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

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)

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

End of Lecture 1End of Lecture 1

Next Lecture: Narrative Structure