ . 29. Carl DiOrio, “‘Prince’ not so charming,” The Hollywood Reporter, May 19, 2008. http:// www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/prince-not-charming-112043 . 30. Lignes de temps was developed by IRI—Institut de Recherches et d’Innovation. http:// www.iri.centrepompidou.fr/outils/lignes-de-temps/?lang=fr_fr . 31. As was for example the case with Troy (Wolfgang Petersen, 2004) that cost $175 million to produce, earned $133.38 million at the American box office and $364.03 million abroad. 32. Operation Narnia, http://www.operationnarnia.org, . 33. The winner was the Christian Academy of Louisville in Kentucky. 34. Many conservative Christians were particularly anxious about it as it is when Lucy understands she will not come back to Narnia and is told by Aslan that in her world she must learn to know him by another name (Jesus Christ in the subtext). 35. Narnia Faith, http://www.narniafaith.com/learn/the-voyage-of-the-dawn-treader-trailer . 36. Narnia Faith, http://www.narniafaith.com/engage/group-sales . 37. 54% of that box office came from the 1,988 cinemas that were showing the film in 3-D. 38. Carl DiOrio, “Underwhelming 'Narnia's' $24.5 Mil Debut Weekend Still Manages to Top ‘Tourist’,” The Hollywood Reporter, December 12, 2010. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ narnias-245-mil-debut-weekend-59052 . 40. Rhoda Tse, “Churches cautioned against rallying to all Christian-targeted Movies”, The Christian Post, November 11, 2005. http://www.christianpost.com . 41. Scaramanga, “Marketing Narnia: is that a Mouse in your Pulpit?,” Christianity Today, December 6, 2005. http://www.outofur.com . 42. Michael Kress, “Sparking the Big Question,” http://www.beliefnet.com/Entertainment/ Movies/Narnia/Sparking-The-Big-Questions.aspx, 2005 . 43. San Francisco Film Reviews and News, http://www.sf360.org/features/2006/05/ the_2006_san_fr.html . 44. In 2005, the American admissions reached 1.4 billion, down from 1.54 in 2004, and the average production costs of a studio film was $60 million while its marketing cost stood at $36.2

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million. Motion Picture Association of America, U.S. Theatrical Market: 2005 Statistics, http:// www.mpaa.org . 45. Jeff Giles, “This just in : Movies don’t make Money,” Variety, November 13, 2007. http:// www.variety.com . 46. The next Narnia film might not be released before 2018. http://www.narniaweb.com . 47. William D. Romanowski, Reforming Hollywood: how American Protestants Fought for Freedom at the Movies, 9. 48. For example James Russell, “Narnia as a Site of National Struggle,” Cinema Journal, 48 4 (summer 2009): 59-76. 49. For example Holes (Andrew Davis, 2003), Because of Winn-Dixie (Wayne Wang, 2005), The Water Horse (Jay Russell, 2007), Journey to the Center of the Earth (Eric Brevig, 2008), The Tooth-Fairy (Michael Lembeck, 2010) or the soon-to-be-released reboot of Benji (Brandon Camp, 2013).

ABSTRACTS

The relationship between Hollywood studios and the American conservative Christians has always been a tricky one, as they are not an easy audience to satisfy. The surprising box office success of The Passion of The Christ (Mel Gibson, 2004) nevertheless underlined that, in some cases, the American conservative Christians, and more particularly the Protestant ones, can become a financial asset as a niche audience for Hollywood. This article describes the reasons that pushed the producers and distributors of The Chronicles of Narnia to take advantage of that niche audience. It shows how they did it and came to collaborate with the American Evangelicals, who make an extensive use of modern methods of communication and welcome such high-profile opportunities to spread God’s word. But this article also demonstrates that in a globalized movie industry ruled by market shares and profits, Hollywood’s overtures to the American conservative Christians cannot but be limited, as the latter remain a niche audience.

INDEX

Keywords: niche marketing, Hollywood studios, Evangelicals, Chronicles of Narnia, Walden Media

AUTHOR

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“Paris . . . As You’ve Never Seen It Before!!!”: The Promotion of Hollywood Foreign Productions in the Postwar Era

Daniel Steinhart

1 From 1929 to 1930, MGM produced Trader Horn (W. S. Van Dyke, 1931), an adventure picture set in Africa. Instead of shooting the entire film on jungle sets erected in the studio, the company sent a production crew to Africa to obtain location footage, a novel decision worthy of Hollywood-style ballyhoo. While this undertaking did receive some attention in the film’s souvenir programs and pressbook, the location shooting was not mentioned on the film’s posters and advertisements.1 Twenty years later, MGM produced another African-set adventure film, King Solomon’s Mines (Compton Bennett and Andrew Marton, 1951). Although not quite a remake of Trader Horn, the cast and crew traveled to many of the same African locales where the original production had been filmed.2 This time, however, the posters proudly publicized, “Filmed Entirely in the Wilds of Africa in Technicolor.” So why the change? Why do the posters for King Solomon’s Mines highlight the fact that the film was shot on location in Africa while the advertisements for Trader Horn do not?

2 In addressing these questions, I would like to examine the promotion of Hollywood’s postwar foreign productions from the late 1940s to the early 1960s by focusing on why authentic locations were fore-grounded in these films’ promotional campaigns.3 I would also like to look at the different publicity and advertising strategies used by the film industry to sell this stylistic feature to audiences. I concentrate on audiences in the United States, but in places I describe the publicity of these films in European contexts. Ultimately, I want to stress that the prominence of authentic foreign locations in these campaigns reveals important changes in Hollywood promotional practices and in the self-image that the US film industry was advancing in an era of transition.

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Postwar Hollywood Foreign Productions

3 The promotion of authentic foreign locations points to a significant shift in the US film industry in the postwar era: Production was moving away from the Hollywood studio and Hollywood the place. Beginning in the late 1940s, Hollywood ventured into international production for a confluence of reasons, including access to frozen foreign earnings, the use of cheap yet skilled overseas labor, the eligibility for European subsidies, and, not least of all, the opportunity to capitalize on locations abroad.

4 For film producers, shooting a motion picture on the actual geographic location where the story was set became a way to bring audiences striking sights and sounds often captured by new color and widescreen technologies. The emphasis on foreign locales in promotional campaigns proved particularly beneficial at a time when studios were retrenching and when a single successful film could comprise most of a studio’s annual earnings, which meant that the “pre-sell”–the long advance build-up of a film–became crucial.4 Promoting foreign locations also helped to individualize the film product during a period when, as movie critic Jay E. Gordon asserts, “Each motion picture should be sold as a separate article of commerce, advertised in accordance with its own merits and within the bounds of established rules of salesmanship pertinent to creations of art.”5

5 The filming of authentic foreign locations was also a key issue in the debates among unions and producers over whether these “runaway” productions–as unions named them–contributed to the already diminished postwar film workforce. From some of its earliest pronouncements against runaway production, the Hollywood American Federation of Labor Film Council condemned overseas production except when a film required foreign locations.6 This exception was mentioned time and again by Hollywood producers to make the case to shoot films abroad. Producer Darryl Zanuck argues, “The only excuse in my opinion for anyone to make a picture abroad is because it cannot be properly produced anywhere else except on the locale dictated by the story.”7 While the promotion of authentic foreign locations was not an overt strategy to veil the controversial economic imperatives of overseas production, the advertising of foreign locales nevertheless conformed to producers’ delicate handling of labor and the runaway production problem.

Production Differentiation, Realism and Spectacle

6 More than just a decorative feature of foreign productions, real locations became a way for film companies to differentiate their products from each other and to entice back into movie theaters US audiences lured away by television and new leisure-time activities. In 1951, Daily Variety reported that Zanuck, then head of production at Twentieth Century-Fox, aimed to shoot his studio’s films on foreign locations whenever the subject matter called for it. For Zanuck, location shooting was one of the film industry’s means of successfully competing with TV.8 Producer Irving Allen shared a similar view in suggesting that the future of Hollywood was in international production and that diverse location work would bring audiences back to the cinemas.9

7 However, some US television commercials and programs, such as Foreign Intrigue (1951-1955), China Smith (1952-1955) and Ramar of the Jungle (1953-1954), were shot in

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foreign countries during this period. Even though in time television aimed for realism through documentary techniques, with cinema–as promotional campaigns drove home–producers could more fully represent foreign locations through color and widescreen technologies and deliver to audiences a vividness and scope that TV could not approximate.10 Also, just as foreign-shot movies promoted their locations, certain domestic film productions spotlighted authentic locales. Posters for Jules Dassin’s crime picture Naked City (1948) publicize, “Filmed in the streets of New York with a cast of 8 Million New Yorkers!” One Daily Variety advertisement for Silver City (Byron Haskin, 1951) announces, “High Adventure Actually Filmed in the High Sierras!” while another for Bayou (Harold Daniels, 1957) states, “Photographed in its entirety on location in the magnificent Cajun country.”11 However, the focus on location in promotional efforts and critical discourses for domestic productions was less pronounced than for overseas productions.

8 Much has been written about how Hollywood developed new color, widescreen and stereoscopic technologies as a response to the loss of audience in the early 1950s.12 More recently, some historians have observed how the combination of foreign location shooting with widescreen technologies contributed to the formation of new Hollywood film cycles in the postwar era.13 As I will demonstrate, bringing foreign location shooting into the discussion of postwar technologies reveals that advertising rhetoric routinely elevated overseas locales alongside these technological innovations, at times directly linking foreign locations with color and widescreen.

9 This practice was most overt in the copy and design of movie advertisements. A poster for Green Fire (Andrew Marton, 1955) reads, “M-G-M’s action-hit, filmed in the South American wilds in COLOR and CinemaScope.” Advertising Sayonara (Joshua Logan, 1957), a poster claims, “Filmed in Japan in the never-before-seen beauty of Technirama and Technicolor.” For Richard Fleischer’s The Vikings (1958), a poster promotes, “Actually Filmed Amid The Ice-Capped Fjords Of Norway And The Sea-Lashed Cliffs Of Brittany! In Horizon Spanning Technirama And Magnificent Technicolor!” These rhetorical flourishes, which paired location shooting with color and widescreen, hyped the way that foreign productions harnessed new technologies to render exotic and spectacular views from around the world. The effect promised audiences spectacle and a semblance of realism.

10 Janet Staiger has shown that in the early years of cinema, producers and exhibitors purposefully appealed to notions of spectacle and realism to sell films. For example, Thomas Edison advertised one of his projection systems in the late 1890s by ensuring a heightened experience of realism, while an advertisement for a 1912 multi-reeler, titled Homer’s Odyssey, underscored its realistic and spectacular qualities.14 Prefiguring postwar off-the-lot filming, independent companies in the 1910s sent motion picture units on location journeys both in the US and abroad, a venture that was advertised in order to emphasize the spectacular and realistic features in these films.15 In the postwar era, foreign productions continued this tradition by promoting the photographic depiction of a geographic reality and a sense of spectacle that was achieved through the global travel of film companies and the marvel of new technologies.

11 As some producers in the postwar period argued, recreating foreign settings in Hollywood studios was no longer practical because of changing audience expectations and the economic need to innovate. Producer William Perlberg makes the case:

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12 Competition for the entertainment dollar has wedded us to big films and to global stories. Clarity of pictures and size of screen are increasingly taxing the abilities of our art directors to provide believable exterior settings…When it comes to making Paris on the back lot, our trick bag is falling apart at the seams.16

13 So in order to evoke Paris–and other locales abroad–film companies had to shoot the real thing. The responsibility to prepare consumers and critics to appreciate foreign locations then fell to publicists and studio promotions departments.

Promotional Methods

14 What were the various ways that film companies sold foreign productions and their locations? We can divide a movie’s promotional campaign into two overlapping stages: 1) “pre-production/production phase” when publicists generated press stories, and 2) the “pre-release/release phase” when studio advertising and publicity departments distributed pressbooks and advertisement materials just prior to a film’s theatrical opening.17 Throughout this process, foreign locations were frequently highlighted in the campaigns.

Pre-production/Production Phase

15 In order to feed film trades and the popular press with production stories, a movie company relied on studio publicity departments, public relations firms and unit publicists who worked on location. Keeping an ear to the ground, unit publicists could convert the challenges and intricacies of location work into promotional material, which proved especially useful in selling foreign productions. For Moby Dick (John Huston, 1956), the film depended on the Warner Bros. publicity and advertising division and the public relations firm Rogers & Cowan, which hired Ernest Anderson, a London-based unit publicist who had a wide array of contacts with the European and US press.18 From various locations in the United Kingdom and Ireland, where Moby Dick was shot, Anderson published personalized press releases full of anecdotes about the locations and the logistical trials that the crew faced.19 With a first-hand perspective on the production, he transformed the unfolding drama of the film’s shoot into material that publications both in the US and abroad turned into news stories.

16 To handle publicity in Rome for the production of Roman Holiday (William Wyler, 1953), Paramount enlisted Jack Gold, a reporter and former Hollywood publicist, and his associate Ed Hill, a former newspaper editor. Based in the Italian capital, Gold and Hill helped oversee the editorial department of The Rome Daily American while working as stringers for various publications. They pitched their services to Paramount’s publicity director and eventually they were employed, saving the studio the expense of sending over one of its own publicists and allowing the studio to pay Gold and Hill in lire since both resided in Italy.20 With their connections to international publications, the two publicists sent out news stories via various wire services and set up production pieces with magazines and newspapers.21

17 As publicity campaigns placed greater attention on the production phase of foreign shoots, the US press responded with a growing interest in Hollywood foreign production work. From the late 1940s through the 1960s, the popular press, the film

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trades and professional publications were filled with news articles and profiles of productions shooting overseas. In the mid 1950s, Daily Variety introduced the columns “In Paris,” “In London” and “Roamin’ in Rome,” each of which reported on national film festivals, celebrity gossip and Hollywood films being shot in these respective cities. In the late 1950s, occasional columns emerged from Madrid and Tokyo as well. The publication of these dispatches not only marked the emergence of these regions as key production centers for Hollywood companies, but they also indicated that the very act of shooting in a foreign country was news itself.

18 The professional publication American Cinematographer represented locations abroad through features on production personnel who shared technical tales from their foreign work. The American Society of Cinematographers (ASC), the publisher of the magazine, treated foreign production as both a swashbuckling experience and a creative hurdle that the Hollywood director of photography triumphed over through competence, professionalism and technical know-how. For example, cinematographer Charles G. Clarke explains the challenges of making Fox’s Kangaroo (Lewis Milestone, 1952) in Australia while director of photography Russell Harlan recounts the difficulties of filming wildlife in East Africa for Howard Hawks’ Hatari! (1962).22 For these craftsmen, foreign locations were logical and technical problems to overcome through the solutions of Hollywood production practices, which, in turn, served to promote the adventure of overseas filming. These pieces fell in line with the strategies of promotional campaigns by playing up the feat of filmmaking to boost the worth of motion pictures.

19 The foreign popular press also followed Hollywood’s international productions, which helped fulfill the aims of Hollywood promotional efforts to build audience anticipation all over the world. At a time when the foreign market was making up for dwindling US audiences, Hollywood producers and publicists boosted their efforts to attract film viewers overseas. Now when a Hollywood company with publicity-generating stars came to a foreign locale, the local press took great interest in these films, churning out stories and photo spreads for a foreign public hungry for a taste of Hollywood glamour in its native land.

20 The foreign press was particularly captivated when its nation became the setting and location for a Hollywood shoot and when local stars were employed. The French press covered the Warner Bros. adaptation of Marcel Pagnol’s Fanny (1961), which was shot on location in Marseilles and starred French-turned-Hollywood actors Leslie Caron, Maurice Chevalier and Charles Boyer. Both Paris Match and Jours de France carried lengthy photo spreads of the actors performing and cavorting in the port of Marseilles. 23 However, Hollywood’s depiction of foreign cultures and landscapes was received with scrutiny from local journalists, as was the case with Fanny, which was panned by French critics.24

21 In Italy, the “Hollywood on the Tiber” phenomenon produced a great deal of media coverage of Hollywood filmmakers and movie stars working and unwinding throughout Italy. As Giuliana Muscio has demonstrated, Italian film publications offered dedicated coverage of both Hollywood productions in Italy and Hollywood movie stars in general. However, the reactions of these publications were mixed, sometimes provoking negative responses when Hollywood studios sent over an “invasion” of production units viewed as “a manifestation of economic and cultural imperialism.”25 While at other times, these productions garnered admiration for the draw of visiting Hollywood

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film stars. Italian newsreels tended to concentrate on the latter by filming Hollywood actors, producers and directors landing in Rome’s Ciampino Airport. For instance, the newsreel program La Settimana Incom recorded Audrey Hepburn and Mel Ferrer’s arrival in Rome to shoot War and Peace (King Vidor, 1956) while L’Europeo Ciac documented King Vidor’s arrival to direct A Farewell to Arms (1957) and Ava Gardner’s entry to star in The Naked Maja (Henry Koster, 1959). 26 For foreign audiences, the presence of Hollywood stars working in their home countries often caused eager anticipation for the release of films connected with the local region and culture.

22 In some cases, unit publicists facilitated production stories by arranging location visits for the press. For Moby Dick, the publicity team invited reporters from London, Dublin and Paris to the film set in Youghal, Ireland.27 Something of a novelty, these media visits became the basis of press releases from the film’s publicists.28 Hollywood Reporter columnist W.R. Wilkerson even picked up on the story, noting:

23 The shooting of a big motion picture in this location already was big news throughout Ireland, Scotland and England, and the press junket brought notice and early publicity for the picture to the attention of the whole of Europe, and because of that big coverage it is now reaching the papers here in the U.S… forming a pedestal of public anticipation that will sell a lot of tickets when the film finally is exhibited.29

Pre-release/Release Phase

24 Once the production wrapped, the promotional campaign turned its attention to exhibitors while also continuing to develop public interest through advertising materials. Central to this phase of the campaign was the pressbook. Studio advertising and publicity divisions produced these manuals, which contained a company’s suggested words and graphics for movie theater managers to use to advertise films in local newspapers and at their own cinemas.30 For Hollywood’s foreign productions, sample advertisements and pre-written stock articles commonly promoted a film’s location. By highlighting foreign scenery, studio press departments shaped the way that exhibitors publicized the films to audiences.

25 In the pressbook for the Warner Bros. swashbuckler The Master of Ballantrae (William Keighley, 1953), poster prototypes exclaim, “Filmed on the historic cliffs and moors of Scotland and Cornwall–and in the Mediterranean!” and an article headline declares, “Warners Film ‘Master of Ballantrae’ In Authentic Historical Locations.”31 Even for a period adventure film, real locations invested the movie with an air of authenticity. In the pressbook for Paramount’s September Affair (William Dieterle, 1951), a prepared article titled “Joan Fontaine in Love–with Lucky Italy!” presents the Italian filmmaking experience of lead actress Fontaine as a cultural holiday. The article describes:

26 The company filmed scenes in Rome, Naples and Florence, as well as on the Isle of Capri, so Joan had plenty of time to get the lay of the land. Her verdict: ‘Italy is unbelievably beautiful, and the people themselves – well mentally, I think they’re the healthiest people in the world. They’re so warm and spontaneous and happy. They seem to have found the secret to good living.’32

27 Though intended to emphasize the film’s authentic locations and Italian backdrop, the copy comes off as an advertisement for tourism in Italy.

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28 In fact, the pressbooks at times linked movie-going with travel by recommending cross- promotional tie-ins that encouraged trips to the films’ foreign locations. The pressbook for Roman Holiday informs exhibitors that that they can hold a contest for a trip to Rome sponsored by the Italian State Tourist Office and the American Society of Travel Agents.33 The pressbook for Funny Face (Stanley Donen, 1957) urges exhibitors to work with local travel bureaus to present displays in the movie theatre lobby. Alongside photos of the film’s stars in Paris, a travel bureau could set up its own display with the suggested tie-in line: “SEE PARIS THROUGH THE EYES OF AUDREY HEPBURN AND FRED ASTAIRE IN ‘FUNNY FACE’ . . . THEN LET US HELP YOU SEE IT FOR YOURSELF!”34 In an era when more US middle-class families were able to travel abroad, these gimmicks aimed to take advantage of a rising interest in global tourism, which Hollywood’s foreign productions gave audiences a taste of.35

29 From the pressbooks, theater managers could order a range of film posters and print advertisements. Even though the ads relied on the proven appeal of movie stars and images of lust and romance, they stressed foreign locations. Films shot in European cities were regularly pitched as urban tours. For Irving Allen and Franchot Tone’s production of The Man on the Eiffel Tower (Burgess Meredith, 1950), one poster pronounces just above an image of the titular landmark, “Paris . . . Gay, Alluring . . . Masking a Strange Adventure!,” at the same time giving fifth billing to “the city of Paris.” An advertisement for the film taken out in Daily Variety reads, “Paris . . . as you’ve never seen it before!!!”36 Six years later, Paris still held its allure as a publicity focal point. An advertisement for The Ambassador’s Daughter (1956) explains, “Writer- producer-director Norman Krasna has sent a sextet of stars and a wonderfully witty story Cinemascoping through the bistros and boulevards, the fashion salons and embassies, the hot spots and cool dives of the maddest, gladdest, wickedest, womanest city in the world–Paris.”37 In the advertising of these films, the city of Paris itself was a sign of sex and thrills that previously might have been delivered solely through character and story.

30 Posters and advertisements for films shot in Africa and South America oftentimes underscored the adventurousness of their geographical sites and location shoots. Through pithy taglines, these ads evoked the technical challenges and feats that press and professional accounts also conveyed. A lurid-looking poster for John Huston’s The African Queen (1952) asserts, “Actually filmed in the splendor and dangers of the Belgian Congo!” An advertisement for Green Fire announces, “Filmed on location in the danger- laden jungles of Colombia, South America!”38 A poster for the 1957 MGM production Something of Value (Richard Brooks) touts the fact that it was “Filmed under military protection in Africa where it happened!,” a statement that at once brings to mind the film’s controversial subject matter (the anti-colonialist Mau Mau uprising in Kenya) and the danger of shooting on location in Africa. Collapsing the film’s story and its making has been a long-running trope in film promotion, which found particular resonance in foreign productions when the story (a safari, combat, tourism, etc.) functioned as a metaphor for the movie’s overseas filming.

31 Other posters and advertisements brought forth making-of information, i.e. trivia about the production experience. For His Majesty O’Keefe (Byron Haskin, 1954), a poster trumpets the length of the shoot: “Adventure beyond the fabulous! Two years in the making! All of it actually filmed in the Fiji Islands!” A poster for Howard Hawks’ Land of the Pharaohs (1955) plays up the production’s epic undertaking by promoting,

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“Spectacularly filmed in Egypt with a cast of 11,500 by the largest location crew ever sent abroad from Hollywood!” Some advertisements accentuated the distance that a production unit traveled to make the film. An advertisement for Bhowani Junction (George Cukor, 1956) visually lays out the film’s production route, which spanned Hollywood, the North Pole, Copenhagen, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Egypt and Pakistan. Included is the line: “No motion picture company ever traveled as far (12,840 miles) and suffered such travail to film a great book in it’s [sic] actual fascinating and exciting locale…and no company was ever so richly rewarded”39 Along with using location and making-of information to evoke realism and spectacle, these posters’ promotion of a production’s dramatic execution gave added value to the film.

32 Just as posters drew attention to foreign locations, movie trailers also spotlighted foreign locales through a mixture of titles, voice-over narration and moving imagery. In her study of film trailers, Lisa Kernan observes that one convention of the form–the use of “shots of nature and other scene-setting devices”–creates a travelogue effect that promises audiences an experience of travel.40 Trailers for overseas productions fulfilled this commitment to transport audiences by depicting foreign places. For example, a sequence in a trailer for Three Coins in the Fountain (Jean Negulesco, 1954), the first CinemaScope film to be shot in Italy, plays like a travelogue as images and voice-over demonstrate how the widescreen format renders St. Peter’s Basilica, the Borghese Gardens and the Venice canals.

33 As with certain advertisement, some trailers also called attention to making-of information as a way to promote the production’s spectacular undertaking. In a trailer for John Ford’s Mogambo (1953), the voice-over mentions the dangers of filming in Africa and turns the story of white adventurers in black Africa into a dubious metaphor for the filmmaking experience. Other trailers used direct address to plug a movie’s production circumstances. In a ten-minute featurette trailer for The Ten Commandments (1956), director Cecil B. DeMille speaks from a library set and relates that the film was shot in the actual Egyptian locations where Moses once walked. He traces the path of both production and prophet on a map of the Sinai Peninsula, moving from the Land of Goshen to Mount Sinai, thereby imbuing the production with an aura of religious significance.

34 Trailers in which a film’s personnel recounted how a movie was made signaled a shift in promotional campaigns, as behind-the-scenes clips and anecdotes began to sell the story of a film’s production, a trend that found an unlikely home on US television. In the late 1950s, when studios such as Disney had proven the success of using sneak peeks into new movies and the filmmaking process on its show Disneyland, other film companies saw the value of promoting theatrical releases with behind-the-scenes footage.41 This trend also reflected a wider public interest in making-of information found on television and in magazines.42 By the 1960s, studios realized that TV networks liked to show promotional featurettes as accompaniments to primetime movies.43 Although these kinds of films date back to the silent studio era when cinemagoers were treated to visual tours of studio backlots, the 1960s upsurge was ushered in by the cross-promotion potential of television and new portable equipment that allowed small crews to travel all around the world to acquire footage of production work.

35 Authentic foreign locations and the attendant challenges of working abroad indeed became a major point of interest in promotional featurettes. A making-of short for Nicholas Ray’s King of Kings (1961) shows the filming of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.

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The promo details the Super Technirama crew’s difficult camera and lighting set-up, the use of thousands of Spanish extras, and the creation of production facilities and a commissary in the hills outside of Madrid. For Carl Foreman’s production of The Guns of Navarone (J. Lee Thompson, 1961), Columbia Pictures produced a series of featurettes recounting the parade of elite visitors to the film’s set, the Greek honeymoon of star James Darren, and the shopping spree of actresses Irene Papas and Gia Scala. Also illustrated are the difficult camera positions on the island of Rhodes. As the camera crew perches precariously alongside vertiginous sea cliffs, a voice-over narrates, “A studio would be safer, but only such rugged landscapes as these could capture the searing drama and high adventure of a lastingly great film.”

36 The imagery and rhetoric of these featurettes, which celebrate the films’ foreign settings and the filmmakers’ expertise, also fell into a promotional campaign’s discourse of realism and spectacle. Perhaps more significantly, these promos served a critical function by giving the public insight into the culture of filmmaking and the production process–albeit in a hyped-up way–which could be accessed through television. Even though the promotion of foreign locations was in part a tactic to lure audiences away from television, in time Hollywood would use TV to market the very features–spectacular landscapes, widescreen and vivid color–that the boxed medium could not yet deliver. This fusing of cinema and television points to the growing convergence of these media for promotional purposes, one which would increase all through the rest of the 20th century.

Changes in Hollywood’s Promotional Methods and Public Image

37 The selling of foreign productions through the promotion of authentic foreign scenery and the monumental operation of achieving these images indicates some consequential developments in Hollywood production practices and the tastes and habits of movie- going consumers. Because of the amplification of realism and spectacle in response to the popularity of television as well as the US public’s mounting interest in international travel and their awareness of the wider world, Hollywood had to embark on a new method of portraying foreign-set stories via location shooting. Publicists and advertisers subsequently brought to the fore this stylistic characteristic by fostering production stories in the press and accenting authentic foreign locales in exploitation tie-ins, posters, advertisements, trailers and featurettes.

38 Moreover, the promotional campaigns for foreign productions reflect some influential changes in Hollywood publicity and advertising strategies and the image of the US film industry. During the classical studio era, campaigns kept promotional activities during the production phase to a minimum. Even as studios previously employed “unit men” to turn out pre-production anecdotes, star biographies and industry gossip, much of this material was assembled before the film began shooting.44 Additionally, production stories–both true and apocryphal–trickled into the public through fan magazines, newsreels, craft journals and ultimately pressbooks, but this kind of publicity usually became a part of a film’s pre-release campaign.45 In the postwar era, the hiring of unit publicists and the facilitation of press coverage increased the benefit of doing promotional work during the production phases, rather than waiting until the production finished to sell the film.46

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39 This shift led to a second change in film promotions: The production experience itself became content for publicity and advertising campaigns. The publicity surrounding the production circumstances was not new in Hollywood. Advertising the high costs of filmmaking and a production’s scope and size was a common promotional strategy that dated from 1910s.47 However, in the postwar era, the concern with location shooting– especially foreign location shooting–and the difficulties that such work entailed were dramatized in press releases, advertisements and promotional films as a way to provide a dwindling movie audience with proof of a film’s worth and the continuing ingenuity of the cinematic medium.48

40 Finally, the ways that Hollywood foreign productions were promoted unveils changes in the postwar US film industry. The promotion of foreign location shooting signals that Hollywood production was becoming more international. These campaigns also shed light on marketing a self-image contrived by the industry during a time of transformation. As John Caldwell suggests, marketing can be “viewed as a quintessential form of industrial self-representation.”49

41 During the classical studio era, the US film industry had cultivated a self-image of a glamorous and technically savvy artists’ colony that was closely tied to Hollywood the geographical place and Hollywood the symbolic space. However, by the 1950s, this image of Hollywood was becoming outdated as film companies and independent producers were shooting movies around the globe, a new reality captured in film publicity. Nevertheless, these images were just as semi-manufactured as anything that had come before. Instead of stars living out their fantasies in Beverly Hills mansions, there were globetrotting actors involved in the high adventure of exotic location shoots. Instead of directors conjuring up illusions on Hollywood soundstages, there were filmmakers working all over the world and overcoming the most difficult of logistical challenges. At once accurate and exaggerated, these images tell us a good deal about evolving production practices and an industry that was navigating a period of major transition.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Archival Special Collections

Fanny Production File, Warner Bros. Archive, University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

John Huston Papers, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Library, Beverly Hills, California.

Master of Ballantrae Production File, Warner Bros. Archive, University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

Paramount Pictures Press Sheets, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Library, Beverly Hills, California.

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Paramount Pictures Production Records, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Library, Beverly Hills, California.

Trader Horn Clipping File, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Library, Beverly Hills, California.

William Wyler Papers, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Library, Beverly Hills, California.

Trade Papers

Daily Variety

Hollywood Reporter

Articles and Books

Anderson, Christopher. Hollywood TV: The Studio System in the Fifties. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994.

Balio, Tino. United Artists: The Company That Changed the Film Industry. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987.

Belton, John. Widescreen Cinema. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992.

Bordwell, David, Staiger, Janet and Thompson, Kristin. The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style & Mode of Production to 1960. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985.

Caldwell, John Thornton. Production Culture: Industrial Reflexivity and Critical Practice in Film and Television. Durham: Duke University Press, 2008.

Clarke, Charles G. “We Filmed ‘Kangaroo’ Entirely In Australia.” American Cinematographer, July 1952, 292-93, 315-17.

Gordon, Jay E. “There’s Really No Business Like Show Business.” Hollywood Quarterly 6 2 (Winter 1951). Reprinted in Hollywood Quarterly: Film Culture in Postwar America, 1945-1957, edited by Eric Smoodin and Ann Martin, 283-92. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.

Harlan, Russell. “On Safari With ‘Hatari’.” American Cinematographer, August 1961, 470-72, 488-89.

Kernan, Lisa. Coming Attractions: Reading American Movie Trailers. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004.

Lev, Peter. The Fifties: Transforming the Screen 1950-1959. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.

Mann, Denise. Hollywood Independents: The Postwar Talent Takeover. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008.

Miller, Mark S. “Helping Exhibitors: Pressbooks at Warner Bros. in the Late 1930s.” Film History 6 2 (Summer 1994), 188-196.

Muscio, Giuliana. “Invasion and Counterattack: Italian and American Film Relations in the Postwar Period.” In “Here, There and Everywhere”: The Foreign Politics of Popular Culture, edited by Reinhold Wagnleitner and Elaine Tyler May, 116-31. Hanover: University Press of New England, 2000.

“Oui c’est César.” Paris Match, May 28, 1960, 88-93.

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Perlberg, William. “What Do You Mean? Run-Away Production!,” The Journal of the Screen Producers Guild, December 1960, 7-8, 33.

Salgues, Yves. “Fanny à l’américaine.” Jours de France, June 11, 1960.

Schwartz, Vanessa R. It’s So French! Hollywood, Paris, and the Making of Cosmopolitan Film Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.

Shandley, Robert R. Runaway Romances: Hollywood’s Postwar Tour of Europe. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2009.

Zanuck, Darryl F. “Shoot It Where You Find It!.” The Journal of the Screen Producers Guild, December 1960, 3-4, 31.

NOTES

1. Trader Horn (Clipping File), Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Library (hereafter AMPAS Library). 2. “Metro Will Shoot ‘Solomon’s Mines’ On ‘Trader’ Locale,” Daily Variety, July 11, 1949, 3. 3. Reflecting Tino Balio’s analysis of United Artists’ promotional campaigns, I treat promotion as a “catchall term for advertising, publicity, and exploitation.” Balio, United Artists: The Company That Changed the Film Industry (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987), 199. 4. “Bigger Ad Budgets Urged By Perlberg to Hypo B.O,” Hollywood Reporter, June 20, 1951, 3. “Early Pre-Sell Need Greater Than Ever To Get Pix Coin; UI’s Lipton,” Daily Variety, April 1, 1958, 1, 5. 5. Jay E. Gordon, “There’s Really No Business Like Show Business,” Hollywood Quarterly 6 2 (Winter 1951) reprinted in Hollywood Quarterly: Film Culture in Postwar America, 1945-1957, eds. Eric Smoodin and Ann Martin (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 289. 6. “AFL Report on Pix Abroad Is Delayed,” Daily Variety, September 27, 1949, 2. 7. Darryl F. Zanuck, “Shoot It Where You Find It!,” The Journal of the Screen Producers Guild, December 1960, 4. 8. “Zanuck Sees Actual Locale Lensing As B.O. Stimulant And TV Antidote,” Daily Variety, July 19, 1951, 1, 4. 9. “Irving Allen Opines H’wood’s Future Lies In Int’l Production,” Daily Variety, January 6, 1954, 3. 10. “Realism Next Big TV Trend: Leonard,” Daily Variety, October 9, 1958, 8. 11. Silver City advertisement, Daily Variety, December 26, 1951, 9. Bayou advertisement, Daily Variety, November 5, 1956, 16. 12. Peter Lev, The Fifties: Transforming the Screen 1950-1959 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003). John Belton, Widescreen Cinema (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992). 13. Vanessa R. Schwartz, It’s So French! Hollywood, Paris, and the Making of Cosmopolitan Film Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), chs. 1 and 4. Robert R. Shandley, Runaway Romances: Hollywood’s Postwar Tour of Europe (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2009), 76-110. 14. Janet Staiger, The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style & Mode of Production to 1960 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), 100. 15. Staiger, The Classical Hollywood Cinema, 122. 16. William Perlberg, “What Do You Mean? Run-Away Production!,” The Journal of the Screen Producers Guild, December 1960, 7. 17. I am basing the distinction of these phases on Balio’s conception of film promotion in United Artists, 199. 18. John Huston to Henry Rogers, April 24, 1954. Henry Rogers to John Huston, May 7, 1954, Moby Dick (Henry Rogers), John Huston Papers, AMPAS Library.

