Jaakko Seppälä The Heyday of the Silents, Synchronised Sound Cinema, Avant-­‐garde movements The Heyday of the Silents •  In the 20s Wall Street became interested in Hollywood •  Hollywood studios were making more money than ever before (80 million Dckets a week in USA in 1928) •  The silent cinema reached a peak of splendour •  The big budget film with eye catching producDon values appeared in the twenDes •  The boundaries between illusionis/c, theatrical and real blurred •  Realist illusion as the dominant aestheDc Two Main Modes •  In the silent years most studio era genres emerged •  The films of the silent period can be categorised under two main modes: the comic and the melodrama/c •  A broadly melodramaDc approach to both character and plot prevailed in the twenDes in acDon films and in those purporDng to be more psychological in intent •  Comedy came in two types: the slapsDck tradiDon and the society comedy Lillian Gish (1993-­‐1993) Harold Lloyd (1893-­‐1971) The Classical Style in the 20s The classical Hollywood style emerged in the 1910s In the 1920s the style was polished The Three-­‐point-­‐ligh/ng (arDficial studio lighDng) The So9 focus cinematography (created with filters) In the late twenDes the panchromaDc film stock replaced the orthochromaDc film stock •  The star system (the star as a commodity) •  To what extent Hollywood movies influenced the style of European cinemas? • 
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The Three-­‐Point-­‐LighDng System The Three-­‐Point-­‐LighDng System OrthochromaDc / panchromaDc The MPPDA •  The early 1920s saw a series of Hollywood scandals •  “Hollywood films promote decadence” -­‐arguments •  There was an increasing pressure for a naDonal film censorship law •  In 1922 studios formed a trade organisaDon: The MoDon Picture Producers and Distributors of America •  Will Hays (the head of the MPPDA) guided studios to produce inoffensive entertainment •  Self-­‐censorship instead of naDonal censorship Will Harrison Hays (1879-­‐1954) ”Film America” and ”Film Europe” •  Hollywood dominated the world film markets •  Buying European filmmaking talents ensured that naDonal cinemas could not compete with Hollywood •  Hollywood (with 15 000 American film theatres) was too great for any one country to compete with •  In 1924 European film industries began to co-­‐operate and to distribute each other’s films •  ConDnental films instead of naDonal films •  Synchronised sound, depression and new poliDcal abtudes ended the pan European movement Synchronised sound •  Thomas Edison acempted to synchronise the sound and the image already in the 1890s •  Hollywood was doing good business in the 1920s •  Why invest in the new uncertain technology? •  Smaller studios Warner Bros. and Fox Film saw the sound film as an opportunity to make good money •  Two compeDng sound systems: The Vitaphone (sound-­‐
on-­‐disc) and The Movietone (sound-­‐on-­‐film) •  “Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?” •  The Jazz Singer premiered 6 October 1927 Sound-­‐On-­‐Disc Sound-­‐On-­‐Film The End of the Silent Era •  Audiences chose inferior sound films over high quality silent films (iniDally sound was an acracDon) •  Silent films were mocked and ridiculed •  Many stars lost their careers because of their accents and others came to be seen as relics of the bygone era •  Some made a successful transiDon to sound •  The early sound technology was inflexible and film aestheDcs took several steps back •  The slapsDck comedy died, the musical emerged, scriptwriters assumed a new importance Avant-­‐garde •  Avant-­‐garde is an aestheDcally and poliDcally moDvated acack on tradiDonal art and its values •  This is truly an independent cinema •  Remains marginal to the commercial cinema •  First avant-­‐garde films were made in the 1910s but this cinema really began to flourish in the 1920s •  Avant-­‐gardes of the 1920s: abstract animaDon, dada-­‐
related cinema, surrealism, pure cinema, lyrical documentaries and experimental narraDve Rhythmus 21 (Richter, 1921) Anémic Cinéma (Duchamp, 1926)