• BECOMING MODERN

• MACHINE

• 1. "Machine Age"
• 2. Factory
• 3. Automobile
• 4. Airplane
• 5. Radio
• 6. Movies

Join Our Mailing List

Full screen

« Previous Next »

MACHINE

6. Movies

In 2006, weekly movie attendance in the U.S. totaled about nine percent of the population. Given all the entertainment options, only one in ten people chose to see a movie in a theater. Compare that with attendance figures in the 1920s. In just eight years, from 1922 to 1930, weekly U.S. movie attendance soared from about forty percent to over ninety percent of the population.1 As movies came to center the mass-culture universe, two major questions came to the fore: one cultural, one technological. How did movies influence modern youth, whose rush to adopt the "modern" values and conduct showcased on the screen distressed many older Americans? And how would the introduction of sound affect the long-established silent genre that was reaching, in the words of one producer, "notable heights of beauty and power as pantomime only"?2 Here we consider pronouncements on these two questions from a sociologist and a Hollywood producer.

• Herbert Blumer, Movies and Conduct, 1933, excerpts. What was the influence of movies on modern youth? As movie production and attendance exploded in the 1920s—and especially after the arrival of sound films in 1927—the call to answer this question became more insistent. In a series of twelve studies conducted from 1929 to 1932, sociologists and psychologists compiled a massive amount of research on youth and movies. Perhaps the most influential study was reported in Movies and Conduct by the University of Chicago sociologist Herbert Blumer, whose team gathered data from nearly two thousand students through questionnaires, interviews, and students' "motion picture autobiographies" in which they reported their personal impressions of movies' influence. Presented here are excerpts from the culminating chapter, "Schemes of Life." Incorporating numerous excerpts from the student "autobiographies," Blumer reviewed movies' influence on youth's concepts of love and romance, wealth and glamour, physical attractiveness, ideal behavior, friendship and loyalty, worthy ambitions, racial stereotypes, the world beyond their childhood experience, and the values of "modern life." Although the studies were initiated by a group that advocated legal controls on film production (the Motion Picture Research Council), and the research questions reflect parental and societal perspectives, the research results are presented with scientific detachment. (The instructions for writing the "motion picture autobiographies" are available in Appendix A of Movies and Conduct, pp. 203-207.) What did Blumer's research reveal about the influence of movies on young people's ideas about life, how it should be lived, and what it offered them? How would his experimental design and results compare with similar inquiries about youth culture and mass entertainment today? (10 pp.)

  
  


• Monta Bell, "Movies & Talkies," The North American Review, October 1928. The Twenties did not introduce the automobile, the wireless, the airplane, or the motion picture—but they did inaugurate the Ford Model A, the home radio receiver, global flight records, and the pinnacle of Hollywood entertainment—the "talkie." As with many innovations, the "talkie" was greeted with wild enthusiasm . . . and tentative welcome . . . and outright dismissal. Was it a gimmick that spelled the ruin of the silent film, a maturing art form? Was it a spangly newcomer that would drive live theater out of business? Or did it herald a new American spectacle that would enchant the world? How would silent film producers and actors make the switch to sound? What innovations in filmmaking would evolve? In this article, published soon after the 1928 premiere of the first "all-talking" picture, Lights of New York, Hollywood producer Monta Bell summarized the industry's response with insight and humor. "Everybody predicted something," he wrote, "and nearly everybody predicted something different. Never in the history of the industry was there, or is there, such divergence of opinion, or such feverish activity." He surveyed the wide-ranging predictions of film producers and offered his own. "Silent action," he insisted, would still be "the foundation of screen entertainment. Sound is simply an accessory," providing sound effects to embellish silent action scenes. What did the silent-to-sound transition signify for Americans in the 1920s, judging from Bell's perspective? How do his predictions illustrate the inevitable limitations of envisioning the possibilities of the "new"? What other technological transitions offer comparisons with the arrival of talkies? (6 pp.)

• From Silent to Sound in Twenty-Two Minutes. It is difficult for most of us to imagine the silent movie experience. You watch silent action on the screen. You read the intertitles (black-screen text) that deliver dialogue and further the plot. You hear live music provided by the theater pianist, organist, or orchestra, designed to enhance the film's comedy or drama. And then comes the "talking picture." Spoken words, lots of them, come from the mouths of the actors. Music and noise and ambient sound, lots of it, emanate from the screen. The four film clips and cartoons below provide a twenty-two-minute capsule of the silent-to-sound experience. What are the immediately apparent differences between silent and sound films? What do you notice on second and third viewings? How does each genre deliver plot, character, emotion, nuance, and visual impact? From this capsule, what can you infer about the response of moviegoers to the "talkies"?

  Live-action films (scenes): WARNER BROS.

  -Silent: La Bohème, 1926 (click Trailers and Videos: 2:56). In the opening scene of this classic love story set in Paris in the 1830s, we meet the aspiring playwright Rodolphe when the heartless landlord arrives to demand the monthly rent. How do the actors quickly define their characters without sound? How is the ringing bell emphasized without sound? How do the intertitles add humor to the confrontation with the landlord? How did producer King Vidor evoke "sound" in the first moments of the film before any character speaks? Compare the scene with Vidor's opening scenes in Wild Oranges (1926) and The Crowd (1928). How would these scenes have differed in a sound film?

  -Sound: Show Girl in Hollywood, 1930 (click Trailers and Videos: 3:00). Dining in a New York cabaret with a failed Broadway producer, singer Dixie takes an opportunity to audition for a Hollywood film producer. How does the scene incorporate silent film technique with innovations offered by sound? What would Monta Bell have thought of the "continuous dialogue" in the scene? of the camera angles, actors' voices, and filming of Dixie's song performance? How would this scene have differed in a silent film?

  Animated cartoons:

  -Silent: Felix in Hollywood, 1923 (7:58). Felix the Cat auditions for a job as a Hollywood actor, but "ruins his chances" when Charlie Chaplin catches him doing his Chaplin impersonation. By inadvertently saving the day in a western scene being filmed, he is offered a longterm contract. How is the plot conveyed without spoken dialogue? How is "sound" conveyed without sound? How does this silent cartoon resemble the silent film La Bohème? INTERNET MOVING IMAGE ARCHIVE

  -Sound: Steamboat Willie, 1928 (7:23). This is the world-famous "first" sound animated cartoon, in which Disney Studios introduced Mickey Mouse as a steamboat pilot, entertaining himself, Minnie, and the audience by producing music with anything at hand, from kitchen pots-and-pans to the barnyard animals on board. There is no plot and no dialogue, fitting Monta Bell's prediction that dialogue would be secondary to sound effects in the "talkies." In what other ways does Steamboat Willie differ from Felix in Hollywood? (Remember that the online Felix cartoon has sound added to simulate theater music.) How does Steamboat Willie resemble the sound film Show Girl in Hollywood more than it resembles the silent Felix cartoon? DISNEY ANIMATION/YOUTUBE

See also Modern City in Film, Felix the Cat animated cartoons, and Detroit News newsreels. For other films included in BECOMING MODERN, see the All-Texts List by Genre.

Supplemental Sites