The Anecdote and Classic Hollywood
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THE ANECDOTE AND CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD By BRIAN DOAN A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2010 1 © 2010 Brian Doan 2 For my parents, who always supported my dreams and aspirations; and for Denise, who makes every day an adventure worth living 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS When I was younger and reading academic books for the first time, I would always scratch my head at the way many acknowledgements pages leaned toward a dispersion of authorial personality, with their insistence that “I am not the sole author of this book,” or “this book was a collaboration across many times and places,” etc.; it seemed like so much mystical self-indulgence, a twisted parody of the “death of the author,” a self-abnegation that was really a reification of writerly ego. Now, of course, I realize what a callow fool I was, and the impossible goal is to thank everyone who deserves thanking. A dissertation is such a lengthy and ever-changing process of growing and taming the baggy beast that I am sure I will forget someone. If I leave anyone out, please know it is only because of space and my occasionally sieve-like memory, and that those people really are in these pages, and very much appreciated. Thanks go out first and foremost to the dissertation committee that nursed and guided and supported this project from its beginnings in Ph.D. exams through to its final stages: Maureen Turim, Greg Ulmer, and Nora Alter all offered superb suggestions, much-needed constructive criticism, incisive questioning of both textual specifics and larger theoretical goals, and the strong emotional support every graduate student needs. I want to thank you for your mentoring, your friendship, and your almost super-human patience and indulgence as I made sense of what I was trying to say. My chair, Robert B. Ray, deserves special mention for the many ways in which he acted as a teacher, a mentor, and a friend throughout my time in graduate school. I knew of Dr. Ray before we met, having been assigned parts of his first book in undergraduate film classes at Indiana University, and his second book was a large part of why I came to Florida to study. With this impressive textual personality built up in my mind, it was with some sense of 4 trepidation that I knocked on his door to say “hello” my first semester in Gainesville; within five minutes of our conversation’s start, I knew that everything was going to be fine, and that talking to Dr. Ray would always be an enjoyable, searching and stimulating experience. Through graduate classes, masters’ thesis and dissertation work, it has been similar to what Marlene Dietrich said of Orson Welles: “You come away from conversation with him feeling like a plant that has just been watered.” I could write pages more, so perhaps it’s best just to say a simple “thank you,” and to emphasize that those two words contain, for me, volumes. I also must thank the University of Florida and the UF Department of English for the financial support that tuition waivers and teaching assignments provided during my time in Gainesville; the money was crucial, and the space the classroom provided to test ideas and think about movies with bright and engaged students made writing a richer and fuller experience. I especially want to thank three Gainesville groups: the professors of the UF Department of English, whose courses, conversation, and support offered the best mental and emotional support and development a graduate student could ask for (space doesn’t permit specific names, but I hope you all know who you are); the rotating membership of Dr. Ray and Dr. Turim’s dissertation seminars, whose combination of whip-smart analysis and constant encouragement made this project far better than it otherwise would have been; and the many friends in Gainesville, in and out of the department, whose support, humor, hugs and deeply felt sympathy in the face of this sometimes-crazy process means more than I can ever fully express. Thank you for all the movie nights, book exchanges, birthday events, football gatherings, dance parties and potlucks that reminded me that work was only one part of life. Finishing this book was a bifurcated experience, as part of it was done in Gainesville, and part at Oberlin College, where I was lucky enough to start teaching in the fall of 2006; I want to 5 thank the College and the Cinema Studies program for hiring me and providing both financial support and a rich liberal arts environment for teaching and trying out ideas. My colleagues in the program—Grace An, Rian Brown-Orso, William Patrick Day, Elizabeth Hamilton, Brett Kashmere, Jeffrey Pence, Geoff Pingree, and Tess Takahashi—have been incredibly kind and supportive, and the intellectual and emotional support they have provided over the last few years has helped in more ways than I can say. Thanks go out, too, to the students of several Oberlin cinema classes, who have patiently indulged my fascination with anecdotes and popular culture, and whose own sense of fun and fierce passion for intellectual exploration has made me a better teacher and a better scholar. My family deserves its own acknowledgements book, not just a paragraph, for the endless patience they have shown while waiting for me to finish. I want to offer special thanks to them for their curiosity, encouragement and love, in support of the graduate process and in all things always. Finally, I have to thank Denise, whose love and support has been both incalculable and invaluable. Translating style and idea from the jumbled confusion of one’s head down to the unforgiving white blankness of a page is a process that can be both time-consuming and more than a bit self-indulgent (I always think of the line from Sondheim’s “Finishing The Hat,” where he describes the creative process as “How you are always turning back too late, from the grass, or the stick, or the dog or the light”). I am sure there have been times when I have been either a bear of frustration or a fetal ball somewhere in the corner, whimpering; but throughout it all, over the last several years, you have been my editor, my sense of fun, and my partner in theoretical crime. When I say “thank you,” please know all that those words contain. As I worked on a project about the power of the quotidian anecdote to rearrange film history, life with you 6 reminded me that the greatest adventure is just waking up in the morning and seeing what the day with your partner will bring. 7 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................................4 ABSTRACT .....................................................................................................................................9 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................10 2 SHIMMY ................................................................................................................................45 1939 ........................................................................................................................................45 1861 ........................................................................................................................................45 1932 ........................................................................................................................................47 1927 ........................................................................................................................................49 Love Scene One: 1927 ............................................................................................................56 Love Scene Two: 1933 ...........................................................................................................68 Love Scene Three: 1939 .........................................................................................................82 3 SHUFFLE .............................................................................................................................114 Snapshot One: Exquisite Corpse ..........................................................................................114 Snapshot Two: In A Jam .......................................................................................................116 Snapshot Three: Alibis .........................................................................................................129 Snapshot Four: Scenes of the Crime .....................................................................................138 Snapshot Five: Signatures and Staging An Action ...............................................................145 4 PAS DE DEUX.....................................................................................................................157 Under the Lights ...................................................................................................................157 Pas de Deux ..........................................................................................................................158 Choreography .......................................................................................................................162 Dream Work .........................................................................................................................169 Mystery Trains