CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD

1. THE GREAT ERA OF COMEDY

SLAPSTICK COMEDY
 Chain of gags, without the use of words.
 Buster Keaton: “Three Ages” (prehistoric, ancient Rome and
Modern times). Griffith’s “Intolerance” parody.
 Physical comedy but with criticism of social values and attitudes.

MACK SENNET AND KEYSTONE STUDIOS

 Development of the slapstick comedy in the USA.
 Fatty Arbuckle and Charles Chaplin.
 Improvisation, stories without a plot.
 Keystone cops, a group of silent films of slapstick comedy produced
by Mack Sennet for his Keystone Film Company (1912-1917).
 Fatty Arbuckle
o 1910s Keystone Studios.
o Interaction of objects that seem to come to life.
o “Chaplin and Arbuckle: The Rounders” (1914).
o “A Flirt’s Mistake” (1914).

MAX LINDER
 French comedian with great success.
 Opposed circus: inspired buffoons with an elegant dandy
appearance.
 Not physical comedy, compromising situations.
 He influenced Charles Chaplin.
 In common with Chaplin: human and social interrelationships.

THE GREAT AUTHORS

 Charles Chaplin:
o Terrible childhood, vaudeville origins.
o Early films: Keystone style, then United Artists (1919).
o Characteristics:
 Stage organized according to Chaplin’s movements,
physical comedy (acrobatic choreographies).
 POV: frontal and eye level.
 Camera movements: accompaniment action.
 The action is in the field:
 Confusion shot and scene.
 Deactivation off-screen.
 Minimum editing.
 Comedies add human dimension, pathos.
Autobiographical portions.
o Charlot archetype: “Kid Auto Race at Venice” (1914).
 Chaplin’s attempts to get in front of the camera and to
be the center of attention of the spectators and it is
also a small documentary of the children’s car races in
Venice.
o Filmography:
 “The Rink” (1916).
 “Easy Street” (1917).
 “The Adventurer” (1917).
 “The Immigrant” (1917).
 “Shoulder Arms” (1918).

o THE KID (1921)

 Great success.
 Sentimental value to comedy.
 Chaplin’s own childhood.

o Filmography:
 “A Woman of Paris” (1923).
 “The Gold Rush Hour” (1925).
 “The Circus” (1928).
 “City Lights” (1931).
 “Modern Times” (1936).
 “The Great Dictator” (1940).
o A WOMAN OF PARIS (1923)
 Dramatic comedy, melodrama.
 Chaplin not main character for the first time.
 Off-screen, great influence of Lubitsch.
 Ellipsis, psychological definition characters.

o Pantomime:
 Lack of dialogue.
 Supporting the narration with gestures, hyper-
representation of body movements.
o Three levels of discourse:
 Mimesis of reality (naturalistic representation of the
circus): hunger, loneliness, power relationships.
 Formal stylization: storytelling, modulating rhythm.
 Abstraction: symbolic level, spectacle vs narrative
cinema, new conception comedy.

o THE CIRCUS (1928)

 Autobiographical: Main character and Charles Chaplin
make a journey. Monkey metaphor foolish imitators.

o Sound films:
 One of the most extreme opponents of sound films
(1928 text against sound films, sound detracted visual
art).
 Producer and star, able to continue making silent films.
 “City Lights” (1931) and “Modern Times” (1936) silent
films, voice appears very limited.

 CITY LIGHTS (1931)

 Not only true manifesto in defense of silent films,
but also of the visual power of cinema.
 Renounce to use intertitles, irrelevance of the
sound.
  MODERN TIMES (1936)
 Comical but critical view of industrial Taylorism +
sound beast that mortally wounded silent
cinema.
 Charabia: Chester Conklin Keystone comedian
and old silent film star evicted from the stage by
the invention of sound.

 THE GREAT DICTATOR (1940)

 Hitler=Hynkel.
 Break fourth wall: Chaplin’s discourse, border
character and Chaplin.
o Chaplin’s influence:
 France: Jacques Tati.
 Italy: Totò.
 Buster Keaton:
o Music hall, vaudeville family of actors.
o Career: 1920s, not transition to sound.
o Characteristics:
 Stone face.
 Precision of gags.
 High risk scenes.
 Landscapes.
o Filmography:
 “Our Hospitality” (1923).
 “Sherlock Jr.” (1924).
 “The Navigator” (1924).
 “The General” (1926).
 “Steamboat Bill, Jr.” (1928)
 Tradition vs Modernity.
 Gags paramount importance.
o Sign with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1928). Keaton’s decline.
o “Limelight” (1952): Chaplin and Keaton.
o Standing ovation Venice Festival.
o “Just when we got it right, it was over”, Charles Chaplin.
 Harold Lloyd:
 o Caricature of the optimistic and tenacious American.
o Similarities with Chaplin at the beginning, flip side of a coin.
o More than a hundred of short films.
o Great number of film production (more than Chaplin and
Keaton altogether).
o “Safety last!” (1923).

 Decline of silent films:

o The major length of feature films: development plot.
o Withdraw previous comedians.
o Laughter redirected towards sound effects, dialogues and
word games.

