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DAVID THORBURN: I want
to begin by asking
what seems an obvious
question, what is film?
I used to sometimes present it
by saying, film as, dot, dot,
dot.
Film as what?
And it may be surprising
to you, but one way
we could think about
film is as chemistry.
Now how could that make sense?
Why would it make sense to think
of film as a form of chemistry?
What this film got
to do with chemistry?
In fact it's a very
fundamental relation.
This is also true of still
photography, as well as movies.
But what's the process
by which they're made?
Yes.
AUDIENCE: Film really
comes together from a--
DAVID THORBURN: Speak
loudly so everybody can.
AUDIENCE: Film is made up of
a lot of different components.
You have your lighting,
your scene, your character.
And that all has to come
together to make film.
Without even on
component of it, you're
losing part of the experience.
DAVID THORBURN: You're
right about that.
But that's a more general
answer than I wanted.
There's something
much more dramatically
fundamental about the
way, about the connection
between chemistry and movies.
What is it?
AUDIENCE: The interaction
between the audience and.
DAVID THORBURN: It
doesn't have to do
with the experience of movies.
Come on.
It's technical.
AUDIENCE: Chemistry
had to be developed
before you could have it.
DAVID THORBURN: It
depends on chemistry.
Film is a form of
applied chemistry.
Why?
Of course you're right.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE].
DAVID THORBURN: Yes.
What is a film?
There are certain emulsions that
are put on piece of celluloid.
Light actually has to
normally-- it can be any light,
but sunlight is best--
act, interacting
with those emulsions,
causes the image to appear.
The actual, fundamental
process by which film
is physically created
is a chemical process.
And if you reflect
on for a moment,
one of the things
this suggests is
that then when we think about
film in a much larger sense,
in the film as we experience
in theaters, film,
as an engine of
economic development,
as a provider of jobs,
and careers, and so forth.
What we could say is that it
is a form of applied chemistry
that is among the most
profound uses of chemistry
that humankind has ever found.
Because if you think about the
impact of movies on human life,
it is now a global phenomenon.
Is there any culture
that is free of movies?
Maybe there are
Taliban cultures that
dream of being free of movies.
But to my knowledge there's
no culture in the world now
that's completely
oblivious to film.
It's become a global phenomenon.
And it's more than
a century old.
It is the distinctive,
narrative form
of the 20th century, the
signature form of storytelling
for the 20th century.
All of it derives from this
chemical reaction, when
the emulsions are
subjected to light,
the image appears
on the celluloid.
There are even theoreticians
of movies who have suggested
that there's a fundamental break
of a kind that is subliminal,
unless obvious to many people.
But it's fundamental to
our experience of text
when we moved from real film
to digital forms of filmmaking.
Because nature is
eliminated in digital form.
There's something
natural, and in fact slow,
about the way when
light works on those
emulsions to bring
the images up.
And those of you who are
amateur photographers
will know that you can control
the clarity or the blurriness
of the image, the darkest of the
lightness of the image, by how
long you leave the film
paper in the emulsions.
You can control it,
and still photographers
and creative movie
directors actually
use those use that
chemical principle in order
to create certain
kinds of effects.
So one way to think
about movies is
to think of it as a form
of applied chemistry.
And one of the most
profound uses of chemistry
that we could imagine
in terms of its impact
on society, in terms of
the vast number of people
who have been affected,
and continue to be
affected by this invention.
So film is a form of chemistry.
What I'm suggesting, these
different framings of what film
is, these different frameworks
for understanding film.
One thing I'm trying
to do is to suggest
some of the ways in which
we might understand film
apart from what we're going
to be doing in this course.
Now I don't know if
one could justify
persuading a
professor of chemistry
to teach a course in film.
That might be going too far.
But certain broad
principles of photography,
and how they are linked to
other photochemical processes,
might very well make a quite
exciting and complicated course
in the chemistry department.
One can also think of film
simply in a historical sense,
certainly, as a kind of novelty.
When film first
appeared in the world,
and especially in
the United States,
it was seen as a novelty that
caused its first appearance
to take place in places
like penny arcades.
Where people went to experience
other kinds of public novelties
as well.
there would be machines
in these penny arcades
that would guess you're weight.
And you put a penny
in, if the machine
was right it kept your penny,
if the machine was wrong would
give your penny back.
There were fortune
telling machines
in these penny arcades.
In some of the more sleazy ones
there were live peep shows.
Strip shows of various
moderate kinds.
And of course, even at
the very early stages,
film begin to replicate
those live performances.
There were very trivial
forms of burlesque
began to-- women
stripping-- I don't think
there were any male strippers in
this late Victorian era-- began
to appear in the
penny arcades as well.
So one could say that film
in its earliest stages
was also just a kind of novelty
item, like a PEZ dispenser
or some equivalent
kind of silly thing,
or baseball cards, or football
cards, that kind of thing.
More profoundly of course,
we could think of film
from another [INAUDIBLE],
a manufactured object.
