AMERICAN CINEMA/AMERICAN CULTURE
Fourth Edition
John Belton RutgersUrwersity
^Connect Me • Learn Grain/ Succeed" Hill CONTENTS
Preface xv Introduction xxi
PART 1 THE MODE OF PRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1 THE EMERGENCE OF THE CINEMA AS AN INSTITUTION 3 "The Cathedral of the Motion Picture" 3 Developing Systems: Society and Technology 4 Edison and the Kinetoscope 6 Capturing Time 6 Peepshows versus Projectors 7 Mass Production, Mass Consumption 9 A Public Spectacle 9 Middle-Class Amusements 9 The Nickelodeon: A Collective Experience 10 Cleaning Up: The Benefits of Respectability 12 Spectacle and Storytelling: From Porter to Griffith 13 The Camera as Recorder 13 The Camera as Narrator 14 The "Feature" Film 15 Presenting ... the Movie Palace 16 "Gardens of Dreams" 16 The Great Showmen 16 An Evolving Institution 19 Select Filmography 20
CHAPTER 2 CLASSICAL HOLLYWOOD CINEMA: NARRATION 21 A National Style 21 "The Temper of an Age ..." 21 A Narrative Machine 22 Equilibrium and Disruption 23
IV Contents v
Characters and Goals 24 Problem Solving 24 Through Time and Space 25 High Artifice, Invisible Art 27 Denial and Recognition 27 Underlying Patterns 28 Analyzing Film Narratives: Segmentation 28 A Circular Pattern: Chaplin's The Gold Rush 30 Symmetry 31 At the Center: Imagination 32 Journey to a New Place: Some Like It Hot 32 Flight and Pursuit 32 Narrative Structure and Sexuality 34 Resolution/Irresolution 35 Modernist Narration: Citizen Kane 35 Unresolved Questions 35 Segmentation of Citizen Kane 36 Artifice Exposed 36 The Social Network: "The Citizen Kane of John Hughes Movies" 38 Multiple Points of View 39 Collective Authorship of an Idea 40 A Moral Tale 41 Other Nontraditional Narratives 42 Select Filmography 43
CHAPTER 3 CLASSICAL HOLLYWOOD CINEMA: STYLE 44 Film Form and Character Development 44 Classical Economy: The Opening Sequence of Shadow of a Doubt 44 The Art of Details 46 Mise-en-Scene 46 The Camera 47 Meaning through Context: Camera Angle and Distance 48 Systematic Meaning: Some Definitions 49 Camera Movement 50 Lighting 52 Three-Point Lighting 52 High-Key/Low-Key Lighting 53 Star Lighting 54 Sound 55 Miking and Mixing 55 The Musical Score 56 Sound and Continuity 56 vi Contents
Editing from Scene to Scene 57 Transitions 57 Editing and Narrative Structure 58 Editing within Scenes 59 Matches 60 Point-of-View Editing 61 The 180-Degree Rule 61 Select Filmography 63
CHAPTER 4 THE STUDIO SYSTEM 64 Manufacturing Dreams 64 Movies and Mass Production 64 Intangible Goods 66 The Majors and the Minors 67 Origins 67 Vertical Integration 68 Block Booking, Blind Bidding, and Runs, Zones, and Clearances 69 Studio Production: From Story Idea to Ad Campaign 70 Under Contract 70 A Self-Contained World 71 The Chain of Command 72 Studio Style 74 M-G-M and Paramount 76 Warner Bros. 77 20th Century-Fox 77 RKO 80 Columbia Pictures 80 Universal Pictures 81 Poverty Row 81 Collapse: The End of the Studio Era 82 Divestment, Independent Production, and a Changing Marketplace 82 Starting from Scratch: The New "Studios" 83 Select Filmography: From Four Sample Studios 85
CHAPTERS THE STAR SYSTEM 87 The Mechanics of Stardom 87 Making Stars 87 Star Power 90 Persona 94 Stardom and Mass Culture: From Persona to Star 96 Stars, the System, and the Public 99 Stars and Culture: A Historical Survey 101 The Early Years 101 Contents vii
