A Divided World

Nick Smedley

Description

Roosevelt’s New Deal introduced sweeping social, political and cultural change across the United States, which the Hollywood film community embraced enthusiastically. When the heady idealism of the 1930s was replaced by the paranoia and fear of the post-war years, Hollywood became an easy target for the anti-communists. A Divided World examines some of the important programs of the New Deal and the subsequent response of the Hollywood film community - especially in relation to social welfare, women’s rights and international affairs. The book then charts what happened in Hollywood when the mood turned sour as the Cold War set in. A Divided World also provides in-depth analysis of the major works of three European directors in particular – Billy Wilder, Ernst Lubitsch and Fritz Lang. The contributions of these three are compared and contrasted with the products of mainstream Hollywood. The author utilizes extensive new archival material to shed light on the production histories of the emigres' films. This is a new interpretation of an influential period in American film history and it is sure to generate debate and further scholarship.

Introduction

 

Chapter 1: Once upon a time in America: American society and culture, 1933-1948

 

Chapter 2: The keeper of the flame: Hollywood and the cinema of liberal idealism

 

Chapter 3: Trouble in paradise: Hollywood films and American social change

 

Chapter 4: The devil is a woman: Hollywood films and the American woman

 

Chapter 5: The world changes: Hollywood and international affairs

 

Conclusion

Sujets

• Histoire du cinéma
• Histoire du cinéma
• Histoire du cinéma
• Película fotográfica
• Reference
• General officer
• History of film
• Cinema
• General
• Emigre
• Director
• Electronic
• Digital
• Film
• Hollywood
• Culture cinématographique

Informations

• Publié par: Intellect Books Ltd
• Date de parution: 27 avril 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781841504537
• Langue: English

