978-1506344461 Chapter 8 Lecture note

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Mass Communication: Living in a Media World, 6th edition

Ralph Hanson

Lecture Builders

Chapter 8

Lecture Builders

VIDEO HINTS: This chapter gives you wonderful opportunities to bring video into the classroom.

Here are links to a number of the films listed below, along with some that aren’t. Virtually every

example I use in my lecture is contained in this link:

• http://www.ralphehanson.com/2014/03/07/everyones-gone-to-the-movies/

Among the possibilities are the following:

• There are several examples of the early silent films from the collection The Great Train Robbery

and Other Primary Works (Kino International, 2002). From this collection, I use three Edison

kinetoscopes: The Kiss; Serpentine Dances (which is hand-tinted); and Sandow the Strongman,

which is generally students’ favorite. I then use one example of the Lumière Brothers: Childish

Quarrel. Be sure to point out how the Lumière brothers moved to filming out of doors instead of

in the black box room of the early Edison films.

• I finish up the silents by showing the complete Edwin S. Porter film The Great Train Robbery. It

runs about twelve minutes, and may include hand-tinted scenes. Be sure to point out how it

tells a complete story, is made up of multiple scenes, and tells parallel narratives. It also is the

basic model for the modern action film. You might also point out the controversy this film

engendered because it showed exactly how to carry out a train robbery.

• For the section on the transition from silents to talking films, I show the “Oh, Pierre, you

shouldn’t have come” sequence from Singing in the Rain. Despite being fictional, the scene

accurately portrays the problems that studios had in adapting to the new technology. Be sure to

point out the problems of non-theatrically trained actors having to talk, noisy cameras, and

noisy studios.

• To illustrate the restrictions of the Production (or Hays) Code era, you can use clips from Gone

with the Wind as an example. I like to use the battle between Rhett and Scarlett where they

drink and then he carries her up the stairs, apparently to assault her. It illustrates how fairly

explicit ideas could be portrayed in a restrained way. (This is located about 1 hour, 15 minutes

into the second videotape on the print I work from.)

• A good explanation of how the studio system worked can be provided using the first ten

minutes or so of the The Studio System episode of the American Cinema series. You have several

writers, directors, editors, and actors discussing what it was like to work under the studio

system. This discussion is accompanied by clips from several movies from the era.

• The section of the movie ET where Elliot leads ET up to his room by leaving piles of Reece’s

Pieces candy behind does a nice job of illustrating one of the most successful examples of

Mass Communication: Living in a Media World, 6th edition

Ralph Hanson

Lecture Builders

product placement in a movie. This is a nice example because the candy is central to the plot of

the movie rather than just a commercial placement. M&Ms had the first shot at being in the

movie, but the company reportedly turned down the opportunity because it was unsure of how

the public would react to the little alien.

• There is an excellent documentary―This Film Is Not Yet Rated―on the problems with the

ratings system. But be forewarned, the documentary was not rated, and had it been, it would

have likely drawn an NC-17 rating. You may be able to find an excerpt from the film to use in

class.

Muybridge

Read more about pioneering photographer Eadweard Muybridge and view animations created

from his Animal Locomotion photo series:

http://americanhistory.si.edu/muybridge/index.htm

NOTES: The Muybridge exhibit from the National Museum of American History provides a great

illustration of how the eye turns a series of still images presented in rapid succession into moving

images. Although the Muybridge images were photographed as a series of still images, they make for a

passable movie when displayed as Web animation.

Hollywood Blacklist

Read about the Hollywood blacklist in the words of those who were denied work in the 1940s

and 1950s:

www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/july-dec97/blacklist_10-24.html

VIDEO HINT: For a good look at the blacklist era, view the Woody Allen movie The Front, in which Allen

plays a front―a man who sells screenplays that he has supposedly written that are actually written by

blacklisted writers. The movie was written by, directed by, and stars many people who were blacklisted

(though Allen stars in the movie, he was not blacklisted). If you want to use a clip from the film, there is

a discussion at a café table that clearly outlines the various levels of involvement writers had with the

Communist party, from being active members to merely associating with or dating people with

connections to the party.