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19. Ernest Anderson, “Bulletin No. 1 from Youghal, County Cork, Eire,” n.d., Moby Dick (Publicity), John Huston Papers, AMPAS Library. 20. Jack Gold to Teet Carle, April 2, 1952, Roman Holiday (Correspondence 1952), Paramount Pictures Production Records, AMPAS Library. 21. Jack Gold and Ed Hill to Teet Carle, July 7, 1952, Roman Holiday (Publicity), William Wyler Papers, AMPAS Library. 22. Charles G. Clarke, “We Filmed ‘Kangaroo’ Entirely In Australia,” American Cinematographer, July 1952, 292-93, 315-17. Russell Harlan, “On Safari With ‘Hatari’,” American Cinematographer, August 1961, 470-72, 488-89. 23. “Oui c’est César,” Paris Match, May 28, 1960, 88-93. Yves Salgues, “Fanny à l’américaine,” Jours de France, June 11, 1960, Fanny (Publicity Clips), Warner Bros. Archive, University of Southern California (hereafter Warner Archive). 24. “French Critics Blast ‘Fanny’ Film Version,” Times Herald-Tribune-London-Observer, April 20, 1962, Fanny (Publicity Clips), Warner Archive. 25. Giuliana Muscio, “Invasion and Counterattack: Italian and American Film Relations in the Postwar Period,” in “Here, There and Everywhere”: The Foreign Politics of Popular Culture, eds. Reinhold Wagnleitner and Elaine Tyler May (Hanover: University Press of New England, 2000), 123. 26. La Settimana Incom, April 21, 1955. L’Europeo Ciac, July 31, 1957 and May 1, 1958. Cinecittà Luce, http://www.archivioluce.com/archivio/ 27. Leslie Frewin to John Huston, July 13, 1954. Moby Dick (Publicity Correspondence), John Huston Papers, AMPAS Library. 28. Ernest Anderson, press release, July 24, 1954, Moby Dick (Publicity Correspondence), John Huston Papers, AMPAS Library. 29. W. R. Wilkerson, “Trade Views,” Hollywood Reporter, August 5, 1954, 1. 30. For an overview of pressbooks see Mark S. Miller, “Helping Exhibitors: Pressbooks at Warner Bros. in the Late 1930s,” Film History 6 2 (Summer 1994): 188-196. Also, Balio, United Artists, 212. 31. Master of Ballantrae pressbook, Master of Ballantrae (Publicity), Warner Archive. 32. September Affair pressbook, Paramount Pictures Press Sheets, AMPAS Library. 33. Roman Holiday pressbook, Paramount Pictures Press Sheets, AMPAS Library. 34. Funny Face pressbook, Paramount Pictures Press Sheets, AMPAS Library. 35. “New Pix Meet Fans Travel Urge,” Daily Variety, November 16, 1948, 11. Belton, Widescreen Cinema, 93-94. Schwartz, It’s So French!, 192-93. Shandley, Runaway Romances, 93-95. 36. The Man on the Eiffel Tower advertisement, Daily Variety, January 19, 1950, 13-19. 37. The Ambassador’s Daughter advertisement, Daily Variety, July 27, 1956, 16. 38. Green Fire advertisement, Daily Variety, January 12, 1955, 5. 39. Bhowani Junction advertisement, Daily Variety, July 7, 1955, 6-7. 40. Lisa Kernan, Coming Attractions: Reading American Movie Trailers (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004), 12. 41. Christopher Anderson, Hollywood TV: The Studio System in the Fifties (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994), chs. 6 and 7. 42. Denise Mann, Hollywood Independents: The Postwar Talent Takeover (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008), 25-26. 43. “Promotional Featurettes for TV (5 to 30 Mins., Up to $25,000) Enjoy Spreading Acceptance,” Variety, December 11, 1963, 5, 16. 44. Miller, “Helping Exhibitors,” 191-92. 45. Miller, “Helping Exhibitors,” 189. John Thornton Caldwell, Production Culture: Industrial Reflexivity and Critical Practice in Film and Television (Durham: Duke University Press, 2008), 283-84. 46. “Agency Plumping For Ad-Bally Prior To Films’ Shooting,” Daily Variety, May 14 1958, 4. 47. Staiger, Classical Hollywood Cinema, 99-100.

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48. These changes coincided with what Denise Mann argues was a shift in postwar promotions when studios gave up their hold on film fan magazines and as industry gossip columnists lost their influence in shaping the image of the industry. In their place, she contends that television entertainers offered the public “insider references.” Mann, Hollywood Independents, 25-26. 49. Caldwell, Production Culture, 274.

ABSTRACTS

This article examines the marketing of postwar Hollywood foreign productions by asking why authentic locations were fore-grounded in the promotional campaigns for films that were shot overseas from the late 1940s to the early 1960s. It argues that as with new color and widescreen technologies, film companies emphasized the realism and spectacle of foreign locations and the work of global production to attract a diminishing domestic audience that was gravitating to television and new leisure-time activities, while also appealing to increasingly important foreign markets. As a secondary concern, this article stresses that the discourse of foreign location shooting in these campaigns sheds light on changes in Hollywood production and promotional practices and in the self-image that the US film industry was manufacturing in an era of transition.

INDEX

Keywords: promotion, postwar Hollywood, foreign locations, realism, spectacle

AUTHOR

DANIEL STEINHART Daniel Steinhart is a Ph.D. candidate in Cinema and Media Studies at UCLA’s School of Theatre, Film and Television, where he is completing a thesis on the internationalization of Hollywood production and foreign location shooting in the postwar era. He conducted his thesis research in France on a Fulbright Fellowship.

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The Multiple Facets of Enter the Dragon (Robert Clouse, 1973)

Pierre-François Peirano

1 In the field of American foreign policy, the early 1970s witnessed warmer relations between the United States and the Chinese-speaking world, as showed the official visit to Beijing by President Nixon, in February 1972. As if to provide a direct answer to this key political event–the first time a President of the United States had paid an official visit to China–, the cinema industry got in tune and, the following year, Enter the Dragon was released, the first ever co-production between a Hollywood studio, Warner Bros., and a Hong Kong production company, that of Raymond Chow and Bruce Lee–even though, of course, Hong Kong was not part of the People’s Republic of China at the time. More than the resurgence of the dream of establishing long-term relationships with Cathay, which was shared by numerous Founding Fathers in the period of the Early Republic, the movie was first intended to launch the career of actor and martial arts champion Bruce Lee in Hollywood. Even though his fame was already extending far beyond the borders of Hong Kong–with movies like Big Boss (Wei Lo, 1971), Fist of Fury (Wei Lo, 1972) and Return of the Dragon (Bruce Lee, 1972), the first ever Hong Kong film shot in Europe–, he had only made brief appearances in American movies or series.

2 The film that was supposed to promote Lee on the American market–even though he was a United States citizen–had to work according to a precise formula. It had to stick to the previous kung-fu movies that had made him famous, while introducing elements that were susceptible of attracting Asian, American, as well as European audiences–the eventual success of the movie was not fully predictable, though.

3 This was why Enter the Dragon followed the framework of a kung-fu movie, while including elements belonging to adventure or espionage ones, and was promoted differently according to the countries or areas in which it was released, so as to appeal to a wide variety of audiences. To do so, the characters and the plot were portrayed under a different light, which was made easier by the various elements of the work, a blend of numerous genres.

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4 The film met considerable success, as Enter the Dragon, with a 25-million-dollar operating profit in the United States, was one of the most successful movies of 1973. A close analysis of its promotion shows that it used the identity, or the stereotypes, associated to a particular area to make the work as attractive as possible–according to the targeted audience. This article is divided into three parts. First, the emphasis is laid on the various elements of the movie that enabled its promotion and that the spectators could also associate to other contemporary movies–the first condition of success. Then, the workings of the promotion is analyzed and illustrated by a study of the original posters and trailers, which account for revealing differences according to the targeted markets. Lastly, the underlying political message, another corollary of a successful promotion–particularly in the United States–is highlighted.

At the Crossroads of Various Genres

5 First, however, a short overview of the plot, partly the work of Bruce Lee himself, remains necessary. Lee (Bruce Lee), a Shaolin martial arts specialist, is asked by Braithwaite (Geoffrey Weeks), a member of the British secret service, to take part in a tournament organized by the mysterious Mr. Han (Shih Kien) on his island, off the Hong Kong territory. Indeed, the British have long suspected Han of being the leader of a prostitution and drug-trafficking ring, but all the previous attempts to infiltrate his organization have failed. Lee accepts to carry out this task and, almost simultaneously, learns that Han was himself a former disciple of the Shaolin Temple, but was expelled after contravening its rules, and that Han’s bodyguard, O’Hara (Robert Wall), was involved in the suicide of Lee’s elder sister. The desire for revenge thus urges him further to go to Han’s island.

6 Among others, two martial arts specialists, Roper (John Saxon) and Williams (Jim Kelly), are also taking part in this tournament. While the former has to pay off a debt to the Mob, the latter had to flee the United States after an altercation with two prejudiced policemen. The three of them will respectively play a part in dismantling Han’s organization and this summary already shows that the movie can be linked to the “high concept” theory, which, in the United States, applies to movies most likely to bring in profits. Numerous factors come into play: first, the “international” character of the work, not forgetting the possibility of summing up the plot in twenty words or so.1 In the case of Enter the Dragon, it is possible to write, “Three men are going to try to dismantle, during a martial arts tournament, Han’s mysterious organization” (16 words). However, one feature of the “high concept” does not seem to apply to Enter the Dragon: according to this theory, a film falling into this category has to belong to a specific genre. For the film directed by Robert Clouse, however, a blending of various genres was essential to its promotion and its success.

7 In the first place, Enter the Dragon can be considered as a kung-fu movie properly speaking and several of its elements were susceptible of attracting an Asian audience, who had a better knowledge of the character of Bruce Lee and his previous films. For this type of audience, continuity was thus privileged and the previous codes respected. In the Hong Kong trailer, fight scenes are overwhelmingly present and the theme of revenge, one of the main workings of previous films such as Fist of Fury–in which Lee avenged the death of his former instructor–, is also to be found in Enter the Dragon. One could even draw a parallel with 14th- and 16th-century classical Chinese novels such as

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Water Margin (Shui-hu-zhuan) or The Journey to the West (Xi youji), that have remained quite popular and in which characters linked by a common past meet again, haphazardly, without being previously acquainted. In the case of Enter the Dragon, Han has offended the Shaolin Temple and O’Hara, his bodyguard, is indirectly responsible for the suicide of Lee’s elder sister. In his introduction to Water Margin, French sinologist Jacques Dars wrote: One could claim that the book is composed of several stories rather than one story, […] as the reader is led through twists and turns, meanders and digressions. However, he follows the way without any reluctance, as the carefully-crafted and interwoven plots follow one another and captivate him. He has the opportunity to make better acquaintance with strongly individualistic, often complex characters, confronted to unexpected situations. Lastly, through the various protagonists, the Chinese society of the time, in its admirable and picturesque variety, is gradually revealed.2

8 In Enter the Dragon, of course, one does not come across such high standards, but similar workings are to be found–even though they do not cover the span of a classical novel– and variety, also used to commercial purposes, still characterizes the work.

9 Indeed, this movie can be defined as the crucible of various genres and introducing other elements within the kung-fu movie formula could catch the attention of a “Western” audience–both in America and Europe–, who would recognize features borrowed from contemporary films and television series. First, those devoted to martial arts were already popular in the United States, as the broadcasting of the television series Kung Fu on ABC between 1972 and 1975 showed. In The Cinema of Hong Kong: History, Arts, Identity, first published in 2000, David Desser and Poshek Fu went as far as dubbing this trend “the kung-fu craze.”3 Such a topic meant exoticism for the American audience and, in the trailer itself, the popularization of the Shaolin thought pattern, which pervades the movie, was already at work through the famous sentence professed by Lee to one of his disciples, “It is like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don’t concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory.”4 The references to natural elements and heavenly bodies had been, for a long time, associated to the Far East.

10 More importantly, the influence of other genres and other contemporary movies may be spotted at various levels. First, the character of Williams, an African American, is a direct reference to the trend known as “Blaxploitation”–various movies released in the early 1970s in an attempt to popularize and redeem the image of the African American community within the United States.5 His Afro hairstyle further accounts for this influence and gives strength to the “baroque” character of the movie, much like the presence of Roper, a White man.6 Seeing characters belonging to those ethnic groups practice martial arts and take part in a tournament in the company of Asians may, at first sight, seem as surprising as the arrival of cowboys at the court of Mexican Emperor Maximilian in the Western movie Vera Cruz (1954), by Robert Aldrich. In view of those trailers, the spectator would probably have thought this was a “hybrid” kung- fu movie, in which the various characters came from various ethnic groups and different backgrounds. This feature is much more emphasized in the American trailer than in the Hong Kong one.

11 It now appears indispensable to mention the multiple references to the James Bond franchise. Actually, 007 had already made a trip to the Far East six years before in You Only Live Twice (Lewis Gilbert, 1967) and the latest–at the time–movie in the series, Live

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and Let Die (Guy Hamilton), also dealing with drug-trafficking, was to be released at about the same period, in 1973.7 In the light of this, the hypothesis that Warner Bros. wished to provide a direct reply to MGM and United Artists could be raised. At the beginning of Enter the Dragon, Braithwaite, a member of the British secret service–and a representative of the British Crown–has a conversation with Lee and assigns him to go to Han’s island and find out whether the latter really indulges in illegal practices. Lee thus becomes a kind of secret agent, as Bernard Benoliel wrote, “Bruce Lee, who has become a secret agent, thus listens to his interlocutor’s lecture and takes on, without any effort, some of 007’s attributes as well as the codes of this large symbolic and economic machine.”8 This feature of Enter the Dragon will be further analyzed in the following lines as, in his work, Benoliel just states a few facts before laying the emphasis on the aesthetics of the movie, as well as Bruce Lee’s body language and presence on the screen. Han, who lives secluded on his island protected like a fortress, thus undeniably reminds one of Doctor No, even when seeing the trailer, as Braithwaite can be heard saying, “[Han] lives like a king on that island– totally self-sufficient.”9

12 More generally, many elements belonging to serial movies or comic books–references to Doctor Fu Manchu, for instance–are to be found in the movie as well. Let us take, as a revealing example, a plate from Cigars of the Pharaoh, the fourth Tintin comic book by Hergé, taken from the black and white album published in 1934. While Tintin is walking in underground corridors, an iron door suddenly shuts down behind him and he then faces cobras. Those elements are used in Enter the Dragon, when Lee investigates the underground base of the island, and the shot of the iron door being shut is inserted in the trailer. There does not seem to be, of course, a direct link between Hergé’s plate and Enter the Dragon, but those elements send one back to the general codes of “serial” comic books or movies. Even at this stage, when the spectator had not seen the whole film yet, he/she could anticipate that the movie would feature mysterious characters, secret passages and traps, taking up the usual workings of those kinds of adventures.

13 Lastly, for a public more likely to appreciate classic movies, the climactic fight between Han and Lee in a room full of mirrors shared similarities with The Lady from Shanghai (Orson Welles, 1947), in which the final scene also unfolded in a similar place. All those elements taken together combined to make Enter the Dragon a movie likely to appeal to a wide audience, in Asia as well as in America or Europe. Lalo Schifrin’s soundtrack, blending Far Eastern tones and rhythms recalling his previous compositions for the television series Mission: Impossible or the movie Dirty Harry (Don Siegel, 1971), also conveyed such a message. The critical reviews of the time also stressed this blending of genres, most of them claiming that the film was “halfway between Doctor No and Fu Manchu.”10

The Various Posters and Trailers

14 The various elements that have just been mentioned were highlighted in the various trailers and posters–which, at the time, constituted the most appropriate means of promoting the movie. But, according to the area–and to the targeted audience–, different features were respectively emphasized. It has to be stated, at first, that the political borders became quite porous and the territory of Hong Kong remained associated to the Far East at large, as part of a continuous interplay with Western references. For the main purpose in the film’s marketing, given its hybrid character,

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was to promote it on various markets and make it as attractive as possible–stressing both its “international” character and its links with the identity of each targeted area.

15 On each continent, however, Enter the Dragon was boasted as a milestone, even a world première. In the American trailer, the voice-over said that it was “the first martial arts film produced by a major Hollywood studio.” In the Hong Kong one, by contrast, it was promoted as “the first international film starring a leading Chinese actor” and the fight scenes were overwhelmingly present, as if to meet the expectations of the Asian audience and to imply that it was now possible to promote a kung-fu movie in the Western world.

16 Bruce Lee–a United States citizen of Chinese origin–and the character he plays on screen are thus used differently and his ethnic origin is highlighted for the Hong Kong market. However, the way the main characters are presented–not only Lee, but also Williams and Roper–in the trailers and the posters also reveals the inner workings of the film’s marketing. In the American trailer, the three characters appear in succession–first Roper, then Williams, then Lee–and are then called “the deathly three.”11 Each of them thus seems to play an equivalent role in the plot, probably because the various types of American spectators could identify to such and such character.

17 The American poster also reflects this trend,12 as the three characters are represented on top of it, along with actress Ahna Capri, who plays Han’s lady friend, while Han is represented at the bottom. Her presence is much revealing: although she is far from being a main character, she is represented as one, probably to link Enter the Dragon with the James Bond franchise and make the “environment” of a kung-fu movie more familiar to the Western spectator. In the Hong Kong poster,13 on the contrary, Bruce Lee really steals the show: he is represented three times instead of one, fighting, while Roper, Williams and Han only feature at the bottom. A similar choice is made in the Hong Kong trailer, which opens with Lee showing his skills in handling nunchaku, followed by a fight scene.14 For this audience, the actor and the character he plays must remain the center of attention, in continuity with previous movies. In this way, aesthetics also comes into play and the painstaking arrangement of the various fight scenes probably constituted another kind of appeal to the spectator. Even today, Lee’s famous “crescent kick” in the climax fight with Han remains one of the best- remembered scenes in the movie and online videos are even exclusively devoted to it.15 However, this issue has already been studied in various other books,16 which is why the emphasis is laid on marketing itself.

18 Identity thus constitutes one of the main workings in the film’s marketing. In Hong Kong, Lee is presented as a “Chinese”–notwithstanding the ambiguities this statement can lead to–and as the main character, while Roper and Williams are portrayed as playing second fiddle to Lee. In the trailer, the former appear in succession, before the Asian actors, who are totally neglected in the American trailer. On this market, the casting of Bruce Lee in the movie remains an exotic and attractive element, as he is described as a “martial arts champion” and as an “international star.” Nevertheless, he remains a character among others, even a mere agent entrusted with an assignment. Indeed, the character of Braithwaite also appears in the trailer, giving instructions to Lee and answering one of his questions. More than a reminiscence of M, the MI6 chief in the Bond franchise, Braithwaite can also remind a Western spectator of British supervision in Hong Kong. It would also be useful to state that drug-trafficking could,

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more or less unconsciously, be associated to the colony of Hong Kong and its foundation, as the opium trade had played a key role in it, back in the mid-19th century.

19 Braithwaite, as brief as his appearances may be, recalls this past and those commonplaces, while a further parallel is drawn with the Bond films in the American and European trailers. The posters destined to this area also convey a similar message: the same block capitals as in You Only Live Twice, the same arrangement as in Live and Let Die, released a month earlier. The main characters occupy the top of the poster, while the most spectacular scenes are represented at the bottom. The example of the French translation of the title sheds further light: Opération Dragon is a direct reference to Opération Tonnerre, the French translation for Thunderball, the 1965 James Bond movie directed by Terence Young. Lastly, Lalo Schifrin’s soundtrack remains ever-present in each trailer. Borrowing key elements–or stereotypes–from various genres may lead one to assume that the screenplay of Enter the Dragon was underpinned by “textual poaching,”17 but it should be acknowledged that, at the same time, a kung-fu movie had greater chances of success if a large part of the audience could recognize elements from more familiar films or franchises. In this respect, the poster is just a detail and the trailers are much more revealing.

Enter the Dragon and the American Social and Political Context

20 While martial arts and entertainment are overwhelmingly emphasized in the Hong Kong trailer, the main characters and the key moments in the plot are introduced in the American one. Already, Han’s island is described as a mysterious place, where the protagonists will be in a tight game, “Roper, Williams and Lee penetrate the secret chambers of an evil island empire,” says the voice-over.18 The underlying message, which goes beyond the wish to expand on the Hong Kong market, is given more strength, as the American trailer also conveys a political message. Han is already portrayed as the villain and, interesting detail, always wears a shirt with a Mao collar. Furthermore, he wishes to recruit people who can help him develop his illegal practices in the United States–hence the proposal he makes to Roper, which is inserted in the trailer, “I’m hoping you join us, represent us in the United States.”19 Han does not only aim at introducing “inside enemies” within the United States territory–a recurring element in the movies shot during the Cold War period–, he also epitomizes the “Yellow Peril,” like Doctor Fu Manchu or Doctor No.20

21 In the trailer, it is already suggested that Han wishes to harm the United States and, even if he lives on an island, like the Chinese nationalists in Taiwan, he remains the villain, shaking up traditions in a pernicious way–as the spectator quickly learns that he has offended the Shaolin Temple. Against him, the American society as a whole stands up: Lee, of Asian origin, Roper, a WASP, and Williams, an African American, embody its diversity–hence the necessity to give them equal importance in the trailer. The American nation is portrayed as a united, even reconciled one, as Williams and Roper both fought in the Vietnam War.

22 While conveying such a message, the marketing of the movie can be associated to the “national interest” as defined by historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., “The moral content of national interest is determined by three things: by national traditions, by

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political leadership and by public opinion.”21 In the trailer, the implicit goal of targeting a mass audience may be spotted and, in this sense, the context of the Cold War cannot be forgotten. For the Hong Kong audience, on the contrary, the character of Lee alone seems to dismantle Han’s organization using his various skills and Enter the Dragon was protean enough to be to a different context, evidence of potential worldwide success. It is worth mentioning, once again, that the political dimension is by no means emphasized in the Hong Kong trailer, in which the various fight scenes checkering the movie only seem to count.

23 Going beyond the frame of this study, further questions could be raised: could this mean that the Asian audience was somewhat “infantilized,” as it was deemed that mere fight scenes could be enough to attract spectators? Would this choice, on the contrary, reveal the wish to water down the political dimension–and the influence of the Cold War–to market the movie in various Far East countries? Both hypotheses deserve to be raised, but the eventual success of Enter the Dragon even shifted the balance from one part of the Pacific to the other, as the martial arts film then became more popular in the United States. The movie is even considered as a landmark in this process: Eventually, the force and popularity of the kung-fu films themselves would lead to a genre we might call “martial arts”, a genre that arose in the United States only after the kung fu crazed had passed. And it was Warner Brothers in the final analysis, that had preceded, initiated, and developed the craze, and helped shift the whole thing toward more American productions and orientation.22

24 It seems that Enter the Dragon could thus be used in a very “flexible” way, so as to attract wide audiences across the world and the various elements of the film were probably blended in this purpose. However, the success of a movie, more than the short-term benefits, can be measured by its influence and its perennial character. In those domains, the success of Enter the Dragon cannot be questioned: nowadays, the overall benefits amount to $90 million dollars–for an initial cost of $850,000.23 It is generally ranked as one of the most outstanding films released in the year 197324 and the marketing of the film continued throughout the years, giving rise to all sorts of products, even including figures representing Bruce Lee.

25 At the time, the work could have been interpreted as an abortive success: Lee died in mysterious circumstances on July 20, 1973, a few weeks after the completion of the movie and a few days before its release, while Jim Kelly and John Saxon did not have other opportunities to come under the limelight. However, Enter the Dragon initiated a flurry of codes and references, so much so that subsequent movies were inspired by this blend of espionage, adventure and kung-fu, as the wish to benefit from the tremendous success of the movie emerged. Nowadays, its fame is rather accounted by the various fight scenes and the fact that the film was shot a short while before Lee’s death, as proves the summary on the Rotten Tomatoes website: One of the most popular king fu films ever, and perhaps the peak of the famed Bruce Lee’s career, Enter the Dragon achieved success by presenting a series of superbly staged fighting sequences with a minimum of distractions. […] Essential viewing for martial arts fans, the film was also embraced by a larger audience, thanks to a fast pace and higher-than-usual production values.25

26 Thus, it has to be underlined that the success of the film at the time was probably due to other elements, such as the blending between various other elements–especially the influence of the Bond franchise. On a larger perspective, a new continuity was initiated and it would even be possible to mention–as evidence of the links previously analyzed–

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The Shrine of Ultimate Bliss, a 1974 B-movie directed by Feng Huang, in which Bruce Lee was supposed to play the main character and dismantle a drug-trafficking ring. He was replaced by George Lazenby, the one-time James Bond in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (Peter R. Hunt, 1969), shot a few years earlier.

27 In this field, the movies did not automatically meet success and numerous films of average quality, now known as “Bruceploitation,” followed, while the Bond franchise itself turned out to be influenced by Enter the Dragon–a form of poetic justice and a proof that “textual poaching” could now work in the reverse way. The following year, in The Man With the Golden Gun (Guy Hamilton, 1974), 007 once again travelled to the Far East, in Macao, Hong Kong, Thailand and Vietnam, and it even seemed necessary to include a scene in which he fought against martial arts champions. An extract was, of course, included in the trailer, another reference to Enter the Dragon and its worldwide fame.26 The way the film was successfully promoted in various areas of the globe undeniably contributed to it.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Benoliel, Bernard. Opération Dragon, de Robert Clouse. Crisnée: Yellow Now, « Côté Films », 2010.

Bordwell, David. Planet Hong Kong: Popular Cinema and the Art of Entertainment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000.

Dars, Jacques. Au bord de l’eau. Paris: Gallimard, 1997.

Desser, David, and Fu, Poshek (eds.). The Cinema of Hong Kong: History, Arts, Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Fleming, Ian. Doctor No. London: Penguin, 2006.

Hergé. Les Cigares du pharaon. Bruxelles : Casterman, 1934.

Logan, Bax. Hong Kong Action Cinema. London: Titan Books, 1995.

Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr.. The Cycles of American History. Boston-New York: Houghton-Mifflin, 1999.

Wyatt, Justin. High Concept: Movies and Marketing in Hollywood. Austen: University of Texas Press, 1994.

Webography

American and European trailer of Enter the Dragon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB-QGOChuQc

Hong Kong trailer of Enter the Dragon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ksc_7StCIgU

Lee’s “crescent kick” in Enter the Dragon:

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prqiKtmyVt4

Cost of Enter the Dragon and benefits brought in: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070034/business

Enter the Dragon in various rankings of the films released in the year 1973: http://www.filmsite.org/1973.html http://www.films101.com/y1973r.htm

The Rotten Tomatoes review of Enter the Dragon: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/enter_the_dragon/

Trailer of The Man With the Golden Gun: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xzt6zAj7XUM

Films and television series cited

Big Boss. Raymond Chow/Golden Harvest, Lo Wei, 1971.

Dirty Harry. Warner Bros., Don Siegel, 1971.

Enter the Dragon. Warner Bros./Raymond Chow, Robert Clouse, 1973.

Fist of Fury. Raymond Chow/Golden Harvest, Lo Wei, 1972.

Kung Fu. Jerry Thorpe, 1972-75.

The Lady from Shanghai. Columbia Pictures, Orson Welles, 1947.

Live and Let Die. United Artists, Guy Hamilton, 1973.

The Man With the Golden Gun. United Artists, Guy Hamilton, 1974.

Mission: Impossible. Desilu Productions/Paramount Television, 1966-73.

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. United Artists, Peter Hunt, 1969.

Return of the Dragon. Raymond Chow/Golden Harvest, Bruce Lee, 1972.

Shaft. MGM, Gordon Parks, 1971.

The Shrine of Ultimate Bliss. Raymond Chow/Golden Harvest, Huang Feng, 1974.

Thunderball. United Artists, Terence Young, 1965.

Vera Cruz. MGM, Robert Aldrich, 1954.

You Only Live Twice. United Artists, Lewis Gilbert, 1967.

NOTES

1. Justin Wyatt, High Concept: Movies and Marketing in Hollywood (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006), 12-13. 2. Jacques Dars, introduction to Water Margin (Paris : Gallimard, 1997), 8. 3. David Desser and Poshek Fu (eds.), The Cinema of Hong Kong: History, Arts, Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 4. Enter the Dragon (Robert Clouse, 1973).

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5. Shaft (Gordon Parks, 1971) is often considered as a pioneer movie in this trend. 6. “Baroque” may, in this case, be defined as opposed to classicism and giving free course to imagination. 7. Enter the Dragon was released in Hong Kong on July 26, 1973, and in the United States on August 19, while Live and Let Die was released in the United States on June 27 and in Great Britain on July 12. 8. Bernard Benoliel, Opération Dragon, de Robert Clouse (Crisnée : Yellow Now, « Côté Films », 2010) 8. 9. Enter the Dragon (Robert Clouse, 1973). 10. Bey Logan, Hong Kong Action Cinema (London: Titan Books, 1995), 111. 11. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB-QGOChuQc . 12. See http://impawards.com/1973/enter_the_dragon.html . 13. See http://www.filmposter.net/movieposters/poster/movie/original/enter-the-dragon-8 . 14. Internet link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ksc_7StCIgU . 15. Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prqiKtmyVt4 . 16. David Bordwell’s study Planet Hong Kong: Popular Cinema and the Art of Entertainment (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000) has to be mentioned here. 17. This idea was initially developed by Michel de Certeau in his work L’invention du quotidien (Paris: Gallimard, 1980). 18. Pay attention to the order in which the characters are respectively mentioned: the one played by Bruce Lee once again comes last. 19. Enter the Dragon (Robert Clouse, 1973). 20. In the novel by Ian Fleming, published in 1958, it is clearly stated that Doctor No works for Chinese Communists–contrary to the film, shot four years later, in which he works for the terrorist organization SPECTRE. 21. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Cycles of American History (Boston-New York: Houghton-Mifflin, 1999), 80. 22. Desser and Fu (eds.), The Cinema of Hong Kong, 26-27. 23. Source: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070034/business . 24. Sources: http://www.filmsite.org/1973.html , http:// www.films101.com/y1973r.htm . 25. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/enter_the_dragon/ . 26. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xzt6zAj7XUM .

ABSTRACTS

Enter the Dragon, released in 1973, was the first ever film co-produced by a Hollywood studio and a Hong Kong production company. It was intended to launch the career of actor and martial arts champion Bruce Lee in the United States and, in this way, its promotion included elements that, on the one hand, reminded one of the previous films that had made him famous, but, at the same time, could also be associated to contemporary popular movies–in particular, those of the James Bond franchise. In this article, the marketing of Enter the Dragon is analyzed particularly through

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the study of various posters and trailers, which were different according to the countries or areas in which it was released. Borrowing from other works, Enter the Dragon was at the crossroads of various genres, but contributed to initiate other codes in adventure or action movies, which have been used ever since.

INDEX

Keywords: movies, marketing, popular culture, representation, codes

AUTHOR

PIERRE-FRANÇOIS PEIRANO Pierre-François Peirano is an Assistant Professor in English and American Studies at the Université du Sud Toulon-Var. His PhD, to be published within the next few months, was devoted to the representations inspired by the Lewis and Clark Expedition and his research interests include domains such as the cinema industry, iconography, painting and popular culture.

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Woody Allen’s French Marketing: Everyone Says Je l’aime, Or Do They?

Frédérique Brisset

1 Woody Allen does not belong to the Hollywood studio system, and his success relies much more on European than American markets. This involves a great deal of attention focused on strategies that facilitate positive reception of his films by foreign audiences, among them the French, and choosing his titles for export has become a major step in the process. Among his latest films, Cassandra's Dream (2007) made less than $1m in the US, but more than $21m abroad, including $3.5m in France.1 For a mere $5m in the US, Whatever Works (2009) grossed almost $30m overseas, $7m of which in France. And the domestic-international ratio for You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010) stands at one to ten –$3m in the US, $31m abroad, with $7.4 m in France. The export market has indeed become his main source of profit.

2 Comparing original and French titles and posters and, on a broader scale, the transfer choices concerning the linguistic, verbal and/or iconic paratext, can help determine how the marketing of the Woody Allen “brand” works at export. It can also explain which assumptions regarding French-speaking audiences may condition these strategies. Translation issues bring to light the diverging reception capacities of American and French audiences. For they imply, both at home and abroad, different Ideal Spectators–a notion patterned on reception theorist Hans Robert Jauss's Ideal Reader. The Ideal Spectator, as an expectation, is first built up by the author himself and Allen is known to be rather demanding concerning the distribution of his films.2 As early as 1978, there was a clause in his contracts advising foreign distributors not to change the original titles of his films without his approval, for he meticulously chooses them. This means that altering them in translation becomes a risky process.

3 Allen's outstanding productivity, as a writer and director with a career spanning over forty years, enables one to assess the diachronic evolution of his translated titles. Indeed, these titles serve a descriptive function and their translation is constrained by linguistic, cultural, and marketing choices. A French adapter may propose a name but the final word rests with the distributor (with Allen's approval), as the title of the French version will condition the first visual and audible perception of the movie by its

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receiver. For a title fulfills three main functions: identification,3 content indication and audience appeal,4 all of which rely upon a mutual cultural understanding between author and addressee.

Mirror Image

4 Keeping the original title of a movie abroad is an increasingly common practice, as distributors choose to brand the film’s origin, and this especially when dealing with American blockbusters. This exoticizing option, opposite of localization, or here “Frenchification,” proves quite valuable in promoting sagas and sequels. Kill Bill, Alien, or Twilight are such examples. It also allows for the standardization of marketing campaigns5 and facilitates the exploitation of by-products on international markets, as can be seen with the Cars and the Toy Story series. But Allen has decided “not to be swayed by current style or the ideas of others [and] to draw farther and farther away from the teenage and young adult market most movies aim for.”6 So this is not the key factor in borrowing his titles.

5 Long before it became fashionable in France,7 this strategy had been applied to some of his earlier comedies, such as Bananas (1971) for example. These choices were made easier because of his predilection for short titles, “a soft sell, non pretentious approach like one-word titles,”8 and this even though he now confesses, “I’m not as dedicated to one-word titles as I was before.”9 But the shorter the original name, the easier it is to borrow without impeding a foreign audience’s comprehension. And out of the 44 films Allen has written to-date, only 10 titles can be qualified as long ones:

1. Film Titles: Number of Words

One-word Titles Two-word Titles Three-word Titles Four+-word Titles

9 12 13 10

20.5% 27.3% 29.5% 22.7%

6 The trend is also emphasized by his frequent use of onomastic lexemes. When they do not consist in one or several proper nouns,10 his titles very often include some compound ones.11 Annie Hall thus stayed Annie Hall in French. Keeping the eponymous title was not a problem, as the first name even conformed to the French spelling. It was not, however, maintained worldwide. In Germany the film is known as Der Stadtneurotiker, The Urban Neurotic, an adaptation which resulted in Allen requiring a personal control over his foreign titles.

7 If the title stayed true to the original in France, the poster did not.12 In the US, Annie and Alvy shared the black and white space, while the French colour-choice completely relied upon Allen’s persona, an oversized spectacled Woody mask which barely reflected Diane Keaton’s portrait. The generic American commentary “A nervous romance” opposed the line “le nouveau film de Woody Allen” with the author's name typed in the same font size as the title, flattened out at the top of the poster. The full title thus proved no more self-sufficient and the commentary nearly read like a subtitle.

