REdirected
major reworkings on the site today, i'm getting it ready for december and the first installation of internet at the apartment. blog, i promise to spend more time with you when i have twenty four hour internet access. in the meantime, i'll leave you with some thoughts on my current paper topic, american movie audiences and ethics:
Memory can play tricks on us as viewers, what we think we remember from a movie may not take place in the reality of space within the moving picture. Some audience members may remember spending money as opposed to the actual content of the film, thus—the complexities of individuals, of all that they are made up of (social role, race, gender, economic status) help to determine many of the experiences remembered to the moviegoing experience (whether it is primarily the movie, or the experience of the movies).
Most conclusive to me was the idea that attitudes towards films change over time. Nearly all the subjects studied have rewatched the films with the stars they crushed on in childhood, formed allegiance with in pubescence, cried with or for in their adulthood, or rooted for in the classical narrative form. Each and all of them ended having different feelings towards the star/actor at present time—often feeling silly for even liking the star so intensely at a point in their lives.
Sex was both exciting and unnerving to children in the movies, especially in what we (or at least I thought) were the dry and family values 50s. The 50s especially were devoid of serious films. What few examples of serious films in the fifties, Stempel supports the idea stating, “what has come to be the standard view of American movies in the fifties is that it was a time of films with very little or no content or with the content put in the films in disguise (Invasion of the Body Snatchers)” (38). His major claim is the fifties are a nostalgia industry, with their primary support coming from white males who long for a time when white males seemed to be uncontested in power. “By its nature, nostalgia tends to see the past as a lot purer than it really was, and the fifties were not pure” (38). This would be apparent in the 70s as well, with the re-emergence of the film noir. Films like Taxi Driver, The French Connection, The Godfather, Mean Streets, and Chinatown all seemed to function of this nostalgia for film noir of the 50s. Its clear that the film noir was ahead of its time, analyzing American culture post WWII from a postmodern view all to early, it wasn't until after Vietnam that these films became popular, and modern films began adapting the film noir styles.
Another source for the view that the 50s represented a lack of success for the film noir and the absence of serious films comes from liberal historians and their position on the blacklisting of filmmakers and professionals in Hollywood in the 50s. Indeed, the government was in fear of a communist view spreading in Hollywood, and took action against it; making several anti-communist films, much of them horrible propaganda, which were marginally effective on their audiences. Serious films, stood against this phenomenon, such as Kazan’s testimonial film to the Blacklisting committees, starring Marlon Brando, On the Waterfront. Films like these in a dry political time, helped to remind viewers that there were important opinions in Hollywood, which were not subversive, rather they were snapshots of justice.
Fragments, its all fragments.
Memory can play tricks on us as viewers, what we think we remember from a movie may not take place in the reality of space within the moving picture. Some audience members may remember spending money as opposed to the actual content of the film, thus—the complexities of individuals, of all that they are made up of (social role, race, gender, economic status) help to determine many of the experiences remembered to the moviegoing experience (whether it is primarily the movie, or the experience of the movies).
Let me diverge: the experience can have an important part in shaping our ethics. Not just the film, but the experience of leaving the home, going to a public space, where the lights are off, viewer is seated (sometimes not the case), stationary watching a screen project images which have no relation to the space the viewer is seated in. We are socialized in America to sit and watch and not talk when we watch images move on a screen. Does this effect the ways in which our personal ethics are developed?
Most conclusive to me was the idea that attitudes towards films change over time. Nearly all the subjects studied have rewatched the films with the stars they crushed on in childhood, formed allegiance with in pubescence, cried with or for in their adulthood, or rooted for in the classical narrative form. Each and all of them ended having different feelings towards the star/actor at present time—often feeling silly for even liking the star so intensely at a point in their lives.
Sex was both exciting and unnerving to children in the movies, especially in what we (or at least I thought) were the dry and family values 50s. The 50s especially were devoid of serious films. What few examples of serious films in the fifties, Stempel supports the idea stating, “what has come to be the standard view of American movies in the fifties is that it was a time of films with very little or no content or with the content put in the films in disguise (Invasion of the Body Snatchers)” (38). His major claim is the fifties are a nostalgia industry, with their primary support coming from white males who long for a time when white males seemed to be uncontested in power. “By its nature, nostalgia tends to see the past as a lot purer than it really was, and the fifties were not pure” (38). This would be apparent in the 70s as well, with the re-emergence of the film noir. Films like Taxi Driver, The French Connection, The Godfather, Mean Streets, and Chinatown all seemed to function of this nostalgia for film noir of the 50s. Its clear that the film noir was ahead of its time, analyzing American culture post WWII from a postmodern view all to early, it wasn't until after Vietnam that these films became popular, and modern films began adapting the film noir styles.
Another source for the view that the 50s represented a lack of success for the film noir and the absence of serious films comes from liberal historians and their position on the blacklisting of filmmakers and professionals in Hollywood in the 50s. Indeed, the government was in fear of a communist view spreading in Hollywood, and took action against it; making several anti-communist films, much of them horrible propaganda, which were marginally effective on their audiences. Serious films, stood against this phenomenon, such as Kazan’s testimonial film to the Blacklisting committees, starring Marlon Brando, On the Waterfront. Films like these in a dry political time, helped to remind viewers that there were important opinions in Hollywood, which were not subversive, rather they were snapshots of justice.
Fragments, its all fragments.
posted by Jonathan @ 7:15 PM
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