ENGLISH 4950 American Film in the 1930s

SPRING 2012 FINAL EXAM STUDY GUIDE

PART I & PART II—Matching IDs, as on the midterm (30%).

PART III. Short essay questions (2-4 paragraphs), based mainly on the reading, (40%).

PART IV. ONE of the following longer essay questions (30%).

1. With four John Ford films under your belt, you should be in a position to write an auteurist essay about the director’s work. Are there common stylistic or thematic or narrative (or other) elements that mark Judge Priest, Stagecoach, The Grapes of Wrath, and Young Mr. Lincoln as typical John Ford films?

2. Referring to at least four films we’ve studied this term, discuss the representation and importance of home in the cinema 1930s Hollywood.

3. In “Cinema/Ideology/Criticism“(1969), French film theorists Comolli & Narboni describe five types of films, (a) through (e), which are distinguished by their various relationships toward the dominant ideology of their era. They are most interested in films of type (e):

(e) . . . films which seem at first sight to belong firmly within the ideology and to be completely under its sway, but which turn out to be so only in an ambiguous manner. For though they start from a nonprogressive standpoint, ranging from the frankly reactionary through the conciliatory to the mildly critical, they have been worked upon, and work, in such a real way that there is a noticeable gap, a dislocation, between the starting point and the finished product . . . The films we are talking about throw up obstacles in the way of the ideology, causing it to swerve and get off course . . . . An internal criticism is taking place which cracks the film apart at the seams. If one reads the film obliquely, looking for symptoms; if one looks beyond its apparent formal coherence, one can see that it is riddled with cracks: it is splitting under an internal tension which is simply not there in an ideologically innocuous film . . . . This is the case in many Hollywood films for example, which while being completely integrated in the system and the ideology end up by partially dismantling the system from within.

Thinking about Hollywood in the 1930s, can we say that there really is such a thing as a “type (e)” film, or are all films potentially “type (e)” when given sufficient scrutiny?

4. Below are two passages—one from the 1969 article about film and ideology noted above and one from the studio-era Production Code. Write an essay about the assumptions they share about how films influence audiences, and how they can illuminate one another.

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From “Cinema/Ideology/Criticism,“ Comolli & Narboni (1969):

A few points, which we shall return to in greater detail later: every film is political, inasmuch as it is determined by the ideology which produces it (or within which it is produced, which stems from the same thing). The cinema is all the more thoroughly and completely determined because unlike other arts or ideological systems its very manufacture mobilizes powerful economic forces in a way that the production of literature (which becomes the commodity 'books'), does not - though once we reach the level of distribution, publicity and sale, the two are in rather the same position.

Clearly, the cinema 'reproduces ' reality: this is what a camera and film stock are for - so says the ideology. But the tools and techniques of film-making are a part of 'reality ' themselves, and furthermore 'reality ' is nothing but an expression of the prevailing ideology. Seen in this light, the classic theory of cinema that the camera is an impartial instrument which grasps, or rather is impregnated by the world in its 'concrete reality' is an eminently reactionary one. What the camera in fact registers is the vague, unformulated, untheorized, unthought-out world of the dominant ideology. Cinema is one of the languages through which the world communicates itself to itself. They constitute its ideology for they reproduce the world as it is experienced when filtered through the ideology. (As Althusser defines it, more precisely: 'Ideologies are perceived-accepted-suffered cultural objects, which work fundamentally on men by a process they do not understand. What men express in their ideologies is not their true relation to their conditions of existence, but how they react to their conditions of existence; which presupposes a real relationship and an imaginary relationship.') So, when we set out to make a film, from the very first shot, we are encumbered by the necessity of reproducing things not as they really are but as they appear when refracted through the ideology. This includes every stage in the process of production: subjects, styles, forms, meanings, narrative traditions; all underline the general ideological discourse. The film is ideology presenting itself to itself, talking to itself, learning about itself. Once we realize that it is the nature of the system to turn the cinema in to an instrument of ideology, we can see that the film-maker's first task is to show up the cinema's so-called 'depiction of reality. If he can do so there is a chance that we will be able to disrupt or possibly even sever the connection between the cinema and its ideological function.

from The Motion Picture Production Code of 1930, “General Principles”:

Art enters intimately into the lives of human beings.

Art can be morally good, lifting men to higher levels. This has been done thru good music, great painting, authentic fiction, poetry, drama.

Art can be morally evil in its effects. This is the case clearly enough with unclean art, indecent books, suggestive drama. The effect on the lives of men and women is obvious.

Note: It has often been argued that art in itself is unmoral, neither good nor bad. This is perhaps true of the thing which is music, painting, poetry, etc. But the thing is the product of some person’s mind, and that mind was either good or bad morally when it produced the thing. And the thing has its effect upon those who come into contact with it. In both these ways, as a product and the cause of definite effects, it has a deep moral significance and an unmistakable moral quality.

Hence: The motion pictures which are the most popular of modern arts for the masses, have their moral quality from the minds which produce them and from their effects on the moral lives and reactions of their audiences. This gives them a most important morality.

1) They reproduce the morality of the men who use the pictures as a medium for the expression of their ideas and ideals;

2) They affect the moral standards of those who thru the screen take in these ideas and ideals.

In the case of the motion pictures, this effect may be particularly emphasized because no art has so quick and so widespread an appeal to the masses. It has become in an incredibly short period, the art of the multitudes.

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F) Everything possible in a play is not possible in a film.

(a) Because of the larger audience of the film, and its consequently mixed character. Psychologically, the larger the audience, the lower the moral mass resistance to suggestion.

B) Because thru light, enlargement of character presentation, scenic emphasis, etc., the screen story is brought closer to the audience than the play.

C) The enthusiasm for and interest in the film actors and actresses, developed beyond anything of the sort in history, makes the audience largely sympathetic toward the characters they portray and the stories in which they figure. Hence they are more ready to confuse the actor and character, and they are most receptive of the emotions and ideals portrayed and presented by their favorite stars.

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In general: The mobility, popularity, accessibility, emotional appeal, vividness, straight-forward presentation of fact in the films makes for intimate contact on a larger audience and greater emotional appeal. Hence the larger moral responsibilities of the motion pictures.