H&M%2c Study Guide for Second Exam PDF

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Theater 1590: History of Motion Pictures CRN 40245, Unit Test #2

Study Guide for our Second Exam Many Hollywood films of the 1920’s and the 1930’s were, per the views of a large part of their audience, far too sexual, violent and morally subversive. Calls for censorship came from many church leaders, communities and politicians around the country. In self-defense and to head off outside censorship, the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association (MPPDA) first established the ineffectual Hayes Office in 1922 and then later the revised and more effective “Production Code” of 1934. The 1934 Production Code remained in effect for the next thirty years until it was discarded in the late 1960’s. By then, audience composition, taste and interests had changed along with the rest of the culture. The Production Code was replaced by the “Ratings System,” with which we live today, by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA, the successor to the MPPDA) in 1968. Under the Ratings System, an independent Board of Parents evaluate each film and assign it one of five labels, either G, PG, PG13, R or NC17. Having been thus advised, it is then up to the parents of children and other audience members to decide which films they want to see. During the 30’s and 40’s, the “genre system” of producing “product lines” of films with similar themes and stars had become a standardized Hollywood business strategy. Gangster films, horror films, westerns, romantic comedies, historical epics, Biblical films, war films, romantic tragedies, musical comedies, etc. were produced and marketed in ways similar to the ways other large consumer products companies, like the big auto makers, produced and marketed their wares through product differentiation and niche marketing. By 1929, the “Major Studios,” MGM, Universal, Paramount, Fox, Warner Brothers, and RKO were firmly established. Several smaller companies, ranging from the “Minors” (UA, e.g.) to “Poverty Row” (Columbia Pictures and Republic Pictures, e.g.) filled out the business ecology. Although a lot of smaller companies were wiped out or reorganized during the Great Depression, the surviving companies, including all those mentioned above, produced both “A pictures” and “B pictures” (also known as “programmers”) that were shown on “double bills” in which one A picture and one B picture were shown along with a newsreel and several cartoons for the price of a single admission. Unfortunately, World War II’s end was quickly followed by the beginning of the “Cold War” between the United States and its allies on one side and the Russian (then “Soviet”) Empire and its communist allies including “Red China” and North Korea on the other. Soon the US was in a hot war in Korea and was fighting a cold war in Europe and on many other fronts. This international conflict with coordinated 1

communist nations, made more dangerous by the existence of nuclear weapons, fueled a renewed anti-communism in the US. By the early 1950’s, the loyalty of some Hollywood writers, actors, directors and producers was being publicly questioned and the Hollywood studios developed a “black list” of people who were no longer allowed to work in Hollywood. This period is known as the “Red Scare” and one of its effects was to constrain the kinds of stories told in Hollywood films. By the early 1940’s, the “World War II Years,” the Major Hollywood Studios were at their peak, producing large numbers of beautifully made, influential and profitable films. They produced and distributed large numbers of films to support the war effort, films that were universally patriotic and that helped build moral among the troops and on the home front. By 1946, they had achieved their highest levels of attendance and of profitability. But then two shocks struck the studio system. First, in 1948, the Supreme Court of the US in “the Paramount Consent Decree” decided that the Major Studios would have to break their companies in half, selling off their chains of motion picture theaters. Second, Television became user-friendly and began to achieve wide consumer acceptance during the 1950’s. Soon, TV was so competitive that it drew large numbers of audience members into their living rooms and out of the motion picture theaters. This trend would only grow worse in the coming decades. During the 1950’s and 1960’s the Major Studios tried to combat falling movie attendance due to the increase of television viewing through various “wide screen” formats that changed the “aspect ratio” (height to width ratio) of motion picture screens and employed “anamorphic lenses” (allowing wide screen images to be recorded with standard cameras.) The Studios also experimented with and created the first short lived-craze for 3-D movies. They also fought back by making fewer, bigger, and more expensive movies. This tendency resulted in the 1960’s being referred to as the “Bloated Era.” An example of this trend is the extravagantly tasteless film “Cleopatra” which went so far over budget that it nearly drove its studio into bankruptcy. It was also during the 1950’s that automobile ownership became more widely affordable, even to young adults. Because of this tremendous growth in our “car culture,” drive in movie theaters became popular. The 1950’s also spawned new and revived genres. Many exciting new science fiction films of the 1950’s appealed to the fears of the US audience caused by the threat of nuclear war during the “Cold War.” New types of monster films, space alien films and space travel films became very popular. Also, during the 1950’s and 1960’s more European films and Asian films were shown in US theaters because the Major Studios had lost control of the theaters, foreign economies were recovering from WWII, and because a worldlier, better educated and curious US audience liked their variety, particularly if it involved “adult” sexuality. Selected European films were seen by critics and the public as being more sophisticated, sexually explicit and artistically innovative. Hollywood war movies of 2