And this identity of film
is incredibly important.
It's again, easy
for us to forget,
because when we go
to the movies today,
we see these complex
and overwhelming--
we have these complex and
overwhelming audiovisual
experiences.
And we might tend to
forget what in fact is
the sort of industrial base
on which movies were made
at a relatively early stage.
Part of what we want at least
to be aware of in our course,
even though we won't
study it systematically,
is the fact that the
movies, the film,
is one of the first
significant commodities
to become a mass-produced item.
And in fact, the
same principles that
led to another
manufacturing miracle
that we associate with the late
19th and early 20th century--
the automobile-- the
same principles that
went to the production
of the automobile
also worked in the
production of film.
And in fact, both film
and the automobile
could be seen as prototypical
instances of this fundamentally
defining industrial capitalist
behavior, capitalist activity,
which is mass production.
And especially, what does
mass production depend upon?
The specialization of labor.
The rationalizing
of the production
process into smaller,
and smaller units.
So that particular
people can do it quickly,
and you can create essentially
an assembly line production.
You can create mass production.
I still find it very inspiring
and important, significant,
the notion that film was
created on an assembly line,
just like toasters
or automobiles.
Seems a shocking and
important insight.
Because they're still
in some fundamental way
produced like this.
I don't mean that the same
movie studios are churning out
500 movies a year, which
is what was churned out
during the great era of
the Hollywood Studios,
from around 1930 through
the end of the 1940s.
But the fact is the
production of movies,
the manufacture of movies still
depends on these principles
of the specialization of labor.
And I'm not simply talking
about the way in which we
have actors, and directors, and
cinematographers, and grips,
and best boys, and set dressers,
and makeup people, and script
writers, and so forth.
All are relevant to this.
But I'm also talking about
the way in which movies, still
to this day, are divided in
their production principles
in three stages, a
pre-production phase,
a production phase, and
a post-production phase.
And there are specialists at
each level, on each phase.
And a vast army of
specialist is hired
to handle the problems
that are connected
to the production of
every single film.
So we can think of films as a
really distinctive, signature,
instance of what mass
production is capable of.
OK.
So we can say that the film
is a manufactured object.
And not just a
manufactured object,
but a product of
mass production,
a product of essentially,
assembly line principles.
And what makes this
so remarkable to me,
still an idea that I have
trouble fully absorbing
is that the mass-produced
item that we're
talking about, unlike a
toaster or even an automobile,
managed so fully to permeate
our society and our world,
that it's infiltrated
ourselves even into our dreams
and our fantasy life.
And finally, another
way to think about film,
and I'm going to sort
of enlarge in that.
And this is a way
we'll be talking
about quite a lot in the
course of our discussions
in this semester.
We can say that film, after
it's elaborated, and established
itself in culture, it becomes
a fundamental social form,
a fundamental social formation.
And experienced,
widely practiced,
widely indulged in by
a vast number of people
in the society.
So that one could
say for example,
toasters are important,
but they don't
generate the kind
of social rituals
that are involved in
going to the movies,
and of identifying
with movie stars,
and of generating
fans surround movies,
and ancillary, complex
activities that we associate
with movie going.
And in fact, one might say that
the great era of movie going
is already gone.
That it was really in the
era of the Hollywood Studios
when they were before the
internet and before television.
So we could also think of
the film as a social form.
Not when it first appears,
when it's just a novelty,
but after it goes
through various phases.
When it embeds itself into the
society the way the movies did,
it becomes a kind
of social form.
And one might
almost argue that it
becomes one of the most
important social forms
in the society because
it's so widely shared.
Most social activities
in the society
are relatively limited in the
circle of people they involve.
Even the number of
automobile drivers
is controlled in a way that
is contained or demarcated
in a way that's less true.
Movies appeal to children
as well as adults.
And from there
very beginning this
has been true of
movies, especially
in the United States.
They've appealed across lines
of social stratification,
across differences of gender,
across differences of age,
across differences of race.
There's one book on the film,
a rather overly optimistic one
that simplifies the pernicious
or sinister aspect of movies
called "Film --
The Democratic Art.
And you can understand,
even though I
think it's a simplification,
why that's an interesting way
to think about movies.
Because it reached so widely
across so many social barriers.
In that sense, film
was the narrative form
that reached a wider audience
than any other narrative
system that had been invented
by human beings before it.
What's one explanation for why
film would be so appealing,
be even more appealing
than printed narrative?
It also is connected
to why the movies grew
so quickly in their infancy.
Why they went from
being a novelty
to being an embedded
social form so quickly.
You probably know
what the answer is.
AUDIENCE: That more people
could see than could read.
DAVID THORBURN: Yes, that's
the real answer, isn't it.
That it's mostly
a visual medium.
It doesn't depend on
language to the same degree.
And especially
silent film, which
did not depend-- which it
did depend on language,
it used intertitles
and things, but it
depended on language minimally.
Why was this important?