Extrait

A Divided World
To Kate, love of my life, and whose idea it was in the first place .
A Divided World
Hollywood Cinema and migr Directors in the Era of Roosevelt and Hitler, 1933-1948
Nick Smedley
First published in the US in 2011 by Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK
First published in the USA in 2011 by Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Copyright 2011 Intellect Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Smedley, Nicholas. A divided world : Hollywood cinema and emigr directors in the era of Roosevelt and Hitler, 1933-1948 / Nicholas Smedley. p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-1-84150-402-5 (alk. paper)
1. Motion picture industry--California--Los Angeles--History--20th century. 2. Expatriate motion picture producers and directors--United States. 3. Lubitsch, Ernst, 1892-1947--Criticism and interpretation. 4. Lang, Fritz, 1890-1976--Criticism and interpretation. 5. Wilder, Billy, 1906-2002--Criticism and interpretation. 6. Motion pictures--Political aspects--United States. 7. United States--Politics and government--1933-1953. 8. Germans--California--Los Angeles. 9. Sex role in motion pictures. 10. Immigrants--California--Los Angeles. I. Title.
PN1993.5.U65S545 2011 791.43 658--dc22
2010041838
Cover designer: Holly Rose Copy-editor: Danielle Styles Typesetting: Mac Style, Beverley, E. Yorkshire
ISBN 978-1-84150-402-5
Printed and bound by Gutenberg Press, Malta.
Part of Case Study 1 appeared in a slightly different form in a volume of Film History (March, 1993). I am grateful to the editors of the journal for permission to reproduce it here.
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1: Once Upon a Time in America: American Society and Culture, 1933-1948
Chapter 2: The Keeper of the Flame: Hollywood and the Cinema of Liberal Idealism
Chapter 3: Trouble in Paradise: Hollywood Films and American Social Change
Case Study 1 : Everything That Happens Must Be Strictly American : Fritz Lang and Hollywood Idealism
Case Study 2 : Sex, Violence and Alcohol: Billy Wilder in the 1940s
Chapter 4: The Devil is a Woman: Hollywood Films and the American Woman
Case Study 3: Definitely Bawdy and Offensively Suggestive : Lubitsch and the American Woman
Case Study 4: Love Cures the Wounds it Makes : Lang and Wilder: Conventional Portraits of the American Woman
Chapter 5 The World Changes: Hollywood and International Affairs
Case Study 5 : World Political Theater : Lubitsch and Foreign Affairs
Case Study 6 : As Corruptible as the Others : Wilder on America and Europe
Case Study 7 : Propaganda Can be Art : Lang and International Affairs
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Richard Paterson at the British Film Institute and Melvyn Stokes at University College London, both of whom encouraged me to write the book and offered invaluable advice. Dorothy Haley provided me with a base for my research in Los Angeles, and became a great friend in the process. Loulou Brown was enormously generous with her time, if not very generous with her compliments, as she helped me turn the early verbose draft into something much tighter and readable. Her advice was well worth the two lunches she made me buy her. Melanie at Intellect was the ideal publisher, efficient, friendly and helpful at all times. My gratitude also goes to the anonymous peer reviewer, whose comments on the structure of the book have, in my view, improved it no end. I would also like to thank Danielle Styles for a superb job in editing my manuscript, and Denise Derbyshire for producing the index.
Introduction
I n January 1933 the world divided. Two men in different parts of the world took office in their respective countries. Franklin D. Roosevelt, having been elected the previous year, was formally inaugurated in Washington DC as president of the United States of America. He would embark on a programme of social reconstruction that would introduce to America the ideas and values of a welfare society, and active state benevolence and intervention. He would go on to end America s isolation from world affairs and pave the way for the foundation of American global imperialism.
In Berlin, over 7000 miles away, Adolf Hitler took the oath of office as Chancellor of the German Reich in the presence of the venerable World War I veteran, President Hindenburg. In marked contrast to his American contemporary, Hitler was about to destroy the structures and institutions of democracy in Germany and to introduce terror and repression, at first in the domestic sphere and eventually across the whole of Europe. His international intentions would express themselves in war, conquest, devastation and death. The two leaders destinies would come together in late 1941, their countries locked in conflict - a conflict which would determine the future of the Western world for the second half of the twentieth century.
By 1948, when the period examined by this book ends, both men were dead. The United States emerged from World War II stronger and more globally dominant than before, while Europe lay in ruins. The superpower of the Soviet Union faced the newly triumphant America, and the Cold War began in earnest, ushering in an almost hysterical anti-communist paranoia and persecution in the United States. The fifteen years from 1933 to 1948 were a momentous time in American and world history.
This book is a history of Hollywood cinema and American social change between 1933 and 1948. It looks at how mainstream cinema in this period responded to, commented on and contributed to three major aspects of American life: first, the reconstruction of American values after the ravages of the Great Depression; second, the changes in the roles and perceptions of women in the United States; and third, the growing international role played by America, including its gradual commitment to involvement in the Second World War, and the emergence of the Cold War after 1945.
Methodology
Because I wish to make general observations about the relationship between Hollywood films and American society, I base my analysis on a very broad range of mainstream Hollywood product from these years. I do not confine myself to just those fewer, more famous films, whose popularity has endured to our own time.
In order to give depth as well as breadth to the study I punctuate this analysis with some detailed case studies and production histories drawn from the works of three influential German film-makers who worked in Hollywood at this time - Fritz Lang, Ernst Lubitsch and Billy Wilder. I do this for two reasons. Partly, it is to demonstrate some of the key voices in the Hollywood film industry of this time who challenged American conformity and articulated dissent from the moral consensus of the New Deal. These are three film-makers who, in their different ways, profoundly influenced the direction of American cinema. Hollywood s films certainly do betray distinct patterns and themes at this time, despite its huge output, and I draw these out in the main chapters which follow. But this is not to say that Hollywood cinema was an entirely homogenous industry. The three European directors I have chosen to study in depth illustrate how the presence of dissenting voices acted as a spur to development and innovation in the American film industry.
The other reason for the inclusion of these case studies is to help to deepen our knowledge of Hollywood production history in this era and to enrich our understanding of the works of these three huge figures in film history. I hope that in offering both a broad survey of many Hollywood movies and an in-depth analysis of a few key films I can shed light on the industry at large, as well as these three individuals in particular and their interaction with American social change.
Hollywood film-makers, as a rule, embraced wholeheartedly the coming of Roosevelt and the New Deal. During the 1930s the Hollywood community developed a cinema of liberal idealism, the influence of which is still felt in many of the films America produces today. During the 1940s, as the philosophical and social tenets of the New Deal came under attack from a resurgent Republican Party, Hollywood responded with a cinema of alienation and anxiety. In both decades American films were unrelenting in their hostility towards women and female self-determination. On the international front, Hollywood was an early and vociferous advocate of intervention in the fight against fascism in Europe, despite the unpopularity of this position in domestic politics. After the war, the onset of the Cold War found the liberal community in Hollywood silenced. Film-makers were mostly too frightened of being labelled communist or unpatriotic to mount any criticism of the clumsy nature of American diplomacy during the post-war reconstruction.
Within this community of largely American-born film directors, Lubitsch, Lang and Wilder made films which, in certain important respects, were profoundly different. These three European migr directors produced a body of work which dissented at times from Hollywood s brand of celebratory liberal idealism. Lang and Wilder articulated criticisms of American society left unsaid by their contemporaries. Lubitsch formulated a programme of dissent from the endemic cultural subjugation of women in American cinema and society. All three challenged the assumptions underlying American foreign policy and sought to broaden their audience s understanding of European issues. In addition, they mounted an important challenge to Hollywood s moral co