the post-World War II period, starting in 1945, were at first characterized by heroic and sometimes comedic celebrations of victory. However, important films that explored the difficulties of returning soldiers such as William Wyler’s “The Best Years of our Lives” and Marlon Brando’s “The Men” soon emerged. In addition, “film noir” (dark film) found a new audience in an increasingly cynical population whose experience of the war and its aftermath had challenged their faith in human nature. For example, the lead female in many Film Noir were shown to be dangerous and untrustworthy. The content of Hollywood movies after World War II changed in other ways. The public was willing to accept, and artists wanted to make films that portrayed life, war and the military in more complicated and realistic ways. As a result, films like “From Here to Eternity,” “Pork Chop Hill” and “The Manchurian Candidate” grew in popularity. As stated above, during the “Cold War,” (1946 – 1991) the US public and government became increasingly worried about Soviet Communist spying and subversion. The US House of Representatives revitalized the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) to investigate Communist spying and subversion in the US Government, military, industry, academic world and also in Hollywood. These fears engendered by the US struggle against the Soviet Empire during the “Cold War” caused an upheaval in the Hollywood community which was called, as it was in every other aspect of American life, the “Red Scare.” In reaction, a very divided Hollywood community finally supported the Hollywood Black List which forced the unemployment of hundreds of writers, directors, actors and other craft people whose loyalty to the US was fairly or unfairly doubted. Films like “The Manchurian Candidate” capture this era’s complexities and fears. As mentioned above, the 1950’s brought a number of profound changes to the Hollywood business model. The most important of them were the rise of television and the 1948 “Paramount Consent Decree” which forced the US Major studios to sell off their motion picture theater chains. These and other social changes caused a steady decline in the Hollywood studio system and its revenues throughout the 50’s. This trend continued into the 1960’s leading to a near-death experience for each of the Major Studios by 1970. Of course, the 1950’s are also characterized by the rise of our “youth culture.” The era’s unprecedented prosperity and new, indulgent trends in parenting led to the “Baby Boom” generation’s mass adoption of Rock and Role and a “Pop Culture,” including movies targeted at the new spending power of teens and young adults. Increasingly, motion pictures focused on the tastes and interests of the young. As the Baby Boomers entered college during the 1960’s, many the first to do so in their families’ history, they also encountered the “sexual revolution” brought on by the invention of the first effective birth control pill. This decade was also the time of 3

reenergized civil rights and women’s liberation movements. In addition, the War in Vietnam became increasingly unpopular and opposition to the draft became widespread. These and other factors combined to produce the “Counter Culture” in the mid 1960’s which was characterized by “free love,” Rock and Roll, exploding drug use, radical changes in clothes and hair styles, mass political marches and riots and the rise of the “New Left.” The 50’s and 60’s produced an explosion of creative innovation and a profound questioning of inherited social values and injustices. Beginning in the European influenced New York theatre world of the 30’s and 40’s, a more naturalistic form of acting emerged in the 50’s. This style of acting, generally known as “the Method” is epitomized by the performances of Marlon Brando in films like “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “On the Waterfront.” Montgomery Clift’s performance in “From Here to Eternity” is also a good example of Method Acting. During and after the political upheaval of the 1960’s and 1970’s over the Vietnam War, (the most controversial US war since the Civil War,) war movies, certainly ones about the War in Vietnam, became increasingly unpopular and the Studios gradually stopped making them. One of the few stars to make a pro-war film about Vietnam was the ageing John Wayne, whose 1968 film “The Green Berets” was very controversial but also achieved adequate success at the box office. However, war movies, this time anti-war movies like “Coming Home” and “Platoon” made a comeback during the late 1970’s and 1980’s. Under the new dominant narrative, US foreign wars were portrayed as suspect and misguided. As stated above, Hollywood in the 50’s tried to compete with television by introducing different, bigger and better theater experiences including innovations like various “wide screen” formats, “drive-in” movies and “3-D” movies. The most important of these innovations were various “wide screen” formats. And the most successful wide screen format was Cinemascope, a technological package that included “anamorphic” lenses for cameras and projectors that allowed standard cameras and projectors to shoot and project wide screen movies with only the addition of special lenses that “squeezed” and then “un-squeezed” the “aspect ratios” (the ratio of image height to width) of the movies.

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