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8 So, as early as 1977, the French distributor chose to register this seventh film in a series of past and future opuses where the author’s guarantee, secured by the sole name of Woody Allen, became a sales pitch strong enough to attract audiences: they would then receive the annual Woody Allen as an invitation to enter his microcosm. It could be understood as a new attempt to market the director as a brand, a more subtle one than the tentative coup which had taken place in 1973 with Sleeper: even though Allen’s character was named Miles Monroe, Sleeper was translated into French as Woody et les robots. This was done using the same pattern as the nine Jerry Lewis comedies that became a whole series of Jerrys for French spectators, beginning with It's only Money, translated as L'increvable Jerry in 1962. But in Allen’s case it was a one-shot try, attempting to capitalize on his image as an actor more than as a director.

9 Celebrity, one of the short titles he favors, was also transferred into French in 1998, even though a literal translation, very close to the original, was at hand. The process played on the Hollywood connotation. The American poster had already over-exploited the cliché: its title, resembling one from a gossip magazine, had a loud orange background, its front page offering a collection of the leading actors’ autographed portraits. It focused on Leonardo DiCaprio in the very centre,13 and the blurb commented on the plot: “a new comedy about people who will do anything to get famous… or stay famous. ” Allen’s name was promoted nowhere and was only listed in the other credits at the bottom of the poster.

10 It was not a sales pitch, as opposed to the French poster which read, centered under the illustration, “Une comédie de Woody Allen.”14 Unlike the US version, it referred to the famous director without telling the story, and presumed a prospective audience smart enough to understand the textual and paratextual allusions. The black and white image centered on DiCaprio, framed there with a red felt pen, like a paparazzi photograph selected from a contact sheet. The iconographic choices rested upon the same connotations, usually found in people-focused magazines. As a result, the localization of the poster was very relative.

11 On the contrary, Scoop (2006) is a loanword, an anglicism adopted by the French language. However, it proves an exotic choice once more. The plot takes place in England, so the poster deliberately exploits cultural connotations. The non-translation of the title fits into a deliberate strategy.

12 The posters use the same portraits of the two main protagonists, but the layouts differ. 15 The Anglo-saxon version presents a deck of tarot cards, the main clue to the mystery in the film. An eye-shaped typography for the double O in Scoop alludes to the amateur detective investigation led by Allen and Scarlett Johansson, made explicit with the subtitle: “The perfect man, the perfect story, the perfect murder.”

13 In the French poster, the tarot deck has turned into traditional cards; the romantic connotations of the ace of hearts associated with the whiteness of the daylight on the feminine side contrast with the scarier ones of the ace of spades and of the black dark night on the masculine side. We can, once again, notice a bias towards explicitation in the American promotional material and towards allusion in the French version.

14 The French commentary “après Match Point, une nouvelle partie commence” sets Scoop in a localized series, emphasized by the background of the poster, showing the Thames, Big Ben and the House of Commons in London. The distributors chose to market a British environment the director had already invested in, in 2005, with his previous

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film. The English title was thus integrated in a global marketing strategy for this movie co-produced by the BBC. It also complied with Allen's latest trend, i.e. directing films set in European cities, whether London, Barcelona, Paris or Rome, whose subsidies now fund his production budget. This, in turn, attracts their citizens into theaters to watch Allen's interpretation of their locale, while it also contributes to the marketing of their cities as tourist destinations.

15 The exoticizing motivation was already there for Hollywood Ending (2002), where Allen played a has-been director trying to make his comeback. Only 0.305% of the American public has seen it in theaters, compared to four times as many French people, i.e. 1.216 %.16 The title, borrowed in French, stresses a desire to maintain the geographical and cultural reference to the famous toponym, home to the major studios. It is all the more justified as the film is a tribute to the genre comedies of the great Hollywood era. But the sarcastic slang interpretation of the word Hollywood insinuated in the initial title, “adj. affected, insincere, mannered. Said of people,”17 gets lost on non-English-speaking spectators.

16 Ending,18 the second lexeme in the title, is not lexicalized in French so that the Hollywood Ending collocation bears no irony for a French-speaking audience, as noticed by Masson: “Hollywood Ending–a title which could have been appropriately translated into the Gallicism Happy End.”19. But it stays close enough to the latter synonym not to affect its comprehension by spectators. And it agrees with a habitus of French cinematic circles–a linguistic “Americanization” of cinema in the non-translation of titles.20

17 Visually,21 the original poster of Hollywood Ending relies on the Hollywood myth by listing the cast in concrete, just like the embed foot- and handprints of stars in Grauman's Chinese Theater forecourt. Floc’h, a cartoon artist who had created the Deconstructing Harry poster in 1998, was hired by the French distributor to illustrate it: he offered a full-length Allen walking blindly on. While the American poster just sells Hollywood, the French poster also markets “une comédie de Woody Allen” with a Festival de Cannes label and a red background reminiscent of the famous carpeted steps, in a delocalizing process.

18 Allen's production cannot be compared to blockbusters such as Titanic (James Cameron, 1997), Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993) or X-Men (Brian Singer, 2000), films whose titles were not translated, in an attempt to reproduce their American success on the French market: at the end of August 2008, The Dark Knight, the second opus of the Batman saga, had already grossed on its own $493,671,047 in the US, while the American total box office of all Allen’s films (38 to that date) only amounted to $456,184,196.

Like and Alike

19 In France, when borrowing the title is not possible, loyalty to Woody involves a calque: the original title is then translated literally in French, as was Interiors (1979). The verbal calque was also visual, for the posters offered a similar photograph, but in France, the black and white original was colored and sported a yellow banner with Un nouveau Woody Allen on the upper-left corner.22

20 There would be no banner later on for Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), nor for Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), for Allen was part of their cast, his name mentioned high on the list as he imposes alphabetical order; he even appeared in the photograph for the

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second film. No ambiguity for the audience there! This was different with Intérieurs, an intimist drama in which Allen did not star. So there had to be a reminder represented by the yellow banner.

21 Let us now consider Hannah and Her Sisters, Allen's greatest success in the US–before he released Midnight in Paris–, bringing in revenues of $40m and ranking fifth at the box office.23 Translated word for word into Hannah et ses sœurs, the title works all the better in French as it refers to the main characters of the script. It fits in the same poster as the original: both use the same illustration, a portrait of the three sisters facing the camera, the same centered title block and left alignment for the cast, as well as the same typography.24 No localization was undertaken, a standardized marketing strategy was simply applied.

22 The same applies for Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), one of the titles that Allen worked over for months. He wanted to call it Brothers, a name already registered. He then considered numerous possibilities, finally selecting the generic collocation Crimes and Misdemeanors. The intertextual relation25 induced by the ironical reference to Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment–for no punishment occurs in Allen’s fiction– demanded a calque in French. Crimes et délits achieved the same result even if some critics disagreed: In Crimes and Misdemeanors, we have only one thing to complain about: the French title chosen, a restrictive, opaque, and humorless one. It evokes a prosaic legal code, a refused inference which targets the (problematic) efficiency of coded comedies. The distributors missed the disparity that has nonetheless tickled the master’s invention, evading the latent Dostoyevskyan couple, which–one will see–was not totally gratuitous.26

23 Misdemeanor is nonetheless a lexical unit taken from the American legal semantic field, 27 and délit proves to be the right judicial translation and the most accurate one as well, considering the plot.

Commercial Art-house

24 In France, all of Allen’s movies are labeled Art et Essai, art-house films, which influences their public perception: the Ideal Spectator targeted here is an intellectual one. Their distribution, however, is rather wide. Small Time Crooks was launched in 405 theatres in 2000. For Anything Else (2003), the distributor planned on 340 copies.28 Among his latest films Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) was granted 412 copies, 29 You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010) or Midnight in Paris (2011) both first launched with 406 copies, and To Rome with Love (2012) with 410 copies. 30 Allen is now classified as a “cinéaste d’art et d’essai ‘porteur’” with the Coen brothers and Pedro Almodovar.31 He has become emblematic of this coveted market: The ample prospective choice leads certain exhibitors to target all customers’ segments, including film-goers, openly competing with the “art-house” theaters who have settled in this niche, if only because the programming of commercial “art- house” films–the French example being the annual Woody Allen film– allows them to diversify their profit sources.32

25 He thus combines a quality brand image, derived from the Cinéma d'auteur concept, 33 and a mass market sales potential, as stated by an even more ambivalent designation: “our trade cant has even created this amazing classification, ‘film d’auteur à forte capacité commerciale.’ A way to qualify films by Woody Allen or Pedro Almodovar.”34

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More recently still, the president of the Studio movie theatre in Tours, France, also analyzed Allen's films–with Audiard’s–as belonging to a niche, both arty and mass- oriented (le créneau de l'art et essai grand public), stating, “these films account for 5% of our programming, but for 38% of our box-office.”35

26 This ratio, nearing an eight-to-one return, implies high financial stakes, with a direct impact on Allen's marketing. The director has to be clearly identified by the prospective audience, drawing on his signature as a true brand, and the branding operates on the very persona of the author: for example, his glasses are often used as an identification artefact on his DVDs packaging,36 for example, almost as a logo, and are even reproduced on posters for some French adaptations of his plays.37

27 Distributors sometimes balance between several strategies for his French titles, like the combination of a calque and a borrowing for Everyone Says I Love You, which became Tout le monde dit I Love You. Keeping the whole original title could have disturbed the French audience. So the distributor chose to translate the first clause, leaving the second one, I love you, un-translated as it is clear enough to stress the origin of the film.

28 Yet the visual localization works in dissimilar ways: part of the movie is set in Paris, so the Quais de Seine where Allen and Goldie Hawn dance are central to the American poster, even if pictures of other stars are inserted at the top, on the right side of the casting.38 The French poster offers a very Americanized shot of this musical, a ballet of Groucho Marx-costumed characters.39 I Love You, in huge type, fills up the median section and draws attention to the unavoidable mention “une comédie de Woody Allen,” a promotion pitch inserted on the same level as You.

29 The American poster advertises Paris and the prestigious cast, while the French poster promotes Allen and America: he is quoted twice, as the author and actor, and his fans cannot ignore that Groucho, impersonated in the ballet, is his favorite comedian. The linguistic combination of the translated title eventually gives America the lion’s share.

Small Arrangements

30 Adapting the title is another option, although rarer for Allen. Often partial, it may even concern a sole word. In 1993, when Manhattan Murder Mystery became Meurtre mystérieux à Manhattan, the French audience did not suspect anything: Murder Mystery was transposed into Meurtre mystérieux and the word order was reshuffled, but the “M” alliteration was maintained. The title expanded from three to four words, but the extra vowel merged into the prosodic whole. The iconography was only slightly modified– while Murder was set upside down in English, underlining the zany side of the script, the “Y” in mystérieux was the only letter inverted in French, for legibility reasons. Then, for once, the French poster offered a blurb “qui a tué qui ?,” to emphasize the mystery, based on a legal impersonation.40 The midnight blue background was maintained, with a few corrections made to adjust the graphics. The marketing strategy was quite similar in both versions and the adaptation proved minimalist.

31 If we turn to Small Time Crooks (1999), the adaptation was much more consequential. A literal translation, Escrocs à la petite semaine, would have disturbed the balance of prosody. The distributor thus preferred a short title with three monosyllabic items, Escrocs mais pas trop. The main lexeme was preserved and an internal rhyme added. The “Pas” negation rendered the idea connoted by Small–the gang of has-beens led by

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Woody did not deserve to be called crooks, for they would eventually get rich legitimately, thanks to his wife’s cookies.

32 The famous cookie appears conspicuously in the poster, whose original and French versions are very close, using the same black silhouette: it serves as the background for the casting and the title in the American poster.41 The red type font reads on three lines in English, and on two lines in white in French, where Pas is highlighted in yellow, the same color used for the line “Woody Allen” following “une comédie de.”42 The original title is copied under the French one. The cast is listed on the left side in France, emphasizing Allen again at the top, while this space is reserved for a blurb in the original poster, “they took a bite out of crime,” a pun alluding to the crunchy quality of the cookies and the taste of crime. The paratext is again dedicated to the commentary of the script in English and to the film author in French.

33 Linguistic adaptation also concerns another opus, Deconstructing Harry (1997), which evokes the deconstruction concept dear to Derrida and works as a “citation-title” whose cultural effect is emphasized by Genette: it “brings to the text the indirect guarantee of another text, and the prestige of a cultural affiliation.”43 This applies to Harry, a writer played by Allen who sees his autobiography-based characters come to life and invade his existence. They are declensions of himself, his deconstructions.

34 The French title Harry dans tous ses états, saves the eponymous relation but loses the intertextual effect, focusing on the result and not on the deconstructing process; such a modulation makes Harry a subject and not an object any more. The content identification function is borne differently by the American and French titles.

35 The posters also obey divergent strategies.44 On the American one, a staggering pile of bricks embodies the deconstruction, with, at the top of the bill, Allen nearly tumbling over his partners. Their names topple in all directions, echoing the tumultuous relations they keep up on screen. And the type is split in the surname, Harry.

36 In the French poster by Floch’, Allen stands on the right side, but has female partners only. This reductionist choice does not account for the complexity of the script and the existential doubts of the character. The casting is gently arranged on the bottom line. The title is somewhat undulating, but its soft waves are harmonious, quasi antithetical to the original version. The same is true for the background colors, black for the original and white for the French one. The American poster is more faithful to the script, and the distributor has added the adjective Hilarious to insist on the comedy genre. In France everything relies on Allen’s persona, represented in the form of a cartoon character immediately recognizable for a French cinema-goer. And it works: three times as many French people (2.168 %) have seen the film, compared to only 0.832% Americans.45

37 The marketing of Allen’s films usually heads in opposite directions. In the US, the distributor advertises the plot, comments upon the genre and content, and if need be, the famous cast, for Allen is considered there as a filmmaker. In France, he is regarded as an auteur46: the phrase Un film de Woody Allen, his name in the cast or a shot of him acting is enough to draw crowds. In a self-derisive line, the director he plays in Hollywood Ending tells it clearly, “Because here I’m a bum… but there… a genius! Oh, thank God, the French exist.” It looks as if French audiences have forever adopted Woody, creating a true brand phenomenon, while in his own country he has to take a test with every new film.

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38 These features have been taken into account by his French distributors. The promotion of Whatever Works was based upon: his previous films, labeled ″unforgettable!″ in the display advertisement published (…) on June 29, 2009. Two pages on, the reader would find another advert drawing attention to the film launched on the following Wednesday, (…) the process playing upon the annual ritual of the Parisian film-goers who loyally head to the theatre to watch the latest Woody Allen.47

40 And the ad,48 updated with the latest titles, was used again, for the promotion of To Rome with Love in 2012.

41 Throughout his career Allen has applied a serial principle that plays on the expectations of spectators familiar with his work. So the translational strategies for his titles often stress the origin of his films, the American world he himself belongs to. As early as the 1970s, lexical borrowings were favored and still are. Otherwise, calques have been the most frequent strategy, adaptations, very often partial, being the last option resorted to.

2. Translation Strategies for Allen’s French Titles

Borrowed Title Calque Title Adapted Title

17 17 9

39.5% 39.5% 21%

42 How can we assess the modulations of the iconographic and paratextual choices? They reflect divergent visions of the potential audience. Often explicit and catchy in the original version, the posters comment upon the plot, while the French distributors play upon the auteur concept. This approach targets a film-going audience devoted to Allen and an Ideal Spectator conceived as more intellectual and upscale.

43 His auteur mark creates a true brand phenomenon. Identification, the primary function assigned to titles, is “in fact, the most important function of the title, which could, ultimately, dispense with all the others.”49 But in France, it is the author’s identification more often than the identification of the movies themselves that is at stake. This can be partly ascribed to the cultural differences surrounding the reception of movies in both the United States and France: they are seen and marketed as entertainment products there, while they still stand as “oeuvres de l’esprit” (intellectual productions), recognized as such by law in France.50

44 But Allen’s brand image mostly explains such an exclusive positioning in the cinematic world. The building of spectator loyalty, the main promotional objective for this local but major market, is sustained by the annual recurrence of his productions. “The rediscovery of what is familiar is pleasurable” Freud wrote.51 Here is a motto dear to Woody, the psychoanalysis-addict, and a basic marketing concept, so that Everyone Says Je l’aime! Or do they?

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Baxter, John. Woody Allen, a biography. London: HarperCollins, 1999.

Benayoun, Robert. “Fond de l’œil en fin de saison,” [Positif, 348, February 1990], in Woody Allen, dir. Grégory Valens. Paris: Scope, 2008, 117-119.

Blumenfeld, Samuel. “Letty Aronson : sœur de Woody Allen, un job à plein-temps,” Le Monde, May 13, 2011.

Eco, Umberto. Mouse or Rat? Translation as Negotiation. London: Phoenix, 2003.

Bouvet, Bruno and Conrard, Sophie. “Les salles de cinéma cherchent un nouveau public,” La Croix, February 17, 2008.

Freud, Sigmund. Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious, (1905) in Complete Works, last accessed 3/03/2013, (last accessed March 3, 2013).

Genette, Gérard. Seuils. Paris: Seuil, 1987.

Girard, Laurent. Jacqueline Cohen, Interview, August 28, 2003, (last accessed March 3, 2013).

Heu, Pascal Manuel. “Oublier Woody ?,” July 1, 2009, (last accessed March 3, 2013).

Jauss, Hans Robert. Pour une esthétique de la reception. Paris: Gallimard, 1990.

Lax, Eric. Woody Allen, a biography. London: Vintage, 1991.

Lax, Eric. Conversations with Woody Allen. New York: Knopf, 2007.

Masson, Alain. “Hollywood Ending, l’allégorie du non-raccord,”[Positif, 496 (June 2002)], in Woody Allen, dir. Grégory Valens. Paris: Scope, 2008, 28-31.

Mingant, Nolwenn. Hollywood à la conquête du monde. Paris: CNRS éditions, 2010.

Perol, Philippe. “Une certaine idée du cinéma,”OCentre, 18 (December 2012): 8.

Petiot, Geneviève. “Le cinéma américain et la langue française,” Meta, 32 3 (1987): 299-305.

Rousselière, Damien. “Cinéma et diversité culturelle : le cinéma indépendant face à la mondialisation des industries culturelles,” Horizons philosophiques, 15 2 (2005): 101-124.

Vulser, Nicole. “Art et essai, le malaise parisien,” Le Monde, March 13, 2007, 28.

Wentworth, Harold and Flexner, Stuart B.. The Pocket Dictionary of American Slang. New York: Pocket Books, 1968.

Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 3rd ed., 2008.

Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 8th ed., 2011.

Films

Directed by Woody Allen

Bananas (1971)

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (1972)

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Sleeper (1973)

Annie Hall (1977)

Interiors (1978)

Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)

Manhattan Murder Mystery (1992)

Everyone Says I Love You (1996)

Deconstructing Harry (1997)

Celebrity (1998)

Small Time Crooks (2000)

Hollywood Ending (2002)

Anything Else (2003)

Match Point (2005)

Scoop (2006)

Cassandra's Dream (2007)

Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)

Whatever Works (2009)

You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010)

Midnight in Paris (2011)

To Rome with Love (2012)

Directed by other directors

Titanic (James Cameron, 1997)

Twilight (Catherine Hardwicke, 2008)

Toy Story (John Lasseter, 1995)

Cars (John Lasseter & Joe Ranft, 2006)

The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008)

Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979)

X-Men (Bryan Singer, 2000)

Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993)

Kill Bill (Quentin Tarantino, 2003)

It's Only Money (Frank Tashlin, 1962)

NOTES

1. (unadjusted gross), http://boxofficemojo.com/movies .

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2. “Woody also demands to check the pictures used for the film promotion, as well as the poster, except that, for that, he is ready to talk it over and will never challenge the producer.” Samuel Blumenfeld, “Letty Aronson : sœur de Woody Allen, un job à plein-temps,” Le Monde, May 13, 2011. (Quotations from the French, my translation). 3. This is legally registered: “The title of a work of the mind, if it presents an original character, is protected as the work itself,” Code de la propriété intellectuelle, art. L 112-4, March 2, 2013. 4. Gérard Genette, Seuils (Paris: Seuil, 1987), 80. 5. Nolwenn Mingant, Hollywood à la conquête du monde (Paris: CNRS éditions, 2010), 226. 6. Eric Lax, Woody Allen, a biography (London: Vintage, 1991), 370. 7. “While in the early 1990s, the titles of American films were regularly translated, the process became rarer in the mid 1990s. […] In 1993-1994, half the movies of Warner Bros. and a third of the UIP movies distributed in France kept their original title.” (Mingant, 226). 8. Eric Lax, Conversations with Woody Allen (New York: Knopf, 2007), 71. 9. Lax, Conversations with Woody Allen, 11. 10. Zelig, Alice, Melinda and Melinda, Vicky Cristina Barcelona. 11. Broadway Danny Rose, Mighty Aphrodite, Cassandra’s Dream, Midnight in Paris. 12. The posters are on the following websites: http://www.toutlecine.com/images/film/ 0012/00126295-annie-hall.html and http://www.les400coups.org/affiches/affiche.php?id=284 . 13. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Celebrity_ver2.jpg . 14. http://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm-16090/photos/detail/?cmediafile=30711 . 15. http://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm-60736/photos/detail/?cmediafile=18674307 and http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0457513/ . 16. http://lumiere.obs.coe.int/web/film_info/?id=18783&graphics=on, . 17. The Pocket Dictionary of American Slang. 18. The English phrasing would be Happy Ending. 19. Alain Masson, “Hollywood Ending, l’allégorie du non-raccord,” [Positif, 496 (June 2002)], in Woody Allen, dir. Grégory Valens, (Paris: Scope, 2008) 30. 20. Geneviève Petiot, “Le cinéma américain et la langue française,” Meta, 32, 3 (1987) 303. 21. http://www.cinemovies.fr/film/radio-days_e85347 http://www.les400coups.org/affiches/ affiche.php?id=267 . 22. http://www.cinesud-affiches.com/affiche-INTERIEURS+c_10453.html . 23. John Baxter, Woody Allen, a biography (London: HarperCollins, 1999), 5-6. 24. http://www.impawards.com/1986/hannah_and_her_sisters.html, and http:// www.les400coups.org/affiches/affiche.php?id=275 . 25. “Intertextual irony is a strategy by which an author makes non-explicit allusions to other works, and in doing so creates a double effect (...). This procedure has been defined as double coding.” (Eco, 2003: 114). 26. Robert Benayoun, “Fond de l’œil en fin de saison,” [Positif, 348, February 1990], in Woody Allen, dir. Grégory Valens (Paris: Scope, 2008), 118. 27. “misdemeanor: US legal, a crime considered to be one of the less serious types of crimes,”, CALD, 2008. 28. Laurent Girard, Jacqueline Cohen, Interview, August 28, 2003, last accessed 3/03/2013, http:// voxofilm.free.fr/interviews/interview_COHEN_jacqueline.pdf . 29. http://www.allocine.fr/article/fichearticle_gen_carticle=18434282.html .

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30. Wall Street 2 was broadcast in 410 copies the same week. http://www.serieslive.com/news- box-office/box-office-france-les-mignons-et-woody-allen-delogent-enfin-les-pretres-de-la- premiere-place/13356/ . Other box office information from http:// www.boxofficemojo.com, . 31. Bruno Bouvet & Sophie Conrard, “Les salles de cinéma cherchent un nouveau public,” La Croix, February 17, 2008. 32. Damien Rousselière, “Cinéma et diversité culturelle : le cinéma indépendant face à la mondialisation des industries culturelles,” Horizons philosophiques, 15 2 (2005) 122. 33. His scripts are published in France by the Cahiers du Cinéma publishing branch, created by the magazine which initiated and supported the Politique des Auteurs concept. 34. Nicole Vulser, “Art et essai, le malaise parisien,” Le Monde, March 13, (2007) 28. 35. Philippe Perol, “Une certaine idée du cinéma,” OCentre, 18 (December 2012) 8. 36. See Hervé Coffinières’s cartoon on the Woody dans tous ses états collection pack, TF1 Vidéo, 2003. Or Vahram Muratyan, Paris vs New York, a tally of two cities, (Paris: 10/18, 2011), 153. 37. Dieu (God), staged by Nicolas Morvan in the Manufacture des Abbesses theatre in Paris in 2010 or Après tout si ça marche, adapted from Whatever Works, by Daniel Benoin for the Théâtre Marigny in 2012. 38. http://www.imdb.com/media/rm4005994240/tt0116242?ref_=tt_pv_md_1 . 39. http://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm-14881/photos/detail/?cmediafile=18923306 . 40. http://www.cinemotions.com/affiche-Meurtre-mysterieux-a-Manhattan-tt1476 and http:// www.movieposterdb.com/poster/16ee8e79 . 41. http://www.movieposterdb.com/movie/0196216/Small-Time-Crooks.html . 42. http://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm-27389/photos/detail/?cmediafile=30382 . 43. Gérard Genette, Seuils (Paris: Seuil, 1987), 95. 44. http://www.impawards.com/1997/deconstructing_harry_ver3.html and http:// www.les400coups.org/affiches/affiche.php?id=279 . 45. http://lumiere.obs.coe.int/web/film_info/?id=8048&graphics=on, . 46. “a film, movie director who plays such an important part in making their films/movies that they are considered to be the author,” Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, 8th edition, 2011. 47. Pascal Manuel Heu, “Oublier Woody ?,” July 1, 2009, http://mister-arkadin.over-blog.fr/article-33282245.html < last accessed March 3, 2013>. 48. Published in Première, 423 (May 2012) 8. 49. Gérard Genette, Seuils (Paris: Seuil, 1987), 85. 50. Code de la propriété intellectuelle, art. L111-1, L111-2, March 2, 2013. 51. Sigmund Freud, Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious (1905) in Complete Works, 1068, http:// www.valas.fr/-Textes-de-Sigmund-Freud,012- < last accessed March 3, 2013>.

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ABSTRACTS

Choosing a movie's title is a major step in the distribution process. As a first contact between films and their prospective audiences, titles induce a certain vision of a movie and its author. Woody Allen, a most demanding director concerning the translation of his films for export, proves especially punctilious on the matter of titles. His success relies much more on foreign markets than on the domestic circuit and French-speaking audiences are more often than not the key to his box office performance. His American and French titles are compared here, as well as the linguistic and iconographic changes operated on his films' posters, to illustrate the way chosen to export the director's persona as an original brand in the French-speaking area. His distributors play on the image built by Allen over the years, for he is seen as a true auteur in France. As a result, his French titles are kept the closest possible to the American ones, and his presence, whether as an actor or a director, is always reminded on the promotional material. These strategies have helped install each of his movies as part of a whole series, so that Allen's work has almost become a genre by itself.

INDEX

Keywords: marketing, titles, translation, Woody Allen, American English, French

AUTHOR

FRÉDÉRIQUE BRISSET Frédérique Brisset holds a PhD in English studies and translatology, completed at Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3 University. She teaches English at Orléans University, France. Her research deals with audiovisual translation from English to French, especially dubbing, and builds on contrastive translation theories; she studies the impact of dubbed versions regarding the construction of the author's image and its reception by the audience, on the Model Author and Addressee patterns as defined by reception theories. She has published articles in French, Belgian and Greek journals, focusing on the audiovisual translation of proper nouns and of discourse markers, on the dubbing of yiddishisms and on the seriality process in Woody Allen's films, and she has contributed to international conferences on coherence in translation, on translated humour, and on the transfer of etymology in dubbed movies.

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Varia

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Images of the Protestants in Northern Ireland: A Cinematic Deficit or an Exclusive Image of Psychopaths?

Cécile Bazin

1 The films about the Troubles, shot during this period (1970 - 1990), look mainly at the IRA and its relationship with England, such as Hennessy by Don Sharp (1975) and The Long Good Friday by John McKenzie (1979). The films made during the peace process (1990 - 2001) reflect the question of identity by representing, for example, some members of the IRA assessing their lives and turning away from political violence. Comedies such as Divorcing Jack by David Caffrey (1998) and An Everlasting Piece by Barry Levinson (2000) - also made during the peace process - use irony to denounce the political violence of the Troubles and depict the hope that the peace process generates. Films shot during the peace process - which reconsiders the East-West relations and the internal relations in Northern Ireland between the two communities - focus primarily on the Catholic community (nationalists and Republicans) and their relationship with the British.1 Intercommunal relations rarely appear in films and the Protestant community, already relatively absent from cinema screens, is almost exclusively represented by Loyalist paramilitaries. Indeed, among twenty-three films shot and released between 1975 and 2005, only three of them provide depictions of Protestant: Nothing Personal by Irish director Thaddeus O’Sullivan (1995),2 Resurrection Man by Welsh director Marc Evans (1998)3 and As the Beast Sleeps by British director Harry Bradbeer (2001) and Northern-Irish screenwriter Gary Mitchell.

2 Given the dominant portrayals of Catholics and Republicans in the cinematographic images of the political conflict, one can wonder about this unbalanced representation. This could have several meanings: Catholics could be seen as the main victims of the political conflict; the Republican cause could appear as easy to understand, therefore it is visible on screen; last but not least, the Republicans could be the main actors of violence. As Martin McLoone suggests:

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the unrelieved concentration on the IRA has given the impression that the violence in the North has been entirely the fault of the Republicans, and the Loyalist community, by dint of its being ignored, has largely escaped scrutiny. (…) There has been a paucity of film material which has dealt with the Unionists in Northern Ireland in any capacity at all.4

3 Yet, despite the implication of the Protestants in the political conflict, they have been very poorly represented in films therefore their image has become enigmatic and almost invisible on screen. This phenomenon has been observed since 1988, when John Hill defined them as “a group conspicuously absent from most films about Ireland.”5 Ten years later, through a “pro-Unionist” point of view, Brian McIlroy railed against the domination of Republican ideology:

4 The prevailing visualisation of the ‘Troubles’ in drama and documentary, particularly in the 1980’s and 1990’s, is dominated by Irish nationalist and Republican ideology (…); and the Protestant community is constantly elided by American, British and Irish filmmakers (…) who prefer to accept the anti-imperialist view of Northern Ireland’s existence.6

5 There have been very few local film productions: As the Beast Sleeps - an indigenous film produced by BBC Northern Ireland and featuring Northern Irish actors - could be qualified as the only “self portrayal” of the Protestant community among the films dealing with the Northern Irish political conflict. Hence, one can notice here a deficit of “Protestant” filmic production. The facts that cinematic representations of the conflict focus on the Catholic side go beyond the geographic borders of Northern Ireland and that Protestants remain off-frame reinforce the idea that, in a general manner, Unionism-Loyalism7 is not as popular as Nationalism-Republicanism. 8 In fact, the cinematic portrayal of the conflict conforms to the general pattern of representations. The Protestants are seen as “the other” within the conflict. The rarity of films about Protestants shows that the identity and the experience of both communities are not equitably explored in the cinematic representation of the political conflict in Northern Ireland. The explanations for this Protestant cinematic deficit could be, most notably, “the multiple obstacles (ideological, emotional, geographical) that prevent the outside world from identifying with the Unionist position. (…) If the others find it difficult to understand, it is very much due to the deficient way unionism has imagined itself.”9

6 This image of unionism has contributed to obstruct the understanding of this ideology - deeply rooted in Ulster Protestantism - and given a rather negative image: For the outside world Ulster Protestantism remains an enigma. The arcane rituals of the Loyal Orders, the negativity of the political leadership, (…) the savagery of the paramilitary, all token for the outsider a people in an abject condition.10

7 Whenever Protestant characters appear on screen, they are usually marginal and they are embodied by Loyalists,11 which is particularly harmful to their representation. The cinematic deficit in terms of quantity and quality has in turn weakened their image and reinforced the fact that their position is impossible to represent. As Martin McLoone says: In one sense this has had a detrimental effect on the Unionist political position, which has been largely underrepresented, thus confirming the siege mentality of the Unionist community that comes from its sense of isolation.12

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8 Besides, the rare images of the Protestants on screen project portrayals of terrorists and psychopaths murdering Catholics.

9 The contemporary filmic representation of Ulster Loyalism has been prefigured by a long history of jaundice[d] [sic] literary portrayal of Ulster Protestantism. Loyalism comes to be read as the original tribal voice of the Ulster Protestant rather than a historically located reactionary political movement (…). Orangeism comes to be portrayed as a tribal response to the Catholic as other and the Loyalist abject comes to stand for the totality of Protestant experience.13

10 After a presentation of the phenomenon, this article examines the ways in which Nothing Personal and Resurrection Man explore political change in Northern Ireland and how cinema provides an insight into the world of Loyalist paramilitarism that stands for the Protestant community. Despite the noteworthy interest of the film As the Beast Sleeps in terms of new images of the Protestants, this film won’t be examined in this article for the historical period treated corresponds to the peace process - precisely the 1994 ceasefires – and not the Troubles.14 In addition the film depicts UDA paramilitaries whereas Nothing Personal and Resurrection Man deal with the UVF. The film represents a Loyalist paramilitary group from the UDA (Ulster Defence Association)15 who come from the urban working-class Protestant community of Belfast, extremely disturbed by the political changes emanating from the peace process. This film also explores questions of identity internal to the group in terms of their loyalty and their interrogations about their social future. As Wesley Hutchinson observes:

11 It is within the context of this tense political debate that Mitchell has produced some of his best work to date. As the Beast Sleeps, written originally in late 1994 as a play (published in 2001) and subsequently adapted for television for a remarkable BBC Northern Ireland production in 2001, is a perfect illustration of the terms in which Mitchell examines the tensions within loyalism as a result of the ongoing peace process. (…) His writing has focused almost exclusively on the urban working-class Protestant community to which he belongs, his theatre providing a unique insight into the closed world of Loyalist paramilitarism. Given the almost impenetrable wall of silence and cliché that surrounds unionism as a whole and loyalism in particular, such an insight would, in itself, be enough to justify an interest in his work.16

12 The two films under scrutiny were shot during the peace process, yet they explore the Troubles. Nothing Personal by Thaddeus O’Sullivan and Resurrection Man by Marc Evans focus on Loyalists from the UVF (Ulster Volonteer Force)17 during the 70’s in Belfast, when sectarian violence reached its peak. While Nothing Personal takes into account the political change generated by the peace process to a certain extent, Resurrection Man depicts the Troubles and its bloody escalation. These two films display a very specific and particularly abject image of Protestants from Northern Ireland with characters clearly echoing the Shankill Butchers.18 However, the Shankill Butchers were surprisingly unknown to the public: “Most of those I spoke to had never heard of the Shankill Butchers, even though they killed more people than any other mass murderers in British criminal history.”19 The aim of this article is to explore how the Loyalists - who stand for the Protestants – are portrayed as psychopaths.

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Loyalists and Psychopaths

13 Nothing Personal and Resurrection Man focus on Loyalists from the UVF in the seventies when this paramilitary organization became involved in communal violence and sectarian assassination. As Martin Dillon explains: The advent of civil rights protests in the sixties, and the fact that Catholics were beginning to agitate for political and social reforms, persuaded influential elements within Ulster Unionism that the UVF should be reactivated. Sectarian assassination became a daily way of life and young and old, male and female, became its victim... the innocent suffered.20

14 If Nothing Personal and Resurrection Man allude explicitly to the Shankill Butchers, the main character of Resurrection Man focuses on the criminal Lenny Murphy. In both films, the Loyalist thus appears on screen as a Catholic-hating psychopath. He kidnaps his Catholic victims in the middle of the night on the streets of Belfast, tortures, stabs, and mutilates them before finally killing them. These bloody scenes of torture are particularly recurrent in Resurrection Man.