For details on the blacklisted individuals in The Front, read the individual credits for the film at the

imdb.com. Of particular interest is the biography of writer Walter Bernstein:

www.imdb.com/title/tt0074554/

As of this writing, The Front was available as a disc rental from Netflix.

Bollywood

To find out more about the Indian movie industry and the stars of its films visit

Mass Communication: Living in a Media World, 6th edition

Ralph Hanson

Lecture Builders

www.bollywoodworld.com

NOTES: Bollywood World gives an “Entertainment Tonight” style treatment to India’s film industry, with

news, gossip, and photos. Among the features on the site is a jukebox that will play segments of songs

from the movies.

Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity, 3-D filmmaking and IMAX

There is a lot of talk over why we the popularity of 3D movies lately, many arguing that it is a tacked on

feature that lets studios charge more for tickets. But director Alfonso Cuarón with his movie Gravity

showed what could be done with really smart 3-D filmmaking.

Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón’s 3-D space movie Gravity opened to spectacular reviews

and record-breaking box office numbers in October 2013. It is a movie with sparse dialog and a lot of

visual storytelling, which is appropriate for a movie set in outer space where the opening text on the

screen notes that in space “there is nothing to carry sound. No air pressure. No oxygen. Life in space is

impossible.”

Sandra Bullock and her co-star George Clooney make for great totally nonromantic

interaction, but the movie is primarily a one-woman show by Bullock.

Gravity was Cuarón’s seventh film, and he tells Vulture that he can’t quite believe he could pull

it off. “We got away with it. That’s the thing. It’s a very unlikely film, first of all, to put together. It’s

basically one character floating in space.”

This movie wasn’t Cuarón’s first well-regarded science

fiction/fantasy story—he’d also made Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (which many, including

your author, consider to be the best of the Harry Potter movies) and the dystopian Children of Men.

Cuarón grew up in Mexico City, and knew at a young age that he wanted to direct movies.

Alfonso’s younger brother Carlos remembers when Alfonso first got a camera at age twelve. “He was a

huge pain in the ass, shooting everything. My sister and I became his prop, his stunt, whatever. It was

unbearable. He would repeat that he was going to be film director again and again.”

Cuarón continued

his tradition of being unbearable in film school, where he got expelled prior to graduation. He then

finished learning his craft by working as everything from a microphone carrier to an assistant director.

Cuarón co-wrote the movie with his son Jonas, who describes the movie they wanted to make

this way:

Basically we wanted to make a 90-minute movie that would grip the audience with

suspense and tension. It would be like a roller coaster ride but at the same time it

would be a film that also connects with the audience on an emotional level…. We also

wanted to speak about different themes without stopping the action with dialogue.

Kenneth Turan, “Review: ‘Gravity’ Has Powerful Pull Thanks to Sandra Bullock, 3–D,” Lost Angeles Times,

October 3, 2013, www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la–et–mn-gravity-movie-review-

20131004-story.html#page=1.

Dan P. Lee, “The Camera’s Cusp: Alfonso Cuaron Takes Filmmaking to a New Extreme With Gravity,” Vulture,

September 22, 2013, www.vulture.com/2013/09/director-alfonso-cuaron-on-making-gravity.html.

Ibid.

Mass Communication: Living in a Media World, 6th edition

Ralph Hanson

Lecture Builders

We wanted to use the action to bring the themes that interested the two of us.

Like most great movies, Gravity’s success wasn’t an accident. It was conceived and shot as a 3–D

movie from the very beginning. Cuarón planned Gravity as a 3-D movie even before Avatar was busy

showing the world what could be done with reallygreat 3-D in 2010. (I know, I know—many of you

absolutely hated the derivative Dances with Wolves storyline and rehashing of the human villains from

Aliens in Avatar, but that doesn’t change the fact that it had extraordinary visual storytelling.)

Every shot in Gravity was planned around how it would look in 3-D. Eric Eisenberg writes at the

CinemaBlend blog that Cuarón uses 3-D to create “deep, immersive environments.”

