English 4950 Special Topics in Literature: American Film in the 1930s
F. GRADY SPRING 2012
455 LUCAS [Sec. 001, #14218]
516-5592 MW 11:00-12:30
fgrady@umsl.edu JC PENNEY 63
MW 1:00-4:00 and by appointment
In 1990 the U.S. Post Office issued
commemorative stamps honoring four classic American films: Gone with the
Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Stagecoach, and Beau Geste. It was hardly a coincidence that all four films
had originally been released in 1939, for that year has widely been regarded as
"Hollywood's greatest year," during which the major film studios
finally shook off the effects of the Great Depression, reaching new heights in
employment and drawing in 40 to 50 million patrons a week to see what most
students of American film consider to be some of the best movies ever made in
Hollywood.
Of course, some of this is just
standard entertainment industry hoopla,
about
Hollywood's artistic triumphs in 1939. And if that year marked a
pinnacle
of one sort, it was also the beginning of the end for the studio
system
that had dominated the film industry for a generation: the
European
markets which had traditionally provided Hollywood with a
quarter
of its income were about to be lost to World War II, and
soon
after the war the studios finally lost the fierce battle against antitrust
legislation
that they had waged for two decades. Even the most successful
film of
1939 (indeed, the most successful film ever, to that point),
Gone with the Wind, can be seen as the precursor of the blockbuster
event-movie
that dominates the cinema industry of our day, an industry
very
different in organization from the system that governed American
filmmaking
in the 1930s.
In this course we'll try to see what
the excitement was all about by studying several films from that great year.
Along the way we'll also learn something about the entertainment industry and
the studio system, 1930s American cultural history, film language and
technology, film stars and genres, and film theory and criticism. We'll be
"taking Hollywood seriously," as one of your textbooks puts it, as a
site of artistic, cultural, social, economic, and imaginary importance, both
then and now.
Course Requirements:
·
midterm exam, 15%
·
final exam, 20%
·
two 500-word film
reviews, 5% each (follow link for details)
·
weekly film
quizzes, 10%
·
class grade
(including attendance, participation, occasional writing assignments, and posting on the
class discussion board according to a schedule we’ll establish), 10%
·
two 5-6 page essays, 15% & 20%
each (due dates as below). You will have three chances to
write the two papers, and I will distribute suggested topics in advance of each
due date (though you will not be limited to those topics). Plagiarism on papers, electronic or the
old-fashioned kind, will mean an instant F for the assignment, my undying
disapprobation, and possible disciplinary action by the university; please
refer to this site for further details, and please please please ask me if you have any questions.
Required
texts:
•
Edward Buscombe, Stagecoach.
British Film Institute, 1992
•
Tino Balio, Grand Design: Hollywood as a Modern Business Enterprise, 1930-1939.
History of
the American Cinema, vol. 5. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1993. (hence
GD)
•
Richard Maltby, Hollywood Cinema. 2nd ed.
Blackwell, 2003. (hence HC)
•
Salman Rushdie, The Wizard of Oz. British Film
Institute, 1992
•
Additional essays
available through MyGateway.
Additional
Resources:
·
Required films
will be available for streaming via MyGateway and
should be watched carefully before the class date for which they are assigned.
A high-speed connection is recommended.
·
Supplementary
films (for film reviews) are typically available via a rental service (e.g.
Netflix) or the public library; I can lend some of the rarer ones.
·
Though most relevant documents
(e.g., essay topics and supplementary readings) will be posted on MyGateway, the main course page will be at http://www.umsl.edu/~gradyf/4950syllsp12.htm,
which can also be reached through my home page (www.umsl.edu/~gradyf). Bookmark it: frequent updates are likely.
·
A reserve list of relevant texts
will be maintained in the TJ library.
Tentative Syllabus:
W JAN 18 Introduction; coming attractions;
studying movies; some film technique and vocabulary
M JAN 23
Taking Hollywood seriously; America during the Great Depression
Reading: "Taking Hollywood Seriously," HC 6-32 (also on MyGateway)
Levine, “American Culture and the
Great Depression” (MyGateway)
Rauchway, “Americans in the Great Depression” (MyGateway)
Optional:
Leuchtenburg, “Smashup” (MyGateway)
W JAN 25 The Studio System
Reading:
"Industry 1: to 1948," HC
113-58
"Introduction," GD
1-12
"Surviving
the Great Depression," GD 13-36
"Feeding the Maw of Exhibition," GD 73-108
M JAN 30 Dodge City (1939; 105m);
Hollywood style;
Reading:
"Entertainment 1 &2," HC
33-73
"Technological Change and
Classical Film Style," GD 109-42
W FEB 1 Destry
Rides Again (1939; 94m); Genre
in film; what we know about the Western
Reading:
"Genre," HC 74-110
Altman, “A Semantic/Syntactic
Approach to Film Genre” (MyGateway)
Optional: Bazin,
“The Western: or The American Film Par Excellence” (MyGateway)
M FEB 6 Stagecoach
(1939; 96m); Ford and the idea of the auteur
Reading:
Buscombe, Stagecoach
W FEB 8 Jesse James
(1939; 105m)
Reading:
Robin Wood, "Ideology, Genre, Auteur" (MyGateway)
Altman, “Where do genres come
from?” (MyGateway)
Optional: Neale, “Questions of Genre” (MyGateway)
M FEB 13 Gone With the Wind
(1939; 232m); Hollywood and the Civil War (Links)
Reading:
"Prestige Pictures," GD
179-211
“Narrative 1," HC 452-70
W
FEB 15 GWTW, cont.
