Independent Protestant Film, from the Silent Era to Its Resurgence

Direct-to-Video (On Demand): New Industrial and Cultural Valuations of Nontheatrical Film Releases

Buchsbaum, Jonathan. Exception Taken: How France has Defied Hollywood’s New World Order. New York: Columbia UP, 2017. ISBN 978-0-231-17067-3. Pp. xxvii + 393. Given the widely-held notion that government can do nothing right, it is somewhat refreshing to read a detailed case study of a largely successful set of governmental programs. Buchsbaum examines the ways in which successive French governments reacted to the generalized decline (in terms of production as well as attendance) that affected nearly all European film industries in the 1980s. His principal thesis is clear and remarkably well-documented: “France has shown that in the increasingly globalized and digital world, national industries can survive if—and probably only if—the state intervenes judiciously to support both commercial success and artistic ambition”(2–3). The historical starting point of Buchsbaum’s analysis is well-known: the increasing competition from television, followed by such innovations as videotape and DVDs, led to a drastic reduction of ticket sales at film theaters. The loss of revenues in turn impacted film production. Cinema was losing its status as the most popular form of entertainment. This socieconomic transformation occurred in the United States first, because television had become a widespread phenomenon at least a decade before most European countries. In the 1970s, Hollywood studios managed to counter the trend in various ways: the production of blockbuster films (with associated merchandising), the spread of multiplex theaters, turning videotape and DVDs into sources of revenue, etc. With smaller national markets and therefore more limited production budgets, European film industries could not compete with such American blockbusters as Jaws (1975). American films gained ever-increasing market shares abroad, resulting in the near-elimination of national film industries in several European countries. As is detailed in Buchsbaum’s study, under the leadership of Jack Lang, François Mitterrand’s long-serving ministre de la Culture (1981–86 and 1988– 93), France sought to preserve its own film industry, for both economic and cultural reasons. While state-sponsored agencies such as the CNC already supported French cinema, through such means as the avance sur recettes, Lang developed innovative ways to turn television into a source of investment for the production of films. The goal was to transform the competition between cinema and television into a symbiotic relationship, with revenues from television used to finance new films that would later become televised content. At the international level, as part of his “two-pronged” strategy “to strengthen the French film industry” (59), Lang lobbied—and obtained European backing—for the famous exception culturelle, which eventually became la diversité culturelle. Successive French governments have mostly maintained Lang’s policies, which since the 1990s have produced increases in market share for French films, along with other positive trends (the number of film theaters throughout the country, as well as the yearly levels of film production). Despite the traditional attacks against French “protectionism,” mainly from the American film industry, what 208 FRENCH REVIEW 91.1 Reviews 209 Buchsbaum describes in Exception Taken is largely a success story: the rebuilding of a healthy industrie culturelle through the sensible use of governmental policies. Western Washington University Edward Ousselin Carrier-Lafleur, Thomas. L’œil cinématographique de Proust. Paris: Garnier, 2015. ISBN 978-2-8124-4930-7. Pp. 713. Peut-on dire que Proust est davantage cinéaste qu’écrivain? Comment aborder et interpréter l’œuvre si l’on complique/multiplie les perspectives sur la création et les rigueurs (inter)disciplinaires? On ne se rapporte pas à l’œuvre d’art“par la connaissance ou par le savoir, mais par la transformation et l’interprétation”, nous dit Carrier-Lafleur dans la riche conclusion de son ouvrage (678). Dans la création, ce sont la reprise, la différence et la répétition qui permettent de traduire puis de transcrire les “hiéroglyphes ” (terme de Proust) du réel et de la vérité. L’enjeu de L’œil cinématographique de Proust est séducteur et peut se résumer par un effet de ponctuation: dans un retournement joliment proustien, le postulat Proust est“cinéaste”, qui fonde l’enquête, perd à la toute fin les guillemets et...

The Melodramatic Nation: Integration and Polarization in the Argentine Cinema of the 1930s

Reviewed by: Cinema Civil Rights: Regulation, Repression, and Race in the Classical Hollywood Era by Ellen C. Scott Courtney Baker Ellen C. Scott.Cinema Civil Rights: Regulation, Repression, and Race in the Classical Hollywood Era. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 2015. 268pp. $29.95. In her book Cinema Civil Rights: Regulation, Repression, and Race in the Classical Hollywood Era, media scholar Ellen C. Scott provides a well-researched critical history of black repression in the American film industry during the first half of the twentieth century. The study is a welcome addition to important recent publications in African American television and film studies such as Sarah Torres’s Black, White, and in Color: Television and Black Civil Rights (Princeton UP, 2003) and Allyson Nadia Field’s Uplift Cinema: The Emergence of African American Film and the Possibility of Black Modernity (Duke UP, 2015). All of the projects provide a careful and thoroughgoing account of the visual media industry and its representations of black life. Scott’s book significantly advances our understanding of the conditions of film production by investigating the impact of censorship in the constitution of narratives and the framing of black bodies on screen. Cinema Civil Rights undertakes media studies as a material cultural studies project, referring readers to the cinematic objects while contextualizing and critiquing the material and social conditions for those objects’ construction. Scott’s work stands out among these other books for its study of mainstream Hollywood film—a genre that would seem not to provide as rich a terrain for the discussion of black representational politics. However, Scott’s canny readings reveal that an anxiety about black representation in the context of civil rights discourse in popular film has been, for more than one hundred years, a central and abiding organizing principle for studios and directors in the most powerful and longstanding film industry in the world. Scott’s analysis of “the structure of limitation” in the film industry during its Golden Age is rooted in an understanding of civil rights as a project of “equal citizenship” that compelled and confounded African Americans throughout the [End Page 289] twentieth century (1). By examining texts that document both repression and resistance, Scott exposes how censorship boards and industry complacency “ultimately failed to avoid the civil rights questions they repressed” (3). The first two chapters trace how some films resisted industry and state policies and codes that forbade, if not outright censored, cinematic suggestions of miscegenation and racial injustice. Chapter one focuses on self-regulation and censorship that Scott divides into five eras, each attached to three regulating boards—the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, the Studio Relations Committee, and the Production Code Administration—and their changing leadership. Over the course of this period, extending from 1926 to 1961, Hollywood films struggled to remain topical—taking on such subjects as chain gangs, lynching, and interracial sex—while attempting at the same time not to offend Southern racist sentiment nor to foreground race—and in particular black-white relations—as sources of conflict and titillation. Analyzing works such as I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932), Imitation of Life (1934), Pinky (1949), The Burning Cross (1947), and several others in the context of correspondence between the regulating boards and studios as well as revisions to scripts and shooting drafts reveals a pattern of careful compromises that did not ban, but rather “muted and dampened” reference to black-white racial conflict and miscegenation (66). State standards were in many ways more restrictive and no less influential, “vitally shaping America’s system of film vetting” (67) as well as industry censorship-board standards. Scott’s concern in this chapter is on the local impact of censorship on spectatorship that, “through censored shots and banned scenes, worked to bend the racial trajectory of the cinema on important local American screens and in specific communities” (69). The chapter looks at the treatment of not only mainstream films, but also “foreign, B, and independent films” (107) by the censors in particular states—specifically, Ohio, Kansas, Maryland, and Virginia—at the height of their influence (1915 to 1952). While the selection of films and states discussed in this section appears...

