Slide 1

Assignment 5 25% 2,500 words In interview, John Sayles has described Lone Star as a story about borders. Use the following key concepts genre, narrative (incl. point- of-view), mise-en-scene (incl. performance), editing and sound to discuss the film as a border film. This final assignment is designed to encourage you to bring together your skills of film analysis (and your familiarity and understanding of the key concepts covered on the course) in order to produce a reading of Lone Star (Sayles, US, 1996). For this assignment we will be marking strictly on referencing so consult the student handbook if you are unsure about this. We will also penalize poor spelling and punctuation so please proof read carefully. Submission date: Sunday 19 th of April by 23:55. Slide 2 Post-classical Hollywood, or what happens next Week 8 Slide 3 The 1950s: key moments 1945: Atomic bomb dropped on Japan and the end of WWII. 1948: The Paramount Decrees. 1950: President Truman approves production of the hydrogen bomb. US forces sent to Korea. 1951: transcontinental TV (Trumans speech) 1953: The Rosenbergs are executed for spying for the Soviet Union. 1953: Korean War ends. 1954: Senator McCarthy holds televised hearings against alleged communism in the army. 1954: Supreme Court rules racial segregation in schools unconstitutional. 1955: Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on an Alabama bus. AFL-CIO is a labor organization with 15 million members. Jonas Salk develops the vaccine for polio. 1956: Work begins on the interstate highway system. 1958: First US satellite, Explorer I, successfully orbits the earth. National Airlines run the first passenger service between NYC & Miami. Alaska and Hawaii become the 49 th and 50 th states. Slide 4 The 1948 US Supreme Court ruling against the monopoly of the Big Five (that controlled 90% of the US film market). Studios forced to sell off their exhibition outlets: dismantling the oligopolys vertical integration. Beginning of the restructuring of the studio system to allow greater competition (e.g. Monogram and Republic entered the market alongside UA, Columbia, and Universal). Gradual process: the studio system structure remained more or less intact until 1960. The Paramount Decree Slide 5 The package-unit system Dispersing the sources of labour and means of production: decentralization. A loose, short film-by-film arrangement. Directors, producers, and stars are no longer owned by the studios. They were hired on a film-by-film basis. Empowering film stars. Slide 6 1941 - 379 1963 - 142 Package unit = focusing resources on fewer films. While relations shifted within the industry as a result of the Paramount case, the actual power remained in the hands of more or less the same companies as had held it for the past few decades (Allen Michael, Contemporary US Cinema) Slide 7 A number of other factors contributed to changes in Hollywood in the 1950s Slide 8 The first live transcontinental television program: President Harry Truman opens the Japanese Peace Conference in San Francisco on Sept. 4, 1951 1946: 10,000 units at $385 each Early 50s: 500 local TV channels; massive take- up on a national scale. Slide 9 Reclaiming the cinematic 1953: Cinema-Scope (and other widescreen formats) 1955: 62% of films in colour Adaptation 1951: Columbia establishes Screen Gems, a TV production company. 1954: Disney, Warner Brothers contracted to produce for ABC. Films released for TV. Slide 10 Karl Freund with Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz of I Love Lucy (1951-57) Slide 11 318.9 million Slide 12 After WWII Post-war baby boom (1946-1964). Baby boomers (+ 76 million babies). WWII leads to social changes: women entering the workplace. Increased prosperity. Consumer power; new patterns of consumption; new consumer demographics. Slide 13 Teen market Independent companies (AIP), making tailored products for teenagers. Drive-ins. Exploitation films. From exploitation to counter- culture to the family films of the 1980s. Slide 14 I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957) Slide 15 Drive-ins 3000 opened between 1948-55. Peak popularity: 1950 & early 60s. The rise of the automobile and suburbia as an American symbol. Family-friendly. Teen-friendly. Derided as morally corrupt (passion pit). Slide 16 Rebel without a Cause (Ray, 1955) Slide 17 McCarthyism Slide 18 The Code under pressure 1952: film is entitled to First Amendment protection. Paramount Decree helps dissolve the Code due to influx of independent cinemas and foreign films. Premingers films defied the Code throughout the 50s. Slide 19 Who killed the Code? Slide 20 1946: 86 million 1953: 42 million 1961: 30 million 1971: 16 million Average weekly attendance : Hollywood in decline: Slide 21 Reasons for Hollywoods decline Paramount decrees (dispersal of the industry Growth of suburbia Rise of television Youth audience End of the Production Code signals the end of social/moral consensus (audience fragmentation) and of consensus cinema. Slide 22 What comes next? Weeks class on new Hollywood