What makes this 3-

D movie so fascinating is that for the most part neither director/co-screenwriter Cuarón nor co-star

George Clooney particularly likes 3-D, especially when it is tacked on just to generate higher ticket

prices.

Cuarón is quoted at Complex.com as saying:

The problem now is that they make all these films that are not designed for 3-D and

then convert them as a commercial afterthought—and they are crap. They don’t

follow the rules of 3-D of what does and doesn’t work. There are a handful of films

that have used 3-D in a proper way so it can be an amazing tool.

Los Angeles Times movie critic Kenneth Turan notes a number of things in his review that make

Gravity special, including the fact that the first shot of the film runs thirteen minutes without a single

cut.

No rapid-fire edits here—just a really long establishing shot putting us into the context of the film.

(The rapid-fire edits so popular in modern action films don’t work well in 3-D.) That willingness to

engage in brave storytelling carries through the entire movie. The movie also benefits from having a

unified voice. The screenplay was written by Alfonso Cuarón and his son Jonas. This means that the

movie did not suffer from endless second-guessing from the studio about the script. It also means that

the director and his son had a really good idea of what they were going to do from the very beginning.

David Salazar, “Exclusive: ‘Gravity’ Co-Writer Jonas Cuaron Discusses Collaborating With Father Alfonso,

Failed Project & ‘Desierto’,” Latino Post, October 7, 2013,

http://www.latinospost.com/articles/29211/20131007/exclusive-gravity-co-writer-jonas-cuaron-discusses-

collaborating-father-alfonso.htm.

Eric Eisenberg, “To 3D or Not to 3D: Buy the Right Gravity Ticket,” CinemaBlend, n.d.,

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/3D-Or–3D-Buy-Right-Gravity-Ticket-39663.html.

Brent Lang, “George Clooney: ‘Gravity’ Is an Argument for 3D,” The Wrap, October 2, 2013,

www.thewrap.com/george-clooney-gravity-is–an-argument-for-3d/.

Frazier Tharpe, “Alfonso Cuaron Calls Most 3D Movies ‘Crap,’ While ‘Gravity’ Racks Up Rave Reviews for 3D

Experience,” Complex, September 28, 2013, www.complex.com/pop-culture/2013/09/alfonso-cuaron-calls-most-

3d-movies-crap.

Kenneth Turan, “Review: ‘Gravity’ Has Powerful Pull Thanks to Sandra Bullock, 3–D,” Los Angeles Times,

www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la–et–mn-gravity-movie-review-20131004-

story.html#page=1.

Mass Communication: Living in a Media World, 6th edition

Ralph Hanson

Lecture Builders

Cuarón’s fellow director Brad Bird, famous for Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, The Incredibles, and

the woefully underappreciated Iron Giant, sent out a series of tweets about what makes Gravity

important, and what kind of an influence Cuarón’s work will have on the movie industry. He wrote:

GRAVITY is a master class in film direction, as harrowing as it is haunting & beautiful.

Bullock & Clooney are Terrific. Cuaron CRUSHES IT.

More than most films, GRAVITY… is visual storytelling, like a silent film. The

shots are deeply thought out.

In answer to the question “But does the 3-D in GRAVITY help improve the narrative or just the

visuals?” Bird makes his most important point: “In GRAVITY, the visuals ARE the narrative.”

Bird warns, however, that Hollywood will likely miss the important message of Gravity:

GRAVITY’s $ucce$$ will lead to a new round of 3-D films NOT conceived for 3-D, as

DARK KNIGHT’s success led to “IMAX” films NOT shot in IMAX.

Regardless of the size of a movie’s budget, profits, or spectacle, we still go to the movies for the

same basic reason: to escape from the world around us. We spend a couple of hours in a darkened room

with a group of people and share a created experience—a bit of excitement, sentiment, or romance. In

this chapter, we look at how the movie industry developed from peep show kinetoscopes to today’s

IMAX theaters. We examine the roles of movies in society, public concerns about movies, and efforts by

government and industry to regulate the content of films.