In December 1916, as Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company was crossing the United States to make its West Coast premiere in Los Angeles, the Metropolitan Musical Bureau attempted to generate additional publicity and sustain excitement by publishing the first (and only) issue of the Diaghilef Ballet Russe Courier. Squarely in the center of the front page, under the headline “Ballet Too Expensive for Filming,” was a letter from American film director and producer Thomas H. Ince, purportedly responding to impresario and publicist Robert Grau's recommendation that Ince invite the ballet troupe to make a film: Dear Mr. Grau, I have read your communication in regard to the Russian Ballet. I fail to see the practicability of the idea of making a picture of the Russian Ballet, wonderful and unprecedented as the success of this notable organization has been. You understand, of course, that it would necessitate bringing the entire organization to Los Angeles, and any aggregation of dancers that can play to $100,000 dollars in two weeks would most assuredly demand all the money that I have, my right eye and left hand in addition to any hopes that I may have for a future life, in return for their service. Very truly yours, Thomas H. Ince.1Thomas Ince was not the only one skeptical of a Ballets Russes film project. The company's impresario, eager to position his company within the realm of high art, actively shunned mass culture and popular entertainment, including the still-young filmic medium: no Ballets Russes production was ever filmed.2 Despite this, there were numerous encounters between the Ballets Russes and the burgeoning Hollywood film industry during and immediately after the company's American tours in 1916 and 1917. Tales of these encounters paint a picture of the reciprocal fascination and mutual attraction of Diaghilev's troupe and the American film industry, and the spheres of stage and screen more broadly. A few of these connections have been examined: film scholar Gaylyn Studlar, for example, has discussed the influence of the Ballets Russes on the mise-en-scène of The Thief of Baghdad (dir. Raoul Walsh, 1924), particularly the extent to which the film's star, Douglas Fairbanks, was inspired by Vaslav Nijinsky's choreography and stylized movements.3 Scholars have also explored cases in which Ballets Russes dancers went on to choreograph dance numbers for American films, such as Adolph Bolm's work with director Dudley Murphy on Danse Macabre (1922) and Theodore Kosloff's collaborations with director Cecil DeMille on nearly thirty Hollywood productions following his time with the Ballets Russes.4 Relatedly, Lynn Garafola has cited such “crossovers and parallels” between film and the Ballets Russes, though she has focused primarily on the relationship between European avant-garde and experimental film strategies and the company's aesthetics.5 However, the Ballets Russes's sustained influence on silent film culture in the United States—its production, narratives, aesthetics, and exhibition—as well the extent to which Hollywood crafted and offered American audiences its own vision of the Ballets Russes and its dancers long after the company departed, remains largely unexamined. This omission is hardly surprising: not only have many of the silent films (and silent film scores) that may most clearly demonstrate these connections been lost, but crucial information about the production and exhibition contexts in which these relationships were most visible are scattered and incomplete as well. Finally, the West Coast leg of the Ballets Russes's second US tour, which brought the company into the orbit of the burgeoning American film industry, is rarely discussed.In this article, I examine this mutual attraction between the Ballets Russes and cinema, beginning with the company's arrival in Los Angeles for a week of performances in late December 1916, during which Hollywood elite attended performances that received rave reviews and company members, in turn, were treated to behind-the-scenes visits to the town's film studios. With this expanded vision of the troupe's activities and reception in mind, I examine two types of cinematic “appearances” that Diaghilev's dancers made in the years immediately following the company's US tours: first, the performances by company members and invocations of company repertoire and aesthetics in the live stage acts so often integrated into film presentations in the silent era and, second, the incorporation of Ballets Russes dancers, repertoire, and aesthetics, as well as the Ballets Russes as a broader signifier, into a number of feature-length films. In the former performances, I argue, the visual and narrative themes, music, and choreographies associated with the company were reprised on cinema stages, most often under the direction of the company's male dancers. The latter performances offered a more fanciful and imaginative vision of the company onscreen, frequently deploying either female Ballets Russes dancers or fictional modern Russian ballerina characters as visual—and highly visible—icons of the Ballets Russes and American mythologies of Russian culture and politics more broadly. Both types of cinematic (re)appearance, I argue, introduced new audiences to the company's choreographic, musical, and visual aesthetics, allowing these aesthetics to circulate and the company's influence to grow long after its departure. These performances also benefited the film industry, enabling filmmakers, studios, and exhibitors alike to associate themselves with the company's cultural capital, its status as high art, and the aura of mystique and intrigue that surrounded it.Scholars such as Hanna Järvinen have recently challenged standard narratives about why the Ballets Russes failed “to conquer America.”6 Yet the Ballets Russes spawned a fleet of reprises, tributes, and references on cinema stages and screens throughout the country. These cinematic performances generated their own advertisements, programs, and reviews that gestured toward the Ballets Russes and simultaneously invited an ever-expanding segment of the American public to engage with and find their own meanings in both these cinematic “texts” and the Ballets Russes performances and mythologies that they referenced.7 Perhaps this is not a conquest. But this complex, layered, and multivalent intermedial web, I believe, is evidence of the company's significant influence on art and entertainment in the United States, as well as its lasting resonance within American culture.Bypassed during the Ballets Russes's first US tour, Los Angeles audiences and critics were on pins and needles waiting for their first glimpse of the company in the fall of 1916. “Dancers Are Coming!” declared a Los Angeles Times headline, announcing that the company was set to arrive on Christmas day for a weeklong engagement at Clune's Auditorium.8 Over the next several weeks, audiences in Los Angeles were bombarded with glowing previews hyping premier danseur Vaslav Nijinsky; Schéhérazade and other signature ballets; the seventy-piece orchestra traveling with the troupe; and the “wild opulence” of the company's scenery and costumes.9 By the time the Ballets Russes arrived via train—six baggage cars of equipment, three coaches and a dining car for the performers, plus a private car for Nijinsky and an extra baggage car decked for the company's Christmas Eve party, the Los Angeles Examiner reported—the press was near fever pitch. Los Angeles residents were equally excited. The company's premiere, which featured Nijinsky's new ballet Till Eulenspiegel and the dances from Prince Igor, was completely sold out and began late due to the large crowd, which included film industry elite and familiar faces from the screen. As newspapers gleefully reported, the delay was compounded when the dancers, on hearing that Charlie Chaplin was in attendance, demanded that he be brought backstage. One critic explained, “[They] had all heard of him and seen him . . . so that Nijinsky, Revalles, Lopokova, all of them, kowtowed to him, and I shouldn't be surprised if someone kissed him; . . . foreigners do that when greatly enthused.”10That Chaplin and others working in early film would have been eager to see the Ballets Russes is hardly surprising. Those in the film industry had looked to the dance world for inspiration and personnel since its advent, yielding early moving picture experiments such as Thomas Edison's Annabelle Serpentine Dance (1895) and silent feature films like director Lois Weber's The Dumb Girl of Portici, starring Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova (Universal, 1915). For early filmmakers, dance was understood as a means of displaying—and a model for exploring—film's capacity to represent movement, as well as a strategy for creating rhythm, pace, and mood onscreen. Many directors, such as D. W. Griffith, also believed that dance training cultivated an attention to physical presence and a slower, more musical movement style that worked far better on screen than that quicker, larger gestures that many theater actors brought to film studios.11 As a result, a number of dance schools and companies in and around Los Angeles—perhaps most notably Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn's Denishawn, but also former Ballets