15 The Shankill Butchers remain unique in the sadistic ferocity of their modus operandi. The Provisional IRA – by far the most important of the various murderous organizations of Northern Ireland – never unleashed on society anyone quite like Lenny Murphy, the chief of the Shankill Butchers.21

16 No phenomenon comparable to the Shankill Butchers’ has been observed in the history of the IRA. This contributes to underline the difference between the Republican and Loyalist paramilitaries in Northern Ireland. The particularly abject crimes committed by Lenny Murphy mark out the image of the UVF Loyalists amongst the paramilitaries from Northern Ireland. As Connor Cruise O’Brien emphasizes:

17 Lack of centralized authority on the Protestant side and the relatively tight hierarchical structure of the Irish Republican Army may partly account for the difference. The rest of the difference may be accounted for by the fact that the IRA is much more interested in its public ‘image’ than the Protestant paramilitaries have been in theirs.22

18 If the Loyalists have neglected their public image, contrary to the IRA, one can also add the impact of the British media coverage of the beginnings of the Troubles which “tended to focus on the justice of the civil rights case and the obstacles to reform represented by unionism/loyalism. Following the arrival of British troops in the North in 1969 and the resurgence of the IRA in 1970, the dominant mode of reporting the conflict tended to be in terms of the problem of the IRA violence.”23

19 Nothing Personal and Resurrection Man corroborate the abject portrayals of Loyalists in a general manner. These films mainly display political motivations that are impossible to understand and that result in barbarian murder.

Nothing Personal

20 Because of the focus on Protestants, Nothing Personal (1996) projects, de facto, new images within the cinematic representation of the political conflict. As the Irish director, Thaddeus O’Sullivan, states: “I was interested in telling a story about the

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Loyalist paramilitaries and what motivates them because what we usually see is the IRA perspective.”24 Actually, the announcement of the ceasefires of 1994, with the feeling that violence was declining and that it was time for talks and political action engendered new on-screen interpretations of the Troubles. Despite the fact that Nothing Personal still shows some Loyalists as psychopaths, the change in the political climate is visible in this film. Indeed, during the peace process, “talk and violence were presented as mutually exclusive. Any party with links to a terrorist organisation actively involved in violence at any given time was to be refused access to or to be excluded from the talks. Talk meant dialogue which in turn implied a willingness to negotiate, a flexibility indicating a willingness to move from traditional positions, a readiness for compromise, an acceptance of change. Indeed, change was the ultimate goal of talks.”25

21 Nothing Personal draws a difference between the leadership of the UVF and those who follow orders. By depicting a leader who tries to negotiate a ceasefire with the IRA, the film shows an attempt to break with the past and its sectarian violence, and a willingness to change by getting involved in talks.26 However, the rest of the gang led by Kenny (James Frain) fail to prevent his team, notably Ginger (Ian Hart), from perpetuating sectarian violence, as he stabs and mutilates his Catholic victims.

22 The film shows the city of Belfast confined to a few narrow streets where danger is tangible as characters find themselves walking outside their respective “territory,” a clear mark of sectarianism. The dead-end streets limited by barricades imprison the characters, whether Catholics or Protestants, and the city has become a labyrinth from which no escape is possible. The film opts for a sense of entrapment that adds to the tragic scenario. As the director underlines, the reconstitution of space is part of the narrative and conveys the sectarian divide: It has a very physical style (…). Stylistically, that’s how it is in terms of narrative; visually, I’ve taken the area in which these people live as an enclosed ghetto where Protestants and Catholics are side by side divided by this line. Usually we don’t go into the outside world, we stay within this very, very enclosed community and that’s reflected in the way the film is shot. We never leave the streets and the streets are very much treated as a stage. Everything is cleared off the streets and they’re lit and presented in a way that is really more theatrical than naturalistic. (…) The landscape doesn’t serve as a backdrop. I try to make the landscape tell us something and to make the streets perform in a dramatic way.27

23 Indeed, the film’s setting and the lighting play an important part in the narrative. The film depicts a lugubrious urban context, shot at night, in which light, in the dark backstreets, comes from the protestant pubs or from criminal fires. Devoid of any realistic detail, the film projects a surreal image of the city through its use of light and colour. The dim light contributes to the menacing atmosphere of the place and characters appear as ghosts in the deserted streets. The city of Belfast looks like a dead city which adds to the tragic dimension of the film. The portrayal of Belfast in Nothing Personal shows the characters enclosed in this sectarian geography which has a direct impact on their domestic lives. Besides the presence of the paramilitaries, the city, through its claustrophobic atmosphere, represents a trap in which you inevitably fall. When the Catholic Liam Kelly (John Lynch) is kidnapped by the Loyalists, he is assaulted and nobody comes to help him.

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24 The first scene of the film opens with the explosion of a Protestant pub, an attack perpetrated by the IRA. The narrative structure of the movie is then based on the reaction and the evolution of the UVF paramilitary organization in the aftermath of the attack. As Martin McLoone notes, the film explores the relationship within the group: “O’Sullivan plays out a complicated set of plots and subplots that look at the effects of violence across three generations of interrelated characters.”28 Ginger (Ian Hart) follows Kenny’s orders, who himself obeys Leonard (Michael Gambon), the Loyalist Godfather. Motivated by their desire for revenge, Kenny and Ginger watch intently who walks out of a Catholic pub to get some “information” about the IRA men who planted the bomb - in fact, in order to kill them. The film conveys the feeling that the Loyalists kill Catholics at random as Ginger shoots dead the first man that comes out of the pub. Even if he has no evidence of his identity, Ginger is convinced that he is the enemy to kill: “He’s here every Friday night. That’s him! I’m sure and certain. Hi mucker!” Then Ginger stabs and mutilates the dead body. The character of Ginger, whose crimes allude clearly to those committed by Lenny Murphy, displays his visceral hatred towards the Catholics and projects images of a psychopath taking great pleasure in murdering and mutilating his victims. Despite the fact that he did not find an actual member of the IRA, Ginger satisfies his criminal impulses in assassinating a man, as long as the victim is Catholic: “It smells like a Taig!”29 The film shows that the Loyalist paramilitary action as having no political meaning since it is exclusively based on Catholic hatred and sectarian crime. If this kind of murder alludes to the Shankill Butchers’, one can add that arbitrary assassination of Catholic victims used to be recurrent within the UVF. As it is clearly expressed by August Spence (‘Gusty’ Spence),30 the leader of the UVF in 1966: “If you can’t get an IRA man, get a Taig.”31 Indeed, “this statement implies that within the Protestant paramilitary mind there was a crudely held belief that Catholicism, Nationalism and Republicanism were in some way inseparable.”32 The character of Ginger in Nothing Personal demonstrates that the Loyalist paramilitary action is motivated by racism and hatred of the other community. If the violence perpetuated by the UVF reveals sterile, since political motivation does not exist, the nature of paramilitary violence is especially sadistic. Nevertheless, Ginger defends his position as a soldier who obeys his UVF superiors: If we’re playing serious, we have to make life for them so friggin’ miserable that they get down on their hands and knees and crawl across the fucking border. In my wee book that makes any Catholic as good as another.

25 As Kenny fails to prevent Ginger from perpetuating sectarian murder, he is also torn between the disgust he feels for Ginger’s sadistic practice – “You fucking love it, don’t you!- I can’t trust you to keep you head down and act sensible” – and Leonard’s orders. As the leader calls for a ceasefire, Kenny does not understand him and consequently he feels betrayed by Leonard and the UVF: Leonard: A truce has been agreed. Kenny: Are they running out of supplies or what? Leonard: The barricades come down in the morning and the police come back on patrolling in all areas. (…) I think we should support it. (…) Kenny, our people want to get back to live in peaceful lives. That’s what they want. (…) It’s been decided. There’s been no treachery, Kenny. Get that out of your head. (…) Kenny, I know how you feel. Kenny: Do you indeed?

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26 Because of Ginger’s pathological hatred of Catholics, Kenny knows that his authority is put into question and becomes therefore vulnerable within his own paramilitary group. This drives the film towards its tragic closure. Indeed Leonard condemns the nature of the crimes committed by Ginger as it gives a bad image to the Protestants and which casts the doubt on the UVF’ truthfulness in negotiating with the IRA leader, Cecil (Gerard McSorley). The truce the two paramilitary leaders have agreed on turns out to be impossible. Indeed, as the two elder leaders opt for politics, the young ones show hostility towards this political move. In that, Nothing Personal depicts the truce as a failure on the part of the UVF paramilitaries. Despite Leonard’s orders, Ginger remains out of control; and Kenny has to eliminate Ginger: You want to go after these bombers and rip their hearts out. That’s all very well if you want to get a clean kill but a grubby killing like this evening just gets our people a bad name they don’t deserve. (…) That’s why we can’t afford having raving maniacs like that nauseating shite on our team. I don’t want to hear his name mentioned again. I don’t want to see his face again. He is to be put asleep Kenny. You can take that as an order.

27 Kenny, trapped between his superiors and his men, realizes that the Loyalist hierarchy does not only eliminate the Other - the Catholics – but also its own. Highly disturbed by this inflexible vision of loyalty and by the context of the truce, Kenny comes to wonder about his beliefs, the UVF and the meaning of his life. As he has sacrificed his life for the UVF, he finds himself a lost individual since he has no family life anymore (his wife separated from him and lives on her own with their children). The film shows the destructive consequences of political violence engenders in the private sphere of home and family life on both sides of the sectarian divide. Indeed, following the same pattern on the Catholic side, Liam’s daughter dies as she becomes the ultimate victim of political violence in the film. After being assaulted by Ginger and Kenny, Liam - who happens to be Kenny’s childhood former friend – is freed. On his way back home, he sees his daughter Kathleen (Jeni Courtney), being shot dead as she tries to prevent young teenager Michael (Gareth O’Hare) from firing at the two Loyalists. The film denounces the meaningless of paramilitary violence by showing its innocent victims, notably children. As the director explains, the film tries to look at the victims of both communities: I didn’t really have a political position to take. The film is about Loyalists and there is a story there about what they’re doing and why they’re doing it, but the film is very angry about the loss of innocent life and that’s why I made it.33

28 The optimism permitted by the peace process is nevertheless tangible in the film on another level. The first time Liam is beaten up by Ginger and Kenny, he is given medical assistance by Ann (Maria Doyle Kennedy), the only Protestant woman of the film, who is in fact Kenny’s ex-wife. She invites Liam to her home and they develop a relationship. According to John Hill, “the film does seek to counter the fatalistic momentum of the plot through the tentative suggestion of cross-community romance.” 34 It suggests reconciliation across the sectarian divide. In the end, Liam and Ann find themselves in the same cemetery (the only non-sectarian place in the film), as they are both attending the funerals of Kathleen and Kenny.

29 If Nothing Personal presents a new portrayal of the political conflict in Northern Ireland – as it explores the Loyalist paramilitary world it is “partly subverted by the familiar discourses of fatalism and pessimism.” The film shows “the difficulties involved in

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moving beyond the traditional vocabulary of the ‘troubles’.”35 Indeed, it turns out that in the other films about the Troubles, the involvement of members in a paramilitary organization (the IRA) is fatal to the character.36 Similarly, Kenny after shooting Ginger, will let himself be shot dead by the British soldiers. Nothing Personal reflects a multifaceted but still rather negative image of the Loyalists. It reveals the division between the members of the UVF and through the character of Ginger, the Loyalists appear as psychopaths motivated by only sectarian hatred not by any political argument. If the Loyalists see themselves as a legitimate army that defends Ulster and its historic tradition, the nature of their paramilitary organization, shorn of ideology, is that of a criminal organization. The group seems to be lost - in terms of identity and politics - and self-destructive. Indeed, as the director explains, the film explores in a way the deadlock in which the Loyalists find themselves: I do think that the Loyalist tradition manifests itself in rather defensive acts and there is a sense of being embattled and having their backs to the wall and all of that, and that is certainly an element in our story. I think that some of the ways in which the main characters react are as a consequence of feeling entrapped and in terms of the troubles they are; they’re stuck for somewhere to go.37

Resurrection Man

30 If Nothing Personal depicts a negative image of the Loyalists in Northern Ireland, the representation of this paramilitary group is totally abject in Resurrection Man. It is also rather simplistic, as it does not project any nuances in the evolution of the paramilitary organization. It focuses exclusively on the portrayal of a Shankhill Butcher-type psychopath through the character of Victor Kelly (Stuart Townsend) who takes even more pleasure than Ginger in mutilating his Catholic victims. Obsessed with his psychotic impulses of murdering, he plans his crimes with great precision. Resurrection Man oscillates between gangster and horror film genres as the character of Victor Kelly embodies a gangster and a vampire at the same time. Victor Kelly becomes more and more powerful and feared in his neighbourhood. He has imposed a reign of terror through his visceral hate for Catholics but also because of the nature of his crimes, as he stabs, mutilates and cuts his victims into pieces. The film came under much criticism, and was called a “nauseating exercise”38 and “an outpouring of anti-Unionist hatred”.39 Besides, The film also enjoyed the rare distinction of uniting political opponents when a Sinn Féin spokesperson joined members of the Loyalist parties with paramilitary connections, the Ulster Democratic Party (UDP) and Progressive Unionist Party (PUP), in denouncing the film as ‘irresponsible’.40

31 Contrary to Nothing Personal which takes into account the political conflict and notably the position of the IRA, Resurrection Man concentrates on the internal life of the paramilitary group, leaving out the outside world. It was the choice of the filmmakers not to present Resurrection Man in the perspective of the political conflict. The film tends to explore violence via the psychological evolution of a psychopath, as screenwriter Eoin McNamee defends: I want people to engage with the character of Victor Kelly, and as James Cagney did, take you on a personal journey into hell. I expect them to be moved and to be able to empathise with the characters. I don’t want them to feel they are going to a worthy

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movie about a political situation, because that’s not what it is. (…) It’s about men and violence. There’s a bit of Victor in all of us.41

32 Northern Irish Protestant playwright Gary Mitchell, the author of As the Beast Sleeps, himself reacted to the film, underlining the poor representation of the Protestant community, its shocking and chilling portrayal: I have often heard it said that Protestants in Northern Ireland, to their detriment, have never taken any form of artistic expression seriously enough - and if contributions to theatre or local exhibitions have been poor, then cinema has been the equivalent of, well, Resurrection Man vs The Boxer. (…) Ugly, however, is reserved for depictions of the Protestant/Loyalist community – or so you would think if you were relying on Resurrection Man as a guide. I am not suggesting that the Shankill Butchers, depicted here as idiotic, homosexual drug addicts, should have been given better treatment. It wasn’t what this film said about those men that I found offensive, but what it said – or did not say – about the Protestant community from which they came.42

33 Resurrection Man’s Victor Kelly echoes the figure of the vampire. Indeed, Victor’s psychopathology - his lust for the blood of his Catholic victims - shows in every crime and reaches its paroxysm in the bathroom sequence when he bathes one of his victims in his own blood. The Loyalists appear as monsters. Since the narrative structure is not linked to any political context, the film’s explanation for the main protagonist’s criminal and irrational behaviour is psychological. In this regard, the film focuses on the relationship he has with his family and his problems of identity. The beginning of the film opens with a childhood flash-back just as Victor is about to be killed. The following scene shows Victor Kelly as a child in a cinema, watching the film Public Enemy,43 fascinated by gangster Tom Powers (James Cagney). This scene suggests that Victor Kelly has built his personality on the model of thirties American gangsters,44 and indeed the evolution of this Protestant Loyalist follows the narrative structure of classic gangster films as we are given to observe the rise and the fall of the hero. Victor, attracted by power and wealth has succeeded in becoming the leader of the gang after overthrowing his former boss Darkie (John Hannah) and seducing his girlfriend. Just like any other gangster, he is killed at the end of the film. Resurrection Man also explores part of the private life of the character, and notably his family. According to Martin McLoone, the ‘‘only explanation offered for his almost vampiric love of Fenian blood is his ‘mammy’s boy’ oedipal problem with his ineffectual Catholic father.”45 That is what the Protestant mother of Victor, Dorcas Kelly (Brenda Fricker), tells the journalist Ryan (James Nesbitt), as they meet regularly for interviews: Although I have little tolerance of the Roman persuasion, Victor never learnt bigotry at this knee. It’s my firm belief that all he really wanted was to be a mature and responsible member of society, loyal to the Crown and devoted to his mother. He suffered from incomprehension. He was in pain because of life. His father James was no help in this regard. He was backward and shy.

34 If most of the films about the political conflict in Northern Ireland represent home as a refuge, where the members of the family – especially the women – try to prevent the men from getting involved in political violence, as in Titanic Town (1998) and Some Mother’s Son (1996), Resurrection Man shows the hero’s family as “the very source of Victor’s pathology in the form of a symbolically ‘castrated’ Catholic father and overbearing Protestant mother.”46 Thus the visceral hatred that he feels for the Catholics would be firstly explained by the fact that he hates his father, James Kelly

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(George Shane) - a Catholic name and therefore a vector of the Catholic legacy. As his own name conveys a Catholic identity, the hero feels ashamed and lost in between two identities: Catholic and Protestant. His very name gives him the position of the Other in his Protestant community and excludes him from the Loyalist tradition. Accordingly, Victor tells Sammy McClure (Sean McGinley), the godfather of this Loyalist group Victor his existential problem: People in this town, fuck them! Do you know what they say? My da is a Fenian! Does my da have ten kids! Does my da yap on about the discrimination! Does my da kiss the Pope’s arse! Fenian fuckers! You’ve got to do them slow!

35 For Martin McLoone, Victor thus “seems to lack any conviction other than a sexual perversity that mirrors his admiration for the Nazis.”47 Because he feels an outcast, Victor wants to prove that he is a Protestant, to display his loyalty to his community. He reinvents himself with each horrific murder and in the process, makes a name for himself within the Loyalist community and an identity within the Loyalist supremacy of the reign of terror. Resurrection Man shows several scenes of torture in which he beats his Catholic victims, lacerates them with a knife and puts the dead bodies in a Christ-like pose. Each murder is for him a step in his quest for identity. “However, given that this irrational pleasure for Catholic blood is a response to his own Catholic father, then each atrocity he commits is both an act of symbolic patricide and demonstration of self-loathing.”48

36 If the Loyalist paramilitary violence is explored through a unilateral vision – the sordid and sadistic elimination of Catholics in Northern Ireland – it is however connected to the rest of the Northern Irish society for it is broadcast by the media through the character of alcoholic journalist Ryan. Here, the voyeuristic quality of the media is put forward. As the journalist enters into the circle of Victor Kelly and his men to better report on the crimes perpetuated by the terrorists, he becomes fascinated by Victor’s actions. Before deeming his mission as informative and objective, Ryan lies in wait for the next horrific murder to comment on. The monstrosity of Victor Kelly’s crimes arouses the journalist curiosity. In a perverse way, he wants the exclusivity of the news, as he tells his colleague Ivor Coppinger (James Ellis): Coppinger: Stabs wounds on torso and limbs: not fatal. (…) Root of tongue severed. Ryan: Here. Give me that! Jesus, the root of the tongue! Coppinger: Good God! The boy is interested! Ryan: Listen, can I write this one up? Coppinger: Be my guest, I wouldn’t want to stand in the way of a great journalistic career.

37 Ryan’s gruesome articles on the gang’s crimes are perceived by the criminals as glorious achievements. Victor Kelly and his men read the papers, watch the news on TV and congratulate themselves as they prepare themselves to torture and kill other Catholic victims: Willie: Did you see the news, Victor! Did you fucking see it! Ivan: We’re fucking famous, so we are. Willie: “Brutal sectarian killing. Not claimed by any organisation.” But we are an organisation! The fucking Famous Five organisation! Ivan: They never said “carving,” Victor. They just said “beat to death” and all that but they never said “cut.” Victor: They’ll say it.

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38 As this dialogue shows, the word UVF is never pronounced by the paramilitaries who call themselves “The Famous Five.” Shorn of realistic detail, political terminology or UVF rhetorics, Resurrection Man drives towards a surreal narrative structure that the image of the media consolidates. The line between reality and fiction seems to be blurred by the accounts of the murders in Ryan’s articles. The film also suggests a symbiotic relationship between barbarian Loyalist violence and the public fascination for the media covering the news. As McClure suggests to Ryan, “Everybody has got something to do with it. (…) It’s everybody’s responsibility.” By the same token, the press oversteps its media sphere to enter into the world of Loyalist paramilitarism. The dialogue between Victor and his men underlines the interest that the criminals take in the precise and clinical presentation of their action in the newspaper articles.

39 As a consequence, the media become an actor in the political violence since they define publicly the image of the Loyalist paramilitaries and an officious spokesman for the organization. McClure, who in the end manipulates both Victor and Ryan, defines himself as “a sort of technician (…) in communication.” He finds in Ryan his “communication” counterpart. If Ryan falls for McClure’s Machiavellian tricks, he is nevertheless shown to be an accomplice. Hence, the film presents the officious partnership between the press and the Loyalists and to a greater extent, between the media and the criminals, as mutually beneficial. McClure finds in Ryan a great opportunity to cover the Loyalist reign of terror and the crimes of Victor Kelly, building up his reputation and his public image via the media. As McClure tells Victor, “See Victor, it’s business. You’re becoming a big man. Let them ask their questions. Grow in the public mind. (…) Victor Kelly, the man and the myth.” Indeed, through Ryan’s articles, Victor Kelly becomes a mythical character who embodies the Loyalist supremacy.

40 Despite Eoin McName’s decision not to depict any political nor any representation of the Troubles on the part of Eoin McName, the film nevertheless reveals the reign of terror that was one of the UVF’s goals in the seventies: March 1972 saw the major change that the Nationalists and the Republicans had been demanding: the abolition of the Stormont Parliament. Unionists watched their edifice crumbling without resistance and saw Provisional IRA leaders being flown to London for talks with the British Prime Minister, Edward Heath. In the Protestant community there was not just despondency but a feeling of political impotence and an increasing suspicion that, with Stormont gone, they were about to be driven into a United Ireland. The fall of Stormont created a trauma in the Protestant community which has never been properly evaluated in relation to the subsequent development of Loyalist paramilitary thinking. The Provisionals achieved something which the Loyalists had believed could never happen: the destruction of so-called Protestant supremacy. The Protestants were immersed in feelings of frustration and despair. They could not attack the British Army or the police because they saw them as their security forces; instead they reverted to terror against the other community.49

41 Through the journalist’s reports, the character of Victor Kelly has created a media identity, based on the fusion of Loyalist terror and gangster role-model: the psychopath/vampire Loyalist. At the end of the film the megalomaniac gangster is shot dead in front of his house and before the eyes of Ryan and McClure. As in Nothing Personal, the Loyalist godfather orchestrates Victor’s elimination. The motivations for this execution are however different. Leonard decides to eliminate Kenny because he is

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not able to deal with Ginger’s psychopathology, which endangers the political strategy of the UVF; McClure feels that Victor has become too famous and gets too much attention from the press. Resurrection Man suggests that anybody in Northern Ireland could be an accomplice to barbarian Loyalist violence, publicized by voyeuristic media. The public and the criminals are put on the same level as they are equally excited by reading morbid and sinister stories that the press keep on publishing. Hence, it is hard to draw the line between the Loyalists’ violence and the surrounding social environment. The film depicts Northern Ireland as a society deeply immersed in abject and meaningless violence.

42 Nothing Personal and Resurrection Man undeniably renew the vision of the Northern Irish political conflict through their representations of Loyalists. As cinema provides a space for new interpretations of the Troubles, the peace process has enabled to question sectarian violence, as can be seen in Nothing Personal. However the absence of ideological motivation on the part of the UVF in both films contributes to pass over the causes of the political conflict and notably the Loyalist strategy and motivations. Intercommunal relations come down to blood-thirsty Protestants who savagely assassinate and torture Catholics such as Ginger in Nothing Personal and, particularly, Victor Kelly in Resurrection Man. Understanding the Protestants thus remains difficult as their political actions are represented through the angle of a bleak and destructive psychopathology. While the Protestant community is rarely explored in films, the films which do explore it tend to focus on the portrayal of mentally deranged fanatics. If these films have observed the political change and offered a unique medium for addressing Northern Ireland’s violent past, they have however anchored the Protestants in a filmic representation of monstrosity.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barta, Tony (ed). Screening the Past: Film and the Representation of History. Westport (Connecticut): Praeger, 1998

Bell, Desmond, McLoone, Martin, Pettitt, Lance, Wilson, John, “Dissenting Voices/Imagined Communities; Ulster Protestant Identity and Cinema in Ireland.” Belfast Film Festival, Community Relations Council, 2001

Bew, Paul, Gillepsie, Gordon. Northern Ireland: A Chronology of the Troubles 1968 -1993. Dublin: Gill& Macmillan, 1993.

Brennan Paul, Htchinson, Wesley. Irlande du Nord, un nouveau départ? Paris : La Documentation française, n° 845, 29 septembre 2000.

Coogan, Tim Pat. The Troubles. London: Arrow Books, 1996.

Coogan, Tim Pat. The I.R.A. London: Harper Collins Publishers, 2000.

Cornell, Jennifer. ‘Walking with Beasts. Gary Mitchell and the representation of Ulster Loyalism’, Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, Volume 29, n° 2, 2003.

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Dillon, Martin. The Shankill Butchers. A Case Study of Mass Murder. London: Arrow Books, 1989.

Elliott, Marianne (ed). The Long Road to Peace in Northern Ireland. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2002.

Hill, John. Cinema and Ireland. New York: Syracuse University Press, 1988.

Hill, John. Cinema and Northern Ireland, London: British Film Institute, 2006.

Hutchinson, Wesley. Espaces de l’imaginaire Unioniste nord-irlandais. Caen : Presses Universitaires de Caen, 1999.

Hutchinson, Wesley. Gary Mitchell’s “talk process.” Klincksieck/Etudes anglaises, 2003/2.

McIlroy, Brian. Shooting to Kill, Filmmaking and the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland. Richmond: Steveston Press, 2001.

McLoone, Martin. Irish Film, The Emergence of a Contemporary Cinema. London: British Film Institute, 2000.

McMahon, Margery. Government and Politics of Northern Ireland. Belfast: The Universities Press, (2002) 2004.

Nicolle-Blaya, Anne. L’Ordre d’Orange en Ulster. Commémorations d’une histoire protestante. Paris : L’Harmattan, 2009.

Pettitt, Lance. Screening Ireland: Film and Television Representation. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000

Taylor, Peter. The Provos: The IRA and Sinn Féin. London: Bloomsbury, 1997.

Taylor, Peter. Loyalists. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, (1999) 2000.

NOTES

1. If these films explore the Catholic perspective, some of them concentrate on Catholic victims of specific events of the Troubles - like Bloody Sunday (2001) - and offer an alternative to the official version of history endowing cinema with a role as historical source and also as a space for the memory of the victims. 2. Originally entitled Fanatic Hearts, Irish director Thaddeus O’Sullivan finally changed the title. The screenplay is written by Daniel Mornin who adapted his own novel All Our Fault, 1991. Nothing Personal is an Irish/ British coproduction, produced by Channel Four Films / Little Bird / Bord Scannán na hEireann / The Irish Film Board / British Screen / Jonathan Cavendish / Tracey Seaward. 3. If the director is Welsh, the screenplay is from Northern Irishman Eoin McNamee who based Resurrection Man on his novel of the same name (1993).The film is British, produced by Revolution Films / Polygram Filmed Entertainment/ Gina Carter / Andrew Eaton / Michael Winterbottom. 4. Martin McLoone, Irish Film, The Emergence of a Contemporary Cinema (London: British Film Institute, 2000), 79. 5. John Hill, Cinema and Ireland. New York: Syracuse University Press, 1988, 191. 6. Brian McIlroy, Shooting to Kill, Filmmaking and the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland (Richmond: Steveston Press, 2001), 11. 7. Unionist and Loyalist designate Protestants in favour of the British Monarchy and opposed to any form of unification with the Republic of Ireland.

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8. Republican designates Catholics, in favour of the integration of Northern Ireland in the Republic, of the re-unification with the South. 9. « Les multiples obstacles (idéologiques, émotionnels, géographiques) qui empêchent le monde extérieur de s’identifier à la position unioniste. (…). [S]i les autres ont du mal à le comprendre, c’est dans une très large mesure à cause de la façon déficiente dont l’unionisme s’est lui-même imaginé. En effet, l’image que projette l’unionisme à l’extérieur est frappée par une double parcellisation, à la fois temporelle et spatiale ». Wesley Hutchinson, Espaces de l’imaginaire Unioniste nord-irlandais. Caen : Presses Universitaires de Caen, 1999, 11. 10. Desmond Bell, ‘Of Monsters and Men : Protestant Identity and Film Culture in Ireland’, in Dissenting Voices/ Imagined Communities (Belfast : Belfast Film Festival, 2001), 5. 11. This can be seen in Angel (Neil Jordan, 1982), Cal (Pat O’Connor, 1984), High Boot Benny (Joe Comerford, 1993) and Divorcing Jack (David Caffrey, 1998). In An Everlasting Piece (Barry Levinson, 2000), George, a Protestant character, is isolated from the rest of his community as he develops a friendly relationship with a Catholic family. 12. Martin McLoone, Irish Film, The Emergence of a Contemporary Cinema (London: British Film Institute, 2000), 79. 13. Desmond Bell, op.cit., 6. 14. See Jennifer Cornell, ‘Walking with Beasts. Gary Mitchell and the representation of Ulster Loyalism’, Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, Volume 29, n° 2, 2003. 15. The most important Protestant organization, created in 1971 and outlawed in 1992, which is closely connected with two paramilitary groups: the UFF and the RHC. 16. Wesley Hutchinson, Gary Mitchell’s “talk process.” Klincksieck/Etudes anglaises, 2003/2 - Tome 56, 206. 17. Protestant movement founded in 1913 to resist Home Rule, which resurfaced as an illegal paramilitary group in 1966 close to the DUP and Ian Paisley. 18. “The ‘Shankill Butchers’ gang, (…) was led by a psychopath called Lenny ‘the Butcher’ Murphy, who had a passionate hatred of Catholics and who clearly took pleasure in the act of killing, be it pulling a trigger or wielding a knife. (…) The infamous ‘Shankill Butchers’, the UVF gang (…) terrorized the nationalist community from the end of 1975 onwards by abducting their victims and then literally carving them up with butchers’ knives.” Peter Taylor, Loyalists, London: Bloomsburry, 2000, 152-153. 19. Martin Dillon, The Shankill Butchers (London: Arrow Books, 1990), XVII. 20. Martin Dillon, op. cit., XVIII-XIX. 21. Dr Conor Cruise O’Brien, in Martin Dillon, op. cit., Foreword. 22. Ibid. 23. John Hill, Cinema and Northern Ireland (London: British Film Institute, 2006), 197. 24. Thaddeus O’Sullivan, Film West, ‘Fanatic Heart’, 7 July1995, 18. 25. Wesley Hutchinson, Gary Mitchell’s “talk process”, Klincksieck/Etudes anglaises, 2003/2 - Tome 56, 210. 26. “For while the film is set in 1975, it is clearly informed by, and feeds into the politics of the contemporary ‘peace process’. In Daniel Mornin’s original novel, All Our Fault (1991), on which the film is based, there is no reference to a ceasefire. However, by the time the novel was made into a film the agreement of a ‘truce’ and the reactions of the paramilitaries to this had become key components of the plot.” John Hill, Ibid., 197. 27. Thaddeus O’Sullivan, Ibid., 16. 28. Martin McLoone, op. cit., 79. 29. According to the Oxford English Dictionary the Teague (teg, tig) reaches back to 1661. The dictionary classifies the word as colloquial and defines it as the anglicized spelling of the name Tadhg, which is variously pronounced teg, tig, or taig, and is a nickname for an Irishman. (...) In

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Northern Ireland it was spelt Taig and used pejoratively rather like ‘nigger’ or ‘Commie’ in the United States”, Martin Dillon, op.cit., XXIV. 30. “The man who helped to reactivate the UVF was ‘Gusty’ Spence, an associate of Paisley’s in the UPA. Spence came of a strongly Unionist family; his brother was the Unionist election agent for West Belfast. He was a shipyard worker who had some military training, having been in the British Army and served as a military policeman in Cyprus. The new UVF was a long way from the force which in Carson’s day was supported by earl, general and mill-owner. Its predominantly working-class membership consisted, in Michael Farrell’s description, of ‘…a small group of Paisley’s supporters who, alarmed by his denunciations of the Unionist sell-out, had set up an armed organisation’ .” Tim Pat Coogan. The Troubles, London: Arrow Books, 1996, p. 58. 31. Augustus Spence in Martin Dillon, Ibid., 14. 32. Martin Dillon, Ibid. (introduction), XXIV. 33. Thaddeus O’Sullivan, Ibid., 17. 34. John Hill, Cinema and Northern Ireland (London: British Film Institute, 2006), 196. 35. John Hill, Ibid. 36. Hennessy (Don Sharp, 1975), Cal (Pat O’Connor, 1983), A Prayer for the Dying (Mike Hodges, 1987), The Crying Game (Neil Jordan, 1992). 37. Thaddeus O’Sullivan, Ibid., 18. 38. Alexander Walker, Evening Standard, 29 January 1998, 29. 39. Christopher Tookey, Daily Mail, 30 January 1998, 44. 40. John Hill, Cinema and Northern Ireland (London: British Film Institute, 2006), 206. 41. Eoin McNamee, Resurrection Man, Notes de production, 1998, Irish Film Institute Library. 42. Gary Mitchell, The Irish Times, ‘Red, White and Very Blue’, 27 March 1998, 13. 43. Public Enemy, William A. Wellman, Warner Pictures, 1931. 44. Apart from Public Enemy, the most notable gangster films of the time are Little Caesar, Mervyn Le Roy, Warner Pictures, 1931 and Scarface, Howard Hawks, Atlantic Pictures (United Artists), 1932. 45. Martin McLoone, Irish Film, The Emergence of a Contemporary Cinema (London: British Film Institute, 2000), 82. 46. John Hill, op. cit., 206. 47. Martin McLoone, op. cit., 82. 48. Ibid. 49. Martin DILLON. op. cit., p. 14.

ABSTRACTS

Films about the political conflict in Northern Ireland (from 1968 to 1998) have been prevalent over the last three decades and they have reflected changes in Northern Ireland. Through its discursive construction, its independent voice and its popular reach, cinema provides a unique vehicle for the exploration of the Troubles and the peace process. This article attempts to trace the relationship between cinema and this conflict, notably through films dealing with Protestants, as a series of such films were produced at the time of the Good Friday Agreement. Thus, cinema does not only transcribe history in a static way but takes part in the changes going on in Northern Ireland.

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INDEX

Keywords: Protestants, Unionism, Loyalists, political conflict, Northern Ireland, film, representation of psychopaths

AUTHOR

CÉCILE BAZIN Cécile Bazin holds a PhD entitled Images of the Northern Irish Political Conflict in Cinema. Her research focuses on the relationship between the evolution of the political conflict in Northern Ireland and cinema. She is currently teaching at the University Rennes 2 and the University Sorbonne nouvelle-Paris 3. She has published several articles on the impact of the peace process on films such as the production of comedies, or the visions of cinema as a space for memory, and more recently on feminism, politics and history in film in the context of the political conflict.

