Hollywood's America : United States History Through Its Films

by Mintz, Steven; Roberts, Randy

• ISBN13: 9781881089483
• ISBN10: 1881089487
• Edition: 2ND
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-07-01
• Publisher: Varsitybooks.Com

Summary

This anthology of documents and essays teaches students to read films as cultural artifacts within the contexts of actual past events. The films are studied as a reflection of their times and as an influence upon style and belief. Each major Part consists of essays on particular films or topics, followed by an assortment of primary documents; a 50-page bibliography of film history concludes the volume.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Introduction: The Social and Cultural History of American Film	1	(30)
PART I / THE SILENT ERA
Introduction
Intolerance and the Rise of the Feature Film	31	(2)
Silent Film as Social Criticism
``Front Page Movies''	33	(9)
Kay Sloan
Silent Cinema as Historical Mythmaker
``Birth of a Nation-Propaganda as History''	42	(11)
John Nope Franklin
Silent Comedy as Cultural Commentary
``Work, Ideology and Chaplin's Tramp''	53	(11)
Charles Musser
The Revolt Against Victorianism
``Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, and the New Personality, 1914-1918''	64	(10)
Lary May
Primary Sources:
Edison v. American Mutoscope Company (1902)	74	(2)
``The Nickel Madness,'' 1907	76	(3)
Protest Against Birth of a Nation, 1915	79	(2)
Mutual Film Corp. v. Industrial Commission of Ohio (1915)	81	(4)
PART II / HOLLYWOOD'S GOLDEN AGE
Introduction
Backstage During the Great Depression: 42nd Street, Gold Diggers of 1933, and Footlight Parade	85	(2)
Depression America and its Films
``Laughing Through Tears: Hollywood Answers to the Depression''	87	(6)
Maury Klein
The Depression's Human Toll
``Gangsters and Fallen Women''	93	(10)
Peter Roffman
Jim Purdy
Depression Allegories
``Gone With the Wind and The Grapes of Wrath as Hollywood Histories of the Great Depression''	103	(9)
Thomas N. Pauly
African Americans on the Silver Screen
``The Evolution of Black Film''	112	(13)
Thomas R. Cripps
Orson Welles as Poet and Historian
``The Magnificent Ambersons''	125	(10)
Charles Higham
Primary Sources:
The Introduction of Sound	135	(4)
``Pictures That Talk,'' 1924	135	(1)
Review of Don Juan, 1926	136	(1)
``Silence is Golden,'' 1930	137	(2)
Film Censorship	139	(16)
``The Sins of Hollywood,'' 1922	139	(2)
``The Don'ts and Be Carefuls,'' 1927	141	(1)
``The Motion Picture Production Code of 1930''	142	(13)
PART III / WARTIME HOLLYWOOD
Introduction
Hollywood's World War II Combat Films	155	(2)
Wartime Films as instruments of Propaganda
``What to Show the World: The Office of War Information and Hollywood, 1942-1945''	157	(12)
Clayton R. Koppes
Gregory D. Black
Casablanca as Propaganda
``You Must Remember This: The Case of Hal Wallis' Casablanca''	169	(9)
Randy Roberts
Bureau of Motion Pictures Report
Feature Review	178	(3)
How World War II Affected Women
``Mildred Pierce and Women in Film''	181	(6)
June Sochen
Primary Source:
U.S. Senate Subcommittee Hearings on Motion Picture and Radio Propaganada, 1941	187	(6)
PART IV / POSTWAR HOLLYWOOD
Introduction
Double Indemnity and Film Noir	193	(2)
The Red Scare in Hollywood
``HUAC and the End of an Era,''	195	(8)
Peter Roffman
Jim Purdy
A Perverse Tribute to Hollywood's Past
``Sunset Boulevard''	203	(8)
Lois Banner
The Morality of Informing
``Ambivalence in On the Waterfront''	211	(10)
Kenneth R. Hey
Science Fiction as Social Commentary
``Invasion of the Body Snatchers''	221	(10)
Stuart Samuels
The Western as Cold War Film
``Gunfighters and Green Berets''	231	(11)
Richard Slotkin
Primary Sources:
U.S. v. Paramount (1947)	242	(1)
HUAC Hearings on Communist Infiltration of the Motion-Picture Industry, 1947	243	(1)
HUAC Hearings on Communist Infiltration of the Motion-Picture Industry, 1951-52	243	(4)
The Miracle Decision: Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, Commissioner of Education of New York, et al. (1952)	247	(4)
PART V / HOLLYWOOD SINCE VIETNAM
Introduction
Bonnie and Clyde	251	(1)
A Shifting Sensibility
``Dr. Strangelove: nightmare Comedy and the Ideology of Liberal Consensus''	252	(13)
Charles Maland
Films of the Late Sixties and Early Seventies
``From Counterculture to Counterrevolution, 1967-1971''	265	(10)
Michael Ryan
Douglas Kellner
Reaffirming Traditional Values
``The Blue Collar Ethnic in Bicentennial America: Rocky'' (1976)	275	(9)
Daniel J. Leab
Coming to Terms with the Vietnam War
``Distorted Images, Missed Opportunities''	284	(14)
James S. Olson
Randy Roberts
Films of the Eighties
``The Yuppie Texts''	298	(11)
William Joe Palmer
Our Movie-Made President
``No Method to His Madness''	309	(11)
Richard Schickel
Primary Source:
The Hollywood Rating System, 1968	320	(3)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A Bibliography of Film History	323	(46)
Acknowledgments	369