Because when the film was in
its infancy, there was also--
and this was a fundamental,
enabling condition
for the development
of movies-- there
was also in the United
States a vast and growing
immigrant population in all the
major cities, but especially
Chicago, New York, some
of the other larger,
industrial cities.
And this new immigrant
population, which many of them
didn't know English at
all, had only a little bit
of money, disposable income,
but they needed entertainment.
And the silent film was
the perfect answer to this.
The film, relatively quickly
becomes a profoundly embedded
social form.
To give you some sense
of how monumental,
and how central,
how important this
was in American society, what
I can just simply remind you of
is that for most of the
period in which the Hollywood
Studios were operating at
full power, roughly the period
from the advent of sound
film in the late '20s,
until the late '40s when
television intervened,
even though there's a period
when television is around
when the movie studios
retain something
of their old character,
but they begin
to decline without fully
realizing if, that occurs
in the mid '50s sometime.
So in the period from
roughly 1930 to say,
1955, to be crude about it.
In this period, the vast
majority of Americans
went to the movies
every single week.
Think about that,
every single week.
This was before television,
which supplanted
that quality of movies.
In 1947 or 1948, 80 million
Americans went to the movies
every week, every week.
That was like 2/3 of the
population at that time.
So it was near to being
a universal experience.
And not just the
universal experience
that occurred occasionally,
but a routine experience.
An experience that families,
and individuals, and young,
and old, had regularly, as a
fundamental part of their life,
as a part of their
ordinary experience.
That's what I mean by
an embedded social form.
That's an immensely important
fact about the movies,
and especially about
the classic movies.
And when that feature, the
idea of the movies as something
routine in people's
lives, something
they did regularly,
not occasionally.
When that feature
disappears, it disappears
in part because of the impact
of television on society.
Television's in
the house, so it's
a lot easier to
retain, to establish
an habitual relation
to television
than it is to the movie.
So the advent of
this new technology
changed movies relation
to its audience.
And this is the
fact that to which
again we will return
again, and again.
So we could also frame
movies in other ways.
But these framings I think,
are helpful to us in part
to remind us of some things
that I'm not going to do.
One could certainly
imagine a course
in the Department of
Economics that looks simply
at the film as an
economic engine,
at the number of jobs
created by movies.
Not just the immediate jobs,
the people who are actually
producing the film, but
another kind of a accounting
that would take account
of all the ancillary jobs.
The theater owners,
the popcorn sellers,
the people who create
the publicity for movies.
The whole entourage
of hangers-on--
you're thinking of the
TV show, aren't you?
The whole entourage
of hangers-on that
follow the movie stars around.
It's an unbelievable engine
of economic development
and economic growth.
And it is arguable, given
the fact that the movies had
been a dominant industry
in the Western world,
and especially in
the United States,
since the early
20th century, one
could make an
argument that it's one
of the most productive
and central engines
of economic growth that
capitalism has ever developed.
And one could teach a course
in the movies that simply
emphasized its economic aspects,
its power as an employer,
its role as a
generator of wealth,
as a generator of resources.
And I mention this
partly to clarify
the extent to which,
in our course,
we're focusing on only
aspects of what film might be.
But also, in order
to remind you that we
need to be aware of this as a
backdrop to the more cultural
and aesthetic concerns
about the content of movies,
and about the way they
developed, the way they
evolved, that will be
the central energies
we will be committed
to in our course.
Well, one thing you
need to do in order
to experience these first weeks
of this course in a really
effective way is to try
to in a certain sense,
get outside of your own head,
get outside of your own skin.
We live in such a visually
saturated environment.
In which audio/visual messages
are beamed at us constantly.
Some of us are connected
to apparatus all the time.
We're connected to
our cell phones.
We're connected
to our computers.
It's almost as if we have audio
visual signals bombarding us
24/7.
It's almost as if you
were entering a cave,
imagine that you're
entering a cave.
What I want to do is
think away your iPods.
Think away your cell phone.
Literally, think them away.
Imagine a world without them.
Imagine a world without movies,
a world without television,
a world without radio.
I want you to imaginatively
put yourself back
into the era when the first
films began to appear.
And try to recover
some of the excitement
and wonder that those earliest
audiences must have felt when
they saw some of these images.
The most important
thing in some sense
would be that they
were immensely amazed,
they were taken aback by
the simple, shocking, wonder
of movement captured on film.
It was if movement
itself, something
they associate with
reality, could suddenly
be recaptured in film.
Can we show some
examples of this, Greg?
Some of you have seen
one example of this.
Remember in the recitation
section, when you
saw The Great Train Robbery.
Do you remember the moment
in The Great Train Robbery--
which seems unconnected
to the story--
in some prints of the
film it comes at the end.
In some prints it
came at the beginning.
In some prints it
didn't occur at all.
Where was it in
the film you saw?
AUDIENCE: Is it the guy?
DAVID THORBURN: Yes, yes.
When was that?
