Lesson 01: Classic Hollywood Cinema
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Lesson 01: Lesson 01: Classic Hollywood CinemaClassic Hollywood Cinema
Professor Aaron Baker
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In This Lecture
• Course Requirements
• Robert Ray:– Classic Hollywood
Cinema– Invisible Style– Avoidance of Choice– Outlaw and Official
Heroes
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Part I: Course Requirements
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Requirements
• 15 Lessons: – Readings– Films– Audio/PowerPoint Lectures– Discussion Board
• Two Posts Per Lesson– Paper Proposal– 15 Page Essay
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Course Description
This course will present a graduate level introduction to some of the central critical methodologies for analyzing film.
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Form and Content
We will work with the assumption that attention to form-- how filmmakers communicate through systems such as genre, narrative structure, editing, and cinematography-- is inseparable from thematic content, or what films are about.
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Casablanca (1942)
• Exemplifies Classic Hollywood
• 1930s-40s
• Studio Era
• Nine Film Companies in/around Hollywood CA
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Stars
Film Actors Who
Appeared:
• Glamorous
• Entertaining
• Larger than Life
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Little Analysis
• Why Stars Presented as Were
• Choices Involved in Public Images
• Effect Had on Audiences
• Ray: E.g. Avoidance of Choice
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Classic Period 1930s-1940s
• Hollywood Dominant Commercial Entertainment in U.S.
• 80 Million Viewers Per Week• Defined Film as Medium• Ray: Films Not from Hollywood Seen As
“aberrations from some intrinsic essence of cinema rather than . . . Alternatives.”
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Part II: Robert Rays Views: Why Hollywood Films So Popular?
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Why Hollywood So Popular?
• Well Told Stories• Showed U.S. as
Modern, Wealthy• Promise of Freedom,
Opportunity• Casablanca;
Refugees Want to Come to U.S.
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European Cinema
• Decimated by Two World Wars 1914-45
• European Stars, Directors, Writers Emigrate to Hollywood
• Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Fritz Lang, Jean Renoir
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Cosmopolitan Hollywood
In Casablanca, Only
Americans
• Bogart
• Dooley Wilson (Sam)
• Screenwriter Howard Koch
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All Others Europeans
• Director, Michael Curtiz
• Ingrid Bergman
• Paul Heinreid
• Claude Rains
• Conrad Veit
• Peter Lorre
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Besides Mix Optimism/Sophistication
• Hollywood Always Commercial
• Ray: “Responsive to dominant ideologies of American Life.”
• Ideology = values, beliefs people have
• Avoid controversial ideas to not lose audience
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Avoid History
• During Classic Period 1930s, 40s
• Economic Depression
• World War II
• Ray: History in Hollywood Movies is a
“structuring absence”
• Hollywood Films Made to Avoid History’s Complexities, Controversies
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What About Casablanca?
• Historical Film
• World War II
• Nazis, Vichy Govt., the Underground
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Historical Film or Love Story?
• Ilsa, Victor, Rick
• Love Triangle
• What Learn about War?
• Its Issues, Causes, Ideologies?
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Avoidance History Shows Hollywood Cautious
Ray: Hollywood
• Avoids Taking Sides on Issues
• Avoids Any Appearance of Choice—Thematic or Formal
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Definitions: Form and Content
• Thematic Content – What a Film Is About: Its Story, Ideas.
• Form – How a Film Presents Its Story/Ideas with Editing, Sound, Cinematography—Other Systems of Representation
• Style – A Consistent Formal Pattern
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Lehman and Luhr on Form
““We can easily We can easily purchase a bowl of purchase a bowl of fruit for a few dollars; fruit for a few dollars; a painting of one a painting of one might sell for millions. might sell for millions. The subject matter is The subject matter is secondary; how it is secondary; how it is represented is represented is primary.” primary.” ((Thinking About Thinking About MoviesMovies, p.56), p.56)
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Many Formal Choices
• What to put in the shot
• Where to put the camera
• How to light the shot
• What actors should do
• How long the shot will last
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Hollywood Style Usually Invisible
• Form as Unobtrusive as Possible
• Focus Viewer Not on How Story Told
• Absorbed Instead by Story Itself
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Immerse Viewer in Story
• Excitement Suspense, Emotional Engagement
• Entertainment
• When Viewer Notices Form, Encourages Critical Reflection Instead
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Foregrounded Form
Discontinuity
Techniques:
• Jumpy Editing
• Odd Angles
• Music Contrasts With Image. . .
