About
This class deals with a vitally important period in film history as related to American history during the Great Depression, World War II, and the immediate postwar years. We will learn the various elements of filmmaking as practiced in a self-contained production system under which each cinematic component--from camerawork to acting to costuming to editing--had a department dedicated to it. We will learn about audiences and moviegoing during a time when movies were the national pastime in America and in many other countries. We will learn how to identify studio style, genre, to analyze the significance of stars and acting codes. We will study the roles of the actor, the writer, the producer, and the director in this system in which talents were signed to long-term contracts and were essentially owned by the companies. In writing, oral discussions, and exams, you should be able to analyze films of the Studio Era on several levels: What do they have to say as products of an American entertainment industry during two turbulent periods in America? What is the "classical cinema" and how does it combine what Richard B. Jewell calls "some standardization" with "a certain amount of freshness, of innovation, of novelty" demanded by the public? How do we recognize house style, individual authorship, and the differences between them? What is genre? And how do we write about and discuss these elements?
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