AUDIENCE: It was
at the very end.
DAVID THORBURN: That
was at the very end.
It's the moment where the
guy pulls out his gun,
and points it at the
camera and shoots him.
Did any of you find that odd?
I mean, I think you should have.
One reason is that
it had nothing
to do with the narrative.
This is important film.
It used to be thought to
be the very first story
film, the very first
systematic narrative on film.
It's not that, there
are earlier examples.
But it's one of the
very first, and that's
why I wanted you see it.
It's one of the
earliest story films.
It's one of the earliest film
to tell a sequential story.
Although it seems very
primitive to you guys,
it's actually a very
sophisticated item.
And there has been a lot
of filmmaking going on
before this film was made 1902.
We'll talk a little bit
about that in a moment.
So this moment where he
shoots the gun at the camera,
why is that disturbing
to us or strange to us?
I'll answer my own question.
One, it's disturbing
to us because it
breaks the narrative.
It seems unconnected
to the narrative.
Why would they do it?
And then second,
what's going on there?
Why is he doing it?
Does the filmmaker
not like his audience?
What's the reason for it?
Why do you think it's there?
Who has an idea?
Why would be there?
Again enter the cave.
Think yourself back to
an era before movie.
When people had never
seen movies before.
What's the answer?
AUDIENCE: He couldn't engage
the audience in the film.
DAVID THORBURN: Well,
he does engage them,
but what else what does it do?
What does it call attention to?
AUDIENCE: It puts
him into a situation
that they normally would not
encounter, and probably would
not survive.
DAVID THORBURN:
OK, that's right.
Yes, a way that's right.
And in fact, there are a lot of
accounts of early films playing
these kinds of tricks,
and audiences not yet sure
of what films were,
reacting as if they
were looking at something real.
So there are at least reports
of people seeing this film when
the guy shot the gun,
people screaming and ducking
down under their seats.
And there are many stories
like this about early films
where people would come to the--
and that's why they showed it.
They showed it because
it's a very dramatic way
of dramatizing, of crystallizing
the difference between reality
and movies.
And also, how realistic
movies can be.
The movie's name's the
most fundamental feature
of the movies.
It's a dead metaphor for us.
We don't even think about
it when we say movie.
But think what it means,
it means movement.
Films capture movement.
What don't you just
show this in sequence
while I talk, Greg, OK.
These are a sequence
of early films.
And you can see that all
of them have in common
is a fascination with motion.
In other words, the
novelty of motion
was so great in the beginning
that the earliest film simply
did this.
There's an important
principle here about the way
all media developed.
In their infancy, the
first thing that happens
is that no one really much
knows how a particular medium
we should be or
could be developed.
And part of the reason
for these early weeks
in the film for the first two
or three weeks in this course
is to put you back
into that situation.
To try to in a very
crystallized and distilled way,
because there are thousands
of films made in this era,
but in a very distilled
and crystallized way,
I'm trying to recapture some
of that excitement for you.
And in the case of both Chaplin
and Keaton, what I've done
is choose some short
films they made earlier,
and then show you
a feature film.
So if you watch the Chaplain,
Keaton films in sequence,
two shorts and then
a feature film,
you'll see enacted in
a kind of small compass
within the terms of a single
director's career this larger
process that I'm saying was also
enacted by movies themselves.
It was this period
of the silent era,
was a period in which the movies
discovered their identity,
or such identity as they have.
And I want to talk a
bit more about that.
While all of these early,
relatively primitive films
show us is a kind
of-- this is one
of the earliest-- some people
call this the first comedy
film.
The first joke in the movies.
The simplicity of it
seems to us weird.
But if you think yourself
back, if you go into the cave,
try to imagine a universe
without audio/visual stimuli,
you could begin to understand
why some of this stuff
was so interesting.
Motion itself captivated early
audiences and filmmakers.
Waves on the shore for example.
There are a number of
films that just show
waves lapping on the shore.
Many films of trains coming
into stations, and of course,
this Fred Ott Sneeze.
Have we shown the kiss,
or the electrocute?
Can we do that?
There were also risque
or anarchic elements
that showed up in early
film that I want you see.
Here is one of the most famous
and scandalous of early films,
something called The Kiss.
And it was an unbelievable
scandal when it came out.
It films a scene
from a stage play.
Look how short it was.
It was banned in many cities.
It was thought to be scandalous.
Do you have the electrocute?
Many people would call
this the first snuff film.
And this is a film called The
Electrocution of an Elephant.
And think again
what's going on here.
Part of it has to
do with this wonder
that the film can capture
actuality, in a way.
There's something bizarre and
gross about this in some way.
This was a rogue elephant that
was about to be put to death.
AUDIENCE: She had apparently
stepped on a couple of handlers
and killed them.
DAVID THORBURN:
So they were going
to electrocute the elephant,
and they brought a camera there
to witness the electrocution.
And of course it's so dark,
because this fragment of film
survives from over 100 years
ago, more than 100 years.