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Bibliographical Essay

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British Docudrama

Georges Fournier

1 Hybridized forms or representation, whether for the big screen or for television, have only recently aroused the interest of researchers, though the practice itself can be traced back to the origins of film. The tug of war that lies at the heart of docudrama − the generic term for this type of representation − springs from the mixture of elements borrowed from the fictional and documentary genres. Unlike conventional fiction films, docudramas claim a testimonial dimension. In Introduction, Drama- documentary, Dossier 19, the extensive investigation Andrew Goodwin and Paul Kerr carried out for the British Film Institute into the adjustments of documentary to television, the authors come to the conclusion that “television ‘drama-documentary’ is not a programme category, it is a debate,”1 a contention based on the problems of taxonomy but also on the blurring of boundaries which are issues that this paper is going to try and explore.

Naming Hybrid Productions

2 In The Television Genre Book Glen Creeber chooses to situate his examination of genres within the broader framework of television studies, taking into account broadcasters, notions related to reception and television as a whole. Exploring the hybrid combination of documentary and fictional genres, Glen Creeber draws a fine line between documentary drama2 on the one hand and dramatised documentary on the other hand: “Whereas dramatised-documentary might include conventional documentary material alongside the dramatised sequences, it is likely that, with the exception of brief scenes from archive footage, most of a documentary-drama will be the product of full directorial management of scripted action and speech.”3 Derek Paget takes the taxonomy a step further in No Other Way to Tell It by giving meaning to the several linguistic combinations that can be worked out with the words “documentary,” “drama” and all the related morphemes that compose them, not to mention the absence or presence of hyphens. His study highlights the fact that although the passage from complete forms – “dramatised documentary” and “documentary drama” − to amalgamated structures – “dramadoc” and “docudrama” − is mainly telling of the

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evolution of the genre over time, the choice of the word “docudrama,” “dramadoc” or “faction” is, on the contrary, very meaningful. He takes the opportunity of a linguistic analysis to start a semantic explanation on the distinction between the British and US traditions, the latter favouring fictionalisation while the former is more inclined to evidential forms of representation. Yet, Derek Paget first investigated the differences between productions from the USA and Great-Britain, in True and Truer Stories – Documentary and Drama published in Médias : entre fiction et réalité, an article which also represented the opportunity for him to define the typically American concept of “faction,” and also to underline that the notion of crisis stands at the core of the hybrid genre of the docudrama.

3 In British TV Docudrama: Origins and Developments, published in Why Docudrama? Fact- Fiction on Film and TV by Alan Rosenthal, John Corner’s ambition is also to offer a general approach of docudrama. He studies the genre from the point of view of terminology and draws conclusions from the combinations between the abridged and complete forms of the words “documentary,” “drama” and “fiction.” His study is also diachronic and spans the origins of the genre, from World War II propaganda − designed to foster a feeling of patriotism − to the beginning of docudrama on television.

4 The differences in approaches on either side of the Atlantic are also examined in detail by Susan Boyd-Bowman in Popular Television and Film. A Reader. As far as Susan Boyd- Bowman is concerned, the American drama documentary “privileges dramatic fiction over factual documentation.”4 It perfectly fits into the definition of US productions as putting a premium on fiction, which results from the powerful influence of Hollywood over filmic representations in the USA.

5 For Peter Kosminsky, the acclaimed British filmmaker, every film is a fiction film and the difference between the documentary and the docudrama genres is artificial and irrelevant. “There’s nothing inherently objective about documentaries. Every time someone chooses a particular section of an interview and juxtaposes it with a particular piece of music, they are steering the audience,” he confessed to a Guardian journalist in an article entitled Kosminsky Defends Docudrama.5 Among filmmakers, this approach to the filmic material was first supported by Peter Watkins who, in Media Crisis, stated that “We can no longer separate or differentiate films in terms of being artistic, pleasurable, aesthetic vs. those we consider as rubbish – without understanding that nearly all contemporary cinema films, documentaries, and TV programmes (including news broadcasts) which are intended and shaped for a mass audience, share certain common elements: a mono-form structure and a hierarchical relationship to the public. Whenever we watch a film, or even a few moments of TV, we are – with alarmingly few exceptions – participating in a repetitive process of manipulation, whether this was intentional on the part of the filmmaker/producer, or not.”6

6 The debate that occasionally rages over whether films should be labelled as “fiction,” “documentary” or “docudrama” is one that is widespread and fruitful among academics and critics. Although filmmakers are fully aware of the impact taxonomy has on reception, their main concern is getting their message across. Derek Paget, in the second edition of No Other Way To Tell It, aptly sums up the situation: “two things keep the ‘debate’ going and keep fuelling the effort to define as well as describe. The first is a continued demand for clear definition (if not taxonomy) on the part of students, non- academic commentators and, not least, ordinary viewers. This fire is continually stoked

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by print journalists. Television journalists and programme makers believe the reason for this is that newspapers feel threatened by the investigative power of television and see the docudrama as a weak point.”7

A Survey of Hybridity

7 Legitimized by their claim to testify to ethnographic and social issues, the acclaimed British documentarists of the early years of the twentieth century offered viewers fictive constructions which were later heralded as documentaries and which have gone down in history as such. L’Angleterre et son cinema : Le Courant documentaire 1927/1965 by Olivier Barrot, Philippe Pilard and Jean Queval abounds in references to British films made in the early years of the twentieth century and which purported to be testimonial. Documentarists roamed the world in an attempt to record on films as much of the diversity of customs and habits only ethnographers had until then approached, an anthropological dimension that still runs through many productions from drama documentarists. John Caughie, in Television Drama. Realism, Modernism, and British Culture offers a diachronic approach of the genre that encompasses its origins and the influence of the British tradition of the documentary; seminal figures like John Grierson, the father figure of the British documentary, and John Reith, the founder of the BBC, occupy prominent places in the debate on the promotion of hybrid forms of representation.

8 The main source of criticism levelled at the productions from the budding years of the British documentary had to do with their escapist dimension. The necessity for filmmakers to be politically committed and to choose topics in keeping with the concerns of the population, whether it was unemployment or housing problems, was John Grierson’s credo. As the pioneer of the British documentary tradition, John Grierson was highly critical of the tendency to lend filmic technique to escapist fantasies. In Grierson on Documentary he is adamant about the need for documentarists to focus on social realities in Britain. Robert Flaherty was directly targeted by his attacks: “Flaherty’s most considerable contribution to the problem is, as always, his insistence on the beauty of the natural. […] He took a year to make his study of the Eskimos and this after ten years’ exploration in the Eskimo country of Labrador and Baffin Land. […] We know our England glibly as an industrial country, as a beautiful country […] but we don’t know it in our everyday observation as such.”8 For John Grierson, the filmic media is a tool that must be wielded to help support social and political causes, a guiding principle that still stands at the core of the British docudrama.

9 Even at this very early stage in the history of filmic practices, hybridity was the subjects of debates. In Grierson on Documentary, John Grierson feels the need to pinpoint filmic technique as being the cause of inevitable hybrid productions and expands on how they impact the message filmmakers want to convey. Grierson on Documentary, along with John Grierson’s filmic work, paved the way for the politically committed fictionalized documentaries as television has promoted them since the 1960s.

10 The other major breakthrough brought about by John Grierson is, for Su Holmes and Deborah Jermyn, his rather equivocal description of documentary as “the creative interpretation of reality.”9 In Understanding Reality Television, Su Holmes and Deborah Jermyn explain how they see in John Grierson’s famous statement the roots of the

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debate on filmic hybridity. They highlight the fact that as early as the 1930s the distinction between “drama” − to be understood as synonymous with fiction − and “reality” was already blurred. Another recent approach of this issue is afforded by John Izod, R. W. Kilborn and Matthew Hibberd in From Grierson to the Docu-soap: Breaking the Boundaries. About the criteria to assess the documentary value of a film, the authors insist on the veracity of the allegations and on the relevance of the points put forward rather than on the degree of artificiality. Some years later, Peter Kosminsky brushed aside the issue in his interview to The Guardian entitled Kosminsky Defends Docudrama. On whether the value of docudramas should be questioned because they rely on elements of fiction, he declared: “If you have a statement at the start of a film saying ‘this is a true story’, you have to apply the same editorial processes and rigour you would to a documentary.”10 From his point of view, docudrama makers inherit a debate that is not theirs: as professionals they are fully aware of the capacities and limits of the genre; they neither twist reality nor cheat with facts and chronology but offer a point of view that is their own.

The Controversy over Re-Enactment

11 The second debate, which has been going on for decades among film and television critics, is about the value of films which claim to be testimonial. Ever since the early years of cinema, re-enactment and the need to stage events or employ special effects have often been a necessity. Because of the lack of mobility that would not allow for the capture of the profilmic, the early filmmakers were forced to ask professional actors or the protagonists of the events to perform the scenes they had witnessed. Once again the interwar years provided illuminating examples of the staging of the real. One of the most famous is afforded by Ruby Grierson who was in charge of briefing the ones whose testimony would be collected: “Ruby Grierson […] was involved in the encouragement and general preparation of the speakers.”11 John Corner’s anecdote about John Grierson’s sister, mentioned in The Art of Record: A Critical Introduction to Documentary, offers an enlightening illustration of the staging of the “raw material” as John Grierson himself named the recorded images and sound, to be edited at a later stage. For Derek Paget, in True Stories? Documentary Drama on Radio, Screen and Stage, this type of professional practice resembles what John Grierson called “the creative treatment of actuality”12 or what Judge Milton Pollack misremembered as “the creative interpretation of reality,”13 a statement Derek Paget mentions in No Other Way To Tell It. The purpose of re-enactment is not, and was not at the time, to deceive in any way but to make it possible for viewers to catch a glimpse of the Zeitgeist, or spirit of the time, by allowing the camera to capture a simulacrum of actuality.

12 John Grierson was undeniably the driving force behind the political dimension of the documentary movement. Since, in those days, hybridity, under all its forms, could not be bypassed, John Grierson did not object to it. Nevertheless, Harry Watt and Alberto Cavalcanti were the true proponents of hybridity, a point which is interestingly investigated by Roy Armes in A Critical History of British Cinema. From his point of view, “Cavalcanti supported the work of Harry Watt who, in films like The Saving of Bill Blewitt (1937) and North Sea (1938), moved towards fictionalised and acted documentary,”14 an opinion expressed some years later by Jean-Louis Passek in Dictionnaire du cinéma: “Cavalcanti […] was probably the first to dramatise the documentary.”15 Roy Armes insightfully pins down the origin of what would later be known as docudrama when he

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defines Alberto Cavalcanti’s Coalface (1935), as being “hybrid work.”16 This statement is later qualified when, writing about the collaboration between Alberto Cavalcanti, Harry Watt and John Grierson, he posits: “In many ways Night Mail is the culmination of the G.P.O. period – a collaborative effort which balances Grierson’s concern with public information, Watt’s naturalistic direction and the more lyrical and experimental approaches of Cavalcanti and Wright.”17 Because Roy Armes’s and Jean-Louis Passek’s books encompass periods prior to the existence of television, they offer an insight into filmic practices that were later acquired by TV and then seen as typical of it.

13 It did not take long before the communication industry, in the forms of both journalism and propaganda, understood the huge benefits that could be derived from the blurring of the distinction between fiction and documentary. In 1935, under the title The March of Time, Henry Luce, the editor of Time Magazine, introduced the twenty-minute filmic version of his famous magazine in several theatre houses across the USA. Each weekly batch covered the topical issues of the time and tapped into various genres, whether documentary, journalism or reportage. Even though the main purpose of this undertaking was the information of cinema-goers, it hinged on re-enactments: the protagonists of the events or professional actors were asked to stage what had happened or what had been witnessed by others. Raymond Fielding in The March of Time, 1935-1951, dispels any illusions that might be entertained about the objectivity of filmic journalism and he contends that “both in the United States and in Europe, newsreels were compromised from the beginning by fakery, re-creation, manipulation, and staging.”18 Yet, from his point of view, fakery should not be equated with film. He traces the origins of the loss of illusions about journalistic objectivity to radio broadcasting which offered the first forms of dramatization of current events: “In 1928, in association with radio executive Fred Smith, Larsen undertook the weekly broadcast of a 10-minute program series of brief news summaries, drawn from current issues of Time magazine, and featuring what Larsen later described as one ‘hair-raising’ news event in each broadcast. […] Each broadcast lasted 10 minutes (later 15 minutes) and was offered free of charge to radio stations in return for publicity for Time magazine. The series was intended by Larsen to stimulate magazine circulation.”19

World War 2 and the Semi-Documentary

14 None of the practices mentioned above was necessarily objectionable insofar as the recipients were aware of the absence of objectivity in the treatment of news. But such was not always the case. John Grierson himself is explicit about the deceptive dimension of film and he makes it clear in the analytic section of his book Grierson on Documentary: “the camera-eye is in effect a magical instrument. It can see a thousand things in a thousand places at different times, and the cunning cutter can string them together for a review of the world.”20 In the book she devotes to Went the Day Well? (1942), about an English village invaded by German paratroopers, Penelope Houston goes as far as to praise the superiority of fiction over all other forms of representation because of its treatment of factuality. From her point of view, Went the Day Well? was “the only British feature film made during the war to deal seriously with the prospect of invasion, to show British civilians coming to grips on home ground with the German army. […] It came at a time when British film-makers were trying to assimilate the lessons of documentary-making into feature production, as a way of bringing a

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necessary realism into their treatment of war.”21 Penelope Houston’s book proposes a rich and detailed analysis of the evolution of World War II documentary productions, and particularly the semi-documentary − also called quasi-documentary − with references to examples taken from the Ealing Productions of the time, such as The Foreman Went to France (1942) and The Next of Kin (1942), to name but a couple. Her thorough analysis of Alberto Cavalcanti’s films points to major features like the choice of topical issues and the fictional treatment of actuality which will later become major landmarks in the definition of docudrama. Penelope Houston shrewdly strikes at the heart of the tension of the genre when, about Michael Balcon, the English filmmaker, she writes that “documentary as then understood, was by no means the only route to realism, not even the best, but it was characteristic of Balcon that he should take this direct and practical approach. The problem then became one of striking proper balance between the factual elements of a film and its narrative.”22 The notion of semi- documentary was born and supporters of the national military efforts to win the war resorted to it, as Humphrey Jennings did in I was a Fireman (1943).

Faking the Real

15 It is only in retrospect that the notion of fakery appears rather blatantly. In Lies, Damn Lies and Documentaries Brian Winston examines the notion of fakery in its various filmic aspects. He analyses the use of artificiality in documentaries. From his point of view, though the problem was raised a long time ago, it has never been totally solved. He articulates the question in the following terms: “David Meeker, of the British National Film and Television Archive, when including Humphrey Jennings’s 1943 classic Fires Were Started in a list of the most important films of the cinema’s first decades, queried if this reconstruction of fire-fighting in the Blitz (which used real fire-fighters, but sets for interiors and a blaze started by the film-makers rather than the Luftwaffe) was what we could still call a documentary?”23 Brian Winston’s answer is unequivocal: “What matters here is that the creation of a form, ‘dramadoc’, which is all reconstruction, has helped cast the use of reconstruction in the old form, ‘documentary’, into doubt.”24

16 Few recent books on documentary-making fail to mention hybrid productions, and receptive researchers into the documentary genre include sections on this form in their analyses. John Corner is one of them. In The Art of Record. A Critical Introduction to Documentary he provides an insightful view into the various types of documentaries and the characteristic elements of each. Hybrid forms are rightfully devoted entire sections. Equal weight is given to different theories, as when the author writes about “action formats,”25 and to analyses, as when he chooses to contrast early instances of hybridity from Housing Problems (1935) and Coal Face (1935) to more recent ones like Cathy Come Home (1966) and Roger and Me (1986). What holds together all these filmic undertakings is the willingness of their creators to bear witness to the plight of the needy and the efforts made to increase viewers’ awareness. These filmmakers disregard the widely shared injunction that documentary should not be tainted with fiction. They endow their work with the aesthetic dimension required to reach the widest possible audience.

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Referentiality

17 For John Corner, docudrama corresponds to the combination of viewpoints and claims for referentiality, “high imaginative potency,”26 and a strong emphasis on watchability. He concedes that though hybridity may generate confusion, the mixing of different modes was a key factor in achieving a powerful popular impact on viewers and in offering demanding issues a spellbinding treatment. One of the strengths of these fiction-films is undoubtedly their referentiality.

18 Referentiality stands at the core of Real Emotional Logic: Film and Television Docudrama As Persuasive Practice by Steven N. Lipkin. The author analyses this notion in conjunction with that of credibility: why cannot docudrama’s “motivated iconicity” have credit, while “documentary progressively has aligned representation and actuality?”27 The iconic dimension of docudrama also stands at the core of Steve Lipkin’s article entitled Defining Docudrama: In the Name of the Father, Schindler’s List and JFK and published by Alan Rosenthal in Why Docudrama? Fact-Fiction on Film and TV. His theory, which he also develops in Real Emotional Logic: Film and Television Docudrama as Persuasive Practice, is formulated along the following lines: in docudrama, the lack of indexicality is replaced by “a quasi-indexical narrative,”28 which means that it tries to make up for the lack of indexical unstaged images by being faithful to what actually happened and what was said. The scriptwriters’ respect for actuality is prompted by the need to make up for the lack of ample iconic references. A concomitant explanation to justify this respect for what actually happened is the attempt to revitalize morality: “Like melodrama generally, docudrama suggests that lost moral structures can be recovered and restored.”29

Docudrama on Television

The Realist Tradition

19 Docudrama per se really took off with the expansion of television and more particularly the realist approach used to tackle social issues. TV realism stands at the core of John Corner’s British TV Drama: Origins and Developments, an analysis which underscores the 1960s realist tradition in cinema and in literature. The notion of “realism” is further investigated by John Corner himself in Studying Media: Problems of Theory and Method which represents a compilation of his writings. In this collection, he divides the notion of “realism” into two, one referring to “the project of verisimilitude”30 and the other to “the project of reference (of being about the real).” His analysis scrutinizes the social, stylistic but also political aspects connected to the treatment of topical issues like housing, abortion, the relations between the sexes, unemployment, etc. The innovative approach of topical issues, adopted by filmmakers in the 1960s, challenged the dominant conventions which, until then, had ruled filmic representations. John Corner insists on one of the main appeals of this type of television image which was the credit it had among viewers, due to its referentiality and to the need filmmakers felt to strive for accuracy and relevance.

20 The major appeal of the experimental TV docudramas of the 1960s lay in the reflexive dimension which would lead some directors to emphasise filmic technique so as to break the suspension of disbelief and to encourage viewers to think critically about

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what was offered to them. David Edgar in Theater of Fact: a Dramatist’s Viewpoint, published in Why Docudrama? Fact-Fiction on Film and TV by Alan Rosenthal, defines this reflexive dimension as one of the salient elements of an ambitious, politically committed television which meant to promote the education of citizens.

The Heyday of Authored Television

21 In the wake of the aftermath of World War II, at a very early stage after the resumption of TV broadcasts, heads of programming paid special attention to the dramatization of documentaries. Both the public and the private sectors set up their own departments in charge of investigating the mixing of genres. This is a field that is particularly well explored by Andrew Goodwin and John Kerr in Drama-documentary, Dossier 19: while the BBC, in the 1960s, set up its Dramatised Documentary Group, the Granada company was trying to break fresh grounds with its Dramatised Documentary Unit. Drama-documentary, Dossier 19 was meant as a special publication, commissioned by the British Film Institute, and it was designed to focus on the hybridisation of the genres that dealt with factuality. The research conducted by Andrew Goodwin and John Kerr is extensively documented, which makes their book a reliable source for inquirers into the promotion of information through fiction. It represents the first attempt at trying to exhaustively address docudrama from analytical, historical and descriptive points of view.

22 More recently, in 2004, Tony Currie, in A Concise History of British Television, 1930-2000, examined the notion of hybridity in the 1960s from a social perspective; his book highlights the necessity of the then new media to inform the population differently so as to establish some form of dramatic continuum in the treatment of current issues.

23 An identical analysis was carried out into US fictionalized documentary by Douglas Gomery in Brian’s Song (1971), published by Alan Rosenthal in Why Docudrama? Fact- Fiction on Film and TV. Docudrama is envisaged by the author within the North American audiovisual landscape. It is seen as the final stage of a long process, from 1946 to 1971, and it takes into account the initiatives by many networks to commission their own productions in the context of a highly competitive film industry and the birth of payable cable TV.

24 For Gill Branston and Roy Stafford, in The Media Student’s Book, the 1960s were the “Golden Age”31 of the British television drama: the BBC and the ITV companies relied on “in-house”32 productions, and staff and equipment were viewed as corporate resources. This liberal spirit was conducive to creativity and was later denounced by the reformers of the 1990s as “featherbedding.”33 Gill Branston and Roy Stafford examine in details the impact of such economically liberal measures on genres − in particular on docudrama − and the retaliation TV companies suffered from in the wake of the production of highly political fiction films like The War Game (1965) and Cathy Come Home (1966).

25 Focusing on the public sector, Andrew Goodwin and Garry Whannel, in Understanding Television, state that the BBC’s post-war resumption of television transmissions was marked by the creation of a new unit, the Dramatised Documentary Group. As an extension of the Illustrated Talks Department, it was in charge of what Radio Times at the time described as “story documentaries” with scripted scenarios, sets, and actors reconstructing recent world events. BBC’s obligations were not only to provide news but also to document the new post-war Britain.

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26 In Lies, Damn Lies and Documentaries Brian Winston analyses the adaptation of cinematic practices to TV constraints with a view to impacting a wide audience on critical issues. As pointed out by Philip Schlesinger, in Putting “Reality” Together: BBC News, the 1960s corresponded to a massive influx of information on television which was largely accounted for by the development of lightweight material which allowed for the coverage of events almost instantly. Radio news was superseded by TV news which became the main source of information for the public. The content of popular TV series like Z Cars (BBC, 1962-1978) and Dixon of Dock Green (BBC, 1955-1976) was also informed by social and ethical issues, dealt with in a fictionalized manner. They followed in the footsteps of the dramatized wartime documentaries which had proselytized about the war effort and the need to remain united in the face of adversity. Series and one-off TV fiction films were designed to document endemic social diseases. This comprehensive approach, which takes into account not only the technical but also the political dimension associated with the new media, is the one chosen by George W. Brandt for his collection of essays entitled British Television Drama in the 1980s. The authors offer readers an overview of how, from the 1960s onwards, TV programmes were affected by the evolution of technologies and by pressures from the governments of the time to urge the public sector to compete with the private sector for audience ratings.

27 The docudrama form has witnessed both periods of enthusiasm, from filmmakers and viewers, and periods of intense adversity, from the political authorities. As evidenced by the criticism leveled at Peter Watkin’s The War Game (1965), the TV regulators saw to it that the genre became discredited on aesthetic grounds for lack of any valid criticism on the matters debated or on the ideas put forward. This point is stressed by John Corner in The Art of Record. About The War Game (1965), he writes that “As with so many other “controversial” drama-documentaries, objections which were primarily about the substantive content and viewpoint expressed were strategically displaced into becoming objections about the unacceptability of the form itself.”34

28 The choice of topical issues for the production of fiction films stood at the heart of the policy of weekly TV events like Armchair Theatre (ITV, 1956-1974), The Wednesday Play (BBC 1, 1964-1970) and Play for Today (BBC 1, 1970-1984). In The Evolution of Drama, Irene Shubik praises docudrama as a genre thanks to which, in those days, television channels managed to ensure loyalty around politically committed programmes. Thanks to this format, viewers were attracted towards apparently unglamorous issues like abortion, poverty or homelessness. The debates they generated in the population were meant to reverberate among parliamentary circles so as to generate positive social change. According to Irene Shubik, The Unloved, transmitted in June 1955, was the first major play of this “drama documentary” type. Directed by Gilchrist Calder, it was a carefully researched piece about a home for delinquent children which proved that docudrama was particularly suited to a fictional approach of weighty matters on television. Irene Shubik insists on the innovative nature of films which were scripted by playwrights who wrote with the idiosyncrasies of TV in mind, such as new filmic equipments and techniques, filming in open-air locations, against true-life backgrounds, sometimes even amongst ordinary people. Edna the Inebriate Woman , though broadcast in 1971 is, from Irene Shubik’s point of view, the epitome of this new genre of television films which thematically originated from the British documentary tradition of the interwar period and which succeeded in conveying a political message through the inherently escapist conduit that is television drama. Through Edna’s

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progress from hostels to psychiatric asylums, the viewer is afforded an insight into how poverty can lead to distraction and how the life of the homeless is strewn with addiction and violence, whether mental or physical.

29 Both docudrama and dramadoc were born out of the need for television, as a new popular media, to inform and entertain. Yet, from Glen Creeber’s point of view, developed in Tele-Visions: An Introduction to Studying Television, the genre followed trends in artistic representations and particularly the trend from modernism to post- modernism, from classic and authored single plays to hybridity and self-reflexivity that prevailed during the last decades of the twentieth century.

Committed Fiction Films

30 In the first edition of No Other Way to Tell It, Derek Paget underlines the strained relationship between politicians and the filmmakers who endeavour to inform the population on politically sensitive issues in a way that differs from daily news reports. Paget traces this contentious relationship back to The War Game (1965) by Peter Watkins, which, on the eve of the broadcast, was subjected to a ban from the authorities. As a consequence, the following year, Ken Loach took extreme precautions against censorship. Worried about the potential threat to his work, Loach pretended, just hours before the release of Radio Times, the weekly magazine, that Cathy Come Home (1966) was a love story while actually it was a fierce indictment of housing and family affairs policies. The broadcasting of Ken Loach’s film had a reverberating impact both upon the authorities and the British population.

31 Derek Paget skilfully shows how gradually docudrama evolved towards foreign rather than home affairs. The situation on the Eastern side of the Iron Curtain became Leslie Woodhead’s favourite topic. What was life like for dissenters in the USSR (The Man Who Wouldn’t Keep Quiet, 1970) and how to decipher the signs of political dissent in the Eastern Block − the Polish dock strike in Szczecin (Three Days in Szczecin, 1976), the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia (Invasion, 1980) − were the main subject-matters of his docudramas. The exploration of contemporary issues from a journalistic point of view is an issue Sita Williams perceptively analyses in The Making of Hostages, about David Wheatley’s Hostages (1992), a dramadoc about John McCarthy, Terry Waite and Brian Keenan, three among several hostages held captive in Lebanon in the 1980s. The principal asset of this type of production was the credence they would lend to docudrama. Paradoxically, they also undermined the political dimension of the genre: while originally scathing in their attacks on domestic affairs, docudramas gradually lost impertinence by being critical of politics in foreign countries. Derek Paget’s presentation of the docudrama and dramadoc productions in the 1970s and 1980s sheds light on the coincidence between the souring relationships with the Middle East − the first oil crisis and the kidnapping of Westerners – and the commissioning of productions raising questions about the political regime in Saudi Arabia (Death of a Princess, 1980) and the political situation in Lebanon (Hostages, 1992).

32 While irritating for politicians when dealing with domestic issues, docudrama gradually helped stoke anticommunist defiance during the Cold War period, and the anticommunist streak in Leslie Woodhead’s films largely accounted for their success.

33 Derek Paget also underlines the lobbying force of the genre in obvious miscarriages of justice or hushed-up cases. Filmmakers, deeply moved by the will to redress the

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wrongdoings of justice, have resorted to docudrama on account of its capacity to gather record audiences and to succeed in informing them and swaying their point of view. “A television programme alters nothing. We do not have trial by television here.”35 Margaret Thatcher’s statement about Who Bombed Birmingham? (1990), by Mike Beckham, proves how seriously the authorities took the discomfort caused by allegations of miscarriage of justice about the Birmingham Six, several decades after their imprisonment. Lance Pettitt dedicates several pages to it in Screening Ireland: Film and Television Representation, a book which spans the period from the beginning of the cinematographic representations of the conflict in Northern Ireland to the end of twentieth century. A whole chapter is devoted to television and in particular to docudrama. His emphasis is on how these made-for-television films managed to raise public awareness about the situation at different stages in the history of the conflict. His analysis of these programmes – whether they originated from the public or the private sector, whether they resulted from in-house commissions or externalization, from inside or outside Northern Ireland – gives the reader an insight into the political motives behind the production of committed programmes. Yet, the pages Lance Pettitt devotes to the conflict in Northern Ireland help situate these productions within the wider context of independence and the need felt by the activists to maintain pressure on the authorities for the advancement of their cause.

34 As far as the conflict in Northern Ireland is concerned, Who Bombed Birmingham? (1990) served as a reminder to the population that the problem of the Birmingham Six was not solved and that, pending the outcome of a new trial, information had to be spread about the new-found evidence pertaining to the innocence of those convicted. Mike Beckam’s film even goes as far as to name those responsible for the Birmingham bombings. His docudrama was broadcast – on April 28th, 1990 on ITV − months before The Birmingham Six: The Inside Story a documentary on the topic produced by the journalistic team of World in Action and released on March 18th, 1991 on ITV.

35 In No Other Way to Tell It: Dramadoc/Docudrama on Television Derek Paget places Who Bombed Birmingham? within the broader context of committed journalism on television along with Hillsborough (1996), about the 1989 tragedy of the crushing of hundreds of people in the Sheffield football arena and the need for the victims to have the guilty parties condemned by a court of justice. Paget’s book also includes in this category cases of cover-up on the grounds of raison d’état, like Shoot to Kill (1990) about the 1984– 86 Stalker Inquiry into the 1982 shooting by the Royal Ulster Constabulary of six terrorist suspects in Northern Ireland. The credentials of this type of production rely on the collection of all the information available, whether official documents, testimonies or newspaper clippings. For Derek Paget, who defines the genre by opposing British and American productions, trial-by-media fiction films perfectly fit in the “fact-rich British tradition”36 of the documentary, based on a “discourse of sobriety.”37 Most of the examples he chooses are analysed along these lines which, from his point of view, account for the success of the genre on British TV channels. The link between the notion of “discourse of sobriety”38 and genres, whether film documentaries or investigative journalism, is also touched upon by Bill Nichols in his book entitled Blurred Boundaries: Questions of Meaning in Contemporary Culture.

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No Other Way to Put it?

36 While in 1965 The War Game had first raised public awareness about the danger of the military use of nuclear power in case of conflict, some years later Threads (1984) took up the challenge again: this production strongly opposed Margaret Thatcher’s decision to acquire Trident weapons. The situation had been the same for Ken Loach with Cathy Come Home (1966): the political problem of housing had been smouldering for decades and Ken Loach’s docudrama was meant to force the political authorities to confront the issue. Having failed to convey the reality of homelessness through radio documentaries, Jeremy Sandford, the scriptwriter of Cathy Come Home (1966), turned to TV documentary drama. Retrospectively, this choice proved very wise, since its impact was stronger than if it had been a regular documentary. Documentary drama highlights social evils and indicates paths for remedies: this is a point Derek Paget drives at in his article entitled Cathy Come Home and “Accuracy” in British Television Drama published in the New Theatre Quarterly. This article represented an opportunity for the author to explore the reasons behind the doubts and suspicions that surrounded the genre in its first televised productions. In it, he also examines the links with radio broadcasts and gives the example of Homeless Families, the radio programme that paved the way for Cathy Come Home (1966). The connections between TV and hybrid radio programmes are further investigated by Derek Paget in Tales of Cultural Tourism, an article published by Alan Rosenthal in Why Docudrama? Fact-Fiction on Film and TV. Being particularly conducive to affect and second-order experience, docudrama has always been conceived as a way to raise the awareness of TV audience about topical issues, whether social or political. This point is later adroitly addressed by Derek Paget in his second edition of No Other Way To Tell It.

New Forms of Fictional Documentary

37 No filmic document can claim evidentiality without running the corresponding risk of having the producers taken to court. The legal side of the fictionalization of facts is what Keith Beattie examines in Documentary Screens: Non-fiction Film and Television. The author insists on committed programmes which put a premium on challenging the official versions of famous cases. He analyses the fine balance between the appeal of these programmes and the risks run by their producers: they allow broadcasters to gather large audiences though the likely litigation arising from slander and defamation leads producers to be scrupulous about what is being claimed.

38 An equally cautious approach is required for fictionalized documentaries on high- profile personalities, especially when they are still alive or when, as politically prominent and influential figures, their interests and image need to be preserved. Jonathan Bignell examines the semiological and legal dimensions of docudramas aiming at accuracy and factuality. Regarding productions on Margaret Thatcher and Lady Diana, the author insists on claiming a point of view rather than on endorsing the “notion of ‘objective’ accounts of events in the news.”39 Through his choice of feminine figures, Jonathan Bignell tackles the issue of the gendering of docudrama. His principal guideline is the notion that documentaries are supposedly more masculine, while dramas are more melodramatic and consequently more feminine. The insistence on the personal rather than on the political is a point Gail Coles also stresses in Docusoap:

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Actuality and the Serial Format published in Frames and Fictions on Television: the Politics of Identity Within Drama by Bruce Carson and Margaret Llewellyn-Jones. Because Gail Coles’ approach focuses almost exclusively on hybridity, many pages are devoted to post- modernism, examining how far post-modern formats were fostered by a period in which boundaries were blurred and intertextuality was favoured – what John Corner called the post-documentary culture of television in Documentary in a Post-Documentary Culture? A Note on Forms and their Functions.

39 In Documentary and the Mass Media, John Corner shows how, in the 1960s, journalism had already given ample evidence of its capacity to bring viewers into contact with real referents. Channels started a shift from TV as visual evidence to TV as the locus of a national agora. The 1970s and 1980s witnessed the popularity of programmes divided into two parts, the first part consisting of a film, which would then be followed by a debate. Docudrama, as the genre favoured by this type of broadcast, would very often offer a committed point of view that would later be discussed by specialists invited by journalists, like Jeremy Paxman and Tom Hewitt, who gained a reputation for handling this type of format.

40 The 1980s and, to a lesser degree, the 1990s, corresponded with docudrama’s fall from favour. The obligations imposed by the Thatcher governments to TV channels – including to the BBC, then forced to outsource several of its activities − added to the crackdown on the renewals of the franchises. It deterred professionals from producing contentious programmes that might irritate politicians. George W. Brandt, in British Television Drama in the 1980s (his research actually spills into the beginning of the 1990s) expertly analyses the links between drama and politics. His analysis highlights the changes in drama brought about by the political decisions taken by the governments of the time. The concept of docudrama was maintained partly because of the popularity it had among viewers who enjoyed the fictional reprocessing of recent events. Nevertheless, the genre itself became slightly innocuous. The end of the twentieth century witnessed the beginning of a new lease for the genre with the “conditional” or “subjunctive tense” documentaries.

41 These new evidential formats took over the docudrama recipe to gather audiences around sensitive issues such as the environment, the depletion of the Earth’s resources and overpopulation. In Pre-enactment, the paper she wrote about pre-enactment documentaries, Alisa Lebow surveyed the genre from The War Game (1965) to the BBC IF … series (2004-2005), not to mention one-off drama films meant to fictionalize anticipatory scenarios. Her philosophical approach leads her to analyse these programmes with both the modern techniques for the recording of actual referents and man’s ingrained tendency to fictionalize the future in mind. From her point of view, these fiction films are educated guesses that help people adjust to their environment by developing survival strategies. By prophesising rather than hypothesising the future, these programmes generate both anguish and apathy at the thought of a future that seems to be ineluctable. In the second edition of No Other Way to Tell It, Derek Paget devotes several pages to this new format which he also envisages in conjunction with the development of the latest technologies, in particular Computer Generated Images (CGI). More than committed productions meant to help guide citizens in their daily lives, these films are seen as harmful to the docudrama genre insofar as they entertain rather than inform the population.