Exoticism, Eroticism, and Modern Morality: Stars of the 1920s 104 Depression/Repression: The 1930s 108 World War II and Its Aftermath L11 Stars and Anti-Stars 113 Different Faces: The Rise of Black Stars 116 Economics and Contemporary Stardom 119 Select Filmography 121
PART 2 GENRE AND THE GENRE SYSTEM
CHAPTER 6 SILENT FILM MELODRAMA 125 The Origins of Melodrama 125 Types of Melodrama 127 The Melodramatic Mode 127 A Moral Phenomenon 128 Democratic Virtue 129 A Social Vision 130 Melodrama as a Tool of Reform 130 Politics and Melodrama 132 Two Film Melodramatists: Griffith and Vidor 133 An Agrarian Past 133 History as Melodrama: The Birth of a Nation 134 Everyman/No Man: The Crowd 136 Escape and Transcendence 138 Home as "Seventh Heaven" 138 The Lure of the City: Sunrise 139 Sound and Melodrama 140 Select Filmography 141
CHAPTER 7 THE MUSICAL 142 From Narrative to Musical Number 142 Setting the Stage 142 Narrative Reality 143 Musical Reality 143 Shifts in Register 145 Chicago 145 Nine 146 Narrative and Musical Number: Degrees of Integration 147 Musical Forms 148 Backstage Musicals 148 Busby Berkeley Musicals 148 Moulin Rouge 149 Showpeople 150 viii Contents
Transformation of Space: Performer, Props, Audience 150 Performer 151 Props 151 Audience 153 Stylistic Registers 153 From Black-and-White to Color 153 From Noise to Music 153 The Operetta 154 The Astaire-Rogers Musical 155 The Integrated Musical 157 The Freed Unit 157 Singin' in the Rain 157 Ideology and the Musical 159 The End of an Era 160 A New Era Begins 161 Select Filmography 162
CHAPTER 8 AMERICAN COMEDY 163 Laughter and Culture 163 Comedy, Repression, and Cultural Dreamwork 163 From Racism to Social Integration 164 Comic Disintegration and Disorder 168 Containing Chaos 170 Comedy, Class, and Democracy 172 A Short History of American Screen Comedy 173 Silent Comedy 173 Early Sound Comedy 177 Screwball Comedy 179 After the Screwball 184 Alienation and Self-Reflection: The 1960s and Beyond 188 From Animal Comedies to Ironic Romantic Comedies 190 Geek Comedy 191 Serious Jokes 194 Select Filmography 194
CHAPTER 9 WAR AND CINEMA 195 A World of Extremes 195 Breaking Rules 196 A Suspension of Morality 196 Deviant Narratives: From Individual to Group Goals 197 Sexual Combat: Masculinity in the War Film 199 Oedipal Battles 199 Conventional Homoeroticism 199 Contents ix
Masculine/Feminine 200 Back from the Front 202 Crossovers: War and Genre 203 The Battle for Public Opinion: Propaganda and the Combat Film 205 Preaching War and Peace 205 Mass Conversion: The Politics of Sergeant York 206 Why We Fight: Education and the War Film 207 The Vietnam Reversal 209 Race, Ethnicity, and the War Film 210 Conflicted: The Psychic Violence of War 211 The Enemy Is Us 211 The Aftermath 212 The 1991 Gulf War and World War II Redux 214 The Gulf War 214 World War II 214 The Iraq War 217 Mediation and Representation 219 Select Filmography 220
CHAPTER 10 FILM NOIR: SOMEWHERE IN THE NIGHT 221 Made in the USA 221 Film Noir: Genre, Series, or Mode? 223 Noir as Genre: A Set of Conventions 223 Noir as Series: A Certain Style 224 Noir as Mode: An Uneasy Feeling 225 Noir Aesthetics, Themes, and Character Types 226 Noir Stylisrics: A Shift in Perspective 228 American Expressionism 228 From Disturbing Conventions to Conventional Disturbances 229 Noir and the Production Code 230 Forbidden Subjects, Twisted Treatments 230 The End of Censorship, the End of Noir? 231 Innocence Lost: The Literary Origins of Film Noir 231 Hard-Boiled Fiction 232 The Detective Hero 233 Noir and Verbal Wit 234 Women in Film Noir 235 Women as Social Menace 235 Women as Psychological Terror 236 A Critique of Populism 238 New Culture, Old Myths 238 Capra and Film Noir 239 Film Noir: An Undercurrent in the Mainstream 241 Select Filmography 241 x Contents