He's supposed to collapse
not to stand up, isn't he?
So there it is.
[AUDIENCE GASPS]
Grotesque, isn't it?
But also a part of early film.
This idea that film
could capture reality
was itself so--
the novelty of this
was so powerful, that
in the early stages
this was enough to cause great
excitement for audiences.
One way to think
about this problem,
and to think about-- the way
I have for encapsulating,
or dramatizing in a
kind of a distilled way,
all the elaborate
processes that went
into the development or
the evolution of film
is by-- the way
I do this in part
is by reference to old Fred.
This film used to be thought
to be the very first film,
it's not actually.
But it is one of the earliest
films made and patented
in Edison's movie studio,
the very first movie
studio in the United States
in East Orange, New Jersey.
Probably, this made
in 1894, at least
the copyright I think is of
Fred Ott's Sneeze is in 1894.
And think of how simple it
is, how ridiculous it is.
A camera sets up,
they were still
working on the technology
of the motion picture camera
at this stage, and they
were testing it out.
And Fred Ott was an employee
of the Edison Company.
And they said
different, OK, Fred,
stand in front of the
camera and take snuff.
And that's what he's doing.
We might think of
Fred Ott's Sneeze
as, theoretically,
symbolically, the first film,
even though there
are earlier films.
Well, think of how
unbelievably simple it is.
Shown it once more, Greg.
Can you freeze it?
GREG: Oh, yeah.
Hold on.
I'll get it.
DAVID THORBURN: So that
Fred stays on the screen
while we're talking about this.
Look how short it is.
What is it?
It's two seconds long.
Think of this.
So this film is made
in whatever it is,
1894, 1895, this two-second long
film was made in 1894, 1895,
by the 1920s, astonishingly
complex narrative films
are being made, great works
of art are being made.
What I call the
Fred Ott principle
is this whole complex,
social, and technical,
and technological,
and artistic process,
the swirling of all of these
energies going together.
Including the demographic fact
of so many immigrants audiences
creating an
environment that made
early film a very profitable
activity, despite how crude
it was.
What happens in this
period between 1900
and the end of the
'20s is that film
goes from being a
novelty separated off,
sharing a space in
the penny arcades
with other forms of
novelty, to being
one of the dominant
industries, and one
of the dominant
social experiences
of the American population.
This principle is replicated in
some other European societies
as well, but not in all.
It's an advanced
capitalist event.
And it occurs in other societies
less fully industrialized
at later stages.
But there is an
equivalent history
in some of the
European cultures.
So in this period of
fewer than 30 years,
film goes from being the most
trivial and simplified kind
of novelty, to being one of the
most complex narrative forms
human beings have ever devised.
What I mean by the
Fred Ott principle
is that whole complex
process that we
can go from something so
simple to something so complex,
from something so marginal in
society to something so central
in society in such a short time.
And I want to at least
remind you of what
that principle involves.
I'm talking about all
the technological,
cultural, demographic,
and economic currents that
swirl together to create the
movie industry that emerges--
really by the mid teens the
movie industry essentially
is in place.
Variations will occur,
new studios will appear,
but by 1915/1916 American
movies have been established
on an assembly line basis.
Have been established on
an assembly line basis,
and millions and
millions of people
are now making it a regular
habit to go to the movies.
And the movies are
elaborating themselves
in a complex way that has to
do with the way in which they
were industrialized.
There are three phases,
I think, to what
we might call-- let's go
back to the outline, Greg.
There are three phases to what
we might call media evolution.
And this is another way of
sort of dramatizing what I
mean by the Fred Ott principle.
The first phase is a phase of
imitation and patent warfare.
A new technology appears.
Nobody yet knows how
it would be applied.
How people will want to do.
Everything about the new
technologies up for grabs.
So there are
competitors who want
to sort of claim patents
on the technology.
Questions about how
long should films be?
Where she feels be shown?
How should films be distributed?
All of that's up for grabs.
All of that is
rationalized and decided--
I put "decided" in quotes
because no one sits down
and makes a decision.
It's really a function
of the marketplace,
and of certain
economic opportunities.
There's no question, for
example, that the movies would
never have developed
as they did were not
for those immigrant populations
in cities like Chicago,
and New York, and Los Angeles.
And many other cities on
the East Coast especially,
where they were
very large immigrant
populations who needed.
And it was that
financial infusion
that caused the immense
amount of experimentation
and development to
take place so quickly.
So in this first phase of
imitation and patent warfare
many of these questions
are not-- even
such simple questions as
how long a film should be?
Some of the question of
the length of the film
are technological,
the very first films
had to be only 10 minutes
long, because that
was as long as the film
cartridges in which they
put in the cameras
were capable of doing.
Later they were able to make
two reelers, and three reelers.
That happens over a relatively
short space of time.
So in this phase
of imitation, one
the most important
things that happens,
and this is the part I want
you to become attentive to,
is that all of the
ancestor systems that
lie behind the new technology
are potential influences
on the new technology.