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42 Conversely, Peter Kosminsky, a proponent of a form of committed fiction on television, has managed since the 1990s to provide viewers with politically dedicated productions on highly sensitive issues. Among the important changes in Derek Paget’s second edition of No Other Way to Tell It are paragraphs on the new generation of docudrama filmmakers on television, Peter Kosminsky and Paul Greengrass being the most prominent figures. While the latter works on either side of the Atlantic with topics inspired from the US and British societies for both big and small screens, Peter Kosminsky is faithful to the UK TV screen. His work is strictly in keeping with the British tradition of the documentary, which explains the almost exclusive choice of topics extracted from the British news and current issues and the rejection of exoticism and escapism. Kosminsky’s filmography reveals a highly political commitment to television and a refusal to give in to cinema with a view to reaching the largest number of citizens. By opting for television, Peter Kosminsky clearly indicates the political dimension of this mass media. From his point of view, television addresses citizens: consequently, it cannot do without the holistic alternative to journalism which is offered by the fictional treatment of contemporary issues. These filmmakers’ productions follow in the footsteps of the socially and politically committed work of Jeremy Sandford, Tony Garnett, Ken Loach, Jim Allen and G. F. Newman, who according to David Edgar in The Theatre of Fact: A Dramatist Viewpoint, were recruited “to smuggle a political message.”40 For David Edgar, these productions convey the revelatory dimension of Greek tragedy by exposing viewers to unorthodox approaches which are designed to widen the viewers’ awareness of social and political issues. Though David Edgar’s work focuses mainly on programmes from the 1960s, the conclusions he draws can easily be transferred to Peter Kosminsky’s work for television, whether in the case of the British military involvements in the conflicts of the former Yugoslavia or Iraq. It is a way of making recent History palatable, of engaging the viewers’ interest in matters which, as citizens, they ought to be concerned with but which, on the whole, they have not been used to thinking about critically.

Conclusion

43 A bibliographical approach to docudrama confirms that, ever since the inception of film, representations of the world have been shaped by the will to bear testimony to actuality and the concomitant will to make the result both watchable and entertaining. Right from the beginning, British filmmakers accepted this apparent contradiction although it has always raised questions about the gap that can exist between intention and reception. The first rows were fuelled by a tendency to lend the newly devised filmic technique to escapism and John Grierson criticized Robert Flaherty for his choice of exotic topics. World War II propaganda benefitted from a political refocusing on weighty matters, as did journalism with a format like The March of Time.

44 Television followed in the footsteps of the great British tradition of the documentary: the debates that animated the newly appointed TV groups on docudrama and dramadoc, whether in the private or the public sector, were about the place channels should give to the political debates of the time. Because of its fictional dimension, which facilitates empathy, docudrama was perfectly suited to convey the filmmakers’ political messages and have the largest possible audience exposed to them.

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45 The pervasive post-modern atmosphere that has prevailed since the late 1980s has been conducive to reflexive forms of documentation and fictional works mimicking the documentary format − like mockumentaries and reality-based fiction films − have become prominent elements of the cinema and television landscapes.

46 Weakened at the end of the twentieth century by the repeated attacks of successive governments on TV channels and on programmes that were too critical of their policies, docudrama gathered strength at the turn of the twenty-first century with a new wave of politically-minded filmmakers. The recent popularity this TV genre has acquired among producers of films targeted at a cinematic audience is a measure of its resounding success in promoting unconventional approaches to contemporary issues.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Armes, Roy. A Critical History of British Cinema. London: Secker & Warburg Limited, 1978.

Barrot Olivier, Philippe Pilard and Jean Quéval. L’Angleterre et son cinéma: le courant documentaire. Paris : Film Éditions L’Herminier, 1977.

Bennett Tony, Susan Boyd-Bowman, Colin Mercer and Janet Woollacott. Popular Television and Film. A Reader. London: BFI Publishing/Open University Press, 1984.

Bignell, Jonathan. “Docudrama as Melodrama: Representing Lady Diana and Margaret Thatcher.” In Frames and Fictions on Television: The Politics of Identity Within Drama, ed. Bruce Carson, Margaret Llewellyn-Jones. Exeter: Intellect Book, 2000.

Coles, Gail. “Docusoap: Actuality and the Serial Format.” In Frames and Fictions on Television: The Politics of Identity Within Drama, ed. Bruce Carson, Margaret Llewellyn-Jones. Exeter: Intellect Book, 2000.

Beattie, Keith. Documentary Screens: Non-Fiction Film and Television. Basingstoke, New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2004.

Brandt, George W. British Television Drama in the 1980s. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Branston, Gill and Roy Stafford. The Media Student’s Book. Oxon: Routledge, 2010.

Caughie, John. Television Drama, Realism, Modernism and British Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Corner, John. “British Docudrama: Origins and Developments.” In Why Docudrama? Fact-Fiction on Film and TV, ed. Alan Rosenthal, 35-47. Carbondale, Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1999.

Corner, John. Documentary and the Mass Media. London: Edward Arnold Publishers Ltd, 1986.

Corner, John. The Art of Record. A Critical Introduction to Documentary. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1996.

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Corner, John. Documentary in a Post-Documentary Culture? A Note on Forms and their Functions. http:// lfbxmljy.blog.sohu.com/176601804.html < accessed on January, 12, 2013˃

Corner, John and Kay Richardson. “Documentary Meanings and the Discourse of Interpretation.” In Documentary and the Mass Media, ed. John Corner, 141-153. London: Edward Arnold Publishers Ltd, 1986.

Creeber, Glen. Tele-visions: an Introduction to Studying Television. London: BFI, 2006.

Deans, Jason. “Kosminsky Defends Docudrama.” In Media Guardian, October 17, 2005. Accessed on January 12, 2013. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2005/oct/17/broadcasting2

Edgar, David. ‘Theater of Fact: a Dramatist’s Viewpoint.” In Why Docudrama? Fact-Fiction on Film and TV, ed. Alan Rosenthal, 174-188. Carbondale, Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1999.

Gomery, Douglas. “Brian’s Song: Television, Hollywood, and the Evolution of the Movie Made for TV.” In Why Docudrama? Fact-Fiction on Film and TV, ed. Alan Rosenthal, 78-100. Carbondale, Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1999.

Currie, Tony. Concise History of British Television: 1930-2000. Tiverton: Kelly Publications, 2000.

Fielding, Raymond. The March of time, 1935-1951. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978.

Goodwin, Andrew. Understanding Television. London: Routledge, 1990.

Goodwin, Andrew and Paul Kerr. Drama-documentary. London: British Film Institute, 1984.

Grierson, John. Grierson on Documentary. 1946; London: Faber and Faber, 1979.

Holmes, Sue and Deborah Jermyn. Understanding Reality Television. London: Routledge, 2004.

Houston, Penelope. Went the Day Well?. London: BFI, 1992.

Kilborn, Richard and John Izod. An Introduction to Television Documentary: Confronting Reality. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997.

Lebow, Elisa. “Faking What? Making a Mockery of Documentary.” In F is for Phony: Fake Documentary and Truth’s Undoing, ed. Alexandra Juhazs and Jesse Lerner, 223-238. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006.

Lebow, Elisa. Pre-enactment, Visible Evidence, The International Documentary Studies Conference. Lincoln: University of Lincoln, 2008.

Lipkin, Steve. “Defining Docudrama: In the Name of the Father, Schindler’s List and JFK.” In Why Docudrama? Fact-Fiction on Film and TV, ed. Alan Rosenthal, 370-385. Carbondale, Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1999.

Nichols, Bill. Blurred Boundaries: Questions of Meaning in Contemporary Culture. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995.

Paget, Derek. “Codes and Conventions of Dramadoc and Docudrama.” In The Television Studies Reader, ed. Clyde Allen Robert and Annette Hill, 196- 209. London: Routledge, 2004.

Paget, Derek. “Cathy Come Home and ‘Accuracy.’” In British Television Drama, 75-90. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Paget, Derek. “Tales of Cultural Tourism.” In Why Docudrama? Fact-Fiction on Film and TV, ed. Alan Rosenthal,47-64.. Carbondale, Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1999.

Paget, Derek. “Theatre Workshop’s ‘Oh What a Lovely War.’” In The Cambridge History of British Theatre, Volume 3, ed. Baz Kershaw, 397-411. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

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Paget, Derek. “True and Truer Stories — Documentary and Drama.” In Médias : entre fiction et réalité. Dijon : PRISM, 1994.

Paget, Derek. No Other Way to Tell It. 1998; Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011.

Paget, Derek. True Stories? Documentary Drama on Radio, Screen and Stage. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990.

Passek, Jean-Loup. Dictionnaire du cinéma. Paris: Larousse, 2001.

Pettitt, Lance. Screening Ireland: Film and Television Representation. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000.

Rosenthal, Alan and John Corner. New Challenges for Documentary. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005.

Schlesinger, Philip. Putting “Reality” Together. London and New York: Routledge, 1987.

Shubik, Irene. Play for Today. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000.

Watkins, Peter. Media Crisis. Paris: Homnisphères, 2007, 2010.

White, Leonard. Armchair Theatre. The Lost Years. Tiverton: Kelly Publications, 2003.

Winston, Brian. Lies, Damn Lies and Documentaries. London: The British Film Institute, 2000.

NOTES

1. Andrew Goodwin and Paul Kerr, Drama-documentary, Dossier 19 (London: British Film Institute, 1984), 1. 2. The original, non-hyphenated spellings (“documentary drama”; “dramatized documentary”) will be favoured so as to avoid confusion. 3. Glen Creeber, The Television Genre Book (London: BFI Publishing, 2001), 34. 4. Tony Bennett, Susan Boyd-Bowman, Colin Mercer and Janet Woollacott, Popular Television and Film. A Reader (London: BFI Publishing/Open University Press, 1984), 85. 5. Jason Deans, “Kominsky defends docudrama,” Media Guardian, Oct. 17, 2005. http:// www.guardian.co.uk/media/2005/oct/17/broadcasting2

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18. Raymond Fielding, The March of Time, 1935-1951 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 5. 19. Ibid., 10. 20. Grierson, Grierson on Documentary, 140. 21. Penelope Houston, Went the Day Well? (London: BFI Publications,1992), 9. 22. Ibid., 29. 23. Brian Winston, Lies, Damn Lies and Documentaries (London: BFI Publications, 2000), 25. 24. Ibid. 25. Corner, The Art of Record, 31. 26. Ibid., 43. 27. Steve Lipkin, “Defining Docudrama: In the Name of the Father, Schindler’s List and JFK” in Why Docudrama? Fact-Fiction on Film and TV, ed. Alan Rosenthal (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1999), 372. 28. Ibid. 29. Rosenthal, Why Docudrama?, 5. 30. John Corner, Studying Media: Problems of Theory and Method (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998), 70. 31. Gill Branston and Bill Stafford, The Media Student’s Book (1996; London and New York: Routledge, 2006), 139. 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid. 34. Corner, The Art of Record, 39. 35. Lance Pettitt, Screening Ireland: Film and Television Representation (Manchester: Manchester University Press 2000), 241. 36. Paget, No Other Way to Tell It, 130. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid., 131. 39. Jonathan Bignell, “Docudrama as Melodrama: Representing Lady Diana and Margaret Thatcher” in Frames and Fictions on Television: The Politics of Identity Within Drama, ed. Bruce Carson, Margaret Llewellyn-Jones (Exeter: Intellect Book, 2000), 22. 40. David Edgar, “The Theatre of Fact: A Dramatist Viewpoint” in Why Docudrama? Fact-Fiction on Film and TV, ed. Alan Rosenthal (Carbondale, Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1999), 180.

ABSTRACTS

This bibliographical essay sets out to provide an updated approach of the monographic works dedicated to docudrama, a filmic form which encompasses several practices combining facts and fiction. This extensive compilation includes both diachronic and theoretical studies and it is enriched with comments on the viewpoints adopted by the authors. It is composed of writings chosen for their originality. Another criterion for selection was their innovative take on the theoretical debate on the issue, at the time of their publication. The thematic perspective adopted by the author is meant to underline the specificities of each document, the context in which it was written and the light it throws on the genre.

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INDEX

Keywords: television, programmes, hybridity, fiction, genre, documentary, journalism, politics

AUTHOR

GEORGES FOURNIER Georges Fournier is Senior Lecturer in English in the Department of Information & Communication of the Université Jean Moulin − Lyon 3. He completed a PhD in media studies entitled ‘The Fictional Treatment of Current Events on British Television (1965-2005)” and is currently researching the fictionalisation of political issues.

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Interview

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Latino images in Austin, Texas

Eugenio Del Bosque and Emilie Cheyroux

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Interview conducted on April 25, 2012 at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Austin, Texas, during the 15th Cine Las Americas International Film Festival (April 24-29). I would like to thank the staff of Cine Las Americas who welcome me warmly every year, especially Eugenio Del Bosque and Jean Ann Lauer for taking time to answer my questions in spite of their busy schedule, and also for giving me the opportunity to watch the movies they select every year.

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1 This interview with Eugenio Del Bosque, the director of Cine Las Americas,1 an international independent Latino film festival which has taken place in Austin, Texas every April since 1998, helps to understand the significance of such festivals in the representation of Latinos, and particularly Mexican-Americans, in the film industry. In spite of the fact that they are the fastest growing population in the United States,2 Latinos are still subjected to disparaging stereotypes and a lack of fair representation. Since the 1960s, they have often demonstrated in front of the Hollywood studios because they were seldom portrayed in mainstream movies except as “greasers”3 or “fat, slovenly, dark, mustachioed, and often drunken, deceitful and treacherous” 4 characters. Today, their fight against stereotypes has taken other forms, such as associations5, Spanish-language television networks,6 and most importantly film festivals - the most famous ones being in New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago. They are thus the most organized minority group and as a consequence, it is interesting to shed light on the evolution and success of Cine Las Americas and its role in challenging and changing mentalities through images by offering a diverse program, both to Latino and non-Latino audiences.

2 The fact that this festival takes place in Austin is no coincidence and shapes its specificity. The city is proud of its reputation for being “different” or “weird”7, and thus offers diverse screenings to people who are already culturally diverse and culturally well endowed. Austin is a fertile ground for alternative viewpoints, far from Hollywood and its rigid system. This desire to stand out is represented in the name of the festival itself: Cine Las Americas rather than the Austin Latino Film Festival. As for its mission statement, it explicitly states that it is to “promote cross-cultural understanding and growth by educating, entertaining and challenging our community through media”.8 In its effort to bridge cross-cultural gaps, Cine Las Americas provides English subtitles to every film and shows movies in two different venues: the Mexican American Cultural Center as well as one of the most popular movie theaters in town, the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema. Finally, in order to broaden the audience, the festival team organizes several after-parties in different bars to meet people and encourage them to get involved in screenings organized throughout the year.

3 These unique characteristics are probably the key to the festival’s success: while the first years started by screening 20 movies from a couple of countries, in 2012 it featured 101 movies from 23 countries. Among the 12 categories, some of the movies were even presented in other festivals before, showing Cine Las Americas’ recognition within the international network of film festivals: for instance, Sleep Dealer (USA/Mexico, 2008) by Alex Rivera premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, Morir de Pie (Mexico, 2011) by Jacaranda Coffea won Best Mexican Documentary at the Guadalajara International Film

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Festival and Habana Eva (Cuba/Venezuela/France, 2010) by Fina Torres won the Caméra d’Or award at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival. Furthermore, in its commitment to renewing the stock of filmmakers, the festival also shows local movies in the “Hecho en Tejas” (“Made in Texas”) category and encourages teenagers to produce their own film for the “Emergencia” program. Local, national and international filmmakers submit over a thousand narrative features, documentaries and short films every year.

4 Both Del Bosque and his programming associate director Jean Anne Lauer, are dearly committed to the Latino cause but are now feeling the need to focus on quality that goes beyond ethnic categories and proves that Latinos are capable of producing first- rate movies. Two different trends stand out in the festival’s program: by showing that Latinos can make entertaining narrative movies that cover a wide range of genres - such as comedies, dramas, thrillers, animation and experimental films, Del Bosque and his team want to steer the viewers away from the typical representation of Latinos as “wetbacks” or harmful people crossing the border to corrupt American society. Nevertheless, movies – and especially documentaries - dealing with the border issues are still an important part of the program which reflects the current debate over immigration and the filmmakers’ need to give a voice to the people who are directly involved. They almost unanimously portrays the immigrants as dreamers who did not have any other choice than to leave their country to escape poverty, and who are faced with an unfair immigration policy compelling them to take high risks to cross the border.

5 A native of Mexico City, Del Bosque arrived in Texas in 2001 after earning a degree in Communication Sciences from ITESM in Monterrey and working as a writer, producer and editor for independent and documentary film in the United States and in Mexico. In 2005, he started as a festival volunteer and soon became the executive director. His responsibilities as the head of a 501c3 non-profit association keep increasing but in spite of a few moments of doubts, passion is still driving him to educate audiences and confirm the festival's status as a significant event for Latino filmmaking.

6 In the following interview, Del Bosque offers insights into the organization and mission of Cine Las Americas, looking back on his seven year involvement. Why this name, Cine Las Americas? I do not know who coined the name but it’s great. It goes beyond the festival. When we want to do other things the name holds, and then there is the mission statement. We have revised it a couple of times and we sometimes ask ourselves if we need to change it. It’s held for fifteen years and it’s still good. This is because that language is like the cornerstone of a non-profit organization. And so far, it stands strong. It gives it character and it has great recognition in Latin America. We also didn’t want to be the Austin Latino Film Festival. It used to be the Cine Las Americas Festival of New Latin American Cinema. I decided to take the Latino and Latin America out because I didn’t want to be perceived as just another Latino film festival… because every city has a Latino Festival. We are the Austin Latino Film Festival and there’s nothing wrong with that, but I wanted to be perceived as about the cinema. Yes, it’s about Latinos but I just thought there were already too many Latino Film Festivals in the country.

What are the conditions that led to the creation of the festival? From what I know, it was the brain child of a lady named Lara Coger. She had lived in the Caribbean and she was enamored of the Cuban culture. She had the opportunity of bringing a few Cuban films to Austin and she showed a retrospective of Cuban

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films. Of course, there were a lot of people involved, and from there they got the idea of creating a Latin American film festival. Because of Lara’s connections to Cuba, they were attending the Latin American film festival in La Havana in Cuba and they made some connections and got some ideas, and they also decided to schedule the festival in April because [that's when there is]the Chicago Latino Film Festival, which is big. The idea was that they could piggy-back and grab the films which were already in the country. The films could go from Chicago to here because back then, they didn’t have the money or the connections. They were just starting. Then, Lara left at some point, and Sandra Guardado took over. She is still in town and she’s an editor. The third lady was Celeste Serna Williams. I don’t know who came in and who left, but eventually Celeste was the one carrying on; she established and formed the first board of directors and she made the organization into a 501 c3 non- profit. By then, it was 2001, it had already existed for five years.

How do you raise money? The 501 status is a tax-exempt status. You work as a charity organization so people give you money for your programs. A percentage can be deducted from their taxes. The money comes from different parts: first, the city of Austin. There is a program they call cultural contracts; we apply. They have a preference for organizations that show diversity. Historically, that has been one of the main sources of funding for the festival. There’s a percentage of their budget that they invest in the arts, and you have to be non-profit. Then, the State of Texas, the Texas commission for the Arts, who has to battle tremendously with the Republican government who wants to shut them down; they almost shut them down last year. Last year, the arts commission of the state of Kansas was dissolved for example. Finally, the National Endowment for the Arts. We have received money from these three levels: local, state and federal. Then, besides that, there are the corporate sponsors. Austin is the city that has the most non-profit organizations per capita in the country, so there is a lot of competition. Now for us, we are appealing for corporate funding because we have more people. A show like last night9 - diverse people and everybody is laughing about the same jokes - for corporate sponsors, that is attractive. So our numbers are showing; we’re getting to the point where it becomes something they want to back and we always defend our program. We do want to be in total and absolute control of our program so the sources of money are one thing but it is important to understand that we don’t compromise the program for the sake of money. Then, there are individual donors who are citizens who want to support it; we have a few people who want to support it and give us money every year. We are actually starting a membership program this summer so people can give fifty bucks a year and you get a discount.

What is Cine Las Americas’ role as a Latino festival? One would think that Texas is flat and culturally void but it’s not. It’s interesting that you probably look at this in the context of the Mexican-American culture here because of course, the first thing that comes to mind about Latinos in Austin and Texas at large is Mexican-Americans, because there’s a huge population, but the film festival really could not exist if the diversity was only Mexican-American. It’s such a particular culture, and in my experience with the festival, sometimes Mexican-

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Americans don’t want to be Mexican and they also don’t want to be American. They are in between. I think it’s different for somebody like me who grew up in the middle-class. I know people of the same strata here and we do go back and forth. And we kind of choose to be here. But when people from the countryside have to leave their place of origin in Mexico to come to the U.S., it’s kind of more like a forced choice. A lot of times they just don’t have any practical reason to return, and from what I see, when a migrant comes and stays and has a family, just trying to be accepted, they lose the Spanish language to connect to the local culture. If there isn’t any practical reason to return to Mexico, they don’t get their children interested in going back so in one generation, you lose the whole connection and that culturally isolates people. Mexican-American culture is very rich but it’s also very isolated. I have been in Texas for 11 years and I have a child here who is Mexican-American but there is something very important about film and how it relates to audiences. These people are not used to going to the movies; they are not here to be doing that; they’re here to work. For the ones who actually end up settling and forming a family or bringing their family from Mexico, they’ll probably integrate a little bit more into the cultural offerings of a city but they’ll probably go to watch blockbusters, what the children would want to go and see. The fact that Texas is 30% Latino doesn’t necessary mean that the audience for an international Latino festival exists because there’s a level of education, there’s a level of economic development required for a household or individual to have the time and energy to come and watch a movie. People who work really hard and have two or three jobs because they are immigrants and send money back, they just don’t have the time.

Why is the festival organized in two venues? The Mexican American Cultural Center (MACC) and the Alamo. Do you expect more Mexican-Americans at the MACC and a more diverse mix at the Alamo? We always keep coming back to the MACC, because culturally in Austin, that’s where we belong. We belong in the Alamo because of cinema. I think bringing the festival to a cultural center is important because you get in touch with the community. We want to bring them a little bit closer, we want to offer at least something that is free. For us it’s being able to get close to the community and share the wealth. A lot of those people may not actually be interested in participating in the festival itself and buying the badge. They just want to go see a movie. And when you have a large population of undocumented immigrant, sometimes they are apprehensive of coming to a public place such as this one, the Alamo where the first thing you do is show an ID because it's possible to buy beer. So we also want to have a place where it’s safe like the MACC - tierra franca… it’s good for everyone. All they have to do is go and it’s fine and you’re welcome. No matter the status, because it’s very difficult for undocumented people, you have to be under the radar. Coming to places like the Alamo is often feels like you’re exposing yourself.

Do you watch and document carefully who attends the festival? We try to document sometimes through surveys; we try to understand who people are and what level of education they have. I started as a volunteer and I’ve been the director for six years. Now I know a little bit better who is potentially the audience, so I’m not afraid of showing a completely obscure Argentinian film at 4PM gathering less than fifteen people. That’s not a surprise for me. The first time I really saw

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something different was when we showed a retrospective of Mexican horror films and the shows were at 8PM. and they were free - that’s the important part - and we got Mexican families, but the real Mexican families. If you would describe them here, a lot of them were very large families and they are with the children.

Latinos are very concerned about stereotypes. Do you carefully choose the movies so that they project a positive image of the community? I think now we are looking for balance. We will venture to have Dulce Maria in the house - somebody who was in a juvenile music group. I think a few years ago, I would have been like “Never” but we saw the results, there were so many people that had never been to the festival before. So we have matured in that regard, taking into account a wider audience, accepting we don’t know it all. There are different things that people like so the selection process also works towards that. We have different personalities watching different films. Person A said that movie is great and person B says that movie sucks and then we watch it and reconcile and understand who the audience is. Staying away from stereotypes is super-important. For that matter you just buy a ticket to the multiplex and watch whatever movie is showing there. It’s funny if you want to go and see Casa de mi padre10, that’s all good but that’s not what our mission is. Latino filmmaking in the U.S. has really matured in the last few years. But I think in the past it used to be a lot more stereotypical. I think actually stereotypes have lost their coolness for the mainstream. We still see it. There are still a bunch of stereotypes and they change. Being a Latino Festival, you always have to deal with certain issues and historically Latin American film is very politicized; it used to be all about politics. So, for a long time, we were once called a “tear-jerking film festival” because everything was just appalling… migrants dying… That has to do with the selection process but that has also with the culture the filmmakers are trying to represent. Unfortunately, the story of the migrant is still current but I think the way the filmmakers are looking at that story is changing... finally! I’m sure we’re still going to see terrible things portrayed but maybe the right questions will start being asked at least… We want the questions asked; we don’t pretend that any movie is going to answer anything. What matters, as part of our mission, is to challenge the audience. There are things that people don’t want to talk about and there’s something very important for us in the U.S. I think it’s changing; everywhere you go they tell you the US is a bubble because they don’t want to know about other cultures, they don’t want to see subtitled films. I’m probably getting myself in trouble saying this but that’s kind of true. What is important about these stories is that a lot of what is happening down South has to do with what is happening here. There’s almost always a connection, one way or another. And a lot of times, people don’t want to talk about it here, in the media or movies. So, to show it and to show that there is a consciousness about it here is great and fair for the people. Share, communicate it.

What is the role of the parties after the screenings? The parties are great because people talk about it. That’s very interesting because last night, I was talking to a lot of Mexicans, young, who we’ve never seen before and they were like “really, you’ve been around for fifteen years?” They were all speaking Spanish. It seems to me they were young people entering the workforce and I told

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them to come back and see something they may not choose at first, give it a shot. With these young Mexicans, that was really interesting last night. With Americans… Austin audiences are great because they are very well educated; they know their films, they will complain if a film is not good. Half of our audience is English-speaking – that’s why everything needs to be subtitled – and people have connections, have travelled, may have family in other parts of the world, or they just like the culture so they want to experience it through film, or they’re married to a foreigner. Dulce last night, when she was sitting in the theater, said “So not everybody is Mexican here” and they speak Spanish. She had been to the Los Angeles Film Festival and to San Diego and there were thousands of Mexicans coming to see her. And here, she was scared because her English was not good enough. As long as people understand, it’s fine. The first thing I need to do is get a sense of who is in here. That’s why I asked “English or Spanish?” Half the theater said “En español”. It’s kind of silly that we go back and forth but I do think if there are two Americans who don’t speak Spanish, I do want them to come back. I don’t want them to think they were just doing their own thing. To make it a better festival, I think we need to have a bilingual website.

How do you want to see the festival evolve? It’s like a person that grows and matures. Now we have a fifteen year old. As we keep evolving and growing older, we have different needs. It all has to do with also maturing the organization. We’ve been experimenting a few things: my first year as a volunteer in 2005, the festival was ten days long and I don’t want to tell you how we felt at the end. It was really really hard. After that, we shortened the festival. When I came in, we made it five days and I organized the program into more or less what it is now in terms of competitive sections. With the idea of creating a truly pan-American experience because it seemed a little hypocritical to create a Latino festival and not take into account the indigenous cultures. Then, I became the director, and we worked with other team members. When Jean came is when I felt we could really be strong in terms of programming. She took what we had and she tightened it up. She added to it and made it work. The Hecho en Tejas had been there and had disappeared because I didn’t have the connections to curate it and Jean does. She really made something of it and in general she curated the program into something that was deserving of an international Latino film festival. But then at this point it’s not about making the festival bigger. Austin is not that big of a city. I think what it needs is to grow roots, foundations and establish the festival in a way that we can bring more people, more guests, and we can keep our character: laid-back, relaxed and friendly. Austin is not a place for complicated protocols. It’s just relaxed. We want to keep it that way. I was looking at pictures from other festivals while I was trying to find pictures to promote our festival and I couldn’t find a picture without a guy wearing shorts. At other festivals, everybody is so dressed up. That’s fine but it’s just not what happens here.

Are you planning on keeping archives of the movies? That’s why we’re hooked up with the Texas Moving Image. Right now it’s only the winners that get their film digitized and archived with them. But in the future, there are things that can be done. It’s all about finding a legal framework to be able to do it. But streaming the movies online for a couple of weeks after the festival is an idea.

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They do it here in the cable station. South by Southwest does it, so there are some options. The archive itself is a project of its own. I think we need to find grants and a couple of people cataloguing and doing a database, packaging everything but it’s doable. And online, we need to build the archive back to at least have the list of films that have been showed over the years and when the competition started have winners.

Are some ﬁlmmakers picked up by bigger ﬁlm companies after CLA? Does it help them to be more successful? It’s happened before. The first was a horror movie, Room for Tourists in 2005. We had the opportunity to bring people from South America and he sent us his movie. I called him on the phone to ask if he wanted to come by and he was amazed. He was twenty-four. Adrian Garcia. He had started the movie when he was nineteen. We showed it. It didn’t win an award because the jury wasn’t into horror films but it was a very good horror film. He gave it to somebody else then somebody else and he ended up getting DVD distribution and more investors and now he’s all famous in Austin with Fantastic Fest. Yes, things happen. We are not like a big industry festival but things do happen. We try to look for that one thing that is going to flower.

So, in the end, what is the key word? The key word is diversity.

NOTES

1. http://www.cinelasamericas.org/ 2. According to the Census Bureau, Hispanics accounted for 16.3% of the population in 2010 with a 43% increase between 2000 and 2010. Humes, Karen R, Nicholas A. Jones, Roberto R. Ramirez, “Overview of Race and Hispanic Origin: 2010”. (PDF). U.S. Census Bureau. March 2011. 3. GÓMEZ, Laura, Manifest destinies: the making of the Mexican-American race, New York: New York University Press, cop. 2007, XII-243 p. 4. LIMÓN, José E., « Tex-Sex-Mex: American Identities, Lone Stars, and the Politics of Racialized Sexuality », American Literary History, Vol. 9, No. 3 (Autumn, 1997), pp. 598-616. 5. Such as the League of United Latin American Citizens or the National Council of La Raza. 6. Univision or Telemundo. 7. “Keep Austin weird” is the motto of the city and appears on T-shirts and other promotional objects. 8. Jean Anne Lauer. 15th Cine Las Americas’ program booklet, p. 2. 9. Alguien ha visto a Lupita? by Gonzalo Justiniano premiered the festival and attracted many people because Dulce Maria is a famous actress and singer in Mexico. 10. This movie was released in May 2012. It stars Will Farrell and Gael García Bernal.

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AUTHORS

EUGENIO DEL BOSQUE Eugenio Del Bosque is the Executive Director of Cine Las Americas, an international film festival which has been taken place in Austin, Texas since 1998. After earning a degree in Communication Sciences in Monterey, Mexico, he came to the United States and started working for the festival.

EMILIE CHEYROUX Emilie Cheyroux is a PhD student at the University of Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle. She is currently working on the representation of Mexican-Americans in American movies, focusing on Cine Las Americas International Film Festival as a case study to understand the differences between mainstream and independent films.

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Critical Perspective

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(Re)defining Visual Studies

François Brunet

1 This review is necessarily fragmentary, considering the tremendous publishing output associated with the label “visual studies,” the continuing re-definition of this field, and the fact that I am writing from a doubly external vantage point, since my own research is in the history of images and since I am writing in the French context, where visual studies remains a shadowy presence at best.

2 I am indebted to James Elkins’s introductory remarks to his recently edited volume, Theorizing Visual Studies : Writing Through the Discipline (Routledge, 2012), based on the prolonged group work of graduate students from the University of Chicago and other institutions. This volume, organized as a repertory of thematic entries (for the letter A : Airborne Horses, Anaesthetics, Animal, Animations, Arial, Ars Oblivionalis, Artifact, Augmented Reality) demonstrates the lasting influence of the “picture theory” outlined by W.J.T. Mitchell in his 1994 book by that title (Picture Theory, Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation, Chicago, 1994), with its seminal claims of a “pictorial turn” in contemporary culture and the need to raise “visual literacy,” i.e. a new competence in understanding or approaching images, their presence, their “magic”— away especially from the dominance of linguistic models of interpretation, and towards a “picture theory” in which specific pictures are invoked as autonomous agents of conceptualization. The alphabetical organization of this volume, functioning as a denial of any overarching epistemology, testifies also to the continuing relevance of Mitchell’s definition of visual studies as a “de-disciplinary exercise” and its link to the ongoing reconfiguration, on certain American campuses, of disciplinary maps as well as faculty/ student divisions of labor. Along with other texts such as Margaret Dikovitskaya’s archeology of the field (Visual Culture : The Study of the Visual after the Cultural Turn, MIT Press, 2006) and Keith Moxey’s landmark article on the concurrence of parallel and separate English- and German-language visual studies (“Visual Studies and the Iconic Turn,” Journal of Visual Culture, 7 :2, August 2008, 131-146), this volume, and particularly James Elkins’s introductory essays, usefully highlight the continuing need to define a field that has constantly resisted definition.

3 It must be recalled, first of all, that in the USA the “field” of visual studies emerged primarily, in the 1990s, as a teaching initiative, most frequently taking the form of

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interdisciplinary or inter-departmental programs aimed at undergraduate students with concentrations in art history, film and media studies, in the humanities, or even in general courses offered across the board. The continuing dominance of a pedagogical approach to visual studies, as a kind of “propedeutics” to contemporary (visual) culture, accounts for the proliferation of textbooks and readers. At least two popular textbooks have already undergone second editions : Nicholas Mirzoeff’s Introduction to Visual Culture (Routledge, 2000/2008) and Marika Sturken’s and Lisa Cartwright’s Practices of Looking : An Introduction to Visual Culture (Oxford, 2001/2009).

4 This didactic approach has often gone hand in hand with the “de-disciplinary” outlook proposed by Mitchell and since adopted by many proponents of visual studies. Teaching visual culture has often been akin to deconstructing established disciplinary boundaries, generic hierarchies, arguably even the discursive preeminence of faculties in determining the course of the field. This claim was most commonly interpreted and debated, in the context of the 1990s, as a strategy of undoing high/low distinctions, beginning with the art historical canon, in favor of a generalized, equalizing history of images. Hence, since the early 2000s, the recurring objection that visual studies amounted to “everything studies” (John Davis) and James Elkins’s demand, in his Visual Studies : A Skeptical Introduction (Routledge, 2003), for a more rigorous epistemology of visual studies — or, as he put it, for a search for “ways to make it harder to write essays on Benetton, Calvin Klein, Bakelite, Barbie, Burning Man, contemporary curiosity cabinets, snow globes, the history of buoys,” etc. As shown by Elkins’s more recent interventions (notably in a 2011 seminar entitled “A Farewell to Visual Studies”), the quest for “ways to make visual studies more difficult,” i.e. especially more theoretically demanding or coherent, goes on today. This renewed quest would seem, for Elkins, to entail a “farewell,” if not to visual studies, at least to the political critique of images and their uses that has occupied much of the pedagogical and editorial terrain since the late 1990s.