• Breathless (1960)
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Discontinuity Form
• Encourages Viewer to Think Why Such Form Used?
• What is Filmmaker Saying?
• More Typical of Political or Art Films—not Hollywood
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Editing
• Joining Together of Shots
• Essential to Invisible Style
• Continuity Editing
• Covers Over Breaks Between Shots
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Thelma SchoonmakerEditor for Martin Scorsese
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Editing Terms
• Shot: one uninterrupted filmic image.
• Editing: the joining together of shots.
• Cut: a direct change from one shot to the next.
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Continuity Editing• Used in Classic
Hollywood
• Fits Shots to Make a Seamless Whole
• Presents Story as Continuous Linear Pattern
• Minimize Interruption Viewer Involvement
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Four Devices Used by Continuity Editing
• Eyeline Match• Match on Action• 180 Degree Rule• Shot/Reverse Shot Pattern
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Eyeline Match
Eyeline Match – a character looks and in the next shot we see what s/he is looking at.
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Match on Action
• Action Starts in One Shot
• Continues in Next Shot
• Our Focus on Action Conceals Change in Shot
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How 180 Degree Rule Works
Shot one (cam. 1 below) sets up an Shot one (cam. 1 below) sets up an imaginary line between the actors;imaginary line between the actors;
all subsequent shots (cam. 2) stay on one all subsequent shots (cam. 2) stay on one side of line. Cam. 3 is a mistake.side of line. Cam. 3 is a mistake.
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As Shots Change:180 Degree Rule
• Keeps Same Screen Direction
• Keeps Same Background
• De-emphasizes Change in Shots
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Violating 180 Degree Rule
• If camera placed other side of line
• Next shot would show different background
• Any movement would go in opposite direction from in previous shots
• Spectator: characters in different space?
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Shot/Reverse Shot
• Pattern Used for
Conversations
• Shot 1: First Character Talking
• Shot 2: Other in Conversation
• Part of Character Listening Shown Indicates Proximity 37
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Shot/Reverse Shot (continued)
• 30-40% of the shots in the Hollywood films made during the Classic period
• 50% of the shots in Casablanca
• Like other 3 continuity editing devices, appears naturally motivated by story, not result of any choice about form.
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Clip from Casablanca
• Look for the four Continuity Editing devices
• Notice how function to make form invisible
• What said, happens in scene made primary
• Please pause the lecture and watch the clip from the Learning Tasks page.
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Invisible Style
• Makes what Ray calls “an intensely decision-based medium [film] appear natural.”
• Rhetorical Power
• Presents Ideas and Values As If Natural
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Ask Hollywood Filmmaker
• Are you trying to influence viewers?
• Make them adopt your ideology?
• Response: “No! I just want to make an entertaining film that viewers enjoy.”
• Honest Answer
• But, Everyone Sees, Narrates World Through Lens of Their Beliefs/Values
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Thematic Tendency
• Besides Tendency to Conceal Formal Choice With Invisible Style
• Content, Themes in Hollywood Stories
Also Shown as Natural, Not Chosen
• 1930 Change to American Stories
• “Traditional American Mythology”
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Optimism
• Ray: “American Space, Economic abundance and geographic isolation.”
• Wealth and Abundance, No need choose—Have it all ways
• Reconcile incompatibility American Myths
• Casablanca: Rick both loner and hero
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Individual / Community
• Main Contradiction in American Culture
• Freedom and Responsibility
• Outlaw and Official Heroes
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Outlaw Hero
• Adventurer, Gunfighter
• Self Determination• Own Sense of
Violent Justice• Freedom from
Involvement with Women
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Official Hero
• Teacher, Politician, Lawyer, Family Man
• Belief in Collective Action
• Belief in Legal System
• Abraham Lincoln, Barak Obama
• Jimmy Stewart, Tom Hanks
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Opposing Attitudes
• Outlaw Hero: I don’t know what the law says, but I know what’s right and wrong.
• Official Hero: No man is above the law, you can’t take the law into your own hands.
• Both Influential Attitudes in American Culture.
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Discussion Question
• Does knowing more about Hollywood reduce the pleasure of viewing its films?
• Post a response on the course eBoard.
• Remember to also respond to a colleague's post.
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Summary
• Classic Hollywood• Robert Ray: Hollywood’s Main Tendencies:
– Invisible Style– Apparent Avoidance of Choice– Individualism vs. Community– Outlaw and Official Heroes
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End of Lecture 1End of Lecture 1
Next Lecture: Narrative Structure