2. THE HOLLYWOOD STUDIO SYSTEM AND SOUND FILMS

THE ORIGINS OF FILM INDUSTRY
 Edison founded MPPC, Motion Picture Patents Company (1908-
1917).
 AIM: control of all branches of the American industry + biggest
supplier of raw film stock (George Eastman).
 Banish independent production companies.
 Production  Distribution  Exhibition
 Only licensed companies (paying a fee) could produce and distribute
films. MPPC members weekly fee.
 A Trust composed by Edison, Biograph, Vitagraph, Essanay, Selig
Polyscope, Lubin Manufacturing, Kalem Company, Star Film Paris,
American Pathé.
 The most important independents that will later become the 5
majors:
o Paramount Pictures: Adolph Zukor.
o Fox Films: William Fox.
o United Artists.
 o Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer: Marcus Loew.
o Universal Picture: Carl Lámele.

 Success of these independent companies:

o AIM: complete autonomy, creation of their own distribution
company.
o Strategies:
 Creation of the big Hollywood Studios: Southern
California (good climate, far from Edison’s MPPC).
 Importation of French blank tapes: Eastman Kodak
Company.
 Wall Street’s financiation.
 A large number of productions by independents.
 Film exhibition as a mass spectacle: Films and Star
System.
 Films:
o More elaborated stories, viewer’s taste.
o Individualization of products commercial strategy linked to a
certain studio (stamp).
o Film genres.
o Unique product, advertising promotion.

 The Star System:

o Decisive transformations in American film industry:
 Actors and actresses stereotype roles, typecast.
 Standardization of the narratives, construction of the
myth.
 Emotional attachment: imitation.
 Audience affection increases its value.
 Close-ups, help recognize them.
 Exhibition of the films:
o Abroad: translate titles and export films to Europe.
o European: translate and import.
o Majors: control of the exhibition circuit.
o Big cities cinemas film premiere, rural theatres months after
their release.
 o This system of film production and distribution demonstrated
the way of making successful and economically profitable
films.
THE HOLLYWOOD STUDIO SYSTEM
 Compared to a factory mass: mass-production of films.
 Division of labors:
o The studio head: plan annual film production (necessary staff,
studio and technical equipment).
o The scriptwriter and writers: film plots, dialogues or
intertitles.
o The director: filming and editing.
o Artistic director: construction of the set.
o Casting directors: choose the actors.
o Camera operators.
o Actors: move quickly from one film to another.
o Shooting secretary: ensure continuity.
 Big five majors:
o MGM.
o 20th Century Fox.
o Paramount.
o Warner Bros.
o RKO.
 Little three:
o Universal.
o Columbia.
o United Artists.

THE BEGINNING OF SOUND ERA

 Beginning of sound films: The Jazz Singer, Warner Bros.
 Initially technical problems: autumn 1930 all sound films.
 Sound repercussion:
o On the language of the film.
o Creation of new film genre: the musical.
 Edison: kinetoscope.
 Primary steps: mid 1920s “talking pictures” or “talkies”.
 “The Jazz Singer” (1927): not completely sound.
 Full sound film: “Lights of the New York” (1928).
 Warner Brothers “Don Juan” (1926) and “The Jazz Singer” used
vitaphone, patent from Western Electric. It is the first sound cinema
system.
 Warner Brothers competitor: Fox Film Corporation:
o Fox Movietone News April 1927, Roxy Theatre.
o Fox bought and built theatres.
o Big Five sign an Agreement with A&T in 1927 to use the same
sound system.
 Little cinemas could not afford the new costs: closed.
 First sound films: soundtrack added to silent films.
 Goat gland (1927-1929), silent films + some talkie sequences.
 Cinema orchestras fired, funds to sound system.
 Consequences of sound:
o Drawbacks of new technology and stylistic regression:
 Frontal shots.
 Little camera movements.
 No depth of field.
 Abusive proliferation of dialogue.
o Technical problems:
 Non-directional microphones, cameras placed in
soundproof cabins, diction classes.
 Placement microphone limited actor/actresses
movements.
 Impossible mix separately recorded soundtracks.
 Multi-camera filming.
 Natural lightning.
 Little camera movements.
 From 1931:
o Microphone stand.
o Multitrack recording.
o Playback and subsequent synchronization.
o Adding sound effects.
o Exportation and importation of sound films, language a
barrier:
  Viewers didn’t accept dubbing (synchrony was very
rudimentary).
 Not well received subtitles  multilingual production
(1929-1932).
 Solutions:
 From 1931 multi-track + improvement
sensitiveness microphones, refine sync.
 Well received subtitles.
o Two opposing positions:
 AGAINST: sound would undermine the communicative
possibilities and the nature of a film as an original art
form (Charlie Chaplin).
 IN FAVOUR: soviets, “A Statement” designed by
Eisenstein, Pudovkin and Aleksandrov in 1928 defense
the expressive potential of the asynchronous use of
sound.

EMBRACING THE SOUND

 Fritz Lang “M” (1931).

 BLACKMAIL (1929)
o By Alfred Hitchcock.
o The first British sound film.
o Combines realism sound cinema and expressionism.
o Manipulation of the sound:
 Sound hierarchy.
 Sound expressive way.
o Main contributions:
 Articulation of subjective sound.
 Sound manipulation: denial and distortion of sounds.
 The articulation of silence.
 The latemotif.

 Small cinemas could not afford sound systems.

 Two versions of the films (Hitchcock):
o Silent, minimal dialogue and intertitles.
o Sound, direct sound + add post-production.