“Gone with the Wind: The Making of a
Legend” (MyGateway)
Reading:
“Space 1 & 2,” HC 312-67
M FEB 20 Judge Priest (1934; 71m); Hollywood and race; the publicity
industry
Reading:
“Selling Stars,” GD 143-78
“Performance
1,” HC 369-92
W FEB 22 Writing about film; essay workshop
Reading:
Excerpts from Corrigan, A Short Guide to Writing About Film (MyGateway)
M FEB 27
Murder
Over New York (1940; 65m); Mr. Wong, Detective
(1938; 70m); B
pictures
Reading:
Taves, "The B Film: Hollywood's Other
Half," GD 313-50
Lepore, “Chan, the Man” (MyGateway)
Optional: Kim, “Images of Asians in Anglo-American Literature” (MyGateway)
W FEB 29 The Production Code
Reading:
"The Production Code and the Hays Office," GD 37-72
“Narrative
2,” HC 471-90
Forman,
from Our Movie Made Children (MyGateway)
“The
Production Code of 1930” (MyGateway)
Optional:
Inglis, “Self-Regulation in Operation” (MyGateway)
F MAR 2 First essay due date
M MAR 5 Ninotchka
(1939; 110m); (links)
Reading: Dyer, “Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and
Society” (MyGateway)
Holmes, “The Hollywood Star System
and . . . 1916-1934” (MyGateway)
W MAR 7
Gender and spectatorship
Reading: Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (MyGateway)
Browne, “The Spectator-in-the-Text: The
Rhetoric of ‘Stagecoach’" (MyGateway)
M MAR 12 Dark Victory
(1939; 106m); the "woman's
picture"; melodrama
Reading:
"The Woman's Film," GD
235-55
Klaprat, “The Star as Market Strategy: Bette Davis in Another Light” (MyGateway)
W MAR 14
Melodrama as mode
Reading: Williams,
“Melodrama Revised” (MyGateway)
Mulvey, “Afterthoughts…” (MyGateway)
Optional: Gledhill, “Rethinking Genre” (MyGateway)
M MAR 19 Online review; no campus meeting
W MAR 21 MIDTERM
M MAR 26 & 28 SPRING BREAK
M APR 2 Only Angels Have Wings (1939; 122m) (links)
Reading:
"Criticism," HC 493-525
W APR 4 Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938; 92m);
Reading:
"Comedy," GD 256-80
M APR 9
The Wizard of Oz
(1939; 155m); MGM and the spectacular
(links)
Reading:
"Time," HC 413-51
W
APR 11 Oz, cont.
Reading:
Rushdie, The Wizard of Oz
Optional:
Friedman, “Relinquishing Oz: Every Girl’s Anti-Adventure Story”
F APR 13 Second Essay Due Date
M APR 16 Mr. Smith Goes to
Washington (1939; 130m);(Links); Hollywood
and politics
Reading:
"Politics," HC 268-303
W APR
18 Mr. Smith, cont.
Reading:
Levine, “Hollywood’s Washington” (MyGateway)
Capra,
from The Name Above the Title (MyGateway)
Optional: Rogin and
Moran, “Mr. Capra Goes to Washington” (MyGateway)
M APR 23 Young
Mr. Lincoln (1939; 100m) (LINKS);
the biopic; Hollywood and history
Reading:
HC 436-48, “History as a Production
Value”
W APR 25
Film Theory and Studio Production
Reading:“Theories,”
HC 526-56
"John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln, a Collective Text by
the Editors of
Cahiers du Cinema" (MyGateway)
Optional:
Andrew, “The ‘Three Ages"’ of Cinema Studies and the Age to Come” (MyGateway)
M APR 30
The Grapes of Wrath
(1940; 129m) (LINKS);
Hollywood and the Depression revisited
Reading:
"Social Problem Films," GD 280-98
W MAY 2 Conclusions?
M MAY 7 Final
Exam 10:00-12:00
SPECIAL
CONSIDERATIONS: Students with disabilities of any sort who believe that
they may need special accommodations in this class are encouraged to contact
the Disability Access Services Office in 144 Millennium Student Center at
516-6554 as soon as possible to ensure that such accommodations are arranged in
a timely fashion.