And in new films that
you've seen already,
the silent films you
saw in recitation,
you saw some examples of this.
For example, do you remember--
maybe we could show this, Greg.
The deaths in The
Great Train Robbery.
Remember the deaths of
The Great Train Robbery?
Why are you smiling?
AUDIENCE: Because
there was a dummy.
DAVID THORBURN: Because
they were still noticeably
what, false, fake?
Where do they come from?
The guy shoots, and
the guy goes "ooh."
And he staggers around,
and then he falls.
What's going on there?
Where does that tradition
of performance come from?
AUDIENCE: Theater.
DAVID THORBURN: Yes, yes.
I'll let it play behind me.
Yes, it comes from theater.
Makes sense that one of the
deep influences on early film
would be theater.
But now in the
Fred Ott principle,
the most important sub idea in
this theory, and this label,
the Fred Ott
principle is the fact
that this process of development
involves, among other things,
the capacity of
filmmakers to discover
those features of the new medium
that are unique or special
to the medium.
What makes the medium
different from its ancestors?
Clearly, what was appropriate
for books, or newspapers,
or theater, won't be perfectly
appropriate for the new medium.
But nobody knows
what the new medium's
capable of until things
have been tried out.
So that's why I call it
a phase of imitation.
And what one can
say here especially
is that certain theatrical
styles of acting are dominant.
Why our theatrical styles
of acting so broad?
So unbelievable.
Why are they like that?
AUDIENCE: Because
you're far away.
DAVID THORBURN: Yes, in the
theater you're far away,
and you're in a fixed space.
But what's one
genius of the movies?
One way the medium of the
movies is different from theater
is that the camera can
achieve a lover's closeness
to the action.
Or it can achieve a long view
that's much longer and further
away than what.
Well, it's going to take time
before this kind of thing
is figured out.
And one of the most decisive
things we see an early films
is first, an acting style that
seems derived from theater.
But some of you may have
noticed that this begins
to change relatively quickly.
Can we show the fragment
from A Beast at Bay?
Remember that silly
film, A Beast at Bay,
that I had to watching it along
with The Great Train Robbery?
Remember the ending
of A Beast at Bay?
Something odd happens
in this ending.
There's the monstrous,
drooling, rapist-like figure.
He's always a convict
or a low-life.
There are all kinds
of social hierarchies
and established
social prejudices that
get imported into early films.
And now we're going
to have the rescue.
And so far it seems
a conventional sort
of sleazy melodrama,
in which there
is at least a hint of
something morally disturbing
in the imminence of the rape.
It's as if the film makes
a kind of sleazy appeal
to its audiences.
Here's a perfect example
of such a moment.
It's interesting in fact,
how one of the recurring
subjects of films always
seems to be not just rape,
but violence against women.
It tells you something about
the patriarchal societies
in which films emerge that
those mythologies are replicated
in movies.
So he's going to
be rescued here.
And what I want you
to notice is what
happens at the very
end of this sequence.
And can some of you
remember what it is?
None of you remember?
It was so fast.
But it actually is
very significant.
I think it shows us the
emergence, the beginnings
of the emergence of
a new style of acting
more appropriate to movies.
And also, something
else, the development
of a total complexity that
had not been in movies before.
Now the date of this film
is early, 1907, 1908,
something like that.
You're going to see one other
silent film by D.W. Griffith
tonight, The Lonedale
Operator, made in 1912.
And I hope you'll be attentive
to how much more complex
that film is.
I'll say a few words
about that tonight.
I wish we were really
just at the end, Greg.
I didn't really want
to show the whole film.
OK, so here we're
at the conclusion.
Now this is the part I
wanted you to notice.
Look at this.
What's happening here?
The film has shifted over
into a kind of silly comedy,
a kind of gentle comedy.
The woman said, kiss
me hear, kiss me hear.
And in fact, if you notice
she's not she's not saying,
kiss me here!
In other words, her gestures
are more modulated to the nature
of movies.
What's beginning to happen
there is two important things.
First, total complexity
is entering in.
A melodrama has turned comic.
And acting style's beginning to.
Can we do the very
end of Musketeers?
Here is the very end of
a film by D.W. Griffith
called The Musketeers
of Pig Alley.
Some people see it as one of
the first urban crime films.
But what I want you to watch
is this small actor here .
Watch his performance.
This is the emergence
of a new kind
of acting, a non-theatrical
kind of acting.
And it's happening very early,
this film appeared in 1912.
That's Lillian Gish, the
famous silent film star.
This gangster is socked
that this woman would
choose his rival over him.
He says, you're nuts, lady.
I can't get it, but OK.
Look at this strutting
peacock of a man.
Watch this.
He's a gangster, he's
about to be arrested,
but the good guys will save him.
Oh, we lost it.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
DAVID THORBURN: One good
turn deserves another.
But you see how
much more restrained
the performances are here?