Russes dancers Theodore Kosloff and Alexandra Maria Baldina's ballet school and British dancer Ernest Belcher's Celeste School—quickly became affiliated with the film industry, training film actors and actresses to move on camera and providing a steady supply of dancers for film productions.12 That the principles of movement and gesture established by François Delsarte are as visible in the aesthetics of silent film as they are in the aesthetics of modern dance, as scholar Carrie Preston has demonstrated, is hardly a coincidence.13Reviews of the Ballets Russes's Los Angeles performances were strikingly enthusiastic, praising the company's vigor, speed, and variety. As Los Angeles critic Edwin Schallert wrote, “Daring to the last degree in its big conceptions, startling throughout in its massing of color, and breathtaking in the swiftness of its supreme moments, the first performance of the Diaghileff Ballet Russe . . . made all other dancing we have seen here seem like child's play.”14 Schallert continued at length, almost rhapsodic: “They have an all-consuming energy that leaves you dazed, captivated, and inspired at once. The dancers come and go like magic, they concentrate more motion into the minute than could seem possible, and they finally leave you again seemingly almost before you had realized their presence. . . . [T]here is something inconceivably swift in the magnetic power of this troupe.”15 As exciting to critics as the choreography were the musical performances that accompanied it. “The pulsation of the Borodine [sic] music to the Prince Igor, played in masterly style by an orchestra,” the Los Angeles Times reported, was “worth more than half the price of admission in itself.”16 A critic for the Los Angeles Examiner concluded a description of Cléopâtre by noting, “The Balakireff music is superb; rushing hither and thither with the sweep of the violins predominant—the clash of the cymbals and rumble of tympani combining with the winds to form an overwhelming tornado of Russian fire and expression.”17 The close relationships between music and choreography were praised as well; after watching the company's rendition of Carnaval, Schallert asserted, “Schumann must have dreamt something like this when he wrote this piano series.”18But it was the company's dancers—especially the company's male dancers—who stole the show. Descriptions of the grace and delicacy of female dancers including Lydia Lopokova quickly gave way to lavish praise for Nijinsky's “technical wizardry” and “many-sided genius,” his “rhythmic perfection” and “delicate yet virile suppleness.”19 As Edwin Schallert waxed in an account that, despite its euphoria, was fairly typical of the Los Angeles reaction, “Strange realms does the genius of Waslav Nijinsky invade. Amid the floating clouds of his imagination's horizon arise unreal colors and mysterious shapes of things wherewith to create the background for realities that venture into untried provinces in the world of art. He opens by turn the portals of charm, of fire, of magnificence, he treads the corridors of symbolism and drama and the plastic arts, and he and his assistants lead their audiences through the ever-varying suggestions of these things.”20 Similar accolades were awarded to the “wonderfully expressive” Bolm, whose “facial expression and muscular grace plac[e] him on a plane but little removed from the master, Nijinsky, himself.”21 A few critics acknowledged the company's difficulty moving scenery quickly on opening night, but the concerns about ticket prices, the sexual overtones of Faun, and racial representations in Schéhérazade that had dominated New York and Boston reviews were either absent, dismissed outright, or even mocked by the Los Angeles press.22 Los Angeles audiences, in short, loved the Ballets Russes.The Ballets Russes dancers and personnel were equally enamored with Hollywood, based on anecdotes that emerged in both trade press and first-hand accounts. Company members visited at least two film studios, where they watched the production process with curiosity and wonder. In the February 1917 issue of The Moving Picture Weekly, a short article described the company's tour of a Universal City studio, where they looked on as director W. W. Beaudine shot one of his many comedy shorts. The article reports, The particular set on which they were working had a living room and a hall room next door. In the hall was a telephone on a table. The [ballet master] remembered he had an appointment and was late, and he requested permission to use the phone. Beaudine's sense of humor immediately came to the surface, and he said, “Why, certainly.” The ballet master sat for quite a long time at the phone and then appealed to the director. He tried again. Finally Beaudine told him it must be that the line was out of order. But the Russian never knew that the telephone cord extended no further than the edge of the carpet and that it was merely a “prop” instrument.23About halfway through Charlie Chaplin's autobiography, there is a similar—albeit far more poignant—account of Nijinsky and other Ballets Russes personnel watching the production of a short film in which Chaplin was acting (see Figure 2). According to Chaplin, Nijinsky “sat behind the camera, watching me at work on a scene which I thought was funny, but he never smiled. . . . Before leaving he came and shook my hands, and in his hollow voice said how much he enjoyed my work and asked if he could come again. ‘Of course,’ I said. For two more days he sat . . . watching me. . . . [A]t the end of each day he would compliment me. ‘Your comedy is balletique, you are a dancer,’ he said.”24The details of both stories are likely exaggerated, and the Moving Picture Weekly tale seems particularly apocryphal: it is difficult to believe that anyone associated with the Ballets Russes was not intimately familiar with the concept of sets and props. Indeed, the story seems designed to tacitly imply that company members embodied a sort of innocence—an exotic primitivity—when it came to modern technology like telephones and film. It also conjures for readers an oft-cited distinction between stage and screen in the ‘teens and early 1920s: film's ability to achieve a sense of realism to which stage productions could only aspire—or, in the case of the Ballets Russes, to which many stage productions did not aspire at all. Yet while highlighting the radical differences between comedy shorts and Schéhérazade, these anecdotes also highlight the intimate connections between dance and silent film. Perhaps most importantly, they point to the shared artistry and imagination of these two projects: the continuity between the experiments in choreography, design, and music that the Ballets Russes was conducting onstage as the troupe reimagined twentieth-century ballet and the experiments in movement, mise-en-scène, and visual language that filmmakers and actors were conducting in studios and on location as they imagined into existence narrative cinema. In these visits by Diaghilev's dancers to film studios, in Chaplin's attendance at the Ballets Russes premiere, in the open-minded and enthusiastic reception of the company in Hollywood and beyond, a reciprocal patronage, engagement, and admiration comes into focus.Though Ballets Russes performances were never recorded, the and of the company made their way into American film culture before the company's United States tours even the cinematic in which Ballets Russes aesthetics and of the company's were most immediately were film By the late ‘teens and throughout the large in as well as throughout the offered a feature film as of a larger audiences were treated to a musical by a of live stage and comedy with short films including films, and by the feature and often an or other musical on the of a as much by as by many were around particular a an or or a particular were of acts believed to with the feature film at hand and even with theater or the of can be film trade and newspapers often only the of by the of the However, a number of male Ballets Russes dancers are more than in the of large in several that they in and dance numbers at these Adolph and also in the two US for example, were both in the worked at the and in New York and at the in Los Angeles, the in the in New York and with in but left the company before the 1916, was the at the in and a dance school in the and both of with in before dance numbers in at the and in New York and the in this is to a It is difficult to the they looked and but it is that many or at least Ballets Russes of the company's at the as did at the a of was included on a in and the dances from Prince are as of offered there in both and Ballets Russes to the United States in in the film an of a at the that it would the of the ballet in associated with or inspired by the Ballets Russes was also frequently integrated into at many film during and in the of the troupe's American According to and of at large in newspapers and film trade of Schéhérazade and Till Eulenspiegel were as on such of to the of a also became a popular musical of these were at accompanied by and choreography that Ballets Russes a at New that Schéhérazade as the for example, the stage was with two and in and and a as a of the I a with a scene with a and all to out the music associated with the Ballets Russes both in