Global entertainment industry. A ... Movies as entertainmen

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Movies about the mediaSession 1 the moviegoing
experience

• January 22, 2007

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Lets watch something

• First 10 minutes of Crash (2005 dir. Paul Haggis)

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Lets read aloud

• Pp. 1-6 of Ohlin Smith article

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Now lets re-screen Crash

• As we read Ohlin Smith pp. 6-10 (top)
• Well step through Crash
• Chapter 2 gun store, Westwood confrontation
• Chapter 17 shooting with cloak
• Chapter 1 opening credits, Cheadles VO

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Syllabus/calendar
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What is a movie?
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Heres a fun (?) quote to consider

• The movie is a pastime for helots, a diversion
  for uneducated, wretched, worn-out creatures who
  are consumed by their worries . . . a spectacle
  which requires no concentration and presupposes
  no intelligence . . . which kindles no light in
  the heart and awakens no hope other than the
  ridiculous one of someday becoming a star in
  Los Angeles. (Georges Duhamel, French author,
  1884-1966)

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What film scholars would say about film

• Complex form of artistic representation
• Complex form of communication
• Global entertainment industry
• A modern art

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Purposes film can serve

• Outlet for personal expression
• Shaper of mass culture of entertainment and
  celebrity
• Educator
• Critic
• How?
• How does film criticize?

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What does film do to us?

• Transports us to fantasy worlds (kingdom of
  shadows)
• Romance, action, science fiction
• Lets us realize our dreams
• Challenges us intellectually and aesthetically

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The moviegoing experience

• Jowett Linton (1980) argue that movies are a
  social (group) activity
• Offer sense of occasion
• Excuse to take a partner
• As opposed to TV
• An often solo medium
• And less readily an occasion

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Movies make audiences into a community

• What does that mean?
• Serve as tools of social integration
• What does that mean?

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Psychological powers?

• JL discuss why movies are powerful
• Vivid visual imagery
• Manipulate of emotions
• Play on audiences expectations and desires
• Create and reinforcing stereotypes
• Operate as dreams

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Visual-technical aspects of moviegoing

• Colin McGinn
• We dont look at movies (whereas we do look at
  TV)
• We look through or look into movies
• In a way that may be analogous to looking
  through/into water, fire, sky, mirrors, other
  peoples eyes

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The power of vicarious involvement

• Objectives of moviemaker persuading the viewer
  to
• cross the distance that separates the viewer from
  the screen
• imaginatively enter the story world
• vicariously experience the events occurring in
  that world
• (Jowett Linton, 1980, ch. 4)

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How/why does that happen?

• Identification with stars, situations, story
  types
• Displacement of attention
• we ignore technique and style
• and pay attention almost entirely to
  narrativeWhat do JL mean by this?

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Movies as analogous to dreams

• Through fantasy, they fulfill dreams (wishes) of
  audience
• Symbolize hidden fears and desires
• Act as sources for our real dreams
• Give us material to dream about when we sleep

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More obvious power

• Movies as entertainment
• Diversion, escapewe step away from our real
  lives and real problems for a few hours

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Movies more mirroror shaper?

• Ongoing discussion in media studies more
  generally
• Are we shaped by our mass media, or do we shape
  them?
• Why might it be said that movies reflect
  society as much as (maybe even more than) they
  shape society?

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Why do movies reflect?

• Theyre a business!
• As much as filmmakers might dare to be original,
  they still need to sell tickets
• And must be able to gain widest level of
  acceptance by largest possible audience
• (they cost too much to produce to NOT be popular)

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So movies must, to some degree

• Be somewhat predictable
• Include familiar, popular, comfortable themes
• Feature people not too radically different from
  their audiences
• Give us stars we can identify with
• Include only enough innovation to be
  interestingbut not too much!

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And also

• Not be too challenging
• intellectually
• stylistically
• politically

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A not uncommon scholarly view

• Popular U.S. films operate as dramas of
  reassurance. The beliefs, attitudes, and values
  presented in Hollywood films tend to resonate
  with the dominant beliefs, attitudes, and values
  of American society.
• In other words, the dominant ideology of a
  society tends to be reinforced by the ideology
  presented in its films. (James Linton, 1978)

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How does this apply to movies about the media?

• Do movies simply serve as a window in the media?
  And thus
• Do they simply confirm what we already believe
  about
• TV
• Movies, stars, Hollywood
• Journalism
• Advertising and PR?

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Or

• Might movies actually shapeand possibly even
  distorthow we understand our mass media?
• And if so, what would be moviemakers motivations
  for doing so?

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Tonights featured film

• The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985 dir. Woody Allen)

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Woody Allen
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Some other Allen films

• Sleeper (1973)
• Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
• Manhattan (1979)
• Annie Hall (1977)

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Allen and the media/showbiz

• A sentimental streak
• Purple Rose of Cairo
• Radio Days (1987)
• Play It Again, Sam (1972)
• Yet also a cynical side
• Celebrity (1998)
• Hollywood Ending (2002)
• Zelig (1983)
• Scoop (2006)