I mean, Lillian
Gish became one of
the great silent-screen stars.
But I think it's this
strutting peacock of an actor
who really begins to show
what you can do on film.
And there are many
film critics who
have seen this as a precursor
of Edward G. Robinson's
performances.
He's also a diminutive
actor, often plays gangsters.
But what you see, I
think, in this moment,
and in this man's performance
is the emergence, the beginnings
of an acting style
that's more modulated,
that's appropriate to
the nature of the film
So that kind of thing
that's happening
is not just with acting, it has
to do with all kinds of things.
It has to do with
where you place
the camera, and such matters.
So what I mean then, by
the Fred Ott principle
is this process of evolution
that I want you to be aware of.
And really, in a
certain sense experience
in distilled form
in the short films
I've asked you to watch in
this first week of classes.
The first phase is a phase of
imitation and patent warfare.
In which all kinds of
questions are up in the air.
How will the film
be distributed?
How will it be exhibited?
How will it be produced?
There's nothing inherent in the
nature of the technology that
requires the economic
arrangements that developed
in the United States, and then
we're replicated elsewhere,
for the distribution of movies.
In fact, Thomas Edison
had a different idea
for how movies
would be developed.
When he first conceived
the apparatus,
he actually thought that
movie projectors would
be owned by each individual.
In fact, what he
was imagining was
the camcorder that occurs
in a much later generation.
And there's nothing
inherent in the technology
that would not permit that.
So one of the things we
need to be aware of--
and I'll return to this
matter either tonight
or in a later lecture.
We need to be aware of fact that
the shape the technology takes
is not the only
shape it might take.
It's not the
technology itself that
drives its development so
much as economic, and social,
and demographic factors.
And that's dramatically
the case with the system
of distribution and access that
was developed for the movies.
It's certainly theoretically
possible for the apparatus
to be developed in
a way that would
be sold to every individual.
What instead
happened was a system
in which a professional elite
becomes the production arm.
And these productions
become very expensive,
and they are pumped out into
the society for screening
at public theaters, which
people will pay money to attend.
That economic structure, and
that basic industrial structure
is not necessary
to the technology.
It's not required
by the technology.
The shape of film is at
least as much cultural
as it is technological.
A very important point.
So the second phase after
the phase of imitation
is the phase I call
technical advance.
This phase occurs after some
of the warfare is concluded.
Limited monopolies
are established.
Some companies are more
powerful than others,
or come up with a more
successful product than others.
And they begin to
dominate the marketplace.
They drive competitors out.
And what essentially happens
is a kind of stability
is introduced in which the
basic system is put in place.
Here's how we'll
manufacture the item.
Here's how we'll distribute it.
Here's how long it will be.
That sort of thing.
And in this period
of technical advance
what then happens once
the stability sets in,
the particular, unique
features of the medium
begin to be explored.
And these early films that
I'm asking you to look at,
what I hope you'll
watch for are moments
like the ones I was just
pointing out this afternoon.
In which you see the emergence
of a recognition of something
that is distinct or special
in the nature of movie making.
I'll return to some of
these matters again tonight.
But I want you to
be aware of them.
So in the second phase, the
phase of technical advance,
the system begins to learn
what is unique about it.
How are movies different
from their ancestors?
What does it mean that
the camera can move close
to the object is photographing,
or very far away from it?
What does it mean that the
camera itself doesn't have
to be stable, that it can move?
You can see some of the
early Griffith films really
experiment with a
camera that's mounted
on something that's moving.
And then the final phase is
the phase I call maturity.
And that's the phase that
occurs really in silent film,
in the 1920s.
When the technical advances that
are accomplished in phase two
are married to a
serious subject matter.
The phase I call maturity is
the phase in which feature
films are made, and in which
some films become works of art.
And all films become more
complex forms of narrative.
In which particular genre
forms begin to emerge.
And audiences begin to
choose particular kinds
of films that matter to them.
In other words,
the system really
elaborates itself in
a way that suggests
an immense variety of appeal
to a range of audience.
That's the phase of maturity.
Why doesn't it go on forever?
What explains why the
process doesn't continue?
What stopped this process?
So the Fred Ott
principle encapsule
means going from
Fred Ott's Sneeze
to going to Chaplin's
Modern Times.
This immensely rich,
complex narrative
film that we'll be
looking at next week.
What explains why that
moment of maturity
doesn't extend forever?
Why is this system
not stable forever?
The simplest answer
is capitalism
never allows for stability.
But the more exact answer is
new inventions, new technologies
subvert the stability.
What happens at
the end of the '20s
to subvert the confidence
and stability of the system?
AUDIENCE: The
introduction of sound.
DAVID THORBURN: The
advent of sound.
Yes.
And the sound film
doesn't completely
revolutionize movies, but
it profoundly alters them.
It changes the nature of film.
And it changes the nature
of the kinds of performers
that you need in film.
It profoundly enlarges and
complicates what film is.