CHAPTER 11 THE MAKING OF THE WEST 243 The American Film Genre par Excellence 243 Frontiers: History and Cinema 244 Frederick Jackson Turner and the 1890s 244 "... Print the Legend" 245 The Literary West 247 Dime Novels and Pulp Magazines 247 From Natty Bumppo to Shane 248 Bundles of Oppositions 249 Adaptation: When East Meets West 250 Bowlers to Bucksins 250 Feminine Transformations 250 Teaching a Tenderfoot 251 Women, Civilization, and Nature 252 On Native Ground: Landscape and Conflict 254 A Struggle for National Identity 254 From Wilderness to Garden 255 A Clash of Cultures: Cowboys and Indians 256 Native Images, White Values 257 Out of Time Anti-Heroes 258 Contemporary Visions, Enduring Myths 260 Back to the Garden 261 Unforgiven 262 Dead Man 263 True Grit 265 Periods of Popularity 266 Ambivalence: Land, Technology, and Utopia 267 Space: The Final Frontier 268 Select Filmography 271
CHAPTER 12 HORROR AND SCIENCE FICTION 272 Horror versus Science Fiction 272 The Two Things; Alien versus Aliens 272 "What If?" or "Oh No!" 273 What It Means to Be Human 273 Human versus Animal; Human versus Machine 273 Borderline Figures 274 Human versus Nonhuman 274 A Search for Knowledge 276 The Horror Film 276 The Science Fiction Film 276 Self and Other 277 The Return of the Repressed 277 Contents xi
The Threat of the Other 278 Emotions and the Other 278 Human Takeover 279 How We Became Posthuman 279 Sources of Cultural Anxieties 280 Horror and Class 280 The Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution 281 Genres of Science Fiction 281 Extrapolative versus Speculative 281 Utopian versus Dystopian 282 A Brief History of Horror 283 Classic Horror 283 Modern Horror 284 Modern Horror and the American family 286 Modern Horror and Gender 287 A Case Study in Modern Horror: Carrie 288 A Brief History of Science Fiction 289 1930s Science Fiction 289 1950s Science Fiction 289 1970s Science Fiction: Lucas and Spielberg 290 Posthuman Science Fiction 292 A Case Study in Posthuman Science Fiction: Blade Runner 293 The Posthuman as Affirmation of the Human 295 Select Filmography 295
PART 3 A POSTWAR HISTORY
CHAPTER 13 HOLLYWOOD AND THE COLD WAR 299 Origins: Communism, Hollywood, and the American Way 299 Revolution and Repercussion 299 In the Red: The Depression Era 301 Antifascists, Populists, and "Dupes" 302 World War II and Government Policy 304 Inquisition: HUAC, McCarthy, and the Hollywood Ten 305 Friends and Foes 305 "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been ...?" 306 Blacklisting 308 Alger Hiss, the Rosenbergs, and Senator McCarthy 308 Naming Names 309 The Cold War Onscreen 310 Pro-Soviet Wartime Films 310 The Anti-Commie Cycle 311 Us versus Them: Science Fiction and Paranoia 312 xii Contents
God and Country 313 Subversions 313 Chaplin in Exile 316 In Defense of the Informers: On the Waterfront 317 Aftermath 317 The Fight Continues 317 Win, Lose, or Draw? 319 Select Filmography 321