5 This political critique of images, often presented as the field’s most salient aspect, derives from the two intellectual traditions that nourished the early work of its principal American pioneer, Tom Mitchell (particularly Iconology. Image, Text, Ideology, 1986) : French poststructuralist theory and British cultural studies (Raymond Williams, Frederic Jameson, Stuart Hall). This political dimension has also reflected, both in the USA and the UK, the urgency of the culture wars and the “resistance” of academia against the neo-conservative agenda. It has been embodied most conspicuously in Mirzoeff’s Introduction to Visual Culture, ambitiously reworked in his recent The Right to Look : A Counterhistory of Visuality (Duke, 2011). This approach claims, against the iconological and semiological traditions, the diversity and inequality of viewers in front of images as a primary and not an auxiliary criterion of their “meaning” or rather their historical functions. It undertakes the study and teaching of visual culture as a way of decoding power structures or “gazes” (colonial, sexual, economic, disciplinary) lodged in visual transactions.

6 The most obvious consequence of this political critique of images is the durable deconstruction of art-historical canons. Today, the practice of art history in the English-language world (and beyond) is deeply impregnated with non-canonical and non-ethnocentric objects as well as the political functions and currents of art. Conversely, in a reflection of the genealogical linkage of visual studies to art history, much work in visual studies continues, as Elkins notes, to pay excessive attention to

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subversive re-contextualizations of “high” or “art” objects rather than to more vernacular imageries and the less visible social and media-based economies of their circulation. More pointedly, the political brand of visual studies has, in the 2000s and particularly in the wake of 9/11 and the “war on terror”, paid increasing attention to “image wars”, practices of iconoclasm or “iconoclash” (Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel, Iconoclash, Beyond the Image-Wars in Science, Religion and Art, MIT, 2002) and, more broadly, to the interactions of visual cultures and religions. W.J.T. Mitchell has recently turned picture theory into a radical, but more general, political commentary of the Bush era in its confrontations with the twin “enemies” of cloning and terrorism (Cloning Terror, The War of Images from 9/11 to the Present, Chicago, 2011) while reorienting his archeology of the media of image and text towards a critique of race itself as a (visual) medium (Seeing through Race, Harvard, 2012). In spite of some predictions, the election and reelection of Barack Obama have not, so far, resulted in a decline of such approaches, nor of the larger dynamics of the culture wars. On the contrary, the undeniable appeal of political critiques of visuality to new generations of students, especially in Europe, seems to destine them to continued growth.

7 The “alternative” trend of visual studies, sometimes called “new visual studies”, is therefore not to be understood as a successor to the first. It stands in contrast to the “indiscipline” of visual culture in that it signals a new academic attempt at interdisciplinary investigation of images and their uses, especially in research, across the spectrum of scientific fields. In ways that are sometimes reminiscent of initiatives of the 1980s, this trend involves, among other aspects, observations on interactions, in the digital era, between artistic and scientific imageries ; explorations of the cognitive dimensions of imaging technologies and virtual environments ; inquiries into tagging and indexing methodologies. One point often made in support of such a return to (inter-) disciplinary approaches is, paradoxically, that the political critique has often kept student attention focused on culturally-sanctioned objects (whether “high” or “low”) and more particularly to the institutional realm of art. “New visual studies” thus seek to broaden the terrain, so as to encompass not only social spaces and social practices of seeing, being seen, looking at and being looked at, but various human and technical components of vision and visibility (from perceptions of color, volume, movement, aging, etc., to experiments in augmented reality, tactile technologies, MRI imagery, etc.).

8 In some ways, then, this trend might be seen as a neo-disciplinary and de-politicizing one, except that it shares with the former a continuing emphasis on the phenomenological approach of images and their presence, construed, as Keith Moxey points out, as an “ontological demand” and a methodological alternative to the pre- pictorial-turn emphasis on “meaning”. “Works of art, writes Moxey, are objects now more appropriately encountered than interpreted” (“Visual Studies and the Iconic Turn,” 132). James Elkins’s repeated call to unleash a true “picture theory”, i.e. to deploy effectively the theoretical powers of images (instead of continuing to use them, in academic texts, as “illustrations” or “mnemonic” tools) remains something of an elusive quest today ; but it links the current trend to Mitchell’s founding genealogy, in Iconology, of the image as a theoretical byproduct of, and alternative to, Western logocentrism.

9 Meanwhile, Keith Moxey’s article is one of the first serious attempts, in the English- speaking academic world, to take account of a parallel German-language school of

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visual studies, or Bildwissenchaft, influential in Eastern and Northern Europe and known especially through the work of Hans Belting and Horst Bredekamp. This trend is traced to the work of Gottfried Boehm (Was ist ein Bild, Fink,1995) and his notion of an “iconic turn,” coined almost exactly at the same time as Mitchell’s “pictorial turn,” and sharing with the latter an emphasis on the presence, magic, and animistic “powers” of images in contemporary culture, and a reticence to interpret such iconic vitality in linguistically-based categories, but differing from Mitchell’s “picture theory” in its reliance on anthropology and the philosophy of language. As Moxey points out, this “German” school is more mindful than the English-language political tradition of both the general, anthropological “iconic” property of images to refer to realities and the technological and communicational specificities of particular media. Horst Bredekamp’s recent exploration of “picture acts” (Theorie des Bildakts, Suhrkamp Verlag, 2010) appears as the current culmination of this school, in proposing an anthropological and language-philosophy-based analysis of the “power of images,” a theme previously treated in a more politically-oriented direction by W.J.T. Mitchell in What Do Pictures Want ? (Chicago, 2006). The increasing dialogue of the German- and English-language schools of visual studies is a promise for the future and, in view of growing interest in the field in Europe, a possible chance for wider exposition in France.

AUTHOR

FRANÇOIS BRUNET Université Paris Diderot-Paris 7

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Book Reviews

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Richard Osborne, Vinyl: A History of the Analogue Record Farnham: Ashgate, 2012, 213 pages

Claude Chastagner

REFERENCES

Richard Osborne, Vinyl: A History of the Analogue Record, Farnham: Ashgate, 2012, 213 pages

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1 January 2013 was marked in France by the news that all the country’s Virgin stores, the main purveyor of CDs with Fnac, were about to close down. At the same time, in my hometown of Montpellier, a limited, but steady number of record stores remain open. Small, independent, they all stock mostly, or only, vinyls, the black, 33 rpm, analogue records of the past. The situation is similar in Britain, and in the USA. In London, Brighton, Colorado Springs, Austin, New York, one finds thriving second hand record stores. They may sell the occasional CD, but their mainstay is vinyl. Since 2007, Record Store Day, an international event aiming at fostering the survival of independent record stores, has been gaining momentum in western countries. Rock musicians contribute by recording special music, limited editions made available on vinyl only. Increasingly, record companies, like Montreal’s Constellation, release their artists’ music systematically on CDs and vinyls; they sometimes include a free 7” (vinyl) record with the mail orders they ship. A growing number of artists make their music available only as digital downloads and in vinyl. Market analysts and fans alike claim that vinyl is back, or that it has never left. But whatever the perspective, something is definitely going on. Something all the more fascinating as, though music purchases on the whole are dwindling, partly because of illegal downloading according to the music industry, analogue records’ sales increased by a significant 43.7% in Britain in 2011, and by similar figures in the USA.

2 To document and explain these current trends, Richard Osborne has just released the most perfect book: a history of vinyl that does not neglect aesthetic or interpretative considerations, but focuses also on hard facts, and pays attention to technology, and economics. The fate of vinyl analogue records may seem trivial compared with more momentous issues such as the current turmoil the written press is experiencing, or the implosion of traditional television viewing patterns, but the (his)story of vinyl extends beyond the world of collectors, or music specialists, into the larger field of contemporary media studies. It highlights its current contradictions and uncertainties, beyond the sheen of the all-digital revolution, and points at the interconnection between communication, media, and the arts. It is also extremely revealing of the fragmentation and intricacies of contemporary consumer society, of the complex motives that justify trends and consumer choices. On all these accounts, despite its technical, and thus modest appeal, Osborne’s book proves a fascinating and essential read, and an elegant one at that.

3 Osborne concludes that if to a certain extent, digital technologies are not formats at all, in contrast, analogue recording focuses on the issue of format, and its numerous implied parameters (size, shape, tone, duration, categorization in genres, etc.). Vinyl is

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also related to more sociological or artistic elements, such as the interplay between format and content, and it has been an essential factor for the creation and perception of recorded music (183). He also insists on the specificity of vinyl, things other formats (or non-formats) such as cassettes, CDs, or digital downloads cannot do: being an effective branding tool which is clearly associated, by means of the inner label and the sleeve, to a specific record company; an exclusive recording device (it is practically and financially impossible to make a home-made vinyl record, one needs to have been selected by a record company, however small); and a desirable, collectable object, coming in different shapes, colors, sizes, weights, with a distinctive touch and smell.

4 Osborne’s demonstration serves several purposes: to tell the history of the vinyl record, to explore its relationship with music, and to address the reasons for its appeal. The specificity and originality of Osborne’s approach is his focus on the anatomical: the distinct auditory, visual, and tactile qualities of the object, which leads him to tackle vinyl from technological, commercial, or economic perspectives. Another strength of his essay is the careful distinction he establishes, within each chapter and subdivision, between the British and the American scenes. It also summons the key players: the artists, the industry people (major and independent record company executives, the written and electronic press, and Madison avenue), and the audience, by means of reception studies.

5 The organization of the book follows the same historical, geographical, and anatomical foci, with an abundance of precise data, first-hand accounts, and numerous, rare primary sources. Chapter one examines the groove (not in the musical sense of a given rhythm, but the one inscribed on the surface of the record), and the impact of being able to see and touch the fragile, perishable, mortal coil of music. Chapter two tells the history of the format per se, the progressive ascendancy of disc over cylinder. Chapter three addresses the label, the piece of paper glued onto the surface of the disc, giving details about the music, and enabling the practice of labeling, with the ensuing impact on genre and categorization. The fourth chapter is concerned with vinyl (as a chemical product different from wax or shellac), and the changing perceptions attached to this cheap plastic product. The fifth chapter looks at the emergence of the LP as the dominant format, from classical music to pop and rock, and the consequences of such a meteoric rise, while chapter six details the complementary 7” (45 rpm) format and chapter seven focuses on the specificities of b-sides and 12” singles. The last chapter traces the history and implications of the sleeve. These 8 chapters focus mostly, at least for the post-1945 period, on pop or rock music (with an easily understandable emphasis on the innovations brought about by The Beatles), with a few insights into jazz, classical, and “popular” music recordings, mostly by means of comparison. The book concludes with a lengthy bibliography and an index.

6 Osborne combines rare but meaningful details, such as those on very recent technological developments, with comprehensive and perfectly synthesized historical surveys, while raising stimulating points and bringing into question many assumptions and received ideas. He is also careful to never let any fetishism come in the way of analysis and readily admits that the attention vinyl receives is out of all proportion to its market performance: his core argument is that the vinyl record has been ‘articulated’ (3), and that its different components (label, material, sleeve, size, etc.) have been used to advance specific musical causes and values, a claim I would extend beyond music. Osborne’s refreshing attention to the materiality of his object could

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indeed be applied with similar success to other objects from the field of media and communication. It is quite telling that his book was released at the same time as a history of EMI Records or a study of the art of British rock.

7 The reader, stimulated and provoked by Osborne’s study, can only wish that he had extended the same kind of analysis and degree of perfection to the various technical means used to play vinyls records, from cheap monophonic record players to state-of- the-art hi-fi sets.

AUTHORS

CLAUDE CHASTAGNER Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier 3

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Ruth Nicole Brown and Chamara Jewel Kwakye (eds), Wish to Live: The Hip-hop Feminism Pedagogy Reader New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2012, 296 pages

David Diallo

REFERENCES

Ruth Nicole Brown and Chamara Jewel Kwakye (eds), Wish to Live: The Hip-hop Feminism Pedagogy Reader, New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2012, 296 pages.

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1 More than ten years after No Child Left Behind, the flagship aid program for disadvantaged students, the United States is still being left behind, academic performance-wise. According to a 2009 report, out of 34 countries, the United States ranks 14th in reading, with almost 70% of its eighth graders lacking proficiency.1 The glaring dropout crisis points to the urgency of re-engaging students with learning, and a new wave of educators and cultural workers, influenced by hip-hop culture, technology, and globalization, has emerged in recent years and reassessed teaching methods and pedagogy.

2 Aiming to disseminate hip-hop educational practices and to dispute the bias that hip-hop culture is not an appropriate medium through which to engage youth in learning, Wish to Live: The Hip Hop Feminism Pedagogy Reader provides essays, poems, scholarly papers, and performances to effectively incorporate hip-hop culture into current educational practice. In contrast with the vast majority of hip-hop education courses and programs that are meant to serve youth, especially in low-income, marginalized, and chronically violent communities, the authors of this reader, Ruth Nicole Brown and Chamara Jewel Kwakye, offer a “new jack” (p.xi) feminist agenda and explore hip-hop through a critical feminist lens.

3 Their book, which blends hip-hop pedagogy, gender analysis and LGBT studies, presents diverse, inter-generational and multi-dimensional hip-hop pedagogies. The contributors are varied, from women working within the hip-hop sphere to on-the- ground hip-hop feminists, alongside activists, students, writers, and scholars. Drawing on scholarship from Women's studies, African American studies, and education, Wish To Live joins poetry, autobiographical vignettes and observations into a wholehearted celebration of black girlhood and womanhood in a context of hip-hop feminism and critical pedagogy.

4 As a Reader, Wish to Live is primarily a book for instruction and practice. It argues that hip-hop, given its importance and aura in the lives of youth, has great potential to influence their educational experiences and provides instances of how it can be used as a critical and culturally relevant pedagogical tool. It is divided into five parts (1: Miseducation; 2: Justice; 3: Performance; 4: People; 5: SOLHOT). The first part, Miseducation, lays the foundation for the rest of the Reader. Consisting of five chapters, it presents and promotes a feminist agenda from a black hip-hop perspective and passionately illustrates, through inspirational essays (chapter 1) or spoken word performances (chapter 2) why the celebration of black girlhood and womanhood is to be considered essential. Just as importantly, it highlights the necessity for the recognition of present female and queer voices in hip-hop (chapter 3), rejecting

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negative stereotypes and counterhegemonic discourse against what Ruth Nicole Brown referred to as “hip-hop porn” in her 2009 book Black Girlhood Celebration: Toward a Hip- Hop Pedagogy.2

5 Part two of the book, entitled Justice, starts with an essay which documents and identifies the harsh realities black girls face as a result of sexual terror (chapter 6). Chapter 7, in my opinion the book’s best researched and most interesting entry, examines a biased justice system where blacks are inherently criminal and brings to light its chronic criminalization of the black body (male and female). Part two also includes a study of social mobility and class tensions within the black population and provides, through the social trajectory of its author - a scholar/ dancer -, a thought- provoking illustration of cultural hierarchies (ballet versus African dance….) (chapter 9). This part ends with an essay on pedagogy that advocates a fluid and interactive relationship between students and teachers (chapter 10).

6 Part three, Performance, includes a spoken word performance about the commodification of the black female body (Chapter 11), an empowering play and dialogue for black women (Chapter 12), and a film project around the concept of the cypher as a space of hip-hop feminist knowledge production (Chapter 13). These performances are followed by inspirational poetry for lonely black girls (Chapter 14) and an essay promoting poetry and theatre to express the complexity of human interactions (Chapter 15).

7 Part four, People, consists mostly of portraits of hip-hop feminist personalities. Chapter 17, which deals with the appropriation of the term “bitch” as part of the hip-hop feminist discourse raises interesting questions about self-love and the sense of community while chapter 18 to 20 discuss hip-hop feminism in a male-dominated culture and outlines its objectives (using elements of hip-hop culture to transform traditional relationships and beliefs that may be oppressive).

8 The last part, SOLHOT (an acronym for Saving Our Lives, Hear Our Truths) presents practical applications of hip-hop feminism through a collection of texts celebrating black girlhood and womanhood and encourages the building of leadership skills in black girls and women while organizing to alter the relations of power.

9 Overall, the goal of this Reader is to highlight the sociopolitical platform of hip-hop feminism and to provide examples of how that platform, through pedagogy, can impact the history and future of black American feminist thought. With critical essays, interviews, personal narratives, poetry, and artwork, it succeeds in complicating understandings of hip-hop as a male-only space. While examining how performances of everyday black girlhood are mediated by popular culture, personal truths, and lived experiences, and how the discussion and critique of these factors can be a great asset in the celebration of black girls, Wish to Live also provides several templates to produce scholarship likely to lead to purposeful social action. Finally, it clearly succeeds in repositioning feminist and queer perspectives in hip-hop from the periphery to the center in bringing to light alternative lifestyles that mainstream hip-hop has had a difficult time accepting for anything other than visual stimulation for men in rap videos. Yet, in spite of these qualities, the book fails on several levels.

10 The biggest problem one could have with Wish To Live is how it occasionally fails to clarify how feminists and women can actively participate in a phallocentric culture that seems to despise them so violently. The term “hip-hop feminism” itself conjures up an enigma. Even though Joan Morgan, in her book When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost:

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My life as a Hip Hop Feminist argued that women could in fact be feminists and rap fans at the same time,3 Wish To Live reveals some of the possible incongruities hip-hop feminists still have to deal with when loving an art that is reluctant to include them. For example, in chapter 3 Ruth Nicole Brown presents herself as a teacher of hip-hop while rejecting its constitutive elements. Also, while dismissing the use of “bitch” she nevertheless embraces the equally divisive “nigga” (48).

11 Moreover, the authors, while underlining the necessity of gender-progressive politics in urban cities often brush over the subject and present hip-hop discourses as responsible for gender politics in urban communities. Yet several sociological and ethnographic studies have revealed the complexities of gender dynamics in the ghetto. Majors and Billson for example, in their book Cool Pose, The Dilemmas of Black Manhood, have examined in detail how African American inner-city youths adopt a misogynistic mask of “cool” to defend themselves against the indignities, inequities, and injuries of ghetto life.4 This cool pose has been identified and reproved prior to the emergence of rap music, which has certainly conveyed and commodified it, but which cannot reasonably be blamed for it.

12 A pluridisciplinary approach could also have helped bring some nuance to the sometimes simplistic and biased arguments presented in the Reader. Oversimplifications can be found in the multiple subjective histories of the hip-hop movement presented in some entries and according to which hip-hop was largely about the self-esteem of the black community and a discussion about societal problems by artists engaged in positive, political and intelligent dialogue about America’s inequality.

13 To conclude, although some readers may find it difficult to wrap their heads around the sheer amount of topics covered in various forms, Wish to Live welcomingly discusses topics that are often overlooked in the rap scholarship. Instead of being reduced to an anti-misogyny movement or to a rallying cry, it incorporates a women-centric worldview, where the realities of the hip-hop generation's women are taken into consideration at every turn. For this reason, students and scholars interested in gender and feminist studies will certainly be won over by the efforts of the authors and editors to make it a one-stop shop, while hip-hop scholars at large will find very good up-to- date bibliographies in some of its entries.

NOTES

1. Re-Imagining Teaching and Learning: A Snapshot of Hip-Hop Education http:// steinhardt.nyu.edu/metrocenter/hiphopeducation/Research 2. Ruth Nicole Brown, Black Girlhood Celebration: Toward a Hip-Hop Pedagogy, NY: Peter Lang, 2009. 3. Joan Morgan, When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: My life as a Hip Hop feminist, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1999. 4. Richard Majors & Janet Mancini Billson, Cool Pose, The Dilemmas of Black Manhood, New York: Lexington Books, 1992.

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AUTHORS

DAVID DIALLO Université Montesquieu, Bordeaux 4

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Tricia Jenkins, The CIA in Hollywood: How the Agency Shapes Film and Television Austin: University of Texas Press, 2012, 167 pages

Nolwenn Mingant

REFERENCES

Tricia Jenkins, The CIA in Hollywood: How the Agency Shapes Film and Television, Austin: University of Texas Press, 2012, 167 pages

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1 The CIA in Hollywood, by Tricia Jenkins, an Assistant Professor in the Film, Television, and Digital Media Department at Texas Christian University, is a brief and clear presentation of how the CIA has actively sought to collaborate with Hollywood to develop certain programs since the mid-1990s. Jenkins’ aim is to reveal the ‘largely hidden history of the CIA in Hollywood’ and to define how ‘this model of secret influence’ functions (53). She covers CIA representation and involvement, from the Cold War, when it was mostly ‘depicted in a very negative light,’ (133) to the current post-9/11 era, as it is ‘trying to circulate whitewashed images of itself through popular media.’ (137)

2 Chapter 1 and 2 explore the sources of the CIA’s decision to collaborate with Hollywood from the mid-1990s onwards. The official reason is a desire to counter its predominantly negative representation in Hollywood programs. Indeed Chapter 1 summarizes this image by showing how CIA agents have traditionally been depicted as assassins, rogues operatives, unprotected by their hierarchy, morally bankrupt, and/or ineffective and buffoonish. Jenkins insists however that other factors were equally if not more decisive : ‘the desire to reassure Americans about the need for intelligence in a post-Cold War world, to counter congressional accusations that the CIA had grown too secretive, and to conduct damage control in the wake of the Aldrich Ames case’ (32). This led to the creation of an entertainment liaison position in 1996. Chapters 3 and 4 offer detailed presentations of the way Hollywood and the CIA have collaborated since the mid-1990s. Five ‘CIA-assisted texts’ are scrutinized : television film In the Company of Spies (T. Matheson, 1999, Showtime), television series The Agency (M.F. Beckner, 2001-2003, CBS) and Alias (J.J. Abrams, 2001-2006, Touchstone Television), as well as two feature films : The Recruit (R. Donaldson, 2003, Touchstone Pictures) and The Sum of all Fears (P.A. Robinson, 2002, Paramount Pictures). These chapters explore the CIA’s motives for working with Hollywood, as well as the nature of the relationship. The films themselves are explored as ‘texts,’ thematically, not aesthetically. Chapters 5 and 6 move towards a more critical tone as Jenkins raises problematic issues concerning CIA involvement in Hollywood. Chapter 5 argues that ‘the CIA’s refusal to support all filmmakers seeking its assistance constitues a violation of the First Amendemnt’s right to free speech’ (12). It also explores issues of propaganda. Chapter 6 develops concepts of realism and accuracy, by contrasting ‘CIA-assisted texts’ to texts based on the advice of ex-CIA agents.

3 As can be expected, one of the major problems encountered by Jenkins was the lack of sources. Indeed ‘CIA public affairs officers are rarely credited in sources like the Internet Movie Database or on a program’s scrolling credits’ (52). Confronted with the issue of secrecy surrounding CIA activities, Jenkins did find variegated sources to

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support her argumentation. CIA history books provide her with general information, CIA and other official document with unclassified data. She also relies heavily on small facts casually reported by the press –such as talent's visits of CIA headquarters, which she organizes into a meaningful narrative. Varied press sources are called upon, from trade magazine Variety to general titles such as the Washington Post to internal CIA magazine What’s New at CIA. In the absence of fully-fledge academic research on the topic, she relies on a few articles from various journals such as World Policy Journal or Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television. More theoretical books on propaganda and media manipulation, such as Herman and Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent (2002) or Randal’s Propaganda and the Ethics of Persuasion (2002), also inform her analysis. In order to compensate for the lack of sources, Jenkins resorts to two interesting methodologies. The first one is to interview insiders, both from the CIA and from Hollywood. Jenkins uses these sources fully, while maintaining the necessary analytical distance. She emphasizes the fact that ‘the history of the CIA in Hollywood is, at present, more of a verbal history than a written one.’(3) The second methodological technique is to draw parallels with two other official bodies for whom academic research does exist : the FBI (38) and the Pentagon (48, 97). When making comparisons with the Pentagon, for example, she heavily relies on Robb’s Operation Hollywood : How the Pentagon Shapes and Censors the Movies (2004). This reasoning by analogy is very convincing and helps her fill the missing gaps.

4 The style is possibly what is least satisfying in this book. Transition sentences, probably added for the sake of clarity, tend to simply repeat, sometimes verbatim, the content of the chapter. One sentence even appears three times. These repetitions are unnecessary as the author’s ideas are otherwise expressed very clearly. What tends to lose the reader are the many people alluded to. Although the author provides a list of CIA directors and liaison officers early on (6), this is not enough to prevent the reader from wondering, fifty pages later, who is whom. Another point to be deplored is the conciseness of the index which is thus not very useful. All in all, the book is often very descriptive, which makes it a very easy read.

5 The core argument of the book is the way the CIA uses Hollywood programs for its own purposes. Jenkins makes it clear that the Agency’s aim is not simply to promote a better image of the agency. Hollywood programs have other – shadier – uses. In the eyes of the CIA, this positive depiction is invaluable as a recruitment tool. In 2004, the CIA even hired Alias star Jennifer Garner for a recruitment video. Alias indeed ‘depicted espionage as a glamorous career’ (76) and Garner’s character was shown ‘balancing her spy career with a personal life and graduate education’ (76). But, according to Jenkins, the CIA’s motives go much beyond recruitment, as Hollywood programs are also used as concrete tools in the CIA’s everyday activities. Jenkins thus asserts that the television series The Agency was used as a ‘threat-scenario worshop’ (66). The CIA entertainment liaison fed the series creators with ideas that they were to develop. Scenarii explored included for example an anthrax attack on the USA and a ‘growing military buildup on the border of India’ (68). The use of story-telling creativity for intelligence purpose is also made clear in the development by the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative technology of ‘a videogame that would allow Agency analysts to assume the role of terror-cell leaders, members and operatives in order to help the United States avert further attacks.’ (67) Finally, the CIA seems to deliberately infuse Hollywood programs with ‘an exaggerated vision of the Agency’s capabilities,’ (91) notably in technical terms. This concious overestimation is conceived as a means of

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intimidation of foreign enemies. An industry liaison officer is thus reported to have suggested to The Agency creator Beckner to represent certain technologies, as ‘terrorists watch TV, too’ (69).

6 Beyond this central topic, the book offers an valuable presentation of the relationships between the CIA liaison officers and the Hollywood personnel. The development of this human, almost anthropologcal vision, is of great interest. Although the CIA has an official bureau liaising with Hollywood, relationships seem mostly of the casual and off- the-record sort. Chase Brandon was thus ‘selected for the position of “entertainment liaison” because he was the first cousin of Tommy Lee Jones, which meant he was able to come into the job with numerous Hollywood contacts already in place (47).’ Brandon’s job included ‘pitching ideas to writers and working directors’ (49), as well as travelling to Los Angeles ‘roughly once a month to ‘‘make the rounds’’ and establish new contacts’ (49). Jenkins also insists that, contrary to the Pentagon which intervenes at the production stage and exerts strong influence because it provides ‘expensive equipment’ in exchange for ‘script control’ (48), the CIA can only offer ‘access to technical consultants and to CIA headquarters for filming’ (49). Consequently, ‘Langley is most effective in influencing storylines in the preproduction stage, when it can suggest ideas as they are being crafted’ (49). The CIA influence is thus much more informal and difficult to trace. The term ‘consultant’ can for example cover a wide spectrum of involvement levels (85). Hollywood professionals themselves would not necessarily talk of collaboration, strictly speaking. The Agency’s Beckner for example turned to CIA officer Brandon for advice because they had developed a ‘strong friendship’ (65). In the words of Beckner : ‘Because these conversations were so casual (…), I’m not sure I would classify them as official CIA-Hollywood exchanges’ (65) Jenkins thus insists that ‘the CIA’s involvement in Hollywood is indeed shadowy and difficult to trace, especially since its interactions often take place only between two well-placed individuals, either in person or over the phone’ (69). What Jenkins leaves unclear however is why Hollywood creatives are willing to play this game. She notes that the CIA has ‘a very active’ network of people in Hollywood helping ‘in whatever way they can to give back’ (94). However, one closes the book still wondering about what Hollywood really gets out of this ‘mutally beneficial relationship’ (89).

7 Emphasizing the CIA’s manipulation and the casual relationship with Hollywood leads Jenkins to interrogate the ‘rhetoric of authenticity’ (102) that both partners allude to. Jenkins’ aim in this book is to counter ‘the CIA’s claim that it is invested in Hollywood only to portray accurately the Agency and to educate viewers about the CIA’s role’ (69) She does so by emphasizing the difference between realism and accuracy. While Hollywood turns to the CIA to enhance the realism of its programs (90), this collaboration does not lead to more accurate films. One example is the fact that the CIA is prone to exaggerate its ‘technical capabilities’ (91) for ‘psychological warfare’ (55) purposes. CIA-assisted texts can then be considered as visually realistic but technically inaccurate texts. Jenkins also devotes a chapter to non CIA-supported docudramas, such as Syriana and The Good Shepherd (124-125). The CIA strongly opposes such films, not simply because they convey a negative image of the Agency but more importantly because they are perceived as historically accurate by the audience and are ‘much more influential in shaping the public’s understanding of the Agency than any news article, memo, or report it may release’ (126) For the CIA, a war of image is being waged. The way Hollywood content is used domestically, as a recruitment tool, and internationally, as a ‘scare tactic’ (91), shows these texts are not ‘educational initiatives’ (97) but fully-

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fledged and ‘well-disguised propaganda’ (84). Going one step further, Jenkins denounces the CIA attitude –supporting exclusively pro-Agency programs – and shows this to be a violation of the ‘publicity and propangada laws, which forbid the government from engaging in self-aggrandizing and covert communication’ (97). Although she does not directly incriminates the Hollywood partner, her book shows the ambiguity of the creative community when it comes to propaganda. On the one hand, CIA-supported films are often openly marketed as such as this enhances the realism of films (114). On the other hand, Hollywood talent maintain that they keep creative control over the programs (51) – which can be questioned as Jenkins describes practices of covert influence and self-censorship (134). Besides, they are not always keen on acknowledging collaboration, as being suspected of propaganda is usually negative for a film’s image and box-office results (72). Finally, Jenkins insists on the pernicious quality of ‘CIA propaganda [which] is often hard to detect by the average viewer’ (78).

8 The CIA in Hollywood does have certain limits, such as the repetitions of sentences and ideas, or the lack of examination of the Hollywood point of view. It is however a very informative read and a well-documented study. One also appreciates that, although the author is clearly determined to counter the CIA’s official discourse, she does not do so through a subjective and passionate pamphlet, but presents scientifically supported analyses. The book is about examining specific texts, relationships and practices, not about a larger CIA-Hollywood conspiracy theory. This will leave the reader informed and more discerning, not completely paranoid.

AUTHORS

NOLWENN MINGANT Université Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3

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Kathleen Loock and Constantine Verevis (eds), Film Remakes, Adaptations and Fan Productions: Remake/Remodel Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, 252 pages

Julie Gueguen

REFERENCES

Kathleen Loock and Constantine Verevis (eds), Film Remakes, Adaptations and Fan Productions: Remake/Remodel, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, 252 pages

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1 Film Remakes, Adaptations and Fan Productions : Remake/Remodel is a collection of twelve essays originating from an international conference held in 2010 at the University of Göttingen (Germany) and organized by the American Studies’ Research Unit “Popular Seriality : Aesthetics and Practice”. Epitomizing the interests of this unit in the reconstruction of the historical, cultural and narrative dimensions of popular serialization, this volume offers an interdisciplinary perspective ranging from American Studies and Literary Studies to Media Studies and Cultural History. Rich with such diversity, Remake/Remodel remains nevertheless particularly coherent in its overall attempt to defend the value of serialization. Through a three-part structure, each illustrating a different type of serial narrative (remakes, adaptations, and fan productions), all the contributors artfully refute the commonly-accepted notion that seriality represents a form of “self- cannibalization” or “desecration” of “some superior original” (p. 2). They explore the complexities and potentials of those underestimated texts by meticulously opposing them to their sources in a succession of compelling case studies, while successfully introducing innovative theories (particularly so in the last part of the collection).

2 “Adapt”. The quality of this first part resides in the multifaceted reevaluation of a formerly unavoidable principle that shaped adaptation studies for decades. Following this principle, the cultural status of a cinematographic adaptation ought to be determined by its fidelity to its literary source. Any transformation or mutation was thus considered as blasphemy, tainting the original work from which the adaptation sprang. In her essay (p.87-104), Birte Otten denounces the limitations of such a principle, by thoroughly examining its consequences on two cinematographic adaptations of All the King’s Men, Robert Penn Warren’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. She argues that the fundamental complexity of Warren’s original work lost its coherence and overall magnitude, when it was adapted for the second time in 2006, precisely because of misplaced reverence. The challenge of adapting a novel resides in the transition between “telling” and “showing”, as it is mentioned in Amy Martin’s essay dedicated to the study of Wuthering Heights (p.67-86). Martin uses “Brontë’s famously layered narrative” (p.70) to demonstrate that, in order to maintain a certain level of coherence, an adaptation must emancipate itself from its source and offer an interpretive reading that might in turn, lastingly shape the collective unconscious.

3 “Remake”. The second part confronts the preconceptions engendered by said collective unconscious, resisting modernization because of fear of seeing the original interpretation of a text corrupted by a newer version. This so-called loss of meaning is identified here as a process of recontextualization, placing remakes as products of their own time, generating new meanings for new generations. As such, Kathryn Schweishelm proposes an essay based on the comparative study of two versions of The Stepford Wives (p.107-121), offering a unique perspective on the evolution of feminism between the 1970s and the early 2000s. Similarly, Kathleen Loock explores the

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geopolitical transformations that occurred between the Cold War and 9/11 by opposing several versions of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (p.122-144), as does Sonja Georgi with The Manchurian Candidate (p.145-158). Finally, the last and probably most significant essay of this part, written by Constantine Verevis and dedicated to the study of H Story (p.159-175), lyrically exposes the tensions between experience and representation, between memory and the ineluctable metamorphosis of meaning.

4 “Remodel”. The very juxtaposition of fan productions with the more ’classic’ semiotic registers examined in this collection is innovative in itself. Yet beyond that, some of the reflections presented in this third part also participate in the opening of new research avenues in reception studies. For instance, in her study of the fan-vidding phenomenon (p.179-196), Robin Anne Reid draws attention to the issue of ethnicity in fandom, often overlooked in favor of gender analysis. In a fairly exhaustive overview of the academic discourse on fandom, she argues that a stalemate could be reached if considerations such as race, ethnicity, class and sexuality were not combined with gender (p.187). The other three essays composing this last part propose, as a whole, a very methodical and engaging survey of the serialization process in fandom ; each of them illustrating the principle of deconstruction and reconstruction of a narrative for very specific purposes. Sybille Machat, in an excellent analysis of fanfic-trailers (p.197-214), demonstrates that reassembled fragments of source texts have the potential to immerse viewers in entirely new, yet familiar universes. Lili Hartwig, explores the variations of tone made possible by the remixing of a film, using typical genre indicators (p.215-230). Finally, Daniel Stein identifies video spoofs as metareflexive deconstructions enhancing the structural weaknesses of certain source materials (p. 231-247).

5 Film Remakes, Adaptations and Fan Productions : Remake/Remodel embodies the audacity and creativeness of a dynamic research unit encouraging young scholars to rejuvenate dusty paradigms. Under the tutelage of Frank Kelleter, director of the unit and initiator of the “Popular Seriality” concept (p.19-44), this group of contributors produced a very convincing volume that will probably become a reference in its field of study.