And then, something
of the same principles
that I've talked about before
happen in the sound era.
I'm sorry I'm running
a little over,
but I promise you
I'm almost done.
And normally, I will never
run over even by a minute.
I promise.
I'll work for this.
Why doesn't the
final phase continue?
Because of new technologies.
Because of new possibilities.
What happens at the end
of the studio system?
The advent of
television overturns
the stabilities that had been
created and the old studio era.
And the intimate
routine connection
to movies that had been
established in the studio era
is finally obliterated by
the presence of television.
And movies change
their character
after television comes in.
We will return to this.
We will return to this matter.
, Well one way I can suggest for
you to capture this imaginative
linkage, this imaginative
connection to the world
of early film is by reminding
you of a wonderful passage from
the Pulitzer Prize winning novel
by the great film critic James
Agee, which appeared
posthumously in 1957.
And it distills for
me what I mean--
and I hope for you--
what I mean in part
by film as a social
form, film as a socially
embedded formation.
It helps to explain in
less abstract terms what
I mean when I say that filled
permeated American life.
Listen to the beginning of,
this is from the first chapter.
And we're finished
after this is over.
From the first chapter
of A Death in the Family.
"At supper that night as many
times before, his father said,
well, suppose we go
to the picture show.
Oh, J, his mother said,
that horrid, little man.
What's wrong with him?
His father asked.
Not because he didn't know
what she would say, but so
she would say it.
He's so nasty, she said as
she always did, so vulgar.
With his nasty little cane
hooking up skirts and things,
and that nasty little walk."
Who is he talking about?
Chaplin, Charlie
Chaplin, of course.
And this story takes
place before Chaplin
was making feature films.
So the story takes place
probably around 1915.
When comedy was still
being made as shorts.
Comedies didn't
become feature length
until sometime late in the '20s.
"His father laughed
as he always did.
And Rufus felt that he had
become rather an empty joke.
But as always, the
laughter also cheered him.
He felt that the laughter
enclosed him with his father.
They walked downtown in the
light of mother of pearl
to the majestic," nice
name for a theater--
"and found their seats by
the light of the screen
in the exhilarating smell of
tobacco, rank sweat, perfume,
and dirty drawers.
While the piano played
fast music," right,
because violent films
were never silent.
There was always music
accompanying them.
"And galloping horses raised
a grandiose flag of dust.
And there was William S.
Hart--" the passage then
goes on to describe a
western film with William S.
Hart, a silent film.
"And then the screen was
filled with the city,
and with the sidewalk of
a side street of a city,
and a long line of palms,
and there was Charlie.
Everyone laughed the
minute they saw him squatly
walking with his toes out
and his knees apart as
if he were chafed.
Rufus's father laughed,
and Rufus laughed, too.
This time Charlie stole
a whole bag--" this time.
What does that imply
about the audience?
And intimate familiarity
with previous adventures
of this character, an
ongoing routine connection.
"This time Charlie stole
a whole bag of eggs.
And when a cop came
along, he hid them
in the seat of his pants.
Then, he caught sight
of a pretty woman,
and he began to squat
and twirl his cane,
and make silly faces."
I'm going to skip it.
It's magnificent
prose that captures
the essence of the
film very wonderfully.
But I don't want to keep you
longer than I already have.
And it shows Charlie sort
of flirting with the girl.
And then finally, he flirts with
her so much that she pushes him
and he falls back down.
"Then he walked back
and forth behind her,
laughing and squatting a little.
And while he walked
very quietly,
everybody laughed again.
Then, he flicked hold of the
straight end of his cane,
and with the crooked end
hooked up her skirt at the knee
in exactly the way
that disgusted momma.
Looking very
eagerly at her legs,
and everybody
laughed very loudly.
And she pretended
she had not noticed.
And then she pushes him over.
And there was Charlie, flat
on his bottom on the sidewalk.
And the way he looked, kind
of sickly and disgusted,
you could see that he suddenly
remembered those eggs.
And suddenly you
remembered them, too.
The way his face looked
with his lip wrinkled
off the teeth and a
little sickly smile,
it made you feel just the way
those broken eggs must feel
against your seat, as queer
and awful as that time
in the white PK suit."
He's also dramatizing how
personal our relation to film
can be.
"When it ran down out
of the pants' legs,
and showed all over
your stockings, and you
had to walk home that way
with everyone looking.
And Rufus's father nearly
tore his head off laughing,
and so did everybody else.
But Rufus was sorry for
Charlie, having so recently
been in a similar predicament.
But the contagion of laughter
was too much for him,
and he laughed, too."
And the passage
goes on to describe
the intimacy and the
complexity of the relations
between audiences
in 1915 and one
of the iconic figures
of the movies.
In this idea, that
Charlie mobilizes
this anarchic,
liberating laughter,
and mobilizes this
father-son relationship.
In that idea we
recapture something
of what I mean by
the notion that
film was an embedded
social experience,
an embedded social form.
I'll see you tonight.