and as film was actively in the of film trade These of associated with the company such as and exhibitors on where to and piano of their and praised theater and music for their with A in a December issue of Moving Picture for example, with a letter from an in of of the dances in Prince you me how to the there is no music but popular music in my little The that exhibitors the in New York for As was often the case with in film trade this was likely a by a than the of an the simultaneously and a demand for the company's music, a popular with audiences from the company's and exhibitors the to of it into their programs, if only to with their were the filmic in which the music, choreography, and male dancers of the Ballets Russes continued to be to long after the company left the United States is not surprising. offered an for dance and music with exciting musical and stage acts week in and week likely at the to music associated with the Ballets Russes and to the male were with the company in the American The numbers both Ballets Russes eager to of the company's performances and to see the dancers had often been in the company's film art music and comedy from stage to screen from an experimental film short to a popular dance accompanied by a had been in the orchestra an the of the Ballets Russes that most American all-consuming color, and of and But even as these male dancers on their with the Ballets Russes, also the to with new movement aesthetics and performance the of the both to new and and to more and than the company's own performances had As Adolph wrote in his autobiography, is no better for dancer and public than the motion picture the stages of in New Los Angeles, and beyond, male dancers like and were to their aesthetics, of dance, and themselves as performers, while simultaneously and American with and admiration for Diaghilev's own the music and choreography of the Ballets Russes were reprised in film programs, of the company's aesthetics, and were visible and in a number of feature-length silent films in the late and early the company's male dancers and were most visible in both the press the Ballets Russes tours and on the stages of it was the company's female dancers were most visible onscreen. female Ballets Russes dancers were by studios to in films following the second American tour, often in that a to they had a number of films about fictional Russian often played by American were made during these These or in Ballets the and performances of the company's female dancers. Indeed, while film the company's male dancers a to themselves as and at a from Diaghilev's these feature films female Ballets Russes and time and their and performances became of the company and Russian more it is one of the films a fictional Russian ballerina that most conjures the Ballets Russes onscreen. The which and is was by in as the second Ballets Russes tour was to a by the film in the of Russian dancer and A the film as she to with a ballet company and an The company's director that she is the of a Russian and all is when and with making way for to a the film's narrative and visual there are several references to the Ballets Russes and the that had around the company by 1917. Perhaps most the film troupe's from to for its premiere Diaghilev's of the Ballets Russes in the for its first The director in the film also to was with a and around about sexual and a relationship with Vaslav Nijinsky However, the Ballets Russes is early in the film after several of dance an Ballet Russe Ballet In the that and Ballet by Theodore Kosloff's an extended by a large of dancers. It is not the Ballets Russes's choreography, of course, but the and are not the film and theater music would likely have attempted to highlight the by the with from Those had seen the company would have the and members could quite have it for the and publicity for the film on Kosloff's as evidence of the and of the film's dance if not the film as a A dancer had arrived in New York City to and in and would go on to as dance master of the Metropolitan Company in the Kosloff's with the Russian Ballet were and his by was described as a and Russian engagement for the the trade press was of the most ever made in the motion picture and the for Moving Picture came close to that the film was as as the Ballets other ever such of the art of the Indeed, went so far as to that the stage with Kosloff had into a As performance was and by the presence in the of . . . is of how these of the dance go about in and how they into of dancing These dancing in

African Americans contributed to every aspect of filmmaking and even built an entire industry before being granted full and legal citizenship in the United States. Black cinema in the United States reflected the goals and ambitions of the mainstream film industry while also speaking specifically to African American audiences in the discrete narratives and aesthetic language of various African American communities. However during the silent era, while Black independent filmmaking flourished, Blacks suffered lesser employment in Hollywood as those studios consolidated control of the film industry and allowed for a limited presence of African American actors. In this period, there was also considerable ambivalence about any depiction of racial strife as epitomized by the journey of Richard Wright’s bestselling 1940 novel Native Son to the screen. MGM executives initially suggested to Wright that the film be made with an all-white cast with ethnicity and not race as the source of conflict. When Wright rejected this idea, the film was abandoned altogether by the studio. The film was eventually made in Argentina but was never fully released in the United States despite dramatic editing done in an attempt to satisfy US censors, emblematic of the continuing difficulties facing Black film projects. Still Hollywood studios engaged African American personnel as actors, directors, writers, and skilled tradespeople, even if inconsistently, onward from the era of classic Hollywood (1927–1960s). And despite resistance to screening Black-cast films, films like Cabin in the Sky (dir. Vincente Minelli, 1943); Anna Lucasta (dir. Arnold Laven, 1958); Bright Road (dir. Gerald Mayer, 1953); St. Louis Blues (dir. Allen Reisner, 1958); and Carmen Jones (dir. Otto Preminger, 1954) were made and enjoyed considerable success. As the 1960s ushered in the civil rights era, pioneers like actress Dorothy Dandridge would be joined by Sidney Poitier and Sammy Davis, Jr. Sidney Poitier brought a new dignity to the screen and became the first African American to win an Oscar for Best Actor in 1963 for Lilies of the Field, playing a handyman who aids a group of nuns who are building a chapel. The film Bright Road was based on a short story by Mary Elizabeth Vronman. When she adapted it for the screen, she became the first African American member of the Screen Writers Guild in 1953. However, even with the increasing presence in Hollywood of African American actors, the guilds continued to practice the segregation and discrimination commonplace at the time, thus excluding Blacks from film production roles. The civil rights movement created a demand for new images of African Americans. Actors like Dorothy Dandridge and Sydney Poitier became superstars in limited roles that usually positioned an individual Black character among an otherwise white cast. The increasing demand for innovative Black images would result in two important film movements. The University of California, Los Angeles responded to the Watts Riots by admitting a significant number of African American students to its Film Studies program. This resulted in independent filmmaking that film scholar Clyde Taylor labels “The LA Rebellion filmmakers.” These filmmakers explored every aspect of Black life from Gullah heritage to urban childhood. Equally important was the commercial film movement known as blaxploitation. Blaxploitation began in Hollywood B-studios as a response to the acknowledgement of growing importance of Black audiences and the need for new Black images. Blaxploitation movies were primarily action movies that featured empowered Black men and women fighting for a new recognition as powerful and attractive. When Hollywood realized how lucrative these films were, mainstream studios began to make them as well resulting in a new generation of African American voices both behind and in front of the camera. Hollywood studios realized that they could address newly integrated audiences with films that featured biracial acting teams with film such as 48 Hours (dir. Walter Hill, 1982) and Beverly Hills Cop (dir. Martin Brest, 1984). Independent filmmakers such as Spike Lee and Julie Dash addressed the need for fuller images of Black life, especially in relationship to the biracial buddy film and the developing “hood film” genre. The “hood film” genre reflected blaxploitation’s interest in urbanity and crime and were often also action films. They incorporated the increasingly significant hip hop culture and made superstars of musicians such as O’Shea “Ice Cube” Jackson and Dana “Queen Latifah” Owens. Contemporary African American film reflects a vast variety of images and practices from commercial narrative cinema produced within the Hollywood film industry to independent documentary and experimental film.