AUTHORS

JULIE GUEGUEN Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris 3

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Géraldine Chouard, Eudora Welty et la photographie : Naissance d’une vision Paris : Michel Houdiard, 2012, 178 pages

Hélène Valance

REFERENCES

Géraldine Chouard, Eudora Welty et la photographie : Naissance d’une vision, Paris : Michel Houdiard, 2012, 178 pages

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1 If Eudora Welty is a familiar figure for students of American literature, many might have overlooked her career as photographer. Géraldine Chouard, who has published literary studies on Welty, undertakes here to study this relatively hidden facet of the Southern author’s life. Her book, entitled Eudora Welty et la photographie : Naissance d’une vision, provides a detailed narrative of Welty’s lifelong engagement with photography and of the rich interplays between the photographic medium and her written work. Indeed, even though Welty published several photographic albums in the later decades of her life, this dimension of her work seems to remain secondary, if not completely omitted, in critical analyses of her oeuvre. Chouard’s thorough knowledge of the culture and history of the American South, her fine capacity for literary analysis and her remarkable skill at reading photographs combine to create a refreshed vision of Welty’s world, of which she demonstrates the essential coherence.

2 Naissance d’une vision includes, along a short but extremely dense and elegantly written text, 41 photographs, most of them taken by Welty herself. The two images framing the book’s title page announce its ambition : the first, a portrait of Welty holding what appears to be a manuscript and smiling modestly yet confidently to the camera, highlights the identity of the woman as a writer. But Chouard is careful to note that this picture fits in the genre of occupational photography, which Welty herself illustrated with a series of portraits in the 1930s. The second photograph is that of a street in Fayette, Mississippi, captured through a cafe window. Against the sunny winter streetscape, the inverted letters of the word “CAFE” and the silhouette of a man appear in sharp contrast. This second picture summarizes the “vision” Chouard analyses through her book : that of the Southern landscape and of its inhabitants, emerging from the interior and seen through the screen of textuality. From the photograph of Welty the writer looking out at the camera to that which captures her own vision of the world, filtered through camera and text, emerges the coherence of Welty’s universe, between text and image.

3 The introduction briefly situates Naissance d’une vision in the context of the critical reception of Welty’s photographs, explaining that their moderate success derived from Welty’s fame as a novelist, not the reverse. Chouard also notes the importance of Welty’s choice of subjects – mostly African-American inhabitants of the South during the 1930s – to explain the attention her photographs received when they were published, just a few years after the end of the Civil Rights movement. In a yet wider perspective, Chouard links the increasing interest in Welty’s photographs with the growing appreciation of the photographic medium in general.

4 Each chapter, though following a roughly chronological order, then concentrates on a specific theme. The fist section (“l’Oeil et la plume” – “The Eye and the Pen”) considers Welty’s early experiences with images and photographs. Tellingly, the first example cited is that of Welty’s fascination for the intermingling of letters and images in

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illustrated books. Chouard reveals this continuous overlapping of mediums in the development of Welty’s creativity, visible for instance in her creation of a photo-novel at age 11. Chouard shows that Welty’s family connected her to photography, particularly her father, an enthusiastic amateur photographer, and her grand-father, who made photography his profession in the 1880s. The images commented by Chouard in this chapter reveal Welty’s wonderful humour, expressed in a visual medium as efficiently as in her prose, through a series of parodies and subversions. But photography also appears to be, from the beginning of Welty’s life, a medium loaded with affects linked to the writer’s intimate and familiar landscape. The chapter ends on an anecdote that seemed to mark a turning point in Welty’s life : at the moment she caught the opportunity to show her photographs at a New York Gallery, the magazine Manuscript accepted her short story “Death of a Travelling Salesman.” This event allegedly cemented Welty’s decision to opt for a literary career.

5 Yet what Chouard shows in the following chapters is a persisting engagement with photography. The second chapter deals with Welty’s most productive period in terms of photography, beginning the very year she exhibited her pictures in New York. Hired by the Works Progress Administration as a journalist in 1936, Welty was sent back to her native Mississippi. Whereas she was expected to produce interviews and written accounts of local life, she decided to document it through photography as well. Yet while other WPA and Farm Security Administration photographers such as Walker Evans or Dorothea Lange adopted an activist stance, her own goal was more archival than reformist, her vision more intimate than ambitious – she called the photographs she made of Mississippi life in the Depression years a “family album.” Here Chouard offers a series of detailed and inspired readings of photographs where, literally, letters structure the landscape, as for instance in “Saturday in Town, Grenada” where a line of store signs creates a rhythmical horizon across the streetscape, a poetic line-up whose harmonies were surely noticed by the writer (“Jno. T. Keeton Cotton/Jitney Jungle/ Coca-Cola”). Chouard insists on the exceptional attention Welty devotes to Black subjects, both in terms of quantity – while only a tenth of the FSA photographs include Blacks, three quarters of Welty’s do – and of quality. As Chouard demonstrates, Welty’s outlook, which she describes Welty’s approach as “slanted,” avoids the frontal, condescendingly edifying attitudes of other photographers of her time, and allows for a complex vision of the local race relations. In many of Welty’s photographs, indeed, Blacks and Whites coexist in a shared space. However, some of Chouard’s interpretations may be a little too optimistic, attenuating the ambivalence and latent violence of images. Thus the threatening gesture of the black woman in “The bootlegger’s house. Pretending the drive away customers with an icepick, 1930s” is eventually read as humorous, while in “Carrying ice for Sunday dinner, near Bolton” the perspective of the Sunday celebrations and pleasures supplants the children’s painful work. In these cases Chouard may be pushing the generosity of Welty’s vision beyond its limits.

6 The third chapter (“l’image au pied de la lettre”) considers photography as a medium in Welty’s writing. Photography as object, process and metaphor is here analysed in exceptionally fine readings borrowing from Roland Barthes, Walter Benjamin, Sigmund Freud or Marcel Proust. A magistral analysis of Welty’s short story “Why I Live in the Post Office” explores the psychoanalytic meanings of photography’s manipulations, staging the photograph as a model of seduction, perversion and transgression. Chouard’s reading of “Kin” links and contrasts the story with Nathaniel Hawthorne’s

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House of the Seven Gables, examining the varied modes of reception of photography in her own time. Readings of The Optimist’s Daughter and Losing Battles study the instrumentality of photographs in organizing temporality, underlining their dramatic and affective power. Here the “vision” is at once a revelation and a remembrance, where mourning and creating intertwine.

7 The fourth and fifth chapters take on this emphasis on memory by presenting what Chouard calls Welty’s “autophotobiography,” as well as her own memorialisation of other photographers. Chouard goes back to Welty’s first encounters with photography to highlight her individual development between the two mediums of writing and photography. Thus Chouard shows how Welty’s pictures reflect her lifelong attraction to narration by suggesting a variety of sounds and dialogues, and how, correspondingly, Welty “learned to see” through making photographs. Autobiography, photography and writing beautifully converge in the construction of “the eye/I of the story,” (citing the title of a collection of Welty’s critical essays), the narrative voice of the writer. Proust comes here as a relevant reference, as Chouard insists on time as an essential dimension of the development of the artist’s personality. The fifth chapter focuses on Welty’s memory of others through photography, very appropriately exploiting the double meaning of the French word “tombeau,” which designates both the site of commemoration and the work of art created in memory of the deceased, often an artist. Chouard comments on Welty’s articles on Imre Kertész, Henri Cartier- Bresson, and Leni Riefenstahl written for the New York Times, noting that they participated in a popularization of photography as art in the 1970s. Another important photographer in Welty’s work is William Eggleston, with whom Welty, as Chouard shows, shares more than a common Southern origin. Chouard sees, in particular, Eggleston’s “eccentricity” of vision, his fragmented images and refusal of hierarchy reflected in Welty’s own strategies of representation, which rely on indirection and fragmentation (what Welty herself called “halving”). The chapter ends on literal tombstones with photographs Welty made of local churchyards (published under the title Country Churchyards in 2000). Here again, memory, local and personal identity meet in the crossings between photography and text. The final analyses Chouard proposes beautifully emphasize the aging writer’s fascination for effaced letters on weather- beaten monuments in landscapes blurred by Spanish moss and distance. Chouard suggests here one last function of photography : in Welty’s work, it constitutes a site of memory as well as forgetting, it is also a monument in that it promises stillness and repose.

8 Chouard’s book is an essential contribution to the understanding of Welty’s work. Her inspired and refined analyses of Welty’s writings and photographs not only demonstrate a remarkable understanding of Welty, but also provide a magnificent example of how text and image can be read together. If she manages to make visible the imbrications of photography and text in Welty’s work, her own work, correspondingly, weaves together with admirable skill threads that are too often kept separate. Chouard’s book combines a lively, pleasant writing with rigorous, sophisticated analyses. One could only regret that the book could not offer more illustrations to support Chouard’s argumentation. Ironically, given the line defended buy Chouard, her reader often finds himself or herself frustrated not to be able to see the pictures discussed in detail, or to have to go back and forth between the chapters and the central section devoted to illustrations. More images, more evenly distributed in the text, would have more truly reflected what Chouard so elegantly demonstrates. Despite

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this limitation, probably due to financial restrictions on the publisher’s part, the book remains a beautiful object, sure to bring textual as well as visual pleasure to its readers.

AUTHORS

HÉLÈNE VALANCE Université Diderot, Paris 7

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Judith Brodie (ed.), Shock of the News Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2012, 154 pages

Jason E. Hill

REFERENCES

Judith Brodie (ed.), Shock of the News, Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2012, 154 pages

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1 With shifting emphases and varying degrees of success, a spate of recent exhibitions—most notably Warhol : Headlines at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. in 2012, The Last Newspaper at the New Museum in 2010, Antiphotojournalism at La Virreina in 2010, and Covering the Real at the Kunstmuseum Basel in 2005—have taken on the question of the visual arts’ engagement with the material, culture, and procedures of journalism. But for all these exhibitions’ considerable merit in advancing an analysis of journalism through the optic of the art world’s substantial theoretical and formal critical competence, they have limited their inquiry into the art/journalism nexus to the “contemporary” or post-1960 period. To some extent, this historical framework makes sense. The conditions of both art and journalism have changed in a number of meaningful ways since 1960, lending a certain comfort to their unlikely exhibitionary convergence ; changes in terms of both the variety of media employed by each and of their relationship with their publics. But the artistic and art critical encounter with the world of journalism has much deeper historical roots, and Judith Brodie’s 2012 exhibition Shock of the News offers a welcome corrective to this curatorial over-privileging of the contemporary, by demonstrating the centrality of that engagement to canonical modernism in the visual arts since 1909 and the coherence of its steady development since.

2 This broader historical scope appears to have necessitated a narrower conceptual frame, however. Unlike the organizers of these previous exhibitions, Brodie and her collaborating essayists—Sarah Boxer, Janine Mileaf and Matthew Witkovksy, and Christine Poggi—are concerned less with art in its involvement with journalism as a social field (such as we find in a work like David Lamelas’ 1968 Office of Information about the Vietnam War at Three Levels : The Visual Image, Text, and Audio, where “news” is understood as a complex human, material, and technological network) than they are with artists’ use of the newspaper itself as a subject and to a greater degree as a material. (To call it a medium here would only confuse matters : three of four essays cite Greenberg ; not one mentions McLuhan.)

3 With this unstated rubric in place, Brodie advances a sort of origin myth of modernism’s fascination with “the newspaper phenomenon,” positing the appearance of Marinetti’s Futurist manifesto on the cover of Le Figaro in 1909 and Pablo Picasso’s 1912 papier collé Guitar, Sheet Music, and Glass (the first artwork to be “self-consciously modern” in its incorporation of a bit of newspaper) as two distinct but approximately contemporary points of genesis. The two occasionally braiding trajectories sprung from these are elaborated most efficiently (if tentatively) by Witkovsky and Mileaf : “The paired legacy of Picasso and Marinetti, as explored in this book, suggests a dual mode of interaction with the daily papers. On one hand are works [like Picasso’s] that deal with the fragmentary everydayness of modern life through the material of newsprint itself ; on the other are those [like Marinetti] that mimic or infiltrate the apparatus of

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newspaper publishing and its increasingly commodified public.” (104) Despite frequent reference to John Heartfield, who did not only “infiltrate” but actually productively worked for the press, Shock of the News is concerned almost exclusively with the former, “material” orientation, and essays return again and again, with an almost dogged persistence, to the analysis of the newspaper collages of Picasso, Braque, and Hoch and the newspaper paintings of Rauschenberg, Johns, Robert Morris, and Warhol ; the five authors contribute four more or less interchangeable readings of Dieter Roth’s Literaturwurst series (1961), which literally makes a sausage of the newspaper and which survives the repetition on its own merit.

4 For all of the assembled authors, each an accomplished historian or curator of the modernist avant-garde, what unifies these two divergent trajectories is an artistic preoccupation not with the newspaper’s quality as the material accretion of a global journalistic network or as a conduit for information about social injustice (or sports scores, or what have you), but with the distinctive and symptomatically modern temporality and fragmentation contained in its form. If the approach to the medium is often Greenbergian, the modernity here is that of Benjamin and Mallarmé. Of news time Witkovsky and Mileaf note, with characterist élan : “Yellowing almost before one’s eyes, newsprint carries a material currency only slightly greater than its validity as a bearer of fresh information” (103). Sarah Boxer writes beautifully and with erudition. A former New York Times art critic, she knows something about newspapers. Here she at once describes and performs the newspaper’s fragmentary condition, suggesting something of the appeal it held for a Picasso or Carlo Carrà : It is the clash of headlines and ads, news and weather. The optical buzz of the set type... It is the size of the page, the crinkle of the sheets, then ink on your fingers. The types of type. The datelines and bylines. And the blunt lingo of the newsroom and the composing room. The hed. The lede. Kerning and carding. H & J. TKTKTKTK. Agate type. Dummy type. Thumbsucker. Q-hed. The news hole. The nut-graf. The banner. The kicker. The jump. The slug. The slot. The widows and orphans. The morgue. (91)

5 This is the quick clip and staccato rhythm that the newspaper always already has and that modern art desires. In the interaction of modernism and the newspaper where the modernist is always taking the knife to the newspaper, Boxer observes rivalry driven by envy : “When I see art incorporating newspapers,” Boxer writes, warning that she might be overly protective of the newspaper, having worked for one, “I see a war against the once-composed page. I see the newspaper tortured : cut, gutted, minced, diced, snuffed, silenced, defiled, mocked, tarred, drowned, bound, gagged.” (92)

6 Boxer’s essay notwithstanding, it is possible to detect a gentler or at least more passive version of that same hostility to the newspaper in the catalogue (and thus the exhibition) as a whole. With the predictable exception of Heartfield, whose avant-garde credentials were secured long ago, and Semen Fridlian, whose The Venal Press (where hostility to the press speaks for itself) enjoys pride of place on the catalogue’s cover, but which is uncharacteristic for this inventive Soviet photojournalist in its montaged and therefore recognizably avant-garde aspect, I searched in vain for mention of Winsor McCay, John Sloan, Weegee, Ad Reinhardt, Taryn Simon, Cartier-Bresson or any museum-sanctioned artist who had actually produced important art in the service of newspaper journalism. El Lissitzky’s and Sergei Sen’kin’s Presse catalogue is frequently cited, but this of course is in connection with an exhibition about newspapers, not anything that was happening inside them. Louis Aragon is mentioned twice, but as a

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deft analyst of dada collage and not for his work publishing the interwar Parisian daily Ce Soir. Lyonel Feininger is the first artist mentioned, in the Director’s forward, but in light of his 1909 painting Newspaper Readers and not as any tribute to his astonishingly inventive 1906 Kin-der-Kids comics for the Chicago Tribune. Warhol enjoys frequent discussion, but for his later art about newspapers and not for the extraordinary drawings for I. Miller that were published as advertisements in newspapers. Boxer does mention that Mallarmé, a theoretical lynchpin of the proceedings, wrote criticism for the dailies, but his role here is anything but the ombudsman’s. Rather, his familiar protestations against the newspaper echo from some space well outside newsprint. Tellingly, the only other newspaper staffer to appear in the index is George Luks, an artist of unassailable modernity, but who appears only as the rearguard butt of the vanguard Arthur Dove’s Dadaist newspaper-collage ridicule.

7 How do we account for this evasion—in a book about modernism’s traffic with the newspaper—of the cartoonists and the artist-reporters, those modern artists who made their modern art (and quickly !) for presentation in that most modern material form ? Shock of the News, unfortunately, does not offer any explanation, or any sustained accounting for the structuring limit dividing its modernism from its journalism. My sense is that it would be rather difficult in the end to formulate a comprehensive theory holding the two fields of practice safely at bay (certainly the commodification argument doesn’t hold any water). To trouble with such limit cases would be to expose cracks in the binary that is Shock of the News’s very foundation. Amidst Christine Poggi’s virtuoso treatment of a series of works by Ellsworth Kelly, Kelly is said to have turned in his art to newspapers as “an‘outdoor source’ par excellence” (118). This is a telling observation in its plain declaration of the artist’s need for the newspaper to be something other than art. By the newspaper’s being “outside,” art is able to understand its own position as “inside.” The newspaper, for all its exciting modernity, is allowed to be like a tree or a sunset, just there, an “outside,” natural thing for art to be about. The polarity allows for the production of much needed walls, lest the floor of this discourse get too muddy. But then again, Kelly’s newspaper works are great, so why complain ?

8 Poggi’s essay, the last in the volume and excellent on its own terms, unfortunately does not unpack the implications of all this. But she does shake things up some with brief and sharp treatments of surprising and welcome interventions by Chryssa, Arman, Carolee Schneemann, and, most interestingly, Laurie Anderson. Anderson’s New York Times, Horizontal/China Times, Vertical (1971/1976) literally weaves the front pages of these spatially, temporally, and politically remote newspapers into a richly evocative field, charged with reference to, as Poggi has it, “newspaper’s mobile, heterogeneous, and intertextual status within a global communications network” (126-7). This is a field of reference that has been sorely missing from this catalogue’s excessively insular, material fixation on the newspaper as a fixed and coherent (even if in its fragmentation and evanescence) field of cultural meaning. The very success of Anderson’s work and the privilege it enjoys in the book’s design as a frontis to Poggi’s essay speaks eloquently to concerns raised above. Anderson’s work sparks visibility to the newspaper’s condition as anything but a found thing, anything but mere inert “material” to be activated by the artist in his studio. The newspaper, this work (by Poggi’s light) insists, is a dynamic and made thing, a woven thing, and it is the business of this making, the art of it—the very procedures of news work, with its wire services, tight deadlines, picture-editors, hypocrisies, foreign bureaus, rolling presses,

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contradictions, and globe-trotting photographers and reporters—that most denotes the phenomenon’s profound modernity, if not its modernism.

9 For all of Shock of the News’ considerable beauty as a book and value as a compendium tracing this unmistakably vital tendency within canonical modernism, it is this overall indifference to the complexity of actual newspaper journalism that most limits its analysis and which will stand out most markedly in the minds of readers coming to it from anywhere “outside” of art history. The volume is the publication of an art museum and naturally enough it consists of essays by two art museum curators, an art critic, an academic art historian, and an art museum director. But in a book taking stock of the “shocking” convergence of the fine arts and print journalism, it might have been productively destabilizing to have included a voice more representative of, or authoritative on, the subject of that dualism’s latter term. Witkovsky and Mileaf, to their and to this volume’s credit, do marshal the authority of journalism historians Kevin Barnhurst and John Nerone’s excellent book The Form of the News, but only in passing and only in support of an assertion about “monolithic” print journalism’s instrumentalizing lack of authorial complexity. Barnhurst, Nerone, and indeed any number of other scholars working on the visual culture of journalism from a media- studies and communications perspective (Will Straw, Barbie Zelizer, and Thierry Gervais come quickly to mind) might have introduced a refreshing counter-discursive note, attending to the remarkable heterogeneity, complexity, and formal innovation internal to daily newspapers’ own emphatically modern art history.

AUTHORS

JASON E. HILL Terra Foundation / Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art

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Divina Frau-Meigs, Media Matters in the Cultural Contradictions of the ‘Information Society’ – Towards a Human Rights-Based Governance Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 2011, 390 pages

Christopher Ali

REFERENCES

Divina Frau-Meigs, Media Matters in the Cultural Contradictions of the ‘Information Society’ – Towards a Human Rights-Based Governance, Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 2011, 390 pages

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1 Divina Frau-Meigs’ Media Matters in the Cultural Contradictions of the ‘Information Society’ – Towards a human rights-based governance is one of a number of recent monographs to grapple with the changing nature of communication regulation, policy and legislation, at the national, regional and supranational levels. In doing so, Frau-Meigs does not just comment on emerging regimes of global communication governance, but rather attempts to reinsert a human element into a discourse that has become increasingly divorced from the populations it is meant to serve. Frau- Meigs argues for a more ‘people-centered’ model of global communication and information governance, which places this book in conversation with other recent manuscripts addressing what Raboy and Shtern have called ‘communication rights and the right to communicate.’1 In making this case, this book not only addresses topics familiar to political economic critique, but also engages with emerging challenges that come with new Information Communication Technologies and networks : digital privacy, freedom of information, surveillance, the right to forget, data mining and consumer profiling, media education, and the many iterations of the digital divide. According to Frau-Meigs, each of these issues can be understood and challenged through the lens of human rights.

2 Such a wide scope should not come as a surprise to those familiar with Frau-Meigs’ work. A Professor of media sociology at the Sorbonne Nouvelle University, Frau-Meigs has been involved with such organizations as WSIS, UNESCO, the UN, the Council of Europe and the European Commission. While the book uses primarily European cases, drawing particular examples from the European Convention on Human Rights, and various EU rulings (e.g. Television without Frontiers (1989) and the Audio Visual Media Services Directive (2007)), she also demonstrates her mastery of supranational legislative matters concerning the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, WSIS, GATT, WIPO, TRIPS, and UNESCO.

3 Frau-Meigs’ thesis rests on the argument that we have left the era of consumption behind, and have now entered one of participation (what she terms the ‘cyberist moment’). The result of such a transition is that individuals interact with ICTs at a much more personal level, necessitating laws and policies that better reflect this relationship between ‘man and machine’ (12), rather than the ongoing trend towards commercialization and industry-focused policy regimes. In this search for a more ‘people-centered’ model of global communication governance, three normative interventions stand at the forefront of her argument. First, an enhanced role for civil society groups, particularly through co-operative measures such as co-regulation and participation. Second, the need to transfer controls over online identities and personal

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information from commercial enterprises to individuals. Third, the role of media education, particularly amongst young people, who, according to Frau-Meigs, ‘are ill- informed about the potential impact personal data collection will have on their daily lives and their future’ (184).

4 From these examples, one observes that the book achieves its goal of serving as a toolkit for policy intervention, as much as it is a critical examination of what Frau- Meigs calls in the title of her book the ‘cultural contradictions of the information society.’ Each chapter looks at a pressing issue in global media policy : Ethics, Dignity, Identity, Privacy, Diversity, Public Service, Gatekeeping, Risk, and Media Education. Each concludes with a discussion of how the particular issue relates back to human rights and how a more progressive platform can integrate human rights into policy discourse. The Foreword by Maud de Boer-Buquicchio is correct then to note that the chapters are ‘action-oriented,’ with clear interventions in mind that do not need to be read in a linear fashion (6). While certainly the case can be made that the chapters can be read individually, Frau-Meigs does an exceptional job at relating each issue back to her central thesis : That a ‘cyberist’ moment in the information society requires a new focus for media governance ; a focus which must include the integration of human rights into a multi-stakeholder process of media governance, regulation and legislation, both nationally and supranationally.

5 But what is this cyberist era ? Frau-Meigs proposes that we have left the modernist and postmodernist eras behind, and that, In this information paradigm shift from the postmodernist era to the cyberist era, the online behaviour of end-users, as they become contributors and producers of information, takes primacy over their offline activities and develops a tighter than ever co-evolution between man and machine. These cyberist features tend to displace the concerns of late modernity to the margins while other concerns come to the fore. (12)

6 This ‘moment’ suggests a more intimate connection between humans and the technological and communicatory interfaces we use to connect to the larger digital world. It is characterized by three primary cultural contradictions which relate back to this argument : (1) ‘The double bind of the information economy’ between consumption and participation ; (2) ‘The termination of the postmodernist cultural paradigm’ and ; (3) ‘The contradictions in the ideological supremacy of capitalism’ (13-14). The cyberist moment is thus defined by collective action, engagement and participation and Frau- Meigs argues for the reflection of this shift through a reinsertion of humans into the information society’s regulatory structures, particularly through such strategies as co- regulation, co-presence, co-operation and consensus.

7 In addition to ‘cyberism’, Frau-Meigs introduces her reader to other models for the information society, such as ‘media spectacles’ and ‘media services’ which at their broadest, juxtapose culture-minded content (spectacles) with media as an industrial service. Not surprisingly then, Frau-Meigs suggests that the media sector can be read either through the lens of the ‘information-provider model’ which primarily reflects consumer and commercial interests, or an ‘open-source model’ which suggests greater participation and cultural pluralism. Despite the critical political economic and normative underpinnings of her writing, however, she is not one to eschew the commercial sector altogether, but rather seeks ‘to keep the balance between spectacles and services, paid-for and public options’ (53). In other words, we need a hybrid media system : a media system that draws not only from the commercialization potentialities

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of the Internet but more importantly from co-operational methods such as open-source and participatory practices (48, 57).

8 To underscore the aforementioned attachment between ‘man and machine’ (which indeed evokes comparisons to a McCluhanesque media ecology) Frau-Meigs proposes the concept of ‘social cognition’ as a way to understand the information society. While a difficult concept to understand, social cognition …explicitly connects media to the brain (knowledge) and to the environment (culture) with three main considerations… [1] We understand the media and representation with our interactions with the environment ; [2] Cognitive conflict and ethical dilemmas are the stimulus for using media and learning from them, and they determine the organization and nature of what is represented, learned and transmitted ; [3] Media spectacles and services evolve through the evaluation of the viability of individual and collective needs and functions. (35-36)

9 Social cognition understands the media as an extension of the brain, whereby the media are ‘cognitive artefacts that ensure cultural transmission of values, beliefs and attitudes’ (36).

10 In this ecological or even biological perspective, a social cognition of media suggests a connection between humans and media-as-cultural representations, whereby the media ‘fulfill some “functions” and services according to “situations”’ (35). Social cognition and human rights, aligned by a commitment to the physical and cognitive rights of the individual, form the backbone of the cyberist moment. However it is the human rights component within the information society that becomes the primary focus of the remainder of the book.

11 While the Introduction and first chapter introduce these many terms and central thesis, the next nine chapters discuss the various aforementioned people-centered challenges that exist within the information society, and include suggested interventions for aligning these concerns with a human rights-based approach. Five chapter examples will be used to illustrate this organizational framework. Chapter three for instance covers the ‘compound’ notion of dignity (95), and the more tangible challenges of freedom of expression and privacy, particularly when it comes to young people. Interestingly, Frau-Meigs proposes in this chapter that we should be transferring human rights to Internet objects created by humans such as avatars. While it is certainly true that the Internet has changed the boundaries of social networking and identity formation, thus requiring the need for protective measures to dissuade abuses, this is perhaps one of the least convincing suggestions in the toolkit of interventions. What legal parameters, for instance, would human rights-based protection for virtual identities entail ?

12 In Chapter Six, Frau-Meigs discusses cultural diversity, and argues for the ongoing role of the state in achieving pluralism and cultural diversity, since ‘the means of representing a country’s identity cannot be left to a third party,’ (193). Alongside this argument is a discussion of the definition of diversity, and the commercial and cultural implications therein. In a particularly interesting deconstruction of the cultural production sector, she suggests that it can be understood as ‘the cultural industries’ - ‘the production of cultural goods through public funding ; ‘the content industries’ (commercially driven) ; or ‘the creative industries’ - ‘characterized by hybrid funding… and by production methods centred on creative individuals,’ (191). This typology maps on to the previous discussion of media-as-spectacle or media-as-service, and the information provider/open source models of the communication sectors, and aligns

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with a long line of political economy of communication scholars who have noted the dichotomy between the commercial and public interest iterations of media production.

13 Chapter Seven reasserts the more classic political economic argument of the role and value of public service networks, and particularly the relationship between the public and the private. Frau-Meigs acknowledges, ‘if the public domain is to exist online, it is framed within a market economy, for better or worse, so legislation elaborated in multi-stakeholder platforms has to establish balance…’ (260). Departing from some, she does not propose radical solutions that operate without the system, but rather interventions that can function within the system of global capitalism. Co-regulation and consensus can be read as two workable interventions. Chapter Nine, which concerns ‘the protection of minors,’ is perhaps the most user-friendly chapter in what is otherwise a book for the already well-informed reader on global information policy issues. Here, Frau-Meigs stresses the ‘3Ps’ of protection, provision and participation when it comes to the policies concerning young people and the Internet (317). Media literacy is also prominent in this chapter, and segues into Chapter Ten, which focuses exclusively on media education. This penultimate chapter is the most ‘action-oriented’ in the book as Frau-Meigs argues for new pedagogical structures, believing that ‘teacher-as-resource’ has come to replace ‘teacher-as-source’ in educational environment. Within these chapters, Frau-Meigs convincingly demonstrates how human rights can feed into all facets of information policy making in the cyberist era.

14 To be sure, this is not an introductory text to global media governance and would likely be a challenge for the novice observer. Nonetheless, Frau-Meigs not only joins, but strengthens the ongoing global conversation of innovative ways of thinking about media and democracy. By aligning the familiar tropes of political economic critique with the emergent discourses in policy scholarship of communication rights and human rights more broadly, Frau-Meigs offers a fresh and in-depth perspective on the ways that global media governance could truly live up to the normative ideals of cooperation, co-regulation and participation amongst multistakeholders. In the end, one of the greatest strengths of this book is that Frau-Meigs offers an ‘action oriented’ interventionist approach (de Boer Buquicchio, 6) one that can be read as a guidebook not only for media reform and global ICT scholars, but also activists, reformers and progressive policymakers both within and outside the European Union.

ENDNOTES

1. Raboy, M., & Shtern, J. Introduction, In M. Raboy and J. Shtern (eds.), Media Divides: Communication Rights and the Right to Communicate in Canada, Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2010, p.15.

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AUTHORS

CHRISTOPHER ALI Doctoral Candidate, Annenberg School for Communication University of Pennsylvania

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Nolwenn Mingant, Hollywood à la conquête du monde. Marchés, stratégies, influences Paris : CNRS éditions, 2010, 316 pages

Delphine Robic-Diaz Translation : Charlotte Gould

REFERENCES

Nolwenn Mingant, Hollywood à la conquête du monde. Marchés, stratégies, influences, Paris : CNRS éditions, 2010, 316 pages

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1 Nolwenn Mingant is assistant professor in American civilization at the Sorbonne Nouvelle University in Paris and the co- founder of the CinEcoSa (Cinema, Economy and English-Speaking Countries) research group. Her book Hollywood à la conquête du monde. Marchés, stratégies, influences which was published in 2010 by CNRS Publishing (316 pages), is derived from her PhD thesis. Situated at the crossroads of the economic analysis of cinema, of American studies, of geopolitics and of film analysis, the book provides a well-documented inventory of American cultural expansionism as orchestrated by Hollywood. Indeed, while cinema is quite obviously an international type of mass entertainment, it has not always been clearly identified with the economic mechanism of globalization.

2 This is the approach Nolwenn Mingant has chosen “to study the economic exportation of a national product with a cultural value” (p. 13), in order to “suggest a redefinition of Hollywood cinema at the beginning of the 21st century” (p. 16). She has therefore elected to focus on the strategies of development into foreign markets (outside of North America, meaning here the US and Canada) of the seven original major studios : Columbia, Disney, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Paramount, Twentieth Century-Fox, Universal and Warner Bros.

3 At a time when French stars seem to become ever more popular and more numerous exports (2012 saw Jean Dujardin and Omar Sy triumph, both having started out on national television before being snatched up by Hollywood in the wake of their successful transitions to the big screen), this essay sheds light on the paradoxical dynamics of an industry which maintains a never-ending cultural and economic domination worldwide, all the while having become dependent on its foreign markets and on talents imported from foreign cinema markets.

4 The book is divided into two parts and made up of eight chapters. It offers a geopolitical reading of the world economy of cinema, using a dataset of hundreds of so- called big-budget productions (a budget exceeding by 30 % that of the average budget of the films released during the same year) between 1966 and 2004, though leaving out animated feature films. Rather than approach films as mere products, Nolwenn Mingant turns them into the objects of a multidisciplinary analysis by borrowing her concepts from the economics of film when dealing with data or marketing strategies ; from contemporary history and film history when contextualizing and making developments of a genetic kind ; from sociology, because of the mirror-effect cinema creates between screen and audience, which is particularly relevant in a globalized cultural context where films are exported towards other nationalities ; in addition, she does not forget the specifically American angle of this demonstration, for example when dealing with the representation of the figure of the Other in American cinema.

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5 This fascinating essay on geostrategy applied to cinema takes us through a cultural, political and economic history of the world by looking at the evolution of the distribution of Hollywood films abroad. Certain events, such as Franco’s Spain, the collapse of the communist bloc, the emergence of the Dragons of South-East Asia, the GATT agreements, or the conflict in the Middle-East, take on an unexpected edge when seen through the scope of the distribution system of the major studios, of the Motion Picture Export Association of America (MPEAA or MPEA, renamed MPA, Motion Picture Association, in 1994), and of the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), all orchestrated by the parallel diplomacy of these twin associations’ president, Jack Valenti. It should in addition be noted that the timeframe of the study espouses that of Valenti’s stint at the head of both organizations (1966-2004).

6 The annexes, although few, provide crucial and enlightening information, whether detailing Jack Valenti’s biography, listing all mergers among major studios from 1962 to 2004, or drawing maps reviewing the evolution of major studios' access to world markets, not forgetting the tables extracted from Variety summarizing the ranking of countries which have been the main importers of Hollywood cinema since the 1960s.

7 “Exportation”, “Globalization”, and “Glocalization” are the three keywords providing the framework for Nolwenn Mingant’s reflection. They also coincide with three signposts in the changing positions adopted by major studios towards their foreign market : the desire to sell abroad, then to create a harmonized demand, and finally, the wish to provide for cultural particularisms by supplying structurally suitable products (scenarios, actors, directors, to quote from the author’s very detailed chapter entitled “Stratégies culturelles / Cultural Strategies”), but also by devising suitable marketing strategies. Indeed, Nolwenn Mingant insists on the fact that the development of delayed programming thanks to secondary markets (Television, video, and today new media) has consistently updated the concept of “glocalism” since the 1980s. Indeed, this contraction of the global and the local conveys the contradictory dynamics which have left major studios torn over what strategy to adopt when faced with a foreign audience, when they need to provide for a culturally diverse global demand by offering a product both unique and adjustable to the specific requirements and possibilities of the different market opportunities.

8 Another great quality of this rich essay is the type of examples used. Indeed, too often, film studies favour a certain kind of cinema, critically-approved highbrow films, at the risk of cutting themselves off from mainstream audiences. In the present case those partial to blockbusters will find a referencing of the films they grew up watching and arguments to understand products which might not all have been aesthetically convincing, but which have contributed to the escalating budgets of major studios embarked on this world tour of seduction which Nolwenn Mingant tries to decipher. At long last, we are presented with an academic study unencumbered with value judgements and which is not afraid to quote Pirates of the Caribbean, Pearl Harbour, The Last Samurai, Rush Hour, or Harry Potter. By using the production budgets of these movies as a criterion of selection, the author imposes a different logic from that of the hallowed auteur film, and legitimizes the “object-film”, the polymorphous and many- sided product which, when beginning her essay, she had presented as central to her demonstration.

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AUTHORS

DELPHINE ROBIC-DIAZ Maître de conférences en Etudes cinématographiques Université Montpellier 3 – Paul Valéry

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