The Death of Classical Cinema: Hitchcock, Lang Minnelli

Abstract

From David Bordwell to Gilles Deleuze and beyond, the nature of classical cinema has long been debated by film theorists, and whatever differences there are, many constants crop up in the discourse – organic action-narrative, empathic stardom, readable mise-en-scene, match cuts, continuity editing, climactic plot resolution. Hollywood is usually taken to be the motor force in world cinema with its veneration of the First Five Minutes and its three-act melodramas cued in as the populist, New World answer to five-act tragedy. The expiry date too has a loose consensus. It tends to hover around 1960, give or take a few years either way. This new study by Joe McElhaney does little to challenge any of this but does try, as its title suggests, to pinpoint the exact ‘what’ and ‘why’ of that expiry. It is a fascinating exploration of something often taken for granted. Does the use of the word ‘death’ exaggerate the transition from the classical to the modern? Is there such a transition at all? In both cases, the banal answer is yes and no. There was some vital fluidity in the transition, but at the same time there were sharp tears in the fabric of the well-made film, a shredding and ripping apart as modernist syndromes dispensed enigma and shock in equal measure.