Time Bomb from the West: Video, the Advertising Industry, and Consumer Culture in Late-Socialist Czechoslovakia

America on film: representing race, class, gender, and sexuality at the movies

World War I had a dramatic impact on the fashion and film industries in the United States and many of the resulting changes had long-lasting effects on the development of Hollywood’s wardrobe departments. The satirical presentation of French designs in American film from its earliest days related to large and complex cultural issues, including nationalism and economic competition. After the outbreak of World War I in Europe in 1914, the quest for “American-ness” in both film and fashion intensified, eventually affecting film content, as the United States sought not only to capture European film markets and establish the country as the center of the industry, but also to challenge France as the center of the fashion industry.1 US popular culture media’s resulting association of French cinema, “Frenchness,” France, and fashion with immorality, pretension, and bad taste was established in opposition to an increasing focus on American design, which was presented as less commercial, more practical, and, most importantly, informed by “authentic” American values. The “American” values that were being reinvented during this period affected not only what was produced in the film and fashion industries, but also how fashion was presented on the screen. The US film industry benefited greatly from the disruption to the European film industries during the war, continuing its expansion in Europe and increasing its growth in markets outside of that continent.2 Contemporaneously, as the film industry continued its move to the West Coast of America, the foundations were being laid for an expanded industry, based on a more sophisticated, corporate studio system.KeywordsFashion IndustryFilm IndustryFashion DesignAmerican FilmDesign ContestThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgment My great thanks to Akira Iriye, Ernest May, Joseph Nye for their years of extraordinary mentoring, reflected, albeit imperfectly, in this piece and everything I write; to my friend Paul G. Nagle of the William Morris Agency, who has provided me with an incomparable education in the real-world workings of the entertainment industry, and with whom I am coauthoring a biography of producer Samuel Bronston; to Jonathan Rosenberg of Hunter College, Dr. John Trumpbour, and the members of the writers' group organized by Jonathan Soffer of Polytechnic University, all of whom generously offered invaluable editorial suggestions that enhanced this article in numerous ways; to the many interview subjects cited within this piece, who took time to respond to my queries; to Professor Nicholas Cull of USC's Annenberg School for Communications; to Thomas Schatz of the University of Texas and Frank Ninkovich of St. John's University for their general encouragement of my work; and to the staffs of the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills, the US National Archives in College Park, Maryland, the Spanish General Archive of the Civil Administration of the State in Alcala de Henares, and the archive of the Spanish Ministry of Culture in Madrid for their aid and attention throughout my research. Notes Notes 1. See for example Fernando Termis Soto, Renunciando a todo: El Régimen franquista y los Estados Unidos desde 1945 hasta 1963 (Madrid, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Biblioteca Nueva, 2005); Boris N. Liedtke, Embracing a Dictatorship: U.S. relations with Spain, 1945–1953 (New York, St. Martin's, 1998); Arturo Jarque Íñiguez, Queremos esas Bases: El Acercamiento de Estados Unidos a la España de Franco (Alcalá de Henares, Centro de Estudios Norteamericanos, Universidad de Alcalá, 1998); Antonio Marquina Barrio, España en la Politica de Suguridad Occidental: 1939–1986 (Madrid, Servicio de Publicaciones del E.M.E., 1986); R. Richard Rubottom and J. Carter Murphy, Spain and the United States: since World War II (New York, Praeger, 1984); Arthur P. Whitaker, Spain and the Defense of the West: ally and liability (New York, Council on Foreign Relations, 1961). 2. This will be briefly described below. For an in-depth examination, see Neal Moses Rosendorf, 'Be El Caudillo's guest: the Franco regime's quest for rehabilitation and dollars after World War II via the promotion of U.S. tourism to Spain,' Diplomatic History, 30(3), June 2006. 3. See below in text. 4. For example, the future Spanish cult film auteurs Jess Franco and Paul Naschy. Jess Franco was an uncredited extra in Mike Todd's mammoth production Around the World in 80 Days (1956), served as an uncredited production assistant on King Vidor's Solomon and Sheba (1959), and was a second-unit director on Orson Welles' Chimes at Midnight (1966). Paul Naschy had a bit role in Nicholas Ray's films King of Kings (1961) and 55 Days at Peking (1963). (See entries for Jesus Franco and Paul Naschy at the Encylopedia of Fantastic Film and Television Website at http://www.eofftv.com/names/f/fra/franco_jesus_main.htm, as well as the Internet Movie Database entries on Franco and Naschy at http://www.imdb.com). 5. Most notably in Anthony Mann's El Cid, 1961, produced by Samuel Bronston (see below in text). 6. For example in Jean Negulesco's The Pleasure Seekers, 1964. 7. This gigantism ran counter to the period's most forward-looking European cinema trends, the minimalist, low-budget Neo-Realist movement and its more-polished aesthetic successors in Italy and France's Nouvelle Vague. N.B. the late S. Frederick Gronich, the former vice-president of the Motion Picture Export Association of America [MPEA], was insistent that both the Neo-Realist and New Wave movements were underwritten by Hollywood funding, as part of the MPEA's program to meet Italian and French domestic film production quotas. Author interview with S. Frederick Gronich, Los Angeles, CA, 1996. 8. This point is the product of an ongoing colloquy between cultural historian John Trumpbour and the author. To be sure, plenty of grand-scale film-making took place during the early postwar period elsewhere in Europe, especially Britain and Italy. In the latter country, not only were there US epic productions like Quo Vadis, Ben Hur, and Cleopatra; there were also the more modestly budgeted but still visually sumptuous 'peplum' films, such as the two Steve Reeves Hercules film and The 300 Spartans. But the crucial difference was that, as far as we currently know, there was no official government political propaganda agenda at work in Britain or Italy concerning encouraging the production of certain cinematic subject matter. (N.B. I have had a hypothesis lingering in the background of my research for years concerning the British government in particular over some cinematic subject matter: World War II-themed and espionage films (such as those featuring super-spy James Bond) could have been seen by officials as good propaganda to place regularly before American audiences to remind them who their staunchest and most indispensable ally was, especially after the debacle of the Anglo-French-Israeli Suez Canal invasion in 1956, which placed the US and Britain at loggerheads. But I have not had the time to go on the research expedition to London to explore this possibility.) 9. Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Soft Power: the means to success in world politics (New York, Public Affairs, 2004), 5. 10. For a discussion of these anxieties, especially as they pertain to Europe, see for example Victoria de Grazia, Irresistible Empire: America's advance through 20th-century Europe (Cambridge, MA, Belknap Harvard, 2005), Richard H. Pells, Not Like Us: how Europeans have loved, hated, and transformed American culture since World War II (New York, Basic Books, 1997), Geoffrey Nowell-Smith and Stephen Ricci (eds) Hollywood and Europe: economics, culture, national identity 1945–95 (London, British Film Institute Press, 1998); John Trumpbour, Selling Hollywood to the World: U.S. and European struggles for mastery of the global film industry, 1920–1950 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002); Ian Jarvie, Hollywood's Overseas Campaign: the North Atlantic movie trade, 1920–1950 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992). For a general discussion of 'cultural imperialism,' the standard point of entry is John Tomlinson, Cultural Imperialism: a critical introduction (Baltimore, MA, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991). 11. For example, Fritz Lang, David Lean, Milos Forman, and John Woo, who brought with them to Hollywood such cinematic traditions as German Expressionism, English Romanticism, post-war Eastern European anti-authoritarianism, and Hong Kong's hyperkinetic ballets of stylized action. See Neal M. Rosendorf, 'Social and cultural globalization: concepts, history, and America's Role, in Joseph S. Nye and John D. Donahue (eds) Governance in a Globalizing World (Washington, DC, Brookings Institution Press, 2000), 118–119. 12. Most notably that of Columbia Pictures in its defense of Fred Zinnemann's controversial film Behold a Pale Horse (1964). See below in text for a discussion of this episode. 13. One can perceive recent analogous behavior by American media toward the People's Republic of China, including Rupert Murdoch's blocking of the BBC in the mid-1990s from his Star satellite television network, which was being beamed into China, and the aid software companies Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Google and Yahoo have provided to the PRC in its efforts to control domestic access to reading and posting online content. See for example Zhao, ibid.; William Shawcross, 'Rupert Murdoch,' Time, October 25, 1999, online at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/intl/article/0,9171,1107991025-33716-1,00.html; OpenNet Initiative, Internet Filtering in China in 2004–2005: a country study, online at http://www.opennetinitiative.net/studies/china/; Clive Thompson, 'Google's China Problem (and China's Google Problem),' New York Times Magazine, April 23, 2006. 14. The divorcement decrees were designed to strip the major studios outright of approximately half of the more than 3100 theaters they controlled as of 1945. Michael Conant, 'The impact of the Paramount decrees,' in Tino Balio (ed.) The American Film Industry (Madison, WI, University of Wisconsin Press, 1976), 347–348, 362–363. 15. As Business Week noted sardonically about potential movie-goers' viewing options, 'Set owners, millions of them, were not going to pay to see mediocre films; they could watch similar entertainment at home for nothing.' ('A Turn for the Bigger,' Business Week, November 14, 1953, p. 149.) This is not to say that inexpensively produced films, or films about modest subjects, were abandoned by Hollywood. For example, Marty, the story of a lonely Bronx butcher, filmed on a shoestring budget in black and white and scripted by television writer Paddy Chayefsky, won the 1955 Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Screenplay. Tino Balio, United Artists: the company that changed the film industry (Madison, WI, University of Wisconsin Press, 1987), 79–82. 16. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer attempted to carry on its in-house production into the mid-1950s but ultimately had to bow to Hollywood's changed economic climate. Thomas Schatz, The Genius of the System: Hollywood filmmaking in the studio era (New York, Pantheon, 1988), 462. 17. Domestic critics decried the practice as 'runaway production.' 18. Britain's Eady Plan was perhaps the best-known and most lucrative of these schemes. 19. For a full discussion of the respective merits and programs of these overseas destinations for Hollywood production, see Neal Moses Rosendorf, The life and times of Samuel Bronston, builder of 'Hollywood in Madrid'; a study in the international scope and influence of American popular culture, Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 2000, chapter 5: 'Runaways, independents and blockbusters: Hollywood's shift toward foreign movie production in the 1950's and 1960's.' 20. See Rosendorf, 'Be El Caudillo's Guest,' passim. 21. 'Anteproyecto de Plan Nacional de Turismo,' July 1952, p. 2, section 49.02, box 14415, general heading 'Cultura,' General Archive of the Civil Administration of the State, Alcala de Henares, Spain [General Archive Alcala]. 22. Carlos F. Heredero, Las Huellas del Tiempo: Cine espanol, 1951–1961 (Valencia, Archivo de la Filmoteca de la Generalitat Valenciana, 1993), 29. 23. Trumpbour, passim. 24. US Embassy, Madrid to State Department, January 8, 1963, 'Efforts of Motion Picture Export Association of America to Persuade Spanish Government to Liberalize Restrictions on Distribution of United States Motion Pictures,' 852.452/1-863, Record Group 59, US Department of State Central Files [RG 59], US National Archives, College Park, Maryland [NA]. 25. 'Borrador Previo para un Estudio Sobre Fines y Medios de la Propaganda de Espana en el Exterior,' 'Borrador Previo para un Estudio Sobre Fines y Medios de la Propaganda de Espana en el Exterior,' dated August 1960, p. 12, in box 28353, section 49.06, heading 'Cultura,' General Archive Alcala. 26. Paramount vigorously denied both the rumors and that it had subsequently pulled its punches in the final version—all the studio would admit to was that it had given a script draft to the Spanish Consul in San Francisco, whose suggestions for revisions, Paramount claimed, had been ignored utterly. ('Off the Hollywood Wire,' New York Times, February 14, 1943, in 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' clipping file, MHL. However, while there is no archival substantiation to date of State Department pressure on the producers, one reviewer offered this assessment at the time of the film's release: 'How about the fascists—there was all that talk about Franco interference with the script—do the fascists ever get mentioned? Ans[wer:] Never; every place the word 'fascist' appeared in [screenwriter] Dudley Nichols' script, Paramount substituted the word 'Nationalist.' Furthermore, they call the Loyalists 'Republicans' all the way through it, too so it's all pretty confusing.' Still, even with evident tampering, 'The net effect of 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' can scarcely be called pro-Franco,' the reviewer conceded. (John T. McManus, 'The Tongue-Tied 'Bell' Tolls Dully,' PM Reviews, July 15, 1943, in 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' clipping file, MHL.) In an ironic coda, when Hilton Hotels opened the Castellana Hilton in Madrid in 1953, one of the American celebrities on hand for the dedication festivities was Gary Cooper, who had portrayed the anti-fascist Robert Jordan in For Whom the Bell Tolls a decade earlier. See 'Old Cowhand,' Time, July 27, 1953, p. 17. 27. 'Spanish Censure Hollywood Films: Academy of Medicine Also Finds Variety of Faults in American Psychiatry Methods,' Los Angeles Times, January 23, 1950, p. 28, in 'Spain—Motion Picture Industry 1950s' file, Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences [MHL], Beverly Hills, CA. 28. Paul Preston, Franco: a biography (New York, Basic Books, 1994), 417–418; Aurora Bosch and M. Fernanda del Rincón, Dreams in a dictatorship: Hollywood and Franco's Spain, 1939–1956, in Reinhold Wagnleitner and Elaine Tyler May (eds) 'Here, There and Everywhere': the foreign politics of American popular culture (Hanover, NH, and London, University Press of New England, 2000), 100. N.B. While the chapter cited in the latter volume contains some useful information on the Franco regime's policy concerning Hollywood films that sought Spanish distribution, it says nothing about Hollywood productions in Spain or the regime's policies toward them. 29. Heredero, 20. 30. See for example memorandum from the US Embassy, Madrid to the State Department, 'Motion Picture Association of America: Distribution of American Films in Spain,' dated November 14, 1957; memorandum from US Embassy, Madrid to State Department, 'MOTION PICTURES [sic]; Government Measures to Support Spanish Motion Picture Industry', dated March 11, 1958; memorandum from US Embassy, Madrid to State Department, 'New Agreement Between the Spanish Government and the Motion Picture Export Association of America, Inc. (MPEAA),' dated March 26, 1959, all in folder, 852.452/1-3056, box 4621, RG 59, NA; Antonio Valles Copeiro del Villar, Historia de la Politica de Fomento del Cine espanol (Valencia, Filmoteca, Generalitat Valenciana, Institut Valencia d'Arts Esceniques, Cinematografia i Musica, Conselleria de Cultura, Educacio i Ciencia, 1992), 72. 31. Report from American Embassy, Madrid, to US Department of State, 'The Motion Picture Industry in Spain,' dated February 8, 1960, p. 4, in folder 852.44/2-2660, Box 2583, RG 59, NA. 32. Report from American Embassy, Madrid, to US Department of State, 'The Motion Picture Industry in Spain,' dated February 8, 1960, p. 22. 33. Report from American Embassy, Madrid, to US Department of State, 'The Motion Picture Industry in Spain,' dated February 8, 1960, p. 34. 34. The one unalloyed masterpiece of Spanish cinema during this period was Luis Bunuel's Viridiana (1960), in which the Franco regime got far more than it had bargained for when it momentarily welcomed back the renowned director from his Mexican exile and received a brilliant exercise in anti-Catholic blasphemy in return. The film, which among other things depicts the repeated rape of a saintly nun, would win the Palm d'Or at Cannes, which theoretically might burnish Spain's reputation as the source of quality motion pictures. The regime, which fashioned itself as the defender of the Catholic Church, did not see it that way and banned the film and banished the film-maker. 35. Letter from Gwynne Ornstein (wife of George Ornstein and daughter of Mary Pickford) to Mary Pickford, January 11, 1961, in folder, 'Family: Gwynne and Bud Ornstein, #1', Mary Pickford Collection, Herrick Special Collections, MHL; 'Bud Ornstein Gets Honor From Spain,' Hollywood Reporter, May 9, 1968, 'George Ornstein' clipping file, MHL. Ornstein would later transfer to London, where, as UA's head of European operations, he would help shepherd both the early James Bond films and the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night into production. 36. For the history of United Artists, see Balio, United Artists. 37. John Cabrera, an Anglo-Spanish cinematographer who was then employed by Technicolor in the UK and assigned to Decameron Nights, recalls that the film crew was overwhelmingly British, with a few Spaniards working in minor technical positions; Spanish production facilities in the early 1950s were of a low quality, and Spanish technicians 'were behind the times.' Author interview via telephone with John Cabrera, Jan. 2006. 38. Ibid. 39. 'Spanish Film Market Expanding—Fregonese,' Hollywood Reporter, April 1, 1954, in 'Spain—Motion Picture Industry' file, MHL. 40. Untitled New York Times, August 1, 1954, in the clipping file, MHL. on in an was and had even offered the of his for But still on a New This Week Magazine, 4, both in the clipping file, MHL. from of of Industry and to the of and Ministry of and January in the file, Ministry of all Spanish government in by of being in Spain by Ornstein in the folder, Robert Collection, Arts Special Collections, Los Angeles, CA. February 1955 there was placed before the at the Madrid, the production of Robert the will later in El and in Spain February 25, in the clipping file, in Spain,' Film in Picture Industry' clipping file, MHL. for November 14, in the clipping file, MHL. New York Times, April for November 14, for November 14, in Spain for American Hollywood Reporter, November in 'Spain—Motion Picture Industry MHL. of article by 'For of in folder, box 14, Collection, Library Special Collections, University of Los Angeles, CA. Letter from to General of and Ministry of and in and file, Ministry of from March 9, 1956, in and file, Ministry of from of Ministry of Industry and to the General of and Ministry of and January 1956, in and file, Ministry of Letter from the of and to the of the March 15, 1956, in and file, Ministry of in by in Spain,' October 1956, in and the clipping file, MHL. from the General of and to the of and April 27, 1956, in and file, Ministry of y el y de April in and file, Ministry of y April in and file, Ministry of y from the General of and to the Films May 25, 1956, in and file, Ministry of would be to script on one of his most films, the (1959), in to meet with the Franco regime's This motion which was filmed on in depicts the of to from a by a In to a Spanish for the film, in Spanish to which the regime on the that it Catholic 'The Motion Picture Industry in Spain,' from US Embassy, Madrid, to the US Department of State, February 8, 1960, in folder box 2583, RG 59, NA. from Spanish de June in and file, Ministry of telephone with of the 1996. the of his film to the Hollywood by writer his in a Letter from George Ornstein to Mary Pickford, May 1959, in folder, 'Family: Gwynne and Bud Ornstein, #1', Mary Pickford Collection, Special Collections, MHL. N.B. Anthony was the director of producer with 'For the of they had not for Spain and the 1960, p. 4, in file, Film Time, April 1959, p. from George Ornstein to the Ministry of and in and file, Ministry of and For in May 27, 1959, to from George Ornstein, United to General of and June 1959, in and file, Ministry of Letter from George Ornstein, United to General of and June 1959, in and file, Ministry of George The Film June 9, 1960, in 'George Ornstein' file, MHL. 'The of the New York Times, April in clipping file, MHL. James the US State Department on in when the producer sought in the United from James to American June 28, in folder, James D. Park, 72. Bronston to Paul for 23, in Paul clipping file, Hollywood Reporter, November 1958; to Los Angeles Times, October 27, all in Paul clipping file, MHL; of and John Paul October in John Paul Inc. and Thomas J. US of New York November National Archives and Administration of as by 23, 1953, in of clipping file, MHL. from the as noted 'runaway took place within which with a film of which foreign could John Author interview with Paul Jr., former vice-president of Samuel Bronston CA, Paul Jr., 'The Madrid Movie of of M. 1, of Frederick M. October both in John Paul Inc. and Thomas J. November John Franco this at in part as a the to the Spanish whom he John Preston, in Paul Movie by New York Times, August 1958; Paul Los Angeles Times both in Paul film clipping MHL. by Paul in Paul film clipping MHL. Bronston August 9, clipping file, Variety Los Angeles, thanks to Paul G. Nagle of the William Morris Agency, with whom I am a biography of Samuel Bronston of Texas Press, in for his aid in clipping of John J. the of in the United States from to at S. January 1960, in clipping file, Variety of see and New August p. see as well to U.S. for for Italian Motion Picture August p. which the Italian to to in Industry clipping folder, MHL.) see 'Hollywood for a be Motion Picture October 2, p. by October both in Industry clipping folder, MHL. See 1. in D. would to Spain and be a with See in de folder, Archives of the Ministry of Author Bronston CA, Dr. William Bronston CA, and Bronston London, 1996. John would in through the the most in Catholic in among them the of the for the of would be in by John's Paul in on the of the to online at The King of Kings script portrayed and as to from while was in historian the of the who were a in at the time of Ministry (see A of the (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, of Distribution to be by Hollywood Reporter, April 1, 1960, in clipping file, MHL; John shepherd of the world John would Franco's at the of the in the would ultimately

Reviewed by: Unexpected Alliances: Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea by Young-a Park Jiyeon Kang (bio) Unexpected Alliances: Independent Filmmakers, the State, and the Film Industry in Postauthoritarian South Korea, by Young-a Park. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014. 224pages, notes, bibliography, filmography, index. $39.95 cloth. Young-a Park’s Unexpected Alliances is a rich ethnographic study exploring how formerly radical film activists during South Korea’s authoritarian era turned into “independent filmmakers” after democratization—taken up as symbols of political legitimacy and cultural capital in a democratic, market-driven, globalizing Korea. The “unexpected alliances” that these filmmakers forged with new civilian governments, the growing cultural industry, and a middle-class audience illuminate the complex and intimate texture of the political and cultural transformation of radical activism in the post-authoritarian era. For film scholars, this work offers the sociohistorical formation of the Korean “independent film” (dongnip yongìhwa) in the 1990s and describes the fascinating connection between the radical movement tradition and the emergence of a Korean cinema of diverse content and style, which later constituted an important wing of the global hallyu (Korean wave). More broadly, scholars of contemporary Korea will find an insightful analysis of the reform era (Kim Dae-Jung, 1998–2003, and Roh Moo-hyun, 2003–8) and the lasting influence of democratic struggle in the postauthoritarian culture and politics of Korea. Methodologically, Park follows a collective of activist filmmakers, KIFA, from 2000 to 2013, and in doing so she zooms in on a number of individuals, historical junctures, and spaces. The reader is invited to observe KIFA members who continue to pursue social justice goals, other members who turned into independent auteurs, and yet others who joined the collective later not for activism but for the resources and network necessary to enter the film industry. She studies the organizational dynamics and tensions between these individuals and the collective by examining important scenes of cultural politics, including the 1990s screen-quota movement, feminist filmmakers in the collective, and the fervor over international film festivals. The introduction situates the project in the historical context of the reform era. Challenging the popular notion that the former activists of “Generation 386” were “co-opted” in postauthoritarian Korea, Park instead proposes a complex interplay with the civilian governments that sought legitimacy through expanding the boundaries of expression, with the corporate conglomerates that seized the new film industry, and with an expanding middle class searching for taste and culture. The first two chapters focus on the transformation of activist film during the authoritarian era into “independent film” after democratization [End Page 111] in 1987. Chapter 1, “Film Activism,” analyzes the politics and aesthetics of film activism as a wing of the radical anti-authoritarian struggle—a homogeneous community of producers and viewers who shared the experience of state oppression. Chapter 2, “Independent Film,” illuminates the sociopolitical changes that reconfigured these dissident film activists into a new type of cultural producer. The civilian state not only relaxed censorship but rallied filmmakers both as programmers of newly installed film festivals and as high-ranking officials in government institutions. At the same time, corporate conglomerates sponsored the booming film industry of the 1990s and invited filmmakers into new art centers that catered to viewers in the expanding middle class. These changing conditions explain the establishment of the uniquely Korean “independent film,” which cannot be described as simply a traditional art-house film. This chapter offers a social account of how Korean independent film came about, positioning filmmakers as power brokers in negotiations with the state, as new contributors of capital, and as purveyors of elite cultural venues. Chapter 3, “Beating Titanic,” follows up on this by showing how independent filmmakers became a symbol of cultural nationalism against Hollywood. During late-1990s protests over American pressure to open up the Korean film market, KIFA mobilized its social movement network and style in concert with the old agenda of nationalism. Chapter 4 offers a fascinating picture of the complex cultural power of the independent film collective. Here, Park follows two female filmmakers who joined KIFA to acquire the social capital to survive in the rigidly hierarchical and...

The artistic presentation of Nigerian actors and actresses is gaining better acclaim and recognition across the film industry both in Nigeria and Africa. Nollywood films are recognised because of their creative performance in the film industry when compared with the performance of other film industries in Africa. The continuous exposure of Nollywood actors and actresses to prominent actors and actresses from across the world especially Hollywood and Bollywood film industries has helped actors and actresses in Nollywood to diversify their artistic qualities professionally. Despite Nollywood success flanked by Nigerians actor and actress in home videos and across films produced in Africa more has to be done in terms of production, film content, quality and originality. Today Nollywood as a film industry with highly rated actors and actresses are seen as a platform for modelling the future and prospect of film making in Africa especially as the youths are seeking to make career in the performing art industry. As such, Nollywood will continue to be a point of reference for other African film makers and industries on the continent when seeking for artistic display and performances.

OCTOBER 128, Spring 2009, pp. 51–68. © 2009 October Magazine, Ltd. and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Throughout the twentieth century, Europe was one of the principal markets for Hollywood films. The popularity of American-made films represented a threat to the financial health—to the very viability—of national film industries. During World War II, as a measure of protection, American films were banned in some European countries. In Italy, the restricted distribution of American films started in 1938 and ended at the conclusion of World War II. Italy then became one of the largest foreign markets for the American film industry, with 80 percent of Italian cinemas screening American films.1 Five t imes as many films were imported than were exported from Italy to the US.2 For the American production companies seeking to optimize the return on their investments, weakening the competition was the best way to make profits.3 This obviously created a degree of financial distress for the Italian film industry. I wish first to dispel the myth that the flooding of Hollywood films into postwar Italy inhibited the flourishing of its national film industry.4 I shall go on to show that certain types of regional comedies were produced in response to the American cinematic invasion of Italy, and I will examine the way in which they were perceived in relation to the Hollywood film industry. The films that attracted the most people to the box office and on which I shall focus are Luigi Comencini’s

In China the film market is gaining importance from the cultural and economic point of view not only at national level, but also for foreign producers. The Chinese box office and film admissions are growing year after year and Chinese film and related companies are becoming more and more strong. This trend is due to many factors someone more general as family incomes growth, people flows from countryside to towns, urban development and big commercial center dissemination. In that framework the film industry was pushed by public policies toward cultural and creative industries development. But also the desire of the Government to improve the Chinese soft power played an important role in helping Chinese companies to «go out» and try to play in the global film market. The need to renew cultural and social cohesion and collective identity was a third component that put the film industry in the center of the cultural industries field. The Hollywood film industry in that changing Chinese market is playing an important role, but bring also some problems that are described in the article.

New York City has played a vital role in the history of American cinema. This bibliography draws together divergent strands of scholarship that approach the topic of New York City and cinema from multiple perspectives. The iconic cityscapes and distinctive cultural milieux of New York have provided both setting and subject matter for countless movies, whether filmed on location or recreated in Hollywood studios. There is a significant body of work that addresses New York onscreen, analyzing urban narratives and Genres and the use of locations, architecture, and specific areas of the city. This work has explored how cinema has engaged with the changing nature of New York over time, and investigated the representation of the city’s neighborhoods and ethnic groups. An important subsection of this scholarship pursues New York’s special relationship with particular film genres, such as The City Symphony, Musicals, Film Noir, and the Romantic Comedy. In the critical literature, New York has frequently been associated with the work of specific directors, including Sidney Lumet, Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, and Spike Lee, as well as key figures in experimental film such as Shirley Clarke, Jonas Mekas, and Andy Warhol. New York has also been an important site for film production and exhibition. Although the American film industry has been predominantly based in Southern California since the 1910s, New York has always been Hollywood’s second city. In the studio era, it was home to the studios’ corporate headquarters and a string of highly profitable first-run theatres. Although filming in the city has waxed and waned, New York has always played an influential role as a regional production hub, a source of talent, and a center for film criticism. The city can claim a pivotal role in the development of early cinema, and it therefore holds a privileged place in histories of early film production and exhibition. New York has also operated in multiple ways as a counterpoint to Hollywood and a crucible for independent or alternative film culture. Experimental filmmaking has flourished in New York, especially in the mid-20th century, and the city has long operated as a vital hub for independent distribution as well as fostering a network of underground and nontheatrical exhibition spaces. This is addressed in intersecting bodies of work on experimental and independent film, and on New York Film Culture. There is now an extensive critical literature on the wider relationship between cinema and the city (see the separate Oxford Bibliographies in Cinema and Media Studies article The City in Film by Pamela Robertson Wojcik for a more general cinema-city bibliography). This bibliography only includes sources that focus (in whole or in part) on New York City in particular.