UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Research, Rhetoric, and the Cinematic Events of Cecil B. DeMille Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0d82925m Author Wagner, Philip Joseph Publication Date 2016 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Research, Rhetoric, and the Cinematic Events of Cecil B. DeMille A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Satisfaction of the Requirement for the Degree of Doctor in Philosophy In Film and Television by Philip Joseph Wagner 2016 ©Copyright by Philip Joseph Wagner 2016 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Research, Rhetoric, and the Cinematic Events of Cecil B. DeMille By Philip Joseph Wagner Doctor of Philosophy in Film and Television University of California, Los Angeles, 2016 Professor Chon A. Noriega, Chair This dissertation looks to the career of epic cinema pioneer Cecil B. DeMille in order to grasp the role of the research department in the Hollywood studio system. Situated at the intersections of three areas of study—scholarship on the form and social function of popular historical representation; theorizing on the archive as a site of knowledge production; and studies on film authorship that attend to the historical underpinnings of aesthetic choices—the dissertation explores the following questions in particular: What were the industrial standards on which studio researchers based the success and authenticity of their work? And what can we know about the research process as it relates to the production and reception of DeMille’s brand of spectacular cinema? ii I offer this study as an intervention into previous scholarship on research practice in Hollywood, which too often stresses cinema’s divergence from the factual record and draws a rigid binary between academia’s histories and the “unprofessional” ones derived from research departments. This study takes a different approach by examining a wider range of archival materials, including studio library circulation records, scaled prop sketches based on photographs and artifacts, and researcher correspondence with historical consultants and museum curators. By expanding our archival horizons, I argue, we can think about studio research more productively (and more accurately) as a distinct production culture operating in varied and often unpredictable relations to academic historiography. In doing so, we can appreciate DeMille’s cinema not as something to be judged against the implicitly accurate products of the academy but on its own terms, as an institution that exerted continual influence on mass-historical perceptions. I have found that although DeMille did indeed publicize his academically-inspired standards of contemporaneity and breadth, his use of research must be examined along more media- specific lines, which has not been done before. Without recourse to the historian’s footnote in order to establish an indexical relationship to the past, DeMille used historical research in order to create an immersive, detail-rich brand of spectacle that brought audiences a sense of authentic experience. iii This dissertation of Philip Joseph Wagner is approved. John T. Caldwell Rob King Kathleen A. McHugh Chon A. Noriega, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2016 iv DEDICATION PAGE For Bob and Les, epic teachers. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: A Method, an Institution 1 Chapter 1: The Whispering Chorus: The Corporate Archive and 13 The Autobiography of Cecil B. DeMille Chapter 2: Time’s Bayou: Compositing the American Past in 67 The Buccaneer and Union Pacific Chapter 3: Staging the Event: The Plainsman and New Deal America 118 Chapter 4: Traces of Torture: The Godless Girl and the Spectacle of 147 Exposure Chapter 5: Anachronism, Self-Inscription, the Pangs of Late Style: 185 Samson and Delilah and The Greatest Show on Earth Notes 227 vi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1.1 DeMille/Archon (preview trailer for The Ten Commandments, 1956) . 10 2.1 Opening credits, The Buccaneer . 70 2.2 (The Buccaneer) . 73 2.3 Projecting bayou land (The Buccaneer) . 78 2.4 Re-witnessing the record (The Buccaneer) . 91 2.5 “Into dim legend…” (The Buccaneer) . 93 2.6 Museal mise-en-scene (The Buccaneer) . 103 2.7 Reenacting expansion (Union Pacific) . 114 2.8 The Big Tent, “Step right in!” (Union Pacific) . 116 3.1 The Plainsman, “valuable educationally” . 134 3.2 Tragic Romance/Regeneration (The Plainsman) . 139 3.3 The Plainsman and The Boy Scouts of American . 143 4.1 Progressive reformer . 152 4.2 Disclaimer/Citation/Intertitle (The Godless Girl) . 172 4.3 Inciting Incident: The Godless Society (The Godless Girl) . 174 4.4 Clarifying the evidence (The Godless Girl) . 176 4.5 Divine intervention? (The Godless Girl) . 178 4.6 The Brute (The Godless Girl) . 