CHAPTER 14 HOLLYWOOD IN THE AGE OF TELEVISION 322 The Big Decline: Hollywood Loses Its Audience 322 At Leisure: Recreation in Postwar America 323 The Role of Television 323 Do Something! Passive Entertainment versus Action 324 The House, the Car ... 325 ... The Drive-In 325 Fewer, Bigger, Wider, Deeper 327 This Is Cinerama 327 The 3-D Assault 328 CinemaScope 329 Todd-AO and the Theatrical Experience 331 War with Television, Peace with Its Revenues 333 From Villain to Partner 333 Panning and Scanning: Making CinemaScope Fit on TV 334 DVDs and Widescreen TV 335 Movie-"Going" 336 Spectacles 337 Big Event Pictures 337 Digital Cinema and Digital 3-D 338 Select Filmography 340
CHAPTER 15 THE 1960S: THE COUNTERCULTURE STRIKES BACK 341 Youth and Challenge 341 The Kennedy Era 342 "The New Frontier" 342 The Civil Rights Movement 343 Against the War 344 Liberation: The Women's Movement 345 Projections: Women on the Screen 346 Youth Films: Activism as Lifestyle 348 "Solving" the Race Problem 350 On the Offensive: Money, Films, and Changing Morality 351 Controversy and Conservatism 351 A New Vocabulary 352 Contents xiii
Live Fast, Die Young: Bonnie and Clyde 352 Sex, Violence, and Ratings 353 The Great Teen Pic: Easy Rider 355 Transformation: The Counterculture Goes Mainstream 356 Blaxploitation and Beyond 357 An Emerging Black Audience 357 A Revolutionary Film: Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song 358 Outlaws or Role Models? 359 Split Screen: The Two 1960s 360 Rejuvenation 362 Select Filmography 363
CHAPTER 16 THE FILM SCHOOL GENERATION 364 The New Wave 364 The Auteur Theory: Directors as Stars 365 Cahiers du cinema and Andrew Sarris 365 Retrospective: America Discovers Its Cinematic Past 366 The Critic as Filmmaker 367 Training Ground: The Rise of Film Schools 368 The Color of Money: Young Directors and the Box Office 369 Youth Films and Economics 369 The Roger Corman School 369 Exploitation on a Grand Scale 370 References, Meaning, and Postmodernism 371 The Art of Allusion 371 De Palma and Hitchcock 372 "The Failure of the New" 373 Schizophrenia and Incoherence 374 A Postmodern Case Study: Taxi Driver 376 Reassurance: Comfort, Comics, and Nostalgia 377 A Return to Innocence 377 Opposing Visions 378 Back in Time 379 Contradictory Impulses 381 The Brat Pack 382 The Reagan Years 383 "This Time Do We Get to Win?" 383 Physical Culture: Biology as Destiny 384 Another Generation 384 Select Filmography 386
CHAPTER 17 INTO THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 387 Contradictions: From the Gipper to Blue Velvet 387 Reaganite Cinema: "Morning in America" 389 Regeneration 389 xiv Contents
Nostalgia: Coming of Age in the Past 390 Paradise Lost/Paradise Regained 391 Striking Back 393 Castles in the Air: Reimagining Traditional Institutions 393 Having It Both Ways 393 Being All That You Can Be 394 Oedipus with a Happy Ending: The Return of the Father 396 Parents and Babies: A Wide Spectrum 398 Countercurrents 400 Martin Scorsese: Against the Grain 400 The Gay New Wave 403 Spike Lee: Into the Mainstream 405 Jim Jarmusch and Julie Dash: On the Fringe 408 Independent Cinema 410 Into the Twenty-First Century 412 Hollywood in the Information Age: Game Logic 412 Computers and Boolean Logic 413 Fantasy Films 414 The Digitization of the Cinema 416 Digitization and Fantasy 417 Digital 3-D: Avatar 418 Seeing through Fantasy 419 Select Filmography 421
Glossary of Technical and Other Terms 423 Index 431