183 5.1 Delilah, spectator/director (Samson and Delilah) . 195 5.2 The Saran of Gaza (Samson and Delilah) . 200 5.3 Farewell (Samson and Delilah) . 201 5.4 The cost of looking (Samson and Delilah) . 206 5.5 The Great Sebastian falls (The Greatest Show on Earth) . 210 5.6 Children of Gargantua ( The Greatest Show on Earth) . 212 5.7 Gargantua, in memoriam (The Greatest Show on Earth) . 213 5.8 “Children of all ages…” (The Greatest Show on Earth) . 217 5.9 Resurrection (The Greatest Show on Earth) . 222 5.10 Oscar, at last (NBC Academy Awards broadcast, 1953) . 224 vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I first would like to acknowledge Chon Noriega, who’s been nothing but encouraging since I asked him to chair this dissertation back in 2012. His wit, loyalty, and insights into historiography have made this challenging rite of passage a memorable, even fun experience. ¡Gracias por todo, jefe! I’ve also been fortunate to have John Caldwell, Rob King, and Kathleen McHugh serve on this committee, contributing their wisdom and going to bat for me when funding opportunities arose. I’m moved to have the backing of such an august group, inspiring scholars obviously, but true friends as well. I’m grateful too for the enduring friendships I’ve made amongst my Cinema and Media Studies cohort. Immediate shout-out to my sage elders of the John Ford Yacht Club, the San Francisco Saloon gathering held each Friday after Janet Bergstrom’s too- good-to-be-true, 2008 seminar on Ford: Andy Woods, Alex Kupfer, Erin Hill, Jason Skonieczny, and Mary Samuelson: I could not have imagined being welcomed into the UCLA community by a brighter, more entertaining ensemble. And special thanks to Janet Bergstrom for curating such amazing, 35mm-dominant seminars over the years and for showing me so much about archives and primary research during my Research Assistantship with her. Other friends from UCLA deserve highlighting for their humor, generosity, good taste, and big-heartedness: Harrison “the Hza” Gish, David “OG” O’Grady, Lindsay Giggey (El Geee!), Daniel Steinhart, Jen Porst, Jen Moorman, Andrew Hall, Dennis Lo (so glad you’re slumming it with us film folk), Phil Scepanski, Laurel Westrup, Mike Albright, Emily Carman, Paul Malcolm, and Ross Melnick, who gave me my first tour of UCLA. Friends beyond campus have helped me maintain viii sanity and avoid solipsism during this trial of will and concentration: Nicole Verhamme, Alex “Glove Man” Legolvan, comrade Natalia Gorelova, Heath Heemsbergen, Hendrik Deherder, Maria Gonzales, Oscar Arce, David Sutton, Mike Stone, and Paul “Skinny P” White. Thanks also to my dear neighbors Carlos and Itaru de la Vega, Tyler Brodd, Pari Desai and Alex De Jong, the last of whom offered clutch help in formatting this document’s screen caps. Thanks to Dad for his Sunday chats and encouragement and to Mom, my favorite movie buddy, for being such an indefatigable supporter of my career. I’m blessed to have such incredible parents. I must also thank Leslie Brill and Robert Burgoyne, my Wayne State film studies heroes whose example keeps me on track. Finally, thank you to James D’Arc for his kind and insightful assistance over the years at BYU’s Cecil B. Archives and to the Taylor & Francis Group for permission to repurpose content from my “Passing Through Nightmares: Cecil B. DeMille’s The Plainsman and Epic Discourse in New Deal America,” which appeared as a chapter in the AFI Reader The Epic Film in World Culture (Routledge, 2011). ix VITA EDUCATION - BA Interdisciplinary Film Studies, Magna Cum Laude, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, May 2006 - MA Cinema and Media Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, June 2008 AWARDS AND HONORS - Winner, 2006-07 UCLA Archive Research Award - Recipient, 2007 Clifton Webb Award, UCLA Arts School-wide Funds - Recipient, 2010 Kent R. Niver Scholarship in Film History - Recipient, 2011 Graduate Research Mentorship Fellowship, UCLA Graduate Division - Recipient, 2013 Executive Board Award, UCLA Film & Television - Recipient, 2015 Dissertation Year Fellowship PUBLICATIONS - “Persephone’s Winter and the Gendered Construction of Myth,” in Mediascape (Winter 2008). - “John Ford Made . Monsters? The Grotesque Tradition in Ford’s Work,” in Senses of Cinema 43 (2008). - “Visionary Video: The Archive and the National Center for Experiments in Television,” in Afterimage 37, no. 1 (2009) : 22-27. - “Passing through Nightmares: Cecil B. DeMille’s The Plainsman and Epic Discourse in New Deal America” in The Epic Film in World Culture, ed. Robert Burgoyne (New York: Routledge, 2010). - “‘A Particularly Effective Argument’: Land of Liberty (1939) and Hollywood Image (Crisis),” in Film and History 41, no. 1 (2011) : 7-25. - “‘